Not all silences were empty. Some carried trauma, some carried regret. And some, strangely, felt like company.

Sirius had expected to wait another three weeks before hearing from Snape. Well—unless Dumbledore called a meeting before that. Snape had been as brisk and indifferent as ever when he left after the full moon, and Sirius knew better than to expect anything outside their established routine.

So when an unexpected message from Snape arrived on Halloween night, it threw him off balance.

Sirius had been in a somber mood all day. They both had. Halloween had long since stopped being a night of celebration—it was the anniversary of James and Lily's deaths. Even after all these years, the grief lingered, heavy and suffocating. Neither of them had spoken much—there was nothing to say.

And then Snape's message arrived.

It was a brief note, written in Snape's precise, slanted script.

Harry Potter has been selected as the fourth champion in the Triwizard Tournament. Suspect foul play.

That was all it said. No greeting, no unnecessary words, just straight to the point. Typical Snape.

Sirius stared at the parchment, blood running cold.

"A fourth champion?" he said slowly, the words tasting wrong in his mouth. He handed the note to Remus, who scanned it quickly, his jaw tightening.

"That shouldn't be possible," Remus muttered, brow furrowing.

"No," Sirius agreed. "It shouldn't."

The Goblet of Fire didn't make mistakes. Someone had put Harry's name in there. Someone had made sure he was chosen.

Sirius didn't need to spell out the implications.

"Who would—?" Remus started, then stopped himself. They both knew the answer. Or at least, they knew who should be at the top of the suspect list.

Voldemort.

It was too much of a coincidence. Sirius had spent the past two years worrying about what remained of Voldemort, what he was planning, what steps he was taking to return. And now Harry—his Harry—was thrown into a deadly tournament he had no business being part of.

"This is bad," Sirius said, running a hand through his hair.

Remus was still staring at the parchment, his lips pressed into a thin line. "Dumbledore must already be handling it," he said, though he didn't sound reassured.

"Then why didn't he tell us?" Sirius shot back. "Why are we hearing it from Snape first?"

He hadn't meant to say it aloud, but the thought was there, gnawing at the edges of his mind. It was one thing for Snape to share Order-related information when necessary, but this—this was different. This was Harry.

Sirius didn't know what unsettled him more—the news itself or the fact that it had come from Severus Snape.

Sirius and Remus wasted no time in writing to Harry, their quills scratching frantically against the parchment as they tried to keep their worry from bleeding too obviously into their words. They kept their message short—demanding answers would only make Harry shut down—but they made it clear that they wanted to hear from him as soon as possible.

The response arrived the next day.

Harry's letter was short but tense, frustration leaking through the ink.

I know what it means, he had written. Someone is trying to get to me. And no one other than Hermione believes I didn't enter my name. They all think I did it for the attention. I don't even want to participate. Ron and I had a fight over it.

Sirius clenched his jaw as he read. He could feel Harry's frustration in every word, could imagine the tight set of his shoulders, the way he would run a hand through his hair in frustration. He hated that he wasn't there. Hated that Harry was going through this alone, that even his best friend had turned on him.

"Bloody hell," Sirius muttered, passing the letter to Remus, who read it in silence, his frown deepening with every line.

"He's right," Remus said after a moment. "If his name came out, it's because someone wanted him in that tournament."

But they already knew that. Sirius exhaled sharply. "Yeah, no kidding."

They wrote back immediately, warning him to keep his guard up.

Be wary of Igor Karkaroff, they warned. He used to be a Death Eater. And keep an eye on anyone acting abnormally—especially strangers. If anything seems off, even the smallest thing, write to us or go straight to Dumbledore.

At the bottom of the letter, Sirius added, Any new weird dreams?

It was Remus who brought up the idea first. "I think I should go back to Hogwarts."

Sirius blinked at him. "What?"

"Not as a professor," Remus clarified. "I can help with the security. And Harry's going to need help. You know Dumbledore won't pull him from the tournament, and if someone put his name in, then whatever is coming won't just be about a school competition."

Sirius frowned. "You want to tutor him?"

Remus nodded. "Someone has to. If he's going to be in this tournament, he needs to be prepared. We both know Harry—he's resourceful, but this isn't just classroom dueling. These tasks are meant to be deadly. And if something happens—if something goes wrong—one of us should be nearby."

Sirius leaned back in his chair, staring at the ceiling. It made sense. It made too much sense. But the idea of Remus leaving, of being left alone in this house, made something in him twist uncomfortably.

"It's not forever," Remus said gently, as if he had read his mind. "But I can do more good there than here."

Sirius let out a slow breath. "Yeah… yeah, you're right."

As they sat in the dimly lit drawing room, the weight of the decision settled between them.

"I'll be back on the night of the full moon," Remus said. "It wouldn't be safe to transform at Hogwarts."

Sirius nodded, but his mind was already running ahead, tracing the consequences of Remus's absence. Harry would have someone looking out for him—that was the most important thing. But it also meant that Snape would stop coming to deliver the Wolfsbane potion.

The realization landed heavily in his chest, though he wasn't sure why. He told himself it didn't matter.

Harry is more important, he reminded himself. Harry is the most important thing right now.

Yet, as he watched the fire flicker and crackle, a hollow silence crept in, settling deep in his bones.

That night, neither of them slept well.

Sirius had never done well with solitude. Grimmauld Place felt even heavier without Remus there—empty, oppressive, and filled with ghosts of people who had never truly lived in these halls but haunted them all the same. The house was too quiet, too still. He hated it.

So he found himself retreating into Padfoot more and more. It was easier that way. As a dog, his thoughts weren't quite as loud, his restlessness dulled to a bearable hum rather than an incessant, gnawing frustration. He roamed the house, padded through rooms with no destination in mind, stretched out by the fire without thinking too much about how alone he was.

Remus wrote, of course—regular updates arriving by owl, detailing how Harry was holding up, what he was learning, how the first task was looming closer. The letters were never just about Harry, though—Remus always asked how he was doing, if he was eating properly, if he was keeping himself occupied. Sirius rarely answered those parts. And when he did, he would reply with platitudes or simply ask Remus to stop mothering him—his dear mother was just down the hall if he needed one.

But Harry—Harry never once wrote.

Maybe, Harry was still not used to having someone waiting to hear from him outside of the school. Maybe he thought there was no need, now that Remus was there. Or maybe he figured that anything worth telling would make its way to Sirius eventually. Either way, it stung.

Sirius knew he shouldn't let it bother him. Knew he should be grateful that Harry had someone looking out for him. But he couldn't shake the bitter taste of jealousy and the sense of uselessness.

Harry had always been closer to Remus, hadn't he? From the moment they met in third year, it was Remus who had taught him, Remus who had been patient, Remus who had given him knowledge and guidance. And now, with Remus at Hogwarts, it was only natural that Harry would rely on him even more.

Sirius told himself it was a good thing. Harry needed someone steady, someone rational. And yet… he couldn't help but feel frustrated.

What kind of godfather was he, trapped in this wretched house, doing nothing?

Sirius spent Yule alone. Remus was apologetic in his letter, but he had to stay at Hogwarts due to the influx of visitors for the Yule Ball. He told himself it's okay. Padfoot didn't care for holidays anyway.

That the house would feel even more suffocating, that time would crawl unbearably slow, that he would grow so restless he'd want to claw at the walls. Sirius had expected all of those when Remus left. What he hadn't expected, however, was for Severus Snape to be the first to darken Grimmauld Place's doorstep outside of the full moons.

He was curled up near the fire in his Animagus form when he heard the telltale crack of Apparition just beyond the wards. His ears twitched, his hackles rising instinctively. His first thought was that it must be Remus, back early for some reason—but no, the scent that drifted in with the opening of the door was sharper, tinged with potions and parchment, with a faint note of the dungeons that Sirius would recognize anywhere.

Snape.

Sirius was certain he was hallucinating.

That was the only reasonable explanation. He had spent far too much time alone in this wretched house, too much time as Padfoot, too much time spiraling in his own head. It had finally driven him mad, because there was simply no other way Severus Snape was standing in the doorway of his home, looking at him like this was perfectly normal.

Sirius barely managed to shift back before blurting, "Snape? What the hell are you doing here?" His voice was hoarse from disuse, but his mind raced.

Snape arched a brow, his expression cool, imperious, and unreadable. "I assume your invitation to the library still stands."

Sirius stared. He came for the library?

He must not have done a good job hiding his disbelief, because Snape met his gaze and, after a moment, rolled up his sleeve just enough to expose his forearm. "The Mark has darkened," he said, as if that explained everything.

Sirius's eyes snapped to the barest glimpse of darkened skin before Snape let the fabric fall back into place. A cold weight settled in his stomach.

"So?" Sirius said, trying for indifference, but it came out tight.

Snape regarded him with thinly veiled impatience. "So I am taking necessary precautions."

Once, Sirius might have laughed at the absurdity of it. Would have made some scathing remark about Snape turning up at Grimmauld Place, of all places. But right now, standing in the dim firelight, unshaven and exhausted, he found himself wanting to grin instead.

Or he would have, if he could still feel things like that.

Because this was—this was something. A disruption to the endless, dull ache of being trapped here. A thread connecting him to something outside his own head. It wasn't Remus's steady presence, wasn't one of Dumbledore's ever-cryptic messages—it was Snape, seeking something from him, however minor.

And Sirius—Merlin help him—wanted that.

But Snape's eyes were already scanning him, taking in the disheveled state of him, the hollowness that had settled into his frame. Sirius felt the scrutiny, felt it like a blade against his skin.

He braced himself. For a sneer, for a cutting insult about his condition, about his failure of a life, about how pathetic he had become.

But it never came.

Snape said nothing. He simply took in the sight of him before dismissing it entirely, as though it was of no consequence.

"I assume Lupin is keeping you informed about Potter's progress?"

Sirius knew deflection when he saw it. Knew Snape's words were a deliberate redirection, a refusal to acknowledge whatever he had just seen in Sirius's appearance.

Sirius's throat felt tight. He forced a smirk, brittle and sharp. "You here to check up on me, Severus?"

Snape didn't even dignify that with a response. Instead, he glanced toward the hallway leading to the library, waiting.

And Sirius—against all logic, against all reason—found himself thrilled.

Oh, he knew better than to show it, knew better than to let Snape see what this meant, what he meant. But for the first time in weeks, there was something outside of grief and restlessness, something beyond his own hollow longing for a past that no longer existed.

Sirius stepped aside, gesturing with an exaggerated flourish. "Be my guest."

Snape swept past him without another word, disappearing into the darkened hall.

Sirius exhaled, only now realizing he had been holding his breath.

He didn't know why Snape was here. Didn't know if Remus had mentioned something, if this was pity or practicality or something else entirely. But Snape was here, in his house, not as an enemy, not as an obligation, but by choice.

And for the first time in longer than he could remember, Sirius didn't feel entirely alone.

Notes:

Remus Lupin—the keeper of two teenage boys since 1971.

I don't think there's room in this fic to dive into Remus's character development too much, but I do think him quitting on his own—rather than just reacting to being outed as a werewolf—shows he takes responsibility for his actions. Then he got chewed out by Harry and managed to get over the betrayal of being used as a murder weapon, thanks to Sirius's apology to Severus—Sirius was just being an idiot, and he saw Moony as an intimidating canine friend, not a tool. I think he is still the same gentle Remus, just more assertive and committed.

And yeah… it's going to be a cycle of things seeming to go well, only to get worse for Sirius. Please don't hate me