Carry You Over To A New Morning
Summer faded outwards in a colourful haze of brightly yellow afternoons. When the hospital offered him a week off, he and Marlene took a Portkey to her parents' house, which was in a village about an hour north of Inverness, deep within the Scottish Highlands. The house Mr and Mrs McKinnon lived in was made of flat-fronted brick and had sash windows, which were adorned by faded, green curtains. The land at the back of the house sloped steeply downwards, clad in heather, and ended in a lake, with water that shone a bright, clear blue in the dazzling summer sunlight.
Every morning, Remus woke early, tumbled out of the house in a mess of limbs and ran down the slope, through the mauve heather, his breathing burning in his chest, and launched himself into the water. After his morning swim, he'd take a shower and head out into town, dutifully collecting the post from Mrs Lurdham and often stopping by the bakery to pick up something for lunch. On the last morning of their trip, he made his way out of the post office, looking over his shoulder at Mrs Lurdham and offering her a wave. He looked forward and realised, just in time, that he was about to collide with someone else.
He side-stepped, pushing himself against the doorframe to avoid a collision. The doorway was rather too tiny to fit two people and he was almost pressed uncomfortably close against the woman. Because it had been a woman with whom he'd nearly collided. She had a kind, heart-shaped face and a set of sharp brown eyes. She was smiling at him, stepping past him into the shop, which allowed Remus to stand up straight again. And then her eyes lit up with a recognition Remus knew was mirrored on his own.
'Glassborow,' he breathed.
Valerie, she was called, Valerie Glassborow, and she'd been a year below him at Hogwarts, in Slytherin. She'd been a Prefect, like him, and he remembered suddenly, oddly, how she'd liked Pepper Imps.
Valerie's smile widened. 'Lupin, how nice to see you again.'
Valerie. She was beautiful, enigmatic, and a ruthless editor at the Daily Prophet. Their relationship was an easy one to fall into, after that one meeting in Mrs Lurdham's shop, and carried over summer and well on into the next year, and then the next. Remus was more often than not sleeping in Valerie's house, which was decorated only in the simplest shades of white and grey, and shared his life with her. She organised homely dinner parties that always involved Alice and Marlene; kept them attending Ministry balls and luncheons; and was a fervent supporter of his career as a Healer, constantly pushing him to grow and get better.
She'd been the first to congratulate him on his win of the Dilys Derwent Award for Excellence in Healing for his Healing Charm, which he'd finally managed to get to work. It was lauded around the magical community for the ease in which it prescribed the antidote for the most common of household injuries. The silver cup he'd been awarded was kept in a cabinet near the reception of St Mungo's, and every time Remus passed it on his way into work, he got just the tiniest bit embarrassed.
Valerie threw him a magnificent surprise party after the ceremony, Gideon and Fabian Prewett setting off magical fireworks that spelled out his name and then something else, which had very little to do with the spell and earned the twins a cuff around the head. The party lasted until well into the night, and Remus fell asleep with his arm around Valerie, her beautiful, silvery blonde hair brushing his forehead.
His parents adored Valerie, perhaps rightly so, and his mother often made thinly-veiled comments about marriage whenever the two of them visited the Lupin house, which was modest, compared to the large, London terrace house that belonged to Valerie's parents. Somehow, though, whenever he and Valerie talked about the subject, it was in trepidation. She was dedicated to her career, she would say, and so was he. So marriage and children wouldn't really work, what with his hours and her travelling all the time. It made a lot of sense when Remus heard it spoken out loud in her perfectly clipped London tones, and so the subject would be closed.
She was right, though. Winning the award earned him a promotion at the hospital, resulting in more pay, more time for research, and shorter shifts. And from there, it was an easy step into becoming an actual Healer, something he achieved at only twenty-eight. He was the youngest person to receive this rank since Ruaraidh Kinnaird, who had aged terribly in the last four years. And even if the Head Healer lost his glasses five times a day, he still had his occasional bouts of brilliance, and he liked Remus enormously, heaping him with praise and congratulations on the day his promotion was announced.
Remus didn't really realise the full extent of what being a Healer actually meant until he was made to turn in his white assistant-Healer robes and was given, instead, a full set of lime green ones, which he accepted with a dazed look. That night, Valerie invited Alice, Frank and Marlene over for dinner, and they all got spectacularly drunk on bottles of expensive French wine, which had been gifted to Remus and Valerie by Mrs Glassborow.
And if Remus thought at all of Sirius Black in those four years, it was only in passing, in small moments, like when Valerie was sat on the sofa, the dark, dramatic words of the Italian operas she listened to when she was working reminding him inexplicably of Sirius's stormy grey eyes.
It was a cloudy day in early July when his wand vibrated in the middle of a conversation he was having with one of his patients.
'Presence of Healer Lupin required on Fourth Floor, Spell Damage,' it said in a clear voice, once he took it out of the front pocket of his robes.
The lady he'd been tending to, who was called Elfrida, looked a bit put out. It took him another two minutes before she let him go, with assurances that he would be back later to check up upon her. By the time he closed the door of the ward, his wand vibrated again, a bit more urgently this time, and repeated its message.
'Noted,' he told it, stifling a yawn, and it glowed in confirmation. When he reached the right room at the end of the long corridor, his wand glowed again to indicate it as such, and he pocketed it, and then opened the door. Remus heard two voices stop in mid-conversation, but his eyes were trained on the magical parchment that appeared in front of him. Minor injuries, it read, and Remus frowned in disapproval. Patients were discouraged from going to St Mungo's for minor injuries that could easily be healed at home, so that the Healers could give their full attention to the cases that needed it most.
He lowered the parchment, schooling his expression into one of politeness. With a surprised jolt, he recognised James Potter, who was leant against the far wall. He must be around sixteen, having grown taller and broader in the shoulders, his hair sticking up messily in the back. He was wearing a pair of jeans and an off-red shirt that had once probably sported the name of a Quidditch team, but it had now faded. James gave a lazy grin when he saw Remus, and his eyes sparkled with mischief.
As if off their own accord, Remus's eyes drifted towards the bed where, inevitably, Sirius Black was sitting. He looked older than sixteen, his body far too big for the hospital bed, tall and long-limbed with a graceful elegance that screamed pureblood. His black hair had grown longer, falling into his grey eyes, and he was wearing a simple black shirt and a pair of thick black trousers that looked to be part of the Hogwarts winter uniform, if the Gryffindor crest was anything to go by. His right hand was bleeding.
'Mr Black,' said Remus. 'What appears to be the problem?'
Sirius opened his mouth to respond, but James interrupted him. 'Put his hand through a window, didn't he?' he said, and it sounded far too amused. 'Idiot.'
Remus looked at Sirius, who wasn't really looking at him, and then sat down on the side of the bed. 'Let me see that,' he said, and Sirius wordlessly offered him his right hand, which was bleeding, but not very profusely, for which Remus was somehow grateful. Remus took out his wand and magically pulled out a small smattering of glass shards from Sirius's skin, then set about healing the small cuts and bruises surrounding his knuckles. It didn't take more than a minute before Remus was putting Sirius's hand down on the sheets carefully again.
'Done,' he said, standing up. 'Although I do have to say that was hardly worth the visit to St Mungo's, Mr Black.'
'Told him that,' said James, peeling himself off the wall with effortless ease. 'But I'm shit at Healing Charms, even worse than Sirius is, and my parents weren't home, so I thought it was better for him to come here.'
Remus blinked at Sirius, who wasn't looking at him. 'Prongs,' he said, tossing some coins at James, who caught them easily, 'get me something to eat, will you, I'm starving.'
James only rolled his eyes, muttered something that sounded like 'tosser', but said he would, giving Remus a cheerful little wave before he left the room. Remus blinked in response, and then looked back at Sirius. That had been rather abrupt.
'Sorry. Just didn't want him to see this bit,' Sirius said, and it sounded almost apologetic. Then, he was rolling up the fabric of the left leg of his trousers, revealing something that was utterly disgusting. The layers of the skin on his leg looked to have been burned back, exposing sinews and muscle and blood, which had been steadily soaking his trousers.
Remus glanced at the wound and then up at Sirius, noticing for the first time that he looked a bit strained, which was probably a combination of the blood loss and the thick wool of his trousers irritating his open wound. And also, possibly, from the exertion of not wanting to appear wounded in front of James Potter, which must've cost him a lot of effort. The leg didn't look like it could hold much of Sirius's weight. He did have to commend Sirius for his quick thinking, though, having obviously smashed his hand into a window to create a visible reason for him to appear at St Mungo's.
Suddenly, Remus felt immensely, incredibly tired, because it was time to pull rank. He'd waited for far too long, already. 'Mr Black,' he said. 'After I've healed that, I'm going to need you to stay here and fill in a report. I rather think this has gone on long enough.'
Sirius glanced up at Remus through the hair that was falling into his eyes, blinking at him for a moment, but then he offered him a bright, disarming smile.
'That won't be necessary. I've run away,' he said, dismissively.
Remus stared.
'From home,' Sirius clarified, as if Remus's silence had meant he was a bit dim. 'I'm going to live with James for a while.'
Remus couldn't think of anything to say to that, really, so he settled for not saying anything at all. He realised he was still staring into Sirius's eyes, though, which looked back at him perfectly calmly, as if it was the most normal thing in the world for sixteen-year-old children to announce to their Healers that they had just run away from home. Remus blinked, and then dropped his gaze to Sirius's leg, instead.
He leaned closer, examining the wound, taking his wand out of his pocket and lighting it with a flick of his wrist. He touched his fingers to the skin of Sirius's leg, making Sirius suck in a breath, and carefully moved his fingers over the exposed wound. Remus presumed that, whatever the spell had been, it had ordered Sirius's skin to attack itself, layers burning away to reveal what was underneath. It looked like complicated Dark magic, the kind he hadn't seen in a very, very long time.
Although he knew it wasn't going to tell him anything new, Remus muttered his own Healing Charm under his breath, and watched as it wrote out a neat set of instructions in mid-air.
'Oh, yeah,' said Sirius conversationally, as if he always lay in a hospital bed with lethal injuries, 'read about that spell in the Prophet. You're clever.'
Remus blinked up at him, not sure if that warranted a reply, but he felt his lips quirk into a smile, nonetheless. Instead of responding, though, he leaned over Sirius's injuries, trying to decide which the best place to start was. It took him not more than ten minutes, in the end. It begun with Sirius's skin knitting itself together in places where the spell had hit him superficially, and then, with a prod of Remus's wand, it went deeper, skin raising itself up, reconstructing layers upon layers where they had been burned away. Sirius was quite still during the process, much like the very first time Remus had tended to him.
When Remus was done, he gestured for Sirius to pull his trouser leg back down, which he did. Remus spelled it clean, and Sirius smiled at him gratefully.
'I'm going to prescribe you a Blood-Replenishing Potion, as you appear to have lost quite an amount. I'll need you to take it for three days, at least, until there is enough blood back in your system,' Remus said.
'All right,' said Sirius.
'And I would highly recommend filling in that report, anyway, Mr Black. I don't think your current living situation detracts from the matter at hand –' Remus said, but it didn't really seem like Sirius was paying much attention to what he was saying.
Instead, he was looking at Remus with a soft, unfamiliar look in his eyes, which made Remus feel slightly uncomfortable. But before he could rightly process what was happening, Sirius had clenched his hand in Remus's lime green Healer robes, tugged him forward so that their faces were very close, and kissed him, hard.
Author's Note: I took Valerie's name from a newspaper article about the Duchess of Cambridge, and found it recently, scribbled in one of my notebooks. Valerie worked at Bletchley Park, as a codebreaker, in the Second World War. She seemed to have just the right sort of quiet brilliance that Remus would be attracted to.