Archive of Our Own

People can tell you anything. They can and do, prepare you for the worst, for struggle and unemployment, for hatred from people you do not know. They prepare you for heartbreak, for being left behind, for loneliness. But they never tell you what to do with joy once you find it. They never tell you how to hold it tight in your hands but not so tight as to crush it. They never tell you what to do when someone tells you that they love you with fire in their lungs, bursting out of their fingertips or how to say it back in in a way that doesn’t break you. They never tell you how to accept it even and especially when you can’t find it in yourself to believe that you deserve it. And you — you were smart — with words and spells and numbers but you never did learn how to love and be loved and not burn and drown and explode in the process of it. But you do it anyway. Because there is a boy who might be just as damaged as you and he tells you that he loves you over and over even when you tell him that you do not know how to love. There is a boy who has bruises in the places you have scars, who smiles with cigarettes in his mouth, whose eyes are the colour of skies before a cyclone, who never quite learnt how to love and be loved, himself. You look at him and you think — this just might work. 

____ 

1971, Hogwarts, first year.

You were 11 when you first saw him:  a thunderstorm of a boy with rain clouds in his hair and ice in his words but whose hands were warmer than the sun. You didn’t quite understand what to do with him at first — what to do with all the chaos he seemed to carry with him like a magician does his secrets. Sirius, he said his name was when he sat down opposite to you on the train to Hogwarts. He did not ask if the seat was empty but he offered his hand with the dignity you had only ever seen in actors on your mother’s muggle television and said, “Sirius Black. Nice to meet you.” 

His hands were long and smooth and brown. You had never quite seen anything so beautiful. You shook it, unsure how to make your mouth work but he beat you to it.

“You haven’t got a name then?” He says, bordering on arrogance interspersed with grace you never thought you would see in reality.

But you have nothing if you do not have your words so you say, “Remus. Remus Lupin,” and stare at him with every amount of apathy you have learned to master — which is now as much a part of you as your lycanthropy, as the magic and blood that run inside you. 

He seems to acknowledge and accept your apathy, it seems to run in tune with his arrogant grace and he does something with his face that is too broken for a smile but too luminous for anything else. 

___

That night, in your dorm you read every single book on love you have brought with you from home and wonder if you are indeed in love with Sirius Black. 

____

Hogwarts, 5th year. 1975.

The day after a full moon was always a little trying despite the efforts made by James, Sirius and Peter to alleviate your pain. When one is taught to keep everything including and perhaps especially pain, chiefly to oneself — the habit sticks like burrs on a sweater— stubborn and unwanted. Your father taught you how to hide instead of teaching you how to ride a broom. The lessons in stoicism, in composure, had not been lost on you. However, through all his seemingly meticulous planning on how to keep your furry little problem a secret, he never did take into account the tumultuous, unrelenting force of magic and something sacred and unholy that was Sirius Black. He taught you how to push things away, with every ounce of energy inside you. But he never taught you what to do when the energy was gone, never taught you how to push it away again and again, never taught you how to push things away and make them stay away. Sirius Black was a dog in more ways than his name and he did not stay away, especially not from you. So, you navigated that storm on your own and ended up traipsing in delicate, quiet circles around Sirius Black like moths around a source of light — however small it may be. You didn’t ask for this. You would have never asked for this, but sometime between grasping his hand on the train, his becoming animagus for you and now — you watch him stand tensely as Madam Pomfrey dresses your wounds, you realise that both of you bleed together. In spite of all of his lessons in etiquette and pureblood grace, he never learned how to school his features into even a semblance of calmness whenever you were in pain. He never learned to not cut his nails into his palm as he watched you sit and try not to cry out. But both of you learnt to never offer or accept comfort. So he does not touch you and you do not touch him despite the ever present ache in your fingers that have longed to touch any part of Sirius since the day you shook his hand.

After Madam Pomfrey is done, she looks between the two of you with something in her expression that makes you think that she knows. She always looks between the two of you like that and it makes you wonder what in Merlin’s name could she know — there is an abundance of secrets between you and him that either of you has yet to admit. You wonder which one she knows. It unsettles you, sometimes, how much she, Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore seem to know about you and him. 

You have spent your entire life feeling unsettled in your own skin that it doesn’t make much of a difference anymore. But sometimes Sirius looks at you, his eyes fever-bright with what you hope is longing and it lights you on fire in ways you did not know possible. It is how he looks at you now as Madam Pomfrey gives you leave. 

It hurts to get up, more than the previous times. You had felt somehow that this time was different. The wolf was perhaps as unsettled, as restless as you had been in the past month. The reason for that was still a mystery to you.

“Steady there, Moony. If you keep up like this I’m never letting you have more than two butterbeers in a row.” Sirius’ hand, unlike his words, lingers like snow suspended in the air, just a little above your waist as you try to stand without shaking. You stare it at. He seems to stare at it as well. The space between your waist and his hand seems like the beginning of something new and the endurance of something old, something beyond both of your existences, beyond truth and lies, beyond words either of you could ever say. It seems like the space between the red hot ache of wanting and wanting and the dull grey of never quite having. 

In a breath, quick and free, he rests his hand on your waist, holds, holds, holds gently. You do not think that anybody has ever touched you like that, perhaps your mother before everything, before her illness took her. It takes your breath away, soothes every pain in your body for just a second. You’ve always been aware of everything that was wrong with you, everything that set you apart, that made you unworthy and undeserving of things that come easily to others — that made you wrong. You have been aware of these things since you were a child, through efforts on your father’s part, but never, for even a second have you ever believed it wrong to love Sirius Black with every shattered cell inside of your haunted-house of a body. You think loving Sirius Black might be the only thing that is right about you. 

You accept his hand on your body, savour his touch as the penance it is for both of your sins. Tender redemption by hands who have never known anything but violence. 

You smile and say, “You’re a damned fool and a hypocrite if you think I cannot handle my liquor, Mr. Black.” You continue, “More importantly, I have seen you lose your clothes after two butterbeers the moment anything that moves bats their eyelashes at you. I shiver to think the terrors you must have unleashed on nights you drank much more than that.” 

There is mirth in Sirius’ face, his eyes alight with laughter that would put to shame the brightest of stars. His face seems to radiate joy without his lips ever curling upwards. You take that as a victory because this moon was hard — your body feels like it has been ripped apart and then put back together in the wrong order. But Sirius’ face is open, bright and warmer than you have ever seen it and it lights you on fire and keeps you warm as you rest your hand on top of his and walk out of the infirmary together. 

____

 Wales 1975, Winter Holidays. 

If anyone ever asks, you’d say that it began with the letters. The first letter he wrote to you was in your 4th year. Before that, you hadn’t conversed with him during the holidays. The letters seemed to be the only way for Sirius to really talk — without the barrier of people, without the pretence that the words you spoke to each other weren’t lined with the finest satin, something soft and pure — for just the two of you. The letters were just the beginning: 

Remus,

Top of the morning to you laddie!

I hope the dire winter months are treating you well. Of course, you’ve never cared much for holiday celebrations. Is that due to the monthly dilemma or something unknown to me? 

Speaking of, how is the monthly dilemma coming on, dearest Moony? All parts in good order? Of course, your parts have never really been in good order but I do hope they’re not completely fractured. 

Anyhow, what I’m about to tell next you will have you drooling and hurrying to take off your pants and invite me into your bed. I have read Giovanni’s Room, simply because you wouldn’t shut up about it. Any discussions about the book here on will be when I see your face in the sun, meri jaan. The sun looks divine on you, Moony.

I hope this letter finds you as well as you can be, given your situation (I do not mean your furry little problem) and I hope you know better than to reply to this. This is not just a wish, but an entreaty as well, to you. Most things I do are, dearest Remus.

Yours truly,

Padfoot.

You did not try to find out what meri jaan meant whether out of fear or hope, you couldn’t tell, but you did hold the letter close to your chest every day before you slept and kept it safe between the pages of Giovanni’s Room. 

You did not know what to think about this sudden openness in his words. Sirius had always been loud and forthcoming but the letter made you aware of an undercurrent of gentleness, of humour just for the sake of humour, that his interactions in school lacked. Except, perhaps, with James.

The full moon was a few days after Christmas. Your father spent the last few days leading up to the full moon in his room, hoping perhaps to drown out the noises of your failure to contain your illness, as he called it. You wondered, sometimes if he meant your lycanthropy or your eternal sadness seemed to be present even before you got bitten. 

It starts on the days you cannot control the drifting. You think, unwittingly about your mother. Because the thing is your mother had been beautiful. She had never been a stranger to pain and she combatted it with kindness that seemed to pour out of her bones. You tried, always to drink in her empathy and her compassion as much as you could. You didn’t quite realise when along with that, you got her pain as well. Maybe it would’ve quelled had you not been bitten. But, sometimes you think that this brokenness had been a part of you since the very beginning. Like genetic code. Some people weren’t meant for happiness. It would have been so without the lycanthropy as well. This thought helps you sleep during nights you just cannot sit inside your skin, the nights when the noise in your head is so bloody loud it spreads to your skin and tears through with sharp stinging pain like needles piercing your skin all over. These nights usually happen after the moon and sometimes you wish you could scream through them without facing the consequences of your father’s wrath the next morning. But you can’t. So you cling to that one thought — that you have so much of your mother’s — her kindness and her immeasurable pain and it would’ve been a part of you with or without the lycanthropy. That is the one thing that no one could ever take from you.

But on this night, you have the letter. 

You have his letter, his handwriting, his ink under your hands and if you just touch it hard enough you swear you can almost feel his voice beneath your fingertips. That is the thing with voices, isn’t it? you never quite realise how much you can miss a voice till the day you try to feel it through your fingers while darkness descends outside. 

The fact of the matter is that you’ve spent a considerable amount of time being, very simply, very utterly, in the purest sense, just terrified of things — of people, of places, of a noise too loud, of a word too kind, of a touch too lingering. The fact of the matter is that you’ve spent so much time being so afraid that it frightens you to death that you do not fear Sirius. And that is fucking dismal at the best of times but right now it’s as plain as a heartbreak. 

You shut your eyes and pray for some form of sleep, however tumultuous it may be because you are so so so weary and so so so incredibly alone. 

___

When you wake up the next day, it is to the feel of blood on your side. You suppose it should be more alarming but one develops a kind of cold peace with these things. One can develop a sense of peace with almost everything if it happens long enough. 

The wound tore open sometime during the night. There is blood on the letter Sirius wrote to you. It should not be as poetic as it feels to you. You find yourself laughing before you can stop it. How very fitting. Your blood on his words, his hands, his mouth, his blood. You think, you would accept every single atrocity, every single humiliation, every single indignity if it meant that your blood could mingle with his for as long as you live. 

Your father hears your utter foray into imperfection, into absurdity, and screams — at you to stop, at you to at least pretend to be something akin to unbroken. That is when your hands shake and dread which is as familiar as breathing begins to fill your skin again. 

The thing about fear is that once you get used to it, once it starts existing almost as an extension of your body, it is very easy to function with it. It is very easy to take on the guise of calmness even through the trembles in your hands — not unlike how the earth shakes right before an earthquake but still  manages to hold together at the seams. 

So you do that. You hold together at the seams and apologise to him through the pain in your side, through the cold in his demeanour.

“Clean this up, Remus.” He says, steel in his voice. 

You nod, swallow the bitterness of everything in your mouth and get to work.

The thing is that while you know very well how to take care of your wounds, you absolutely hate doing it yourself and you also hate having other people do it. 

But, it has always been worse when you’re not at Hogwarts. Because this house is the closest and the farthest thing you have from home. It smells like your mother, you see her in the piano kept like a statue in the living room. There are bits of her in bandages you tie on your body. Sometimes, you walk into the kitchen and expect to hear her voice float through the air, so so so free. She was the happiest when she sang. Which was to say that happiness never came easy to her. She passed that on to you, along with her love for music. 

While she was still whole, still here, she had always taken care of you, in her own way. She would sing while mending your wounds. She would teach you to do them yourself as well. 

So, when you are in this house that bled to death the second your mother stopped existing, cleaning your wounds and stopping the blood somehow doesn’t seem fitting. But you do it. Because you are afraid of what will happen if you don’t.

____

The sun doesn’t come out much while you are in Hogwarts and neither of you mention the letter. There are other things on the horizon now.

____

1976, 7th year.

You did not speak to him for two weeks after. The first day you spent in the infirmary, with Madam Pomfrey tending to you. The absence of Sirius a knife in your gut. Not unlike the knowledge of what he had done. 

James had been furious. More furious than you could be. He talked of betrayal, of trust being broken. You didn't say anything.

At night, Peter stays in the infirmary. 

"Is Snape okay?" You ask.

Peter smiles, a raw bitter thing that looks so foreign on his face. 

"James got to him. He's fine. Dumbledore talked to him. He won't say anything." 

"And," you begin, tasting the name in your mouth, finding it bitter and ashy in a way it had never been before. You swallow, a bit, and look at Peter. 

"You shouldn't worry about him right now, moony."

"I don't know what else to do." You exhale, a confession, a secret, given so freely. Years later, you will wonder if all the secrets Peter had to carry for you grew too much for him.

But now, you bask in the silent comfort he gives, take in his quiet snores when he falls asleep on the chair beside your bed.

Thinking of Sirius had always hurt. Even in the best of times. 

And now, it stings like a thousand bees at once. It pushes and prods and makes something inside you go numb. 

The only thing you know is how to stay calm during chaos and you reach for that now, on an old bed in the infirmary, hoping, hoping, hoping for Sirius as you always are.

He comes to see you, sometime after midnight. You are somewhere between sleep and wakefulness and you do not hear him at first. Your face is turned away from him.

He says, “I'm sorry. Remus. I don't have any excuse. I don’t know why I did it. I'm sorry. Whatever you want, I'll accept it. I'm sorry, Remus."

He does not touch you. You don't know if you're relieved or not.

You don't think you've ever heard him sound this broken. 

The thing is that, you would have forgiven him had he not apologised. The thing is that there is nothing this fucking universe Sirius could do that you wouldn't forgive him for.

_____

The library is quiet, and you revel in that. Sirius has avoided you and you have avoided him. You think James told him to give you space. James looks at him like he could kill him every time he even glances in your direction. 

You think he might have screamed at him, or punched him, but you’re not sure. You do not ask him and neither he or Peter volunteer any information. 

The smell of the books is something you can feel even when you’re not in the library. There is no respite, from everything that is around you but for a while you can pretend. 

You hear the giggling and you turn to look, on reflex, instinct that is always ready to defend, defend, defend. 

You raise your eyebrows in sheer, pleased, surprise when you find Dorcas pinned against the shelf, her hands resting on Marlene’s shoulders, Marlene who raises her head from Dorcas’ neck to look at you, eyes delighted. 

“I didn’t know you were aware of the library’s existence, Mckinnon.” You say, before you can stop yourself. 

“One does strange things for love, Lupin.” She grins, wide and feral and beautiful. You look at the barely visible red on Dorcas’ cheeks and feel the beginnings of a warmth that you thought was lost start spreading again. 

“Well,” Marlene quips, “I have Quidditch practice to get to. I’ll see you both later.” She kisses Dorcas, a movement so quick, so comfortable that you find yourself smiling, in spite of it all. 

Dorcas looks at you, “Let’s sit.” 

You nod. 

____

There is a space, concealed, at the end of the library. It is surrounded by bookshelves that loom and hide whoever takes comfort in that space. You take Dorcas there. 

She sits next to you on the floor and takes your hand in hers. 

Her hand is dark and smooth and beautiful and you marvel, a bit, at the softness of her, how she carries it with her like an armour of steel. Something she does not let go of even when the world is nothing but hard. 

“How long?” You whisper. 

She hums, slow, “Three months? We were going to tell people next week. We just wanted to see if it stuck.”

“I’m sorry, for, you know, barging in.”

She laughs a bit, careful enough to keep it low, “It’s alright. I trust you. And well, if someone had to barge in, I’m glad it was you.” 

You swallow, a bit, feel the lump in your throat. She’s always been kind and yet you feel the familiar surprise when her kindness is directed at you. 

“I won’t tell anyone.” You promise.

“I know, love.” She turns to you, gaze so solemn and trusting that you have to look away and swallow tears you didn’t know were there.

“Remus,” she murmurs, “what’s wrong?”

You shake your head, hands frozen and she still keeps holding on to one of them. As long as you have been doing this, making your body a house for all the secrets, it gets hard sometimes. There is only so much space in a house and it gets eaten up so very easily when you keep filling it every fucking second. 

There is only so much a house can hold without falling apart.

You look at Dorcas, her eyes fixed on you, her hand warm in yours. You think of the time in third year you found her crying in the library and she let you sit with her until both of you could breathe a little easier again. You think of the time in fifth year when she listened to you talk about how you were going to fail every single O.W.L and stayed up with you studying all night. You think of all the times she has sat next to you, silently, a constant presence, kindness etched with immeasurable strength and you think, I can fall apart here. 

So you do. As much as you can. Which is not a lot. A house crumbles bit by bit and so do you.

She listens. After you are done, she says, “Marlene wanted to tell all of you a day after I kissed her. I wanted to wait. I wasn’t afraid you all would find it disgusting or wouldn’t approve because I know you’re not like that. I was worried she’d fall out of it, that the spell would break. But, Remus, there’s one thing I’ve learnt. You can’t make people love you and you can’t make people un-love you. It all happens on its own. I can’t keep waiting for her to fall out of it because then I’m gonna miss all the times when she’s still here and still in it, Remus and I don’t want to do that. It’s not fair to her and it’s not fair to me. And I am telling you this because I love you and I don’t think there’s anything you could say or do which would make me un-love you.”

You let out a laugh, shaky and breathy and try to smile at her. She catches the terrible attempt at lightness and holds it in the palm of her hand, guarding, guarding, guarding. 

“I don’t know what to do, Dorcas. I haven’t even seen him properly in like a week, and I, I’m tired, I think but I don’t quite know why.” 

“You’ve already forgiven him.” She says, her words a mirror you had tried to avoid. You sigh, lean your head against the books behind you. 

“I don’t know how not to.” 

“Well, I can’t tell you if you should or shouldn’t. That’s on you. But, maybe, you should think about why you forgave him as quickly as you did.” 

You close your eyes, let her words settle down under your skin and let yourself imagine a world where Sirius calls you meri jaan not just in letters, where you wake up in the morning and he kisses you and this is not new. This imagining. But this is the first time it’s been laid out in front of you so damn visibly. Where do you run now? 

“I’m too fucking broken for this shit, Dorcas.” 

“That’s bullshit,” She says, voice iron-heavy and fierce, “You’re not broken, Remus. Because people don’t break. People can’t break. People can be bent and tried and absolutely fucking ruined, but we don’t goddamn break, Remus. Because we keep fucking going on. Everything falls to its death around us and we still trudge the fuck on. A war is coming and look at us, Remus. We’re still going the fuck on. People don't break. So don’t use that as an excuse. If you don’t want to be with him, say that. Don’t make excuses. Both of you deserve better than that.” 

“What if something like this happens again? I don’t know how to be angry with him in a way that lasts. I don’t fucking know what to do with the hurt.” 

“You tell him, that’s what you do. If something like this happens again, you do what feels right, then. You will feel what you’ll feel, Remus. And you want what you want. Along the way, you’re going to have to figure out how to put yourself first.” 

“It’s shit timing.” 

“Maybe. But maybe it’s never going to be good timing. Who fucking knows? We might end up dead in the next year, Remus. Might as well make it worth it.” 

She squeezes your hand once, before she lets go. 

“I have to go back to my dorm once before dinner.”

You nod at her and she hugs you, quick and fleeting and you will never forget this. 

You walk out of the library together and she heads to the Ravenclaw dormitory. 

She turns back once, offers a smile. You feel your heart beat like it used to, after what feels like an eternity: not too fast, not too slow, just steady, steady, steady. 

____

He is at the top of the Astronomy Tower. You had to look at the Map to find him. It feels, weirdly, like you’ve cheated. 

You had given yourself a day, to let Dorcas’ words sink in, to tell James and Peter that you had forgiven him, to let something like hope simmer just beneath the surface of your skin that hadn’t felt like your own in so, so long. 

“Planning on jumping?” You say.

He tries to hide his surprise when he turns to look at you but he can’t quite do it. 

“You know I wouldn’t do that.” His voice is rough, scratchy, the same as it used to be after a summer spent in that wretched house with his parents. Something inside you burns.

“Don’t lie to me. We both know you’ve thought about it a fuck lot of times. Don’t lie, Sirius, not now.” 

When he turns to look at you, you feel as if the skies have come down because you have never felt so fucking seen, so fucking scrutinised and yet he doesn’t flinch. As if everything he sees is something precious, something to hold and keep. Distantly, you are aware that this is exactly how you look at him. 

“Alright. I have. Thought about it. I don’t think it’ll ever go away. I don’t think I’ll ever stop thinking of it as an option. But I’m not going to do it.” 

“Why?”

“Because you’re more important.” 

“What if I tell you that I never want to speak to you again?” 

“Then I won’t. Speak to you. But I am, sorry. Remus. You have to know that.” 

“You really fucking hurt me, Sirius.” 

He closes his eyes then, takes a breath, two, then says, “I know. I am so sorry.” 

“Sirius,” you say and your voice wobbles, like a person trying to walk on a tightrope the first time — the feeling of newness and fear and gods, hope, “Promise me. Promise me that nothing like this will ever happen again. Promise me right fucking now, Sirius. I believe you when you say that you don’t know why you did it but you have to promise me you won’t ever do anything like this again.” 

It has always been just slightly disconcerting, slightly new, the way his gaze rests on you. You don’t think you will ever get used to it. 

It burns through you, leaves you feeling exposed and new and so very alive.

“I promise.” 

You believe him. You were right to believe him. You will realise this later, and through all the pain, you will smile, because you were right to believe him, because Sirius Black promised you something and he did not break it. 

“Okay,” you say, “because I want you to kiss me. If you want. Not right now. But soon. Only, if you want.” 

“Yes.” Sirius says and the world comes alive. 

____

He kisses you for the first time after Gryffindor wins the Quidditch Cup and it is raining and James is happier than you have ever seen him and Lily is smiling at him with fondness. He kisses you when you say congratulations, Mr. Padfoot, and thunder cracks somewhere above you and your heart beats so loud you think he can hear it, because his gaze is on you, again, and it is burning, burning, burning and you don’t have to say kiss me, because he knows, knows you, in his bones that have withheld so fucking much and when he kisses you, you feel the lightning in your veins and you wonder how you ever lived without it and you realise that you can never, ever live without this, again. And Sirius, he keeps kissing you until the lightning melts into something like ocean waves and he’s in your lungs and he’s everywhere and you think you could die right fucking now but that’s the thing about Sirius: he makes you want to live.

____

June, 1978. London.

It had taken him a minute and a half to ask you to move in with him and you, two minutes to pretend to think about it and a second to accept it. 

He proposes muggle London. You say yes, every time.

____

You rent a small decrepit apartment that looks old, a breeding ground for ghosts. It has cracks in the wall that you trace with your hands and feel them sing with something, something alive and filled to the brim with stories, stories, stories that seemed to be pricking into your fingertips like thorns on roses. 

You say, “This one. I don’t want to look anymore.” 

Sirius raises his eyebrows, his face has always been open to you and you can read the surprise on his face — the surprise that you have asked for something. He does not hide it, or his pleasure. The smugness of it all filling up his face, suiting him better than any jewels could. 

“Alright.” He says, “this one it is.”

And that’s that. 

He does not let you carry any boxes nor does he levitate them. He carries them himself, talks about building muscle.

You  laugh, feeling lighter than you have in ages. 

Inside the apartment, there are so many boxes. They are filled with clothes and books and lives you two have carried with you and left behind. They are a testament to your survival perhaps or the lack of it.  

Whatever it is, it is something akin to home now, for better or worse. It is more home than either of you have ever had. 

There is a box that is filled with letters he wrote to you and  CDs — bands and songs you brought into each others’ lives. 

“You’ve still kept all that?” He says, voice bordering on some sort of suspicion, as if nobody could ever love him enough to keep the things that are a constant reminder of him. 

You do, though, you do. 

“Yeah.” You say, gently running your fingers over the letters, feeling them come alive underneath your hands as they did the first time you touched them. You wonder if it’s the magic or if it is just Sirius. 

“I still have your jacket.” You continue, “the first leather one you got.”

“I know,” Sirius replies, “I’ve got your old sweaters, you know? the ones you outgrew.”

“What, Sirius! Do they even fit?”

He shrugs, a barely there movement, a little conscious, a little hesitant, even after all these years. You think, they must have really fucked him up. 

“Are you that gone for me?” You say, words quivering a bit as they reach your mouth. You’ve never quite known how to joke about these things, when they hit so close to home, when you can’t quite believe that you’re worthy of love, so it’s quite hard to joke about these things, when you’re so afraid to hear the answer. 

But he just comes close to you, you’re sitting on an empty box that he transfigured into an awfully ugly sofa just so that you could sit on it. 

He spreads your legs, gently and stands between them, his hands on either side of your face, thumb gently tracing your bottom lip. This is something he has done countless of times, something he always does before he kisses you and it still takes your breath away, leaves you wanting. 

When he kisses you, it hurts like it always does, in the best of ways, in a way that matters, in a way that makes everything else worth it. 

You run your hands through his hair, hoping he stays right there. And he does.

He kneels in front of you and you are now at the same height. 

He takes your hand, presses kisses like promises on to your palm and then places it on his chest, on his heart. 

“Beats for you,” Sirius murmurs and you — for the first time in your life, you are terrified of him.

He whispers I love you in the lines of your palm as if telling a prophecy and you pretend that you are not completely out of your mind terrified. 

When you are afraid, you run. And this time was not different. 

___

“So, you ran away from your own flat because he told you he loves you?” Dorcas says, voice bordering on laughter, eyes twinkling. 

Marlene glares at you over the top of her mug and says, “James just floo-called. Sirius is at their place. If you both weren’t going to stay at the flat, why did you even move in.”

“We are. It’s just, a minor inconvenience.” You bite your lip, hard and wish you could taste Sirius there. 

Dorcas rests her hand on your arm. You keep holding the mug she’s given you. The steam from the coffee rises, warms you a bit. Their kitchen is pretty. Sirius loved their house. Outside the window, you can see London move around, as indifferent as ever. It is a gift, sometimes, you suppose, this indifference. 

“Remus,” Dorcas starts, “You have been together since the last one year, give or take. Has he never said I love you before?”

You shake your head, feel Marlene’s gaze burning. She’s angry with you. You know that. Marlene is quick to anger, no matter who it’s at. She is quick to anger but even quicker to forgiveness, to love, through all that black-leather, sword-sharp exterior. Not unlike Sirius at all. You meet her gaze.

“Saying it won’t change anything. It’s not something you don’t already know.” Marlene’s voice is bold and loud enough to just reach you from where she’s standing, leaning against the kitchen island, arms folded, a picture of something that may have once been royal.

“It's shit timing.” You reply.

“It’s always shit fucking time, Remus. That’s an old excuse. Say what you really fucking mean or go stay somewhere else.”

“Marlene!” Dorcas rebukes, voice a knife’s edge, something you’ve never heard from her.

“What,” Marlene almost snarls, eyes finding Dorcas’, softening, as if on instinct then immediately turning into coarse steel as she looks at you, “Remus, you’ve been hovering around each other since you were fourteen. He fucked up, yes, and you still chose him, you continue to choose him every single day. What the fuck are you so afraid of?” 

“I’m afraid he’s lying!” You say, edging so so close to a shout and you hide a flinch, not quite successfully but old habits, old habits. Dorcas does not remove her hand from your arm, instead she squeezes your fingers and you might cry, you might cry, you think, if you were a little more human, a little less broken. 

“Remus,” says Marlene, coming closer to you. She sits down across from you. When you look at her, something tells you that she knows, exactly what she knows, you can’t tell. But she arranges her hands on the table in such a way as she was going to tell your future and you think, might as well. But Marlene’s hands scream rough, scream beaten, beaten and never defeated and that tells you more than if she had prophesied your future, “Sirius always does what he wants. If he didn’t want this, if he didn’t love you, he wouldn’t hang around you like a guard dog, he wouldn’t be ready to kill anyone who dared to touch a hair on your head. He wouldn’t stay for so long, through so much if he didn’t fucking mean it all, Remus. He’s good at pretenses yes, we know that but he’s never really been able to do that in front of you.”

“Lying comes as easy as breathing to him,” You protest, weakly. 

“It does to you as well.” Dorcas murmurs, the softness of her interspersed with the unforgiving way she leans towards the truth. 

“There are some things you can’t run away from, Remus. Some things you shouldn’t.” Says Marlene. She gets up and the anger is less now, just a simmer under her skin but her kindness is always, always more and that is why she slides a hand through your hair before she leaves to go to her room. 

Dorcas says, “Stay here tonight. Sleep on the sofa. I’ll get you a blanket. And Remus, Marls loves you. She’s just protective. Of all of us.”

You smile, feel the unforgiving love of Dorcas’ truth sink in deep, deep, deep. She kisses your hair, gets you something warm to sleep in and tells you she loves you. You do not run away. 

____

He is sitting on the transfigured sofa, wand twirling in hand when you go back. He does not look up. 

“Hey.” You say, unsure how to go about this. You are new at this, at being loved so loudly. You don’t know what to do with it. 

He looks up at you, does not say anything. Your heart beats like a spreading wildfire inside your chest. You do not know what to do with this. What do you do with this?

“Sirius,” You think you are pleading, for what, you remain unsure. Sirius is quick to anger but not so much to forgiveness, and he never quite gives his heart away the way he did last night. 

“Are you leaving me, Sirius?” 

That, apparently gets to him like he’s been electrocuted, he stands up with dizzying speed, hands clenched to his side, face a spider web of emotions you can’t figure out. 

“Are you under Imperius?” He questions, voice dangerously low as if it contains all the anger in the world.

“What, what are you—?”

“Is someone making you say all this?”

“Sirius, no, I,”

“Then how the fuck could you ever think that I would leave you?” 

He does not get enough credit, you think, in a detached part of your mind, he does not get enough credit for laying it all on the line again and again for you even after the violence his heart, his body have endured. 

“I fucked up.” You admit, and you can hear the winds and seas of somewhere roaring in your ears, or perhaps it’s just Sirius. 

“I’ve been fucking up since I was born. You haven’t left.” 

“That’s — not fair, and that’s different.”

“Why.” He demands.

“Sirius, I don’t know. I don’t fucking know. Just, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“I don’t want you to fucking apologise, Remus. I want you to believe me when I say that I love you, that I’m not going to leave you. Fucking death couldn’t take me away from you. Merlin. You are my heart, meri jaan. The only reason I haven’t gone and offed myself is because you’re alive. Do you understand that?”

You marvel, again, at how he says it all, says things like that to you, perhaps despite his fear. 

“I do.” You say.

Sirius nods, and goes to the bedroom that is supposed to belong to both of you.

You walk behind him through the roaring in your ears, the only thing in focus is him. You do not realise that your hands are shaking until he holds them, says, Remus, Remus, Remus, I’m not leaving,   in a voice that makes your legs give out.

He gets you on the bed and curls himself around you in a way he has done so many times before. It feels different now, feels more private, feels more yours, and you remember Marlene’s words, he won’t be here if he didn’t want to, and you let him wrap his arm around your waist, let yourself melt into his chest despite the pain you caused him.

“I think I believe you.” You say and you are lying. You believe him wholeheartedly. He is the only person you think could love you. 

“I’ll spend the rest of my life proving it to you, if you’d let me.”

You turn towards him, take in the orange glow on his features from the setting sun outside your window, take in the sincerity on his face, the feel of his hands on your waist, so sure and solid. The whole world splinters a bit, at the edges of your vision but he stays, real and large and enduring. 

“This is a bad idea, Sirius. There’s a war.”

“Death couldn’t take me away from you.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“If I get to wake up with you for as long as I have left, then death would not matter much.”

You kiss him. What else could you have possibly done?

You kiss him and you hum every single word of love you know with your fingers on his heartbeat. 

Death would not matter much, you think and you will make sure to wake up with him for as long as you have left.

_____

August, 1978. The Wedding.

The sky shines overhead, blue and bright, as you listen to Lily fuss over her gown. 

“God, is it too much? Do I look too much? I don’t want to look like an overstuffed cake.”

“You look beautiful, darling. Just relax.” Says Dorcas, hands effortlessly running through Lily’s long hair. You look around the room, at Dorcas, at Lily, feel the waves of joy radiate around you in a way that leaves you breathless for just a second.

The door opens, and Marlene’s voice fills the room, “Groom’s looking for you, Lupin. Got to get this show on the road. Lils, you make a radiant bride.” 

“You don’t look too bad yourself, Mckinnon.” Lily grins, her face lighting up with the force of everything wonderful inside of her, outside of her.

You kiss the top of her head before you leave to see James. You do not miss the way Marlene’s eyes flit to Dorcas every next second and you do not miss the red on Dorcas’ cheeks. Something unfurls inside your gut, something soft and tender, perhaps the feeling of missing.

James is decidedly more nervous than you have ever seen him. His hands move around frantically, settling on his hair, his shirt, Sirius’ shoulders. 

“Moony! Thank Merlin! Do I look alright? How’s Lily? Does she want to back out? If she backs out, Sirius said I could marry him today so we still get to celebrate through my sadness.”

You laugh, “She’s not backing out Prongs. And you look wonderful. Radiant.”

You look at Sirius, who sits sprawled on the sofa, his midnight blue robes a halo around him. If you didn’t know better, you might think it was him getting married. His eyes twinkle as they rest on you. 

“You make a beautiful bride, Potter.” He says, eyes still resting completely on you. You feel breathless in a way you only feel around him.

“Where’s Peter?” James questions, “he’s still officiating, right?”

“Saw him a moment ago. He’s ready. Nervous, but when isn’t he.” Sirius stands up as he talks, moving towards you.  You don’t suppose you will ever get used to the force of nature that is your Sirius Black. You will never get used to the way he looks at you, as if you are the only thing worth looking at, as if he never quite knew where to look until his eyes found you and now he doesn’t ever want to look away.

“You look ravishing, Mr. Lupin. May I have the privilege of taking you home, later?” His arms encompass your waist, his lips close to your ear. You rest your own hands on his chest, feel his heartbeat underneath your hands, your favourite sound second only to perhaps his laughter. 

“Please.” You breathe because there is no other way you’d rather end the night.

“Stop trying to get into his pants and please make my hair stay, Sirius!” James snaps through the collision of his hands and hair and his wand.

“I’ve already gotten into his pants, thank you very much, you big baby.” Says Sirius, placing a fleeting kiss on your lips as he heads towards James, fits all his magic, all his love into the way he settles James’ hair and by extension, his nerves in a way only he could.

You feel his lips on you even as you head outside. 

___

Peter is standing next to the altar, clutching a piece of paper in his hands and pacing ceaselessly.

“You alright there, Wormtail?” You ask as he whips around, relief taking over his face. It looks good on him, relief does.

“Oh god Remus. I’m freaking the fuck out. James said not to get fancy and I haven’t really. I’m just worried I’m gonna fuck it up, What if I fumble? What if I curse and his parents get up and leave?”

You laugh, “Peter, it’s okay. You’ve met the Potters. They love you. You love them. And they lived with James and Sirius. I’m sure they’ve seen and heard worse than cursing. I’ve read what you’ve written. You’re gonna get through it brilliantly.”

Peter smiles at you, through all his nerves and it is a bright smile. You let yourself marvel for a moment, at the bravery he exhibits every day. 

People start arriving and the flowers bloom with all the life they can muster. You think, you are blooming as well.

___

Peter cries through his short speech as he mentions the love he has for James and Lily and their love. James cries as well, though he doesn’t sob. Lily laughs and there are tears in her eyes.

You catch Dorcas trying to wipe her eyes and Sirius and Marlene offer the rings to James and Lily. 

The sky lights up with everything  that is joyful and immersed in love as James twirls Lily around to Dream a little dream of me. 

You watch as the sun slowly starts to set and a warm glow envelops everyone around you. 

As the music starts again, Fabian catches Alice’s hand and drags her to the floor as Gideon and Frank engage in a heated discussion regarding the fish they’re eating.

But you, you don’t find it in you to tear your eyes away from Sirius who leads a giddy, blushing Mrs. Potter through the dance floor with movements so graceful it feels like he is moving in water. 

You do not notice anything around you until Dorcas tugs at your arm.

“Wanna dance?” She questions. Her cheeks are flushed and she is radiating light in a way that would make the sun envious. 

“Yes.” You say because you can’t say no to her. You wouldn’t ever want to. 

You don’t quite know which song is playing, nor which band but the drum that beats makes the ground underneath your feet shake slightly in a way that, somehow, does not beckon disaster.

Dorcas puts her arms around your neck and guides yours to her waist. You both have a corsage tied around your left wrists. 

“It’s tradition,” She begins as you both start to sway, “to dance with and later, go home with the groomsman.”

“The best woman would kill me if I were to so much as insinuate to taking you home.”

She laughs, warm from her belly, light in the evening air and it rests on your skin as gentle as a blanket.

“And you think the best man wouldn’t eviscerate me? He already can’t stop staring over here. God Remus, we really know how to pick them, don’t we?”

“Oh, bullshit. You wouldn’t be caught dead with anyone other than her and you know it. You’re just as whipped.”

“Oh as if you aren’t. Don’t try to be all high and mighty and pretend that you’ve ever known what to do with the feelings you have for him. They slip out of you like you’re on fucking veritaserum.”

You think you laugh, you’re not quite sure over your blood pounding in your ears. Dorcas has always known where to strike — clean and sharp and softer than the best of predators. You love her so much sometimes you don’t think you can quite bear it.

___

During the last song, Sirius kisses you, warm and slow, and everything blurs to a halt except his lips and it is paradise, paradise, paradise and you know, in your bones, know it sure and true that it won’t fucking last. But maybe, just for today, that’s okay.

Before night sets in completely, Dorcas comes to stand by your side, wraps her arm around yours and just stands. 

“You alright?” You murmur, lowering your head to hers for a second.

“Remus,” she breathes and her hands shake for a whisper of a moment, “Merlin, Remus, I just feel so full. I just. Feel so much.”

You look around, at Lily’s head, resting on James’ shoulder, at Peter— smiling larger than life with his hand around Mary’s waist. Your eyes flit to Professor McGonagall who seems to be trying separately hard not to show how pleased she feels as she listens with enormous care to what Madam Pomfrey seems to be saying. You look around at the lights, at everyone who has loved you, who you have loved, at Sirius, who you have continued to love during times when you didn’t think you were capable of it, who you have let love you during times you didn’t think you deserve it and you say:

“Yes. Dorcas. I feel full as well.” 

____

As the night sets in almost fully, everyone you love most in the world begins to leave. James and Lily go first, faces bright with laughter and love. Peter heads home with Mary Mcdonald, flashing a large grin at you and Sirius. Marlene and Dorcas walk alongside you to where both, her and Sirius have kept their bikes.

Dorcas holds you tight before she does the same to Sirius and Sirius kisses the top of her head, with all the love of a brother he couldn’t give his own. Dorcas accepts it readily, wonderfully.

Marlene comes towards you, helmet in hand. She is almost as tall as Sirius, taller than you and looks just as intimidating as him. And she is just as soft inside, just as malleable, just as willing to love and to be loved. She hugs as if she is dying, holds on so tight it feels like it is the last time she is doing it. She smells like determination, like a battle on the verge and you love her. You love her with the strength of a soldier but none of the violence. 

Sirius grins at her, teeth sharp and luminous in the night. She holds him close and when she lets go, there is no need to say goodbye.

They drive away first. Sirius hands you a helmet.

“Are you gonna fly it? Because I think my food will come out if you do. If you’re alright with being covered in puke then do as you please.”

“You could kill me slowly, torturously and I’d still be alright and even more in love with than ever before, Remus Lupin.” 

You shake your head, call him a fool with a death wish and he just rolls his head back, rests it on your shoulder for a second, kisses your neck. You wrap your arms around his chest, and he begins.

He does fly it, and he does it so very wonderfully you do not think you would have vomited had you wanted to. He seems almost disappointed by that.

You drum your fingers on his chest, right where his heartbeat is and you hope your fingers play out every single thing you have been too afraid to say, on his heart.

The wind is cruel and unforgiving and you could stay here with Sirius for the rest of your life. 

___

Inside your flat, he pins you against the wall immediately and his kisses taste like the wind. 

After, he lights a cigarette, his right hand resting behind his head as he strokes your thigh with his other. You remain on his lap, the warmth of him, the smell of him, the feel of his hands on you, better than any high in the entire goddamn universe. 

You trace your birthdate that he has tattooed just above his ribcage, your hands splayed on his chest. Silken orange lights flood through the windows in the room and they accentuate the faint orange glow of his cigarette, falling on his face, making him appear as a ghost, as something sacred and untrue and more beautiful than anything in the world should have a right to be. 

His left hand travels everywhere before he rests it on your throat, not pressing, not squeezing as he sometimes does, just holding, just resting, just feeling.

“Merlin, you’re so alive.” He whispers, slow and quiet. If you knew him less, you’d think he was afraid of breaking this halo of silence that had seemed to envelop you like a cocoon. 

But you do know him, and you know that Sirius has never been afraid of words, despite or perhaps because of the consequences they sometimes have.

“I’m a lot of things, Sirius. Don’t really think ‘so alive’ is one of them.”

“Fuck you. You know you are. Among other things. You’re also a sight for the sorest of fucking eyes. Turn a mad man, sane and vice-versa.”

“You’re still as mad as the first day I met you.” You whisper, hands gently stroking his tattoos — the lilies wrapped around antlers, the tail of a rat immersing with the constellation Leo.

You know he has more tattoos — the phases of the moon spanning his back, Dorcas’ and Marlene’s patrnouses. 

He laughs, “I was sane till I met you.” 

“Don’t fucking lie to me.” You say through your own laughter, as you rest your hands on his face and kiss him. Kissing him always feels like coming alive. 

“Remus,” he says and sounds hesitant like he wasn’t just inside you an hour ago, like he hasn’t ripped himself apart in order to love you, like you haven’t let him touch you everywhere, like he hasn’t gotten under your skin and made a home for himself ages and ages ago, like he doesn’t already know all of this.

“What is it.”

“Would you,” he murmurs, discards his cigarette and places both of his hands on your waist, “would you, marry me, if things were different, circumstances were better, if you and I were the only things that mattered, if we weren’t gonna die in the next 2 years. Would you, then?”

For a moment, two, you don’t say anything. You look outside the window, at the world passing by, indifferent to you both. You look at him, razor-sharp, every inch of him and yet something gentle, tender, where it matters.

“Don’t do that,” you manage to say, through the lump in your throat that seems like the ending and beginning of possibility, “don’t tempt me, Sirius. We’re always a second away from lighting a proverbial fire to this t hing that we have here. You can’t just-”

“This thing that we here?” Sirius interrupts, his hands tightening on your waist as if you might just floor away during the breadth of this conversation, as if you could ever, ever float away from him, “I always thought that this thing that we here was the best fucking thing that ever happened to either of us.”

“Shut up.” You say and you kiss him, “it is. It is. Of course it is. Sirius, you know that. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be here, you wouldn’t fucking be here.”

You close your eyes and let yourself be honest, for a second yes yes yes. You say, yes, Sirius, of course I would, if things were different, if we weren’t as fucking volatile as we are, if if if. Because how could you ever say anything but yes, how could you ever say no to Sirius when the only time you feel alive are when his hands are on your body, when even at his fucking worst the only thing you want is him, when you know that he is the only person in this universe and every else who would ever love you like this. Because no one can love like Sirius Black does: like a lightning strike, like the first wave of magic that leaves you on your knees, breathless, breathless, but so so so unapologetically alive. So you say yes, yes, yes, in every single universe but this, yes. 

_____

1980.

It starts like this: 

“You don’t! You don’t tell me anything!” Sirius yells, yells in a way he never does, not at you. 

And you, you have always frozen in the face of loud noises, left your body and gone somewhere where there is only the bliss of nothing.

But, even age old coping mechanisms don’t work when Sirius is there. And in the face of yelling, in the face of truths that he is throwing on you, all you can do is push, push, push. You will push him until he leaves, until he admits that he doesn’t love you, never did. 

So, you poke and you prod and you say, “So you believe I’m the spy, then?”

Sirius knows how to school his emotions in such a way that his face resembles only what he wants it to, has had it beaten into him for years and years but right now, he looks simply, purely devastated.

“Fucking hell, Remus. Even if you were the fucking spy, I wouldn’t believe it. What the fuck is it going to take for you to realise that I could never believe the worst of you?”

There is something to be said about the utter silence of your flat, of London around you because your heart is beating so loudly in your goddamn ears, you think, you might have collapsed had there been any other sound. 

“Maybe you should.” You say, though the iron etched in your throat, through the trembling of your hands, “maybe you should believe the worst of me. People aren’t black and white.” 

“Yes, well, maybe I’m a fool.” 

“So maybe loving me was a mistake.” 

Sirius looks at you then. Right at you, as if seeing the very fabric that tethers your existence together with his storm-cloud eyes, as if he could make you bleed out everything that aches, aches and aches and leave you here to die in the bulk of it all and you would let him. 

“You know what.” he begins and his voice is soft, soft, soft like the satin Lily wore at her wedding, “I — I can’t. I can’t do this right now. I’m going to go out for a bit. I still do love you. Right now, I still love you. And I will continue to do so but I can’t do this right now. I will come back if you let me. Okay?”

You nod your head, feel the ice in your veins melt a little, feel the roaring in your ears simmer down to something harsher but lower. 

He closes the door behind you and you let yourself collapse in the aftermath of the explosion on the sofa. There is no rubble as evidence. Just you. Just the shaking of your hands. You’re not quite sure if that’s enough. 

___

The middle goes like this:

Lily arrives, with Dorcas and Peter in tow. She has a box of chocolates and you laugh a bit when you see it. She smiles softly and the world starts to glue itself together a bit at the edges of your vision. 

“I thought you’d be with Sirius.” You say to Peter, who has immediately headed for the kitchen, making a cup of tea.

“I hadn’t seen him in a while so I dragged him along. He didn’t seem to mind.” Dorcas grins, sharp teeth glinting in the dim lighting of the flat. She has a knack for making every place she steps foot in, her own. 

Peter grins at you across the room from the kitchen, but his eyes are tired and he looks thinner. His hands are cupped around the mug of tea.

Lily rubs her belly and sits down at the table across from you. 

“How’re you doing?” You question.

“Good, mostly. My back’s a bit sore but James has been absolutely wonderful.”

“She was having a craving for chocolates. That’s why we got them. It’s not out of the goodness of her heart.” Dorcas interjects, mouth turning into a grin as she clasps your shoulder, once, before sitting down next to you. 

“And here I thought you were on my side.” Says Lily, raising an eyebrow. 

“I’m on the side of what is right. Always.”

“A true Ravenclaw, aren't you.”

“Through and through.” Dorcas grins, crosses her heart. Her smile is infectious.

Peter brings tea and biscuits to the table and sits on your other side.

“You wanna talk about it?” He asks, softly and your heart swells with all the love you have for him, for Lily, for Dorcas. 

You shake your head and that’s all it takes for the three of them to start talking about anything and everything under the sun. You listen, listen and listen until your head feels stilled and your hands are steady. 

When night begins to set outside, there is a knock at the door. All of you have wands out in an instant. 

“Moony! It’s me! Please don’t kill me!” Lily huffs out a laugh, fond and melodious and you find yourself smiling as you open the door only to be faced with an armful of James. 

He is giddy and wonderful and pure light in ways you can never fathom. 

He hangs his coat behind the door and immediately kisses Lily. 

“Why didn’t you take the floo mate?” Peter asks. 

“I wanted to try the Muggle way. It’s more fun.” 

Dorcas laughs and goes to kiss his cheek, wraps an arm around his waist, “I thought you were with Marlene and Sirius?”

James accepts a biscuit from Peter and says, “I was but then they wanted to ride their bikes and I couldn’t go along because ‘I don’t know how to ride a bike’ and ‘I don’t have one’ and I didn’t want to be a passenger. Terrible excuses, really. Sirius could have taught me or bought me one but no, he’s a terrible friend. Anyway, I said, that there are other people who love and appreciate me, so here I am!” He spreads his arms and takes a bow and it has been years and years and it still sometimes catches you unawares, how alike him and Sirius are.

“Oh and also,” he continues, looking right at you, “He’s being a bit of a baby. He’ll come around. Don’t worry.”

Your heart thunders in your chest, “He told you?”

James shakes his head, “No. But he was sulking. Don’t worry, though. He can never stay away from you for long.” 

You swallow once, twice, hide the tumble of feelings that beg to spill out at James’ words. Sirius has proven it over and over, that he can’t stay away for long. It makes something like hope rise in the pit of your heart. Not that you’d know much about hope. 

___

It ends like this: 

You go two days without seeing Sirius. He comes back at night. You are in the kitchen, and the television is playing something you’re not aware of. You do not hear the door open. You would chastise yourself later for not paying attention in those times.

But you feel the heat of Sirius behind you, feel his arms encompass your waist and something loosens in your chest. You let the knife and the potato slip from your hands and rest them on the counter. 

“You should be more worried about who comes into the flat. I could be an impostor.” 

“I would know.” You breathe and your body feels as if it’s melting. Sirius’ arms tighten around you. 

He kisses your neck and you breathe, breathe, breathe and it feels as if you haven’t breathed properly in days. 

“I’m sorry,” He mumbles around the shell of your ear. You turn in his arms, rest your hands on his chest, over his heart. His heartbeat is the best thing in the fucking universe and you feel it under your palms you feel invincible. 

“Wasn’t your fault.” You whisper and bury your face in his neck. He smells like hope you didn’t know you could have, like something fresh and alive, only for you. 

“Take me to bed, Sirius, please?” 

He kisses you and does as you asked. 

___

In that time when the night is ending and dawn is beginning, in that time when everything is still and he’s holding you and you can pretend that this is all there is.

“You really can’t tell me?” He asks.

“Sirius I,” You begin and you can’t. You can’t tell him because on most days you’re not quite sure what it is that Dumbledore wishes to gain from having you fraternise with the werewolves. Objectively, you’re aware of his reasons. But sometimes, when you’re there, there is an itch under the surface of your skin and it doesn’t go away no matter how hard you scratch your wrists and you — you go away. You go to that place in your head you’ve been going to since you were a child and all of it was too much and you were never taught how to deal with it. 

You can’t tell him that when you have nightmares about Fenrir’s eyes and hands and teeth, they are closer to reality than ever. You can’t tell him because secrets are something you are good at. That is why Albus asked this of you and if the guilt eats away at you, slowly, slowly, slowly, you let it. Because there are times when Sirius holds you like this and the world is still and you can pretend that this is all there is.

“I will not hurt James, Lily and the baby.” You promise, instead.

Sirius buries his face in your hair, kisses it, then whispers, “I know. That’s not what I'm worried about. I just don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

When the tears come, during the stillness of it all, you do not stop them.

____

1st November, 1981.

The first few hours in your mind are non-existent. There is the pain that is constant that drives to your knees every time you close your eyes and see his fucking face — 

They told you that he laughed, they told you that he laughed like a madman when they took him with them. 

You think, when you got to know, you screamed. You remember Professor McGonagall holding you, bringing you not to your flat but your old house in Wales. 

If you were a stronger man, a better man, you would reserve space in your heart to grieve for every one of your friends who is dead. But the only thing that having Sirius taken from you does is glaze over the pain of losing James, Lily, Marlene and Dorcas.

And Peter. He is as good as lost.

If you were a better man, you would forgive him. If you were a weaker man, you would harbour no anger. 

You are somewhere in between. 

___

There is something to be said about a sky that does not belong to a city.  

The stars always seem clearer.

There is no time to grieve, however. The sun has barely set when you hear the fireplace roar to life and Professor McGonagagall stands in front of you. She looks every bit fierce and every bit tired as you would have expected her to.

“Albus has had Hagrid take Harry to the Dursleys’.” She states, her professionalism a veneer that helps you quell the pain. There is work to do.

“Lily would not have wanted that. They won’t treat him well.” 

“I am aware.”

“Did you talk to him?” 

“Albus is stubborn.”

Helplessness tastes a bit like ash in your mouth. 

“Harry wouldn’t want to stay with me.”

“You love him, do you not? Are you not his godfather as well?”

You close your eyes, will away the pain, the tears, Sirius’ smiling face as he held Harry for the first time, his promise to always always always protect him, you lean against the door of the house, steady yourself. You know you cannot leave him there. You know you don’t care that it is what Dumbledore asked. You’ve done your bit for him, you think. You’ve done your bit for him when you left Sirius for days without telling him, when you left him for days and stepped into your worst nightmares just because you owed Dumbledore for giving you a place in Hogwarts in spite of your condition. You’ve done your bit for him. 

“I might be dangerous to him.” 

“You couldn’t be a danger to Harry if you wanted to, Remus.” She says, gently and for a moment you wish you could ask her to hold you. To hold you and tell you that this is not real, that Sirius will be back the next morning and he will shine brighter than his namesake and he will kiss you and he will never leave because death couldn’t take me away from you, Remus. But you don’t.

“On the days of the full moon, I will take care of him.” She continues, as she walks towards you. She rests her hand on your shoulder and you take as much comfort from it as you can.

“I don’t know what to do,” You admit and it is as close to admitting that you are so afraid, that you are so alone and while you’ve been preparing to be alone since you were a child, Sirius somehow made a home for himself under your skin and you can’t scrub him way even though he’s not here anymore and you can’t do this alone. 

“I’m going to keep an eye on him for a day or two.” She states, “pull yourself together, my dear. And then we’ll take the next steps. If push comes to shove, I will use force against the Dursleys.” 

You look at the lines on her face, they’re new. Her ferocity still shines as it did the first day you met her, when she told you that Hogwarts was safe for you, that it was your home and you believed her. You believe her now, as well. 

She leaves after a few minutes and you collapse at the door.

___

Even if McGonagall would have said that the Dursleys’ weren’t treating Harry like vermin, you still would have gotten him back.

It wasn’t particularly difficult, considering their joy at not having to raise him. 

And you — you love him more than you wish to die and you know he is suffering just as you are. 

Harry is light in ways you think you had forgotten. You don’t know the first thing about raising a child but you had watched Lily and James and you had held Harry the day he was born and you had loved him since before the moment you held him and you tell him that. 

You kiss his head every day and you tell him you love him and you wonder why it's so easy to tell him that.

Professor McGonaggal visits, along with Madam Pomfrey and they tell you not to worry about Dumbledore, tell you that you and Harry are safe, for now.

Hagrid visits as well. He makes you and Harry laugh and he brings toys and he is gentle and his eyes hold pain when he brings back Sirius’ motorcycle.

That day, you stay up after Harry has slept. You bring the box that contains the letters he sent you during school. 

Moony my dearest,

The art of letter writing is quite something, isn’t it? 

However, I don’t quite have much to say. Boredom can drive even someone like me to silence. But I suppose, silence has its own rewards in this house. 

This house seems haunted to me, or maybe that’s just Mother. Anyhow, one day, I might bring you here. You like things with history. 

I dreamt about you, a few days ago. I don’t quite remember my dreams but it felt blue, but not the blue that beckons sadness, the sea blue. And when I woke up, I swear to you, I could smell salt. 

There is a Hindi song, Remus, that goes a bit like this:

lag jaa gale, ke phir ye hasin raat ho na ho

shayad phir iss janam mein mulakat ho na ho

It means: embrace me because this night may never happen again 

Perhaps, we might not meet again in this life.

That’s as close as I can describe it. It is a bit melancholy but then again, so are you. It was in my head when I woke up, Moony. Along with your face and blue and salt. 

I’m not quite sure I can do this for a very long time, Remus. There is an ache that doesn’t go away. I know you feel the same, sometimes. It isn't fair to you. You don’t deserve it. 

But I could take it if it was just the skin that hurt, you know? if it was just my body, but this is something else, Moony. It spreads all over, inside, and I don’t quite know what to do. Suffice it to say that I will never say this out loud. It sounds weird in my head as it is. But I assumed you might have an idea what I’m talking about. 

I am immensely glad you exist. 

Yours,

Sirius. 

You think, this was a few months before he ran away to the Potters’. You remember it, how he was during that time, almost an apparition but never quite. 

You close your eyes and breathe a bit, but the tears still fall. The parchment grows wet in your hands and terror, like something malicious fills you when you realise that his handwriting might wither away.

So you fold the letter, and you put it back in the box and you close the box and you cry, for a bit silently, like you do everything else, because you can only take so much. 

___

The next time you see Professor McGonagall, there is something burning inside you, rising, rising, rising, not anger, you don’t think. You can’t afford to get angry, but some sort of twisted grief that wedges it’s blade between your ribs and refuses to let go.

You say, “He didn’t do it.” 

Harry is asleep in her arms and her expression of fondness turns into something more pained when she looks at you. You feel an odd bitterness at the edges of your fingers, like the first time your magic showed itself. 

“I didn’t think he would.” 

“It was Peter. You must know that.” 

“I had my doubts, Remus.”

“So what, we’re just supposed to sit here and do nothing?” 

“Albus does not want us to do anything. He still has his doubts.” 

“Bullshit, Professor.” You say and your voice does not waver and you do not apologise. 

“You could try to visit him.”

“I sent in the request form. They won’t let me see him. They denied it.” 

She closes her eyes and looks more defeated than you have seen her. It’s not a good look on her, it pricks somewhere deep in your heart and you feel the familiarity of fear, of dread.

“Speak to Albus, if you wish to. I’ll look after Harry.”

They leave soon after. That night you show Harry every single picture you can find of Sirius holding him, of Sirius with James and Lily. You tell him all you can, about Sirius and Harry looks on in wonderment, he laughs and babbles and says paafoot, paafoot, paafoot, before he goes to sleep.

You hold him, you hold in your arms even when they hurt because the hurt is better than the numbness, the hurt is better than the fear that has been your only companion since you were a child. 

On days like this, it is easy to think about Sirius, not that there is a single moment when he isn’t settled inside your skin. But you have to survive, you have to function, and to do that, you have to put Sirius somewhere in the back of your mind so that you don’t fall to your damn knees with the sheer longing, with the sheer ache of not having him with you. 

But on these days, when everything converges with each other just on the edges of your eyes, when the trees outside your house look the same as the sky and the floor doesn’t seem like the floor, when the pains of the last moon still throb just slightly within your bones, on these days, you think about Sirius.

You look at his pictures, you trace your fingers over the words he has written to you, so many of them and something seems to burst inside your lungs, some sort of pain that doesn’t quite have words and it itches, itches, itches, threatens to break out of your skin so you scratch, scratch, scratch, in hopes that if you get Sirius out from under your skin, maybe then he’d be free, maybe then he’d be here but it doesn’t happen.

In the disquiet that seems to settle around you, you cry. You cry with all you have left because there is nothing else you can do. 

You try to imagine Sirius in Azkaban, try to imagine what it would be like for him but the image that wades into your mind is not one that you like.

Azkaban breaks the best of men and Sirius never prided himself on being the most stable.

It seems, almost irrationally, like a betrayal, not by Sirius or even Peter. It seems and tastes like betrayal by something as fucking vague as destiny and you have to laugh a bit at that because you were never quite optimistic enough, never quite happy enough to believe in destiny or fate despite how much you may have wanted to.

But even so, you spent the first few years of your life desperate for any scrap of affection tossed to you, trying to earn it by being quiet, by making yourself smaller, as if you were lesser, less monster, less werewolf, less you, then maybe your father would touch you without violence in his hands. 

And then, when this was all you knew, when hurt was all you knew, you met Sirius Black. He was an avalanche, a cyclone, iron strength protecting unspeakable softness underneath. He touched you without fear, with patience in his damaged hands and he kissed you as if that was his reason to live and you— you matched your broken bone to his, your bloodied scars to his ever-present bruises and it worked. 

It worked a bit like machinery left unused too long — it shouldn’t have worked but it did and there were times when joy like nothing you have ever known filled you to the brim. 

And then, he was taken away from you. 

And you have always had a shit memory, your brain waxes and wanes the details of times that have burned into your lungs but never quite reach the surface. It is a small mercy, you suppose, that you can’t quite remember what it was like when you were bitten and the things your father said, did. All you have for proof of their existence is a worn-out body and a mind that only knows pain and you think, that is enough. 

But, you remember every single thing Sirius has ever said to you, done to you. You remember the feel of his hands, his mouth so very clearly that if you close your eyes you can feel it all. 

It is only fitting, then, you suppose, that he was taken away from you, because you are not made for good things. 

That night, sleep does not come easily, and when it does, you dream of Sirius. 

Small mercies, you suppose. 

___

Hagrid is kind. He takes Harry to Diagon Alley while you go to talk to Professor Dumbledore. You’re not quite sure if it’ll help, but you won’t be able to live with yourself if you don’t. 

___

Hogwarts looks the same as it did the first time you saw it. It stands tall but never imposing. It’s comforting in a way pictures of your mother are comforting, before she died. 

Professor Dumbledore meets you on the grounds and takes you back to his office. You haven’t been here in a very long time. But there is a feeling at the back of your throat that it looks the same as it always does. 

“To what do I owe this pleasure, my dear boy?” He asks, saccharine sweet voice, something you trusted with all the heart of an 11 year old boy the first time you came to Hogwarts, and you carried that trust, that gratitude till your last year at Hogwarts. It dissipated, like smoke once you left Hogwarts. Sometimes you wonder if it was a spell, or just your desperate need to have faith in someone.

“I want to talk about Sirius.” You answer and your throat hurts at the name, as if keeping the name inside will prevent anything worse happening. 

“I am not quite sure if there is much to talk about regarding Sirius.” 

You think of Peter, you think of how wary and distant he got during the immediate months before the war, think of the way he avoided seeing all of you, think of the circles under his eyes and the expensive fabric of his suit that you had never seen before, think of the shimmering new jewellery on his person, think of the way he didn’t quite want to hold Harry, during those last months, and remember the moment it clicked in your mind, the moment when they got Sirius and put him somewhere he did not belong and you say, “He didn’t do it,” your voice wavers just a bit. Later, you will forgive yourself for it. 

“My dear, there has been plenty of evidence— ” 

“You know he didn’t do it!” You exclaim, your fists clenching at your sides and your voice rises just a little and wavers a bit more and later, later, later, you will forgive yourself for it, for this crack in the armour you had perfected.

“Remus,” He starts, gently, “I am aware of how much that boy means to you and of your affections towards him but I simply cannot deny the evidence—”

You do not let him continue, “He would never have hurt them. He didn’t do it. You know that as well as I do. We both know who it actually was. You were suspicious as well, Professor, don’t deny it, you can’t deny it.”

“Remus,” He says, voice pitched low but still condescendingly gentle, as if taming a wild animal, “there is nothing I can do.”

“With all due respect sir, that’s bullshit.” 

“Bitterness doesn’t quite suit you, my boy.” 

You laugh a bit, hysterical and manic, feeling the resentment boil upwards in your lungs, “No, that was Sirius and Gellert’s forte wasn’t it? Not us, the ever kind, the ever optimists. But, sir, kindness comes from somewhere. My source was Sirius and you took my source away.” You didn’t want to say it, did not want to hurt where it strikes the most but you had seen the way Dumbledore’s face would near something like pain any time someone had mentioned Gellert Grindlewald, you had seen it when you were young and it stuck with you. 

If he is surprised by the mention of Gellert Grindlewald, he does not show it. His eyes remain passive and his mouth is still set in a neutral line but his hands twitch, slightly, from where they’re resting on his desk. 

“I did not intervene when you took Harry, Remus. Do not ask the impossible from me.” 

“When I took him? You left him to rot! You left him to rot and you let the one person who was entrusted to take care of him go to fucking prison. I am merely asking you to right your wrong.” 

He raises an eyebrow, it is a gesture of gentle chastisement, one you have received countless times, one that always made you bow your head in shame, but now, all it does is provide a kindling to a sort of rage you never quite let yourself feel.

“Sirius does not deserve this, sir. I have done my bit for you. I have never asked for anything. This is what I am owed. ”

He sets his lips in a thin line and you wonder what he must’ve heard in your voice because he closes his eyes and for a moment, you see him just as he is: a tired, grieving, old man. 

And if your body hadn’t been so fucking drained since the past years, you might have mustered some sympathy for him. 

“I’ll see what I can do.” He says, finally, “I take it that this will not go forgotten in the future, Remus. Shall I rely on your help, do you assure that it will be given to me?” 

There is something, in the way he says it, something that makes goosebumps rise on your arm, something that makes that awful, dark grey, looming dread curl up in the back of your throat, dread that reminds you of yellow eyes, hands that sharpened their claws on your skin. But. You think of Sirius, think of his hair, soft and consuming like midnight between your fingers, think of his voice in the mornings, his weight on top of you, the way he kissed you as if taking his first breath after being locked in a fucking coffin and so you say:

“Yes. Whatever you need.” 

He nods his head, once and lets his lips curl up into a smile. Had you known lesser than you do now, you would have called it anything but what it was: looming in the worst possible way. 

You take your leave and if your hands shake a little, you let them. Later, you will forgive yourself for it. 

______

April, 1984.

In the morning, your limbs ache heavily. Your wounds are not open and you think, were you in a better way, you would feel gratitude for Madam Pomfrey.

But, you just feel hollowed out, an apple with only it's skin.

If you were a better man, you would have closed your eyes and thought of Sirius and Harry. But you aren't. You are weak and you cannot stop feeling alone despite knowing that professor McGonagall is waiting downstairs with Harry and Madam Pomfrey. 

You breathe, in and out, settle your nerves which singing with pain pain pain. 

___

"Moomy!" He yells, and your head is pounding like hammers but it stops for a blessed second when you lift him up and kiss his head.

"It's moony, dearest and do let him sit down." Professor McGonagall says, eyes assessing you like you are 16 again, in her office after having been caught pranking Snape. 

You force yourself to look away and make your way to the table.

Madam Pomfrey brings over a plate of food and fusses over you a little as professor McGonagall tries to coax Harry into eating.

"He hasn't eaten?" You ask.

"He wanted to wait for his moomy." Madam pomfrey says, tone fond and sweet as molasses as she gazes upon professor McGonagall and Harry.

You think, she might be very in love. If there was anything still left inside you, you might have cried.

"Okay, Harry. Moomy is here. Let's eat our breakfast so we have enough energy to play later."

Harry grins, his entire face lighting up brighter than any lights you have ever seen. 

"Will we play, really moomy! You'll play with me?" 

"Of course, Harry. But you've to finish your food first."

"Auntie Pom said you need to sleep all the time because you got the heebie-jeebies."

Professor McGonagall raises an eyebrow at Madam Pomfrey, “Really, Poppy?"

You manage a laugh as you run your hands through Harry's hair, trying in vain to tame them. He beams at you, eyes wide and innocent and so very luminescent.

He reminds you so much of James you have to look away for a bit and swallow, swallow, swallow till the lump in your throat resembles a stone at the bottom of the largest ocean.

"I'm fine enough to play with you, love. But only and only after you finish your food, okay?"

Harry nods and begins eating. 

You try but there is still a lump in your throat and it keeps getting bigger like the ache in your limbs that spreads to your lungs, makes it impossible to breathe especially now. You are drowning, drowning, drowning, constantly but you are still alive.

You wonder when that stopped being a good thing.

You don't have to wonder. You know. 

When Sirius left, he took everything with him. You would have given all of it if he asked, but he just took and he took and he doesn't let you see him anymore, and you can't bring yourself to argue because he looks like a shell of something he once was: hollowed out and empty with scrapes on the wall, as if he tried to escape it only to get trapped further. You can't take it. So you don't see him.

"Remus?" Says professor McGonagall, concern seeping into the edges of her voice. It is so very subtle but you hear it. 

"I'm alright, professor. This time was slightly easier than the last." You smile. She doesn't buy it. She's a smart woman. You say that it was easier every single moon that she's been here. She stopped believing it after the second time.

"Do you need more Calming Draught, dear?" Madam Pomfrey asks, voice gentle and hands even gentler as they rest on your shoulders. 

"I'm alright, Madam Pomfrey. Thank you."

Harry sets his eyes upon you. They are more seeing than they have any right to be and you feel exposed.

"Does it hurt moomy? Is it because I don't call you uncle moony?"

Whatever is left of your heart shatters again, spilling guts and blood all over the floor of your body, like a fresh battlefield, like scorched earth.

You run your hand through his hair again before kissing the top of it. He smells like fresh grass, like new beginnings. 

"No, darling. You can call me whatever you'd like. It doesn't hurt anymore, Harry. It's alright."

His smile is, and has always been, worth the entire world and more. It is the reason you are still somehow alive. 

Madam Pomfrey makes a wounded sound, something close to tears but not quite. She still smiles at you both though. As she always does.

"Poppy, we should get going." Professor McGonagall states as she gets up. She nods at you.

Madam Pomfrey kisses Harry's cheek and then the top of your head. 

"Do floo if you need anything at all, alright dears?" She says, her voice is warm warm warm.

Harry nods happily, grinning as he finishes his food. He wraps his arms tight around Madam Pomfrey's waist, she laughs and it reminds you of Lily. They're dead but they're not gone. They will never be gone but there is a hole in your heart that just keeps expanding. 

"Floo us if you need anything, Remus. I mean it." Professor McGonagall says and it sounds like a threat. There are a lot of things that survive the treachery of time. Professor McGonagall is one of them. 

You oblige. Harry doesn't stay long enough to say goodbye, too distracted by the replica of the broom James had that Hagrid had brought for him on his 3rd birthday.

Harry takes it outside. He lifts up from the ground, a few inches, and flails with glee, yelling at you to watch him.

You laugh, more than you have in the last 4 years. 

"Why aren't you flying moomy!" His voice is so full of the purest of joy that you forget for a moment how everything is.

"I don't really know how to fly, love. Besides, I don't have a broom."

"Oh," Harry stops at that, his broom suspended in mid air, looking as if all his world has ended. You hate being the cause of that look. On his face, on Sirius'. 

"Oh Harry. Don't worry, darling. I'm a little afraid of flying as well. And I love to watch you fly. You're as good as your father, you know that?"

His face lights up again and you thank whatever may be listening for making children so unbelievably hopeful.

"Am I as good as pafoot as well?"

So many reminders. Sirius always finds a way to stick around, make a home even in places that do not belong to him, his absence is as painful as his presence used to be: a constant reminder that he survived but he is paying the price with blood and bone and all you can do is watch.

But Harry is looking at you with admiration and hope in your eyes so you say, "yes, Harry. As good as padfoot. If not better."

Sirius would have said the same. 

_____

February, 1987.

It is a dreary day. The snow from last night is still there, unmoving and unflinching. Harry seems to enjoy it. He makes snow angels in the snow and he laughs brightly when you call him inside and brush the snow off of his clothes and make him sit by the fire. 

You give him some apple pie that he loves and warm chocolate milk. His eyes are brighter than anything you have ever seen and it is at times like this that you can pretend that there is nothing more to the two of you than what is visible: that there was no war, no grief, no destruction. Just the two of you. 

And then he says, “Did mum, papa and dadfoot like snow?” 

You can’t quite pin down when he went from pafoot to dadfoot but you don’t stop him. It’s endearing once the hurt transforms into something softer, like a wound acquired ages ago. 

You smile, “Yes, darling. They did love the snow. We used to play, you know? Snowball fights in Hogwarts.”

“Can we do that now? Please moomy, please!”

You laugh a bit and ruffle his hair.”Not today, Harry. It’s going to get dark soon. We can do it tomorrow, okay?”

Harry looks sullen but nods. 

“Can I watch the television?” 

“Of course.” 

He grins and as always, it makes something inside you soften. You would kill for that, you think, you would destroy the earth and everything it holds if it meant that Harry would always smile like that — bright and un-containable. 

When the knock sounds at the door, you do not think much of it. You suppose it would be Hagrid or Professor McGonagall and Madame Pomfrey. They have always liked spontaneous visits. And they are the only ones who know that you are here.

So, when you open the door, you do not expect the breath in your lungs to leave your body, you do not expect the world to collapse in on itself and leave only him standing at your door, looking for the universe as if he had been to hell and back and he has. You know he has. 

The quiet disbelief fills you until you cannot stand and his arms are out before you know it and they don’t let you fall, they have never let you fall.

“Moony,” He says and his voice is stones thumping on a road, like a pile of bricks, falling, falling, falling, it is gravel-rough and unused and you did not think you would ever hear it again. 

His arms are around you in a second and you bury your face in his neck. You think, you might have wept, but all you remember is the feeling of his arms around you like a safety net, his voice murmuring I’m here, it’s alright, never leaving you again, I’m here, I love you, I’m so sorry, meri jaan, Remus, 

“Moomy?” 

For the first time in your life, all the propriety you have held gets away from you and all you can do is rest your cheek on Sirius’ shoulder and turn around to look at Harry. 

“Your dadfoot is here, love.” 

____

Harry does not leave his side. And Sirius soaks it up like a man starved, which, you suppose he is. 

You cannot stop looking at him. You think, inadvertently, you are checking to see if they broke him. 

But he picks Harry up the way he did the first time he saw him, Harry laughs delightedly at everything Sirius says and when Sirius tucks him into bed and kisses his forehead, Harry falls asleep with a smile on his face.

____

You keep hovering, you do not touch him but you keep looking at him, so unbelievably afraid that this is not real, that he will vanish the second you let yourself believe. 

Sirius leans against the door of Harry’s bedroom and you turn around to look at him, leaning against the kitchen counter.

“I’m sorry.” He says and your hands shake.

“I didn’t do it. Remus.”

“I know.” You swallow. You fiddle with the mug of tea you’re holding. In some far away part of your brain, you wonder if offering it to him would be something you have not yet earned. 

He looks, strangely, fitting and out of place in your dusty old house. But, you suppose, that is something Sirius has excelled at since you were children. He managed to make space for himself everywhere he went while standing out. 

He looks around and you wonder, again, if they broke him. And then Dorcas’ words flit through your mind, people can’t break, Remus, she’d said, young and hopeful in the face of a war. You had believed her then but you’re not quite so sure now. 

You look down at your hands again, shaking, and you wonder what Dorcas would think had she been here, right now. You wonder what all of them would think and it makes something break inside your chest, makes wounds you had left untouched come alive again.

It must show on your face because Sirius walks forward towards you, cautious in a way you had only seen him when he talked about his parents, stilted and unsure. It had shattered you then and it shatters you, now, years later. 

“Can I touch you?” He asks.

“Yes.”

He is tentative. When he comes close, you can see the gauntness of his face. His hair looks flat and dead and your heart aches, aches, aches. There are faint scars on his knuckles and palms that are new to you. He brushes his fingers, gently, across your cheekbones.

You will cry, you think. You will weep because his hands still feel the same as they did so many years ago, because they still make every single nerve in your ghost-story of a body sing loud and off-key. 

You don’t need to ask him to kiss you. As always, he knows. 

And as always, when he kisses you, the world comes alive. 

___

Outside your house, there is a garden in which Harry plays and at night, it smells like peace and hope. You think, both of you need that. 

He holds you and you rest your head on his chest, desperate to hear his heartbeat. 

He keeps kissing you everywhere he can find. 

“How is this going to work?” You murmur.

Sirius laughs and it is brittle but it is still him, “I don’t know, meri jaan.”

“I couldn’t visit. I’m sorry.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted you to.”

“Will you ever tell me what it was like?”

His arms tighten around you then, and you turn your face and kiss his neck, let your lips rest on his pulse and keep holding on to his hand, afraid he would float away. 

“No, Remus. I don’t think I will.” 

“Harry asks about you, a lot. And I tell him whatever I can.”

“I won’t let you lift a fucking finger now that I’m here, you know that, don’t you, Moony? I’m not going to let you be alone, ever fucking again.” 

Not for the first time in your life, you wonder how in the fucking universe, did Sirius not lose the conviction, the belief, the stubbornness after everything he had been put through, after every thing he had lost. But he didn't, so you just kiss him again, feel his delighted, surprised, laughter in your mouth and think, they didn’t break him.

“ You had something to do with this,” Sirius murmurs as he trails his lips on your neck, soft and comforting and it makes your breath rattle in your lungs.

“With what?”

“Me, getting out early.”

“Perhaps.” 

“If you put yourself in danger for my sake, Remus, I swear —“

“I didn’t.” You say, as fiercely as you can, “I wouldn’t do that, Sirius. Not to Harry.”

“What did you do?”

“It really doesn’t matter.” You whisper, not willing to bring Dumbledore into this space you’ve created, this space where Sirius is back and he is alive and his lips still taste like the wind. 

“Would you still,” he starts, unwavering and unsure and they didn’t leave him unscathed , you think, bitter as gourds, they didn’t leave him fucking unscathed.

“ Would you still want to marry me?”

You laugh, it’s hard not to. The war is over and it has been almost a decade but you’re still ripping out its shards from your skin and what are you supposed to say when it’s the only thing you’ve let yourself wish for?

“Don’t tempt me.” You whisper and feel him smile into the skin of your neck. 

“You keep me alive.” He says and you kiss him again.  

There is no universe in existence where you know Sirius Black and don’t love him. But, you think, there might be universes where you don’t know Sirius but still love him because he is a part of you in a way you, yourself aren’t. You don't think you believe in destiny but whatever else could be so cruel, to make you know Sirius Black and love him, then take him away from you, only to bring him back, more rougher around the edges than he’d ever been, as close to broken as a man could get. 

“I cannot lose you again.” You say and let your voice shake on its hinges, let your heart beat its way out of your chest, all for Sirius to take.

“You won’t. I promise.” 

You believe him. 

___

He wins Harry’s heart. He joins you on the full moon and you wake up with less scars and his hand on top of yours. 

But he talks less and sometimes you catch him staring at something and he flinches when you say his name. It is minuscule but you notice. You can never not notice him. 

He wakes up in the middle of the night sometimes. He drinks, bottles of fire-whisky and other alcohol strewn across your bedroom, sometimes. 

You fight, because he is nails on a chalkboard and you are years of fear and hope bottled up. 

But he still kisses you and when you cry because they didn’t leave him unscathed, because the pain doesn’t fucking go away, not really, he holds you and he calls you meri jaan, and he tells you that he loves you and the pain eases, just a little. 

He starts talking, then. He talks to Harry about everything and nothing, he flies with him, he takes him out with Hagrid to go to a zoo. He gushes over Professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey when they visit and he does not stop kissing you.

There is pain, there is always pain, but there is healing. You walk the thorn-etched road to healing together with bare-feet and heart full of hope that you are not afraid to feel, anymore. 

Because, the thing is, for as long as you can remember you have wanted to die. You think you are healing when you wake up and the thought of dying makes you feel afraid in a way it never used to, because dying means that you will not get to wake up next to Sirius anymore, you will not get to kiss him and touch him and let him touch you and that is just tragic. 

He can’t fix you and you can’t fix him. You know that. But he picks up the bottles  from the floor of your room, when he wakes up at midnight, he makes a cup of tea and then holds you. You can’t fix him and he can’t fix you but there is beauty in the way he stays and watches you fix yourself while you do the same. There is beauty in the way he does not let you fall. 

There is beauty in him and you think, with the way he looks at you, there might be beauty in you too. 

___

The sun is bright against the blue of the sky and Harry’s laughter is the most beautiful thing you’ve ever heard. 

He is on the broom and Sirius is opposite him. There’s a snitch flying in the air and when Harry catches it, you cheer and Sirius hangs his head in mock resignation. 

Harry continues to fly as Sirius comes to stand next to you. He rests his hand on your waist and pulls you closer. His fingers dig into your waist, not urgent, not now, but firm, unhesitant as if there’s no other place they’d rather be, like they belong there. 

“We still have to talk about that book, you know,” Sirius says, his voice right in your ear, and you lean closer to him, always closer.

“You remember?” You breathe. 

“Giovanni’s Room.” He grins, and his eyes soften, “the sun looks divine on you, Moony.”

You look at him and let yourself marvel at the way he loves you — loud and open and so unafraid. 

“I love you.” You reply because what else could you say?

He kisses the top of your head, “I remember everything with you, Remus. No one can take that away from me.” 

“The sun is out. We have time now.” 

“We do.” Sirius says. It is a promise. You believe him. 

Harry laughs again, delighted and Sirius gets on his own broom to play with him. There is something akin to happiness setting into your skin and you give yourself to it. The world blends in a water-colour painting at the edges of your vision and each stroke of paint seems like happiness. 

Sirius’ face is alight with joy and when he looks at you, it feels like a promise. You believe him.

Sirius looks at you, his eyes focused and bright and real, real, real and it burns through you like it did the first time he rested those storm-cloud eyes on you. His eyes rest on yours and the world comes alive, alive, alive.