Please note that the world of Harry Potter belongs to Rowling, therefore I take no credit in it or the characters I use for this fanfic.
Remus walked into the library, hoping for a quiet hour or so of reading, he noticed a book sticking out of one of the shelves in a strange way, so he padded over to inspect it.
It was plain, brown leather, and it didn't seem to have any title, so Remus tried to pull it out to get a closer look at it, only, he found he couldn't pull it out. It was as if it was stuck in that position, not moving an inch more. Remus shrugged and instead pushed the book back in again, so he wouldn't have to be annoyed by the book while he was trying to read.
That was when the big, wooden shelf spinned around an revealed.. a pensieve.
Remus, shocked out of action, soon realized there was even a memory in it, and he couldn't help but feel he was supposed to dive into it. Surely, it had to be on purpose that he had discovered the book sticking out? Someone must have left it like that?
Remus took a quick look around to examine the paintings, but almost every one of them were sleeping.. Except for one, Frederick, but he wasn't in his frame, so Remus figured it was okay for him to do this. And that was about the last thing he thought before he dived head first into the pensieve and felt the sucking of the memory.
He whirled around and around in a white fog until he finally landed with a great thump. And he was very shocked to see he was currently standing on the stairs leading down to the Grimmauld Place cellar. It was very dark, but in the door above him he could clearly see a man. A sturdy looking man with very defined cheekbones and a determined looking mouth, with curly, black hair that was almost glowing in the light that radiated from the floor above them. The man could not be anyone else but Orion Black, Sirius' father, and Remus realized where Sirius had gotten his looks from. Even though he couldn't help thinking that Sirius was immensely more beautiful. At least his eyes weren't as cold as a Malfoy is pale on a winter day.
He figured Orion didn't seem like the man who stood in a cellar door without purpose, so he looked around for the cause of his presence. That was when he spotted him, a dark tangle of limbs at the end of the stairs, a head still looking determinately up at his father. The raven hair seemed even more tangled than Remus had ever remembered it, and there was a big bruise blooming on Sirius' cheek. Remus guesstimated Sirius' age to the summer between their fourth and fifth year at Hogwarts.
"It has come to my notice that you have attacked, on several occasions, our dear Bellatrix. And many other very well respected Slytherins as well. I knew your mother and I must have gone wrong somewhere when you got sorted into Gryffindor, but this.. This. Your mother is ashamed and disappointed beyond words, as so am I," Orion spat with contempt in his voice. He glared down at his son with a gaze that would have made anyone else but Sirius shy away.
Sirius, on the other hand, kept staring up at his father's face, letting his father's emotions reflect in his own face, "I don't want you to bloody feel proud of me in any way! I never asked to be a part of this godforsaken family," Sirius spat back just as fiercely.
Orion's nostrils flared as he in anger hissed, "Do you know how disgraceful it is for your mother and I to have to apologize to respectful wizards in this country, for what you did to their sons and daughters? Have you any idea how stained our reputation has become because of you? For your actions, you will rot here in this cellar for the rest of the summer," then he turned and started closing the door.
"As long as I don't have to be anywhere near you or the rest of my family. Even this place seems cozier than having to sit through one more meal by your side," Sirius said in what probably thought was a low voice. Unfortunately, Orion had heard him.
Orion hissed and withdrew his wand, pointed it at Sirius, and with a voice that would probably scare even Voldemort himself said, "You will pay for your betrayal. Crucio!"
Remus gasped for air as he fell to his knees, and in horror watched Orion point his wand for almost a full minute at his own son, who in that minute let escape several agonized screams, as his hurting limbs contorted into painful positions.
After Sirius stopped breathing, Orion finally thought he was done, so he turned his heel and closed the door with a firm 'Click', leaving his son in a big lump in the dark cellar, not even bothering to check his pulse. Then Remus heard his footsteps fade up the stairs.
Remus was sobbing and crawled down to the lump that was Sirius, trying to grab his thin shoulders, but finding he was grasping nothing but air. Sirius was a ghost to him, and all Remus could do was to sit and silently sob until the memory finally thought he was done with it, and once again he was whirling around in the white fog.
This time he landed on the floor of the library, whirling around as if to run out to find Sirius in that very moment, but he found Sirius was already sitting in a chair in the library. In his chair.
All the paintings were wide awake now, and seemed rather curious. Sirius, on the other hand, was deathly pale and couldn't stand looking at Remus. Instead, he was gazing at a point straight ahead of him, and Remus noticed he held a glass of firewhiskey firmly in his hand.
Remus stumbled forward and fell to his knees at Sirius' chair, where he burried his face into Sirius' thigh as he cried. For the first time since they had both come clear about their sexualities, Sirius became stiff under Remus' embrace, seemingly not knowing quite how to handle the situation.
"How long did they keep you down there? Did they give you any food?" Remus demanded as his sobbed had started coming less frequent now.
Sirius sighed and absentmindedly started stroking Remus' chin, "Didn't you listen to what my father said? They kept me down there for the rest of the summer. Now don't look so horrified, they fed me twice a day, so I didn't starve too much."
Remus seemed shocked at how Sirius uttered the words, almost as if it was perfectly common only to be fed twice a day. Remus gulped, "Why didn't you tell me?" Remus said shakily with a blaming tone to his voice.
"I didn't want to hurt you.." Sirius started, but was quickly cut off by Remus.
"You didn't want to hurt me? So you don't think it hurts knowing you didn't want to tell be about this? Was it because you thought you couldn't trust me?" Remus was now shaking with tears, drawing back as Sirius tried to grasp his wrist, "Please, Siri.. I need to know," and then he lowered his head, allowing his tears to fall freely to the floor.
"Because I was afraid you were going to react like I would. I was afraid you'd kill someone. If it had been you, I would have killed your parents, and I would never dream of making you a killer," Sirius finally admitted.
Remus looked up at Sirius with a loving, yet serious and still hurting expression on his face, "Sirius, you know I wouldn't have killed them.. Only seriously hurt them," the last sentence even made Sirius chuckle a little. "But still, I don't understand why you didn't tell me.. That was clearly after we had become.. involved, with eachother, and we'd promised not to keep secrets from eachother.. I would have told you, you know I would.. I would never have kept a secret like that from you."
"Watch your tongue!" Sirius hissed playfully, "You went three years without telling us, your best mates, that you were a werewolf. And the only reason you told us, was because we had already figured it out."
Remus grew pale, "But.. But that's not the same thing.. I did it for survival.." Remus still lowered his head in guilt.
"It's exactly the same thing. I had to keep it a secret for my survival too. It would have killed me to talk about it. These things are both very painful things to us, things that come alive as we speak of them. I know the wolf in you awakens every time you talk about it. Every time I talk about my memory, which certainly isn't often, I'm back in that room. Deathly scared of the darkness, not wanting to move an inch in case a monster would be lurching for me."
Remus finally seemed to realize what his lover was talking about, and once again lowered his head onto Sirius' thigh, sobbing. "I'm sorry.. That's why you're afraid of the dark, isn't it?" he asked, as Sirius' hand travelled down to his head and started scratching his scalp a little.
Merlin, he loved it when Sirius' nails were a little longer, they were the best for scratching at that point.
Sirius shuddered as he remembered all the nights he had spent terrified beside his Remus in bed, clinging to him as if Remus was the only thing preventing him from drowning. All those nights, he had been sure the monsters would be there to eat him again. At those nights, Remus had had to try to calm him down as much as possible, after he had placed a silencing charm on the curtains surrounding their bed, so that Sirius could cry if he wanted to, without losing any dignity or respect from the other boys at all.
Remus hadn't known what was going on, but he had simply accepted the fact that his lover was scared almost to death by something, and that he had to be the one to calm him down. It was usually the other way around, since Sirius usually was the strong, protective person.
"Yes," Sirius shuddered, as he continued to scratch Remus' scalp, drawing happy moans from the man on the floor, which made him laugh as he finally relaxed a little in his chair, his firewhiskey long forgotten. He had something so much better at curing aching hearts than firewhiskey. He had a soulmate.
After a while, Remus had almost fallen asleep on the floor when Sirius accidentally knocked down his glass of firewhiskey so the class scattered on the floor, the amber liquid slowly spreading on the antique carpet.
"Bloody hell, Remus please wake up! This will stain badly if you don't help me right now!" Sirius pleaded, "I'm not good at household spells.."
"Don't worry love, I've got it," Remus said confidently as he stood up and pecked a kiss onto Sirius' lips, that still tasted of firewhiskey, and muttered a quick spell. The amber liquid slowly evaporated from the carpet, and Sirius let out a sigh of relief when it was completely gone.
"I don't get it though.. You hate this house, why would you worry if you stain a carpet?" Remus frowned.
"Well, this isn't just any carpet, this is the library carpet. And the library is probably the purest room in the house, because it's so filled with your soul. It's like the house has accepted you as the owner of this specific room, and the moment I walk in here, I can feel your spirit surrounding me. That calm, dusty, bookwormy feeling," Sirius offered a dashing smile.
Remus nodged Sirius playfully with his elbow, before he looked down onto the aged, but still beautiful man, and asked him, "Would you like some hot chocolate, along with a cholate bar? It cures even the worst of heartaches, I ensure you," Remus smiled.
"You and your bloody chocolate," Sirius muttered, but he took the hand Remus offered him, and allowed Remus to drag him down to the kitchen.
And hot chocolate he got, with small marshmallows, whipped cream and the whole deal.
Sirius was his goofy self again, getting whipped cream all over his mustasche, and then wiggled his eyebrow and asked, "Fancy a snog, love?" making Remus giggle so much he almost fell out of his chair.