Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/445370.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: Underage
Category: F/M, M/M
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin, Lily Evans/James Potter
Character: Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, Lily Evans, James Potter, Walburga
Black, Regulus Black, Kreacher (Harry Potter), Severus Snape,
Lucius Malfoy
Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Child Abuse, Childhood,
Hurt/Comfort, Fantasy
Series: Part 2 of The Door Through the World
Stats: Published: 2012-06-27 Completed: 2012-09-07 Chapters: 35/35
Words: 95915

The Door Through the World

by Amuly

Summary

Growing up under the stern hand of Walburga Black was nothing less than torture for
young Sirius. Until one day, he found a small, forgotten door, hidden in a store room. It
was through this door that Sirius discovered a whole other world, and a whole other life.
 Chapter 1

The house that Sirius Black grew up in was big, and cold, and dark. It was full and whispered
secrets and sneering voices and uninterested gazes that slipped right over Sirius and onto the next
guest or account ledger. The only time the focus turned on Sirius was if he did something wrong:
spoke out of turn, or broke an important family heirloom, or dirtied up some part of the house after
coming inside. Those times weren't good. Sirius did his best never to be the focus of attention in
his house, but sometimes he couldn't help it. Sometimes he just shouted too loud or raced around a
corner too fast or forgot to wipe his shoes before coming inside. Those were bad times.

Today, Walburga Black was shouting. Sirius knew exactly why: he had run in the house and
straight into Mr. Malfoy. That was a bad thing to do. Mr. Malfoy was a Very Important Friend,
and Sirius knew he was always to be “respectful” to him. “Respectful” meant that Sirius was
supposed to never, ever talk to him except to greet him with a “Sir”, and a “Thank you,” when
Mr. Malfoy said the meanest of things to him. Today, Sirius hadn't done any of those things.
Instead, he had stolen a new toy from his little brother, Regulus (a really wicked toy motor that
Sirius himself had been begging for for ages ), and raced through the house as Regulus chased
him down. That was when he had veered around a corner without looking, gaze instead cast
behind him as he laughed at Regulus' inability to catch up. The next thing he knew, he was
slamming into something pointy, solid, and indignant.

Now Sirius was racing through the house for an entirely different reason. Walburga was looking
for him, to twist his ear and haul him in for punishment from their servant, Kreacher; or even
worse: from Walburga herself, with her paddle or cane . Walburga's punishments were the worst
– once they even sent Sirius to hospital with a fractured arm – but Kreacher's certainly weren't a
day at the toy store. So Sirius was looking for a place to hide himself, for a place where he
wouldn't be noticed for hours and hours, maybe even days. Hopefully long enough for Walburga's
rage to subside.

Throwing an arm out, Sirius swung himself around a corner and started up the servants' stairs up
to the fourth floor. It was a tiny, cramped passage: one his mother never deigned useable for the
likes of herself. Sirius only hoped he could avoid Kreacher on his way up. Then maybe he'd be
safe.

The stairwell let out on the far end of the fourth floor, down near some rarely-used storage rooms.
Sirius ducked into the third one – ducking into the first was a baby mistake, one Sirius had learned
years ago not to make – and shut the door with as quiet and quick a click as he could manage. He
hurried further into the room, trying not to disturb the dust that covered everything. It wouldn't do
any good for Walburga to catch sight of his trail if she happened to open the door (or, more likely,
send Kreacher up to open the door for her).

Scurrying his way further back, Sirius squeezed his skinny, seven-(almost eight, less than a
month) year-old frame between boxes and unfinished portraits, stacks of newspapers and
furniture. He climbed under a gigantic armchair, protected by the dusty white sheet covering it.
Sirius sneezed, just once, as his nose sifted through all the little dusty tumbleweeds beneath the
chair, sending them all flying in every direction. Pushing aside the sheet, Sirius poked his head out
from under the chair and looked around.

To his surprise, he found himself in a small alcove of the room he had never been in before – and
he spent a disproportionate amount of his time hiding in dusty old rooms. But this place was...
new. He must never have noticed it before because of how far back it was, how hidden the little
alcove was. Crawling out from under the chair and standing upright, Sirius glanced behind him.
He couldn't even see the front of the room: the boxes were stacked too high, and the furniture in
careful, interlocking piles well above his head. It was a good hiding place. Sirius grinned as he
wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Turning around, Sirius once more inspected the space that he had spotted from under the chair. It
was a small little niche in the corner of the room, just big enough for him to walk two or three
small steps into. Against one of the two walls that came together to form the triangular space was a
door. A great, big, ornate door: one that took up almost the entire wall it rested again. Sirius
cocked his head, curious. There shouldn't be a door there. What could it lead to? The loft? But that
was a whole two more floors above him.

Sirius shivered in anticipation, grinning wider. This was a secret door. This might even be
something his mother or father didn't know about. Maybe it was filled with old treasure, for past
generations of Black's. Or maybe – and it was this thought that had Sirius scrambling forward to
test the handle – maybe it was a place where other little boys, just like him, had hidden over the
years. Maybe he'd find old journals or photos or trinkets, from generations of little Blacks who had
found themselves before this door before, on the run from their parents just as Sirius was now.

The handle was an ornate metal one, with filigree all over its dulled, but obviously once bright,
length. Biting his lip, Sirius tried it. The handle moved smoothly down, the tumblers sliding past
each other with no resistance. Sirius took a breath, then pushed the door open. He didn't look back
as he stepped inside.
 Chapter 2
Chapter Summary

Sirius explores this new world a little more, and discovers the strangest thing yet.

The sun shone brightly down on Sirius, causing him to lift a hand to shield his eyes. He squinted,
blinking rapidly as his eyes adjusted to the light. As he waited with one arm thrown over his eyes
to see what was around him, Sirius took a deep breath. The first thing he noticed was some
strange in the air. It took him a moment to place it. It was... odd. Fresh, and lighter, but more
different than just that. Salty?

A flood of memories rushed back as Sirius recalled a holiday on the seaside with his family over
two years ago. Orion had been visiting some client or work associate or something, and Walburga
had insisted him and Regulus come along and play with the man's daughter. The little girl had
cried when Sirius asked if he could use her paints. Sirius hadn't spoken to her again the entire trip.
As a result, he spent most of the “holiday” sitting on the front porch of the beach house, watching
other children run on the sand, screeching as the surf lapped at their bare toes, their white skin
growing red as the day wore on. Sirius hadn't gotten to go out in the sun. Or on the sand, much
less the ocean. But he could remember the smell of it. And that's what he was smelling now. The
ocean.

Lowering his arm from his face, Sirius blinked a few times as he squinted around him. Wherever
this place was, it was old. Really old. There were piles of rubble in front of him, apparently fallen
from the buildings and walls he could see in various states of decay. But Sirius wasn't interested in
some old, deserted buildings. He was interested in the sea . And now that he knew what was out
there, he could hear it: waves gently breaking on the sand. Somewhere... to his right.

Sirius set off, picking his way carefully through the piles of rubble the same way he had the boxes
and abandoned furniture in the storage room. Within just a couple minutes he realized he could
spot the sea in glimpses through some pillars and trees that were in front of him. Hurrying over a
roughly circular clearing on the ground, Sirius pushed his way through some cypress trees that
were between a pair of pillars and then: he was there. It was there. The sea.

It was definitely the sea, too. The air was salty, and the water went on and on forever, until it
climbed up to reach the downward-slopping sky at the very end of Sirius' vision. Sirius gaped at
the vast expanse of water, watching little bits of white appear on the crests of waves before it
foamed and collapsed onto the shore, like a weary swimmer throwing himself prostrate on the
sand.

With hardly a second's thought Sirius shucked off his shoes and socks, tucking the latter carefully
into the former. He didn't need to receive a beating from mother just because he tracked some sand
into the house. Then he rolled up his trousers equally as carefully, tucking them all the way above
his knees so there wasn't the slightest chance of them getting wet. Within a minute of discovering
this secret sea, Sirius was wading out to his ankles in it, wriggling his toes into the sand and
delighting in all the new sensations.

The water was warm – warmer than Sirius could ever imagine the Channel or any other British
sea being. He didn't question it, though, just like he didn't question a sea being on the opposite
side of a door in his house, or anything else about this place. Sirius was never one to look good
fortune in the face, because of how easily he knew it could slip away. Best to just enjoy it while it
was still here.

Experimentally Sirius wriggled his toes in the wet sand, staring down at them through the sea
foam and receding tide. It was squishy, yet solid. He wasn't sinking into it very far when he stood
still, but the slightest bit of movement from his toes seemed to turn the immediate surrounding
sand to liquid, making little quicksand pits around his toes. The moment he stopped, however, and
stood still, the wet sand solidified again. Bending oh-so-carefully down, so as not to ruin his
clothes, Sirius poked a finger into the sand. It gave easily when the water was rushing over it, but
as soon as it was dry it went solid again. Sirius gaped. No one had ever told him anything about
sand, except that it was messy. This was like nothing he ever imagined.

Sirius grinned viciously. What if... Sirius bent down and hurriedly started piling sand on top of
sand, creating a little mound before the waves slid back up the beach. He stepped back again, to
watch as the waves crawled their way back up the sand to his little obstacle. When the waves
retreated, his little creation had vanished into almost nothingness. Sirius cocked his head, then
turned back and looked at the beach. If he was going to build anything it'd have to be further up,
then. Up where the waves couldn't steal it away.

As Sirius looked back up the beach and contemplated his sandcastle-building prospects, his eyes
drifted around to take in the rest of the scenery. He had been so focused on getting to the sea
before that he hadn't stopped to really look around. But now that he did...

There were ruins all around him. Great marble buildings, that obviously once stood with a quiet,
ostentatious grandeur all along the beach and inland from there. To his right was a building almost
completely intact: its walls were only crumbling a bit, the spaces where doors and windows once
were carved out still almost perfectly square and straight. It might have been a villa – a beach villa,
and at that Sirius laughed. He had never thought about it, but he supposed those ancient empire-
builders must have loved a vacation at the beach just as much as the modern ones did. Beach-front
property. Very wealthy, indeed.

Just in front of Sirius was a flat space that he had thought was empty at first, but upon further
inspection he realized it once was something. A... a fire pit, maybe? It was a big, empty circle,
with tiled marble stones all around it. And pillars: half-completed pillars, full pillars, and then just
spaces where the stone used to be, all around the circle. Maybe it used to be a fountain, or a
reflecting pool? Or a very, very small ice rink.

Curious, Sirius retrieved his shoes and socks from the edge of the beach and found himself a large
piece of stone to set himself down on as he pulled them back on. That done, he turned around and
made his way to the empty spot in front of him, peering at it. The soil inside was packed hard, but
there was some sand on top. And... something distending the sand caught Sirius' eye. He bent
down and wiped at it. It was just another piece of rubble. Out of instinct more than anything else,
Sirius plucked it from the otherwise empty circle and tossed it up and down in one hand. It
obviously wasn't supposed to be there, so Sirius would just take it with him.

Peering around some more at this curious place, Sirius saw a crumbling wall in front of him. It
was across a path of some sort. As Sirius got closer he amended his assessment. Not a path: it used
to be some sort of road. Though the grass was sprouting up between stones and nature gradually
taking back its claim to the land, there were still enough traces of the human touch to make it
obvious that this was once a main street. There were cobblestones all around, and just in front of
Sirius two large stones, high up above the main road. Automatically Sirius leapt to one, then the
other, then to the other side of the street. It only occurred to him once he was across that he might
have done the exact right thing: it was a zebra crossing. A really old zebra crossing! Sirius beamed
at the big stones, fingers running over the rock in his hand. Impulsively he spun around and tossed
the rock as hard as he could over the wall in front of him. He was just about to turn around and
see where the old road might take him when the sound of the rock clattering to the ground reached
him, followed almost instantly by a loud “Ow!”

Shocked, Sirius spun around, eyes casting wildly around for the source of the noise. It wasn't
Kreacher, or his father, and certainly not his mother. It sounded a bit like Regulus, but older. More
Sirius' age.

But there was no one. The ruins around Sirius remained still and quiet. As Sirius stood, thinking,
the sounds of rubble shifting caught his attention. He turned. It was coming from the other side of
the wall. Of course! That was where he had tossed the rock!

Looking up, Sirius could see a hole in the wall a head or two above him. There was rubble all
along the bottom of the wall, presumably from the wall itself, making for an easily footstool. Sirius
wasted no time in climbing it, scrambling unsteadily up the precariously balanced fragments of
rocks and mortar.

Sirius' fingers scratched and burned as he clutched first at the rubble at his feet, then at the
crumbling wall. It was more out-doorsy stuff than he was used to. Walburga never let him play
outside. She said she didn't want him to get “fisherman's hands”. Sirius wasn't exactly sure what
climbing a tree had to do with fishing, and how that would lead to those “fisherman hands”, but he
wasn't allowed to do these things nonetheless.

But now, Sirius was in this special place. And somehow he knew that Walburga wouldn't find out
about it, or about anything he did in the special place. Everything else in his life Walburga's
disturbingly acute gaze would fall upon, but not this place.

Finally reaching the hole in the wall, Sirius grabbed on and hauled himself high enough to peer
through. He was standing on his tip-toes, fingers wrapped tight around the crumbling bits of wall
around the hole. “Hel-”

Sirius stopped. There was another boy there! His sandy locks appeared first, then the rest of his
head as he seemed to be hauling himself up in the same way Sirius had. If he didn't look so
different, Sirius might have thought for a moment that there was a mirror on the other side of the
hole. At least, he knew the expression on his face matched the expression on the other boy's:
shocked, and surprised, and very, very curious.

The other boy spoke first, after Sirius' aborted greeting. “Hello.” He pulled himself a little higher,
peering at Sirius curiously. “Who are you?”

Sirius frowned. Who was he? “Who're you?” Sirius shot back. “'nd what're you doing in my
place?”

“Didn't know it was yours,” the other boy remarked. “Just found it today. In my dad's shop.”

Sirius cocked his head as he examined the other boy's honest expression. “I did, too. Not in your
dad's shop. In my house. Did you go through a big, fancy door, too?”

The other boy shifted a little, fingers scrambling at the stone. Little pieces fell to the ground where
he disturbed them. Sirius' own fingers were getting tired, and his legs straining from standing on
his toes for so long. “Not a big fancy door. Just a normal door in the back room. Never seen it
'fore.”

Sirius nodded. “Me, neither. For my door.” Frowning down at the pile of rubble he was standing
on, Sirius came to a decision. “Hang on. I'll come over to you.”

With that, Sirius threw himself off the rubble and to the marble street below him. He landed only a
little awkwardly, stumbling but catching himself in time to save himself from falling over on his
own face. He could hear little noises of stones over stones on the other side of the wall. That other
boy must be climbing down as well.

The wall wasn't that long. It was, at some ancient time: Sirius could tell by the way the stones in
the ground kept going for a ways. But it had crumbled to the point that it was short enough to
throw a leg over within a dozen feet or so. Sirius fell over himself a bit climbing to the other side,
but once he was there he dusted himself off and looked up.

The other boy was standing a few feet away from him, below his hole in the wall. He might have
been the same height as Sirius – maybe a little shorter. Sirius' first thought was that they'd have to
stand back-to-back and measure. Or maybe, if they couldn't decide since there was no one else
around, measure each other against one of the walls with a piece of stone or shell or something
and compare lines.

The next thing Sirius noticed about the boy was his clothes. They looked like the delivery people's
clothes, except not a uniform. Sirius frowned and thought, trying to figure out what his brain
meant. They were like... not fancy, like his. They weren't layered, either. The other boy was just
wearing a pair of trousers and t-shirt. And trainers . Sirius stared wistfully at the trainers.
Walburga had never let him have a pair.

Suddenly self-conscious, Sirius tugged at his waistcoat and button-down shirt. He must look
funny to this other boy.

In his nervousness, years of etiquette training took over and caused Sirius to stick out his hand.
“My name's Sirius Black. It's a pleasure to make your a-quant-ship.”

The other boy stared at the hand, assessing it carefully. Then he took a step forward and reached
out to shake Sirius' hand. “'s Remus. Remus Lupin.”

Sirius grinned at the other boy's shy smile. He had freckles all across his nose. Sirius liked that.
“Do you know where we are?”

The other boy – Remus , Sirius reminded himself, playing with the name in his mind – shook his
head. “No. I was trying to hide, and found the door. Then I was here.”

Sirius took a jarring step forward. “Me too! Trying to hide, 'mean. From my mum. And
Kreacher.” A sick sensation of dread welled up in Sirius as he thought about the reprisal he was
going to receive as soon as he went back. He glanced behind Remus. There was a bench and
another portion of the crumbling wall there, but Sirius knew that on the other side was where he
had come in. And where he'd have to go back, soon enough.

Remus peered at Sirius, turning around to follow his gaze, then back to Sirius. “Is your door over
there?”

Sirius shrugged. “Yeah. Guess. But I-” he stopped, thinking. He had a few minutes more before
he was really missed. He could stay. Just for a little bit longer. Decidedly he pushed the sick
feeling down, deep down, all the way to his shoes. He didn't have to think about that yet. “Who're
you hiding from?”

Remus' face as blank for a moment, very still. Then he shrugged, canting sideways a little. “Shop
noise. The cousins. Mum. Dad. Customers.” Remus' eyes slid to the side of Sirius, just for a
second. Like he was looking for his door, the same as Sirius had just done.

Sirius gaped. Everyone ?! “Were they all gonna hurt you?” he whispered.

“No! Not... not Mum. Not Dad.” Remus shook his head, his sandy blonde fringe flopping in his
eyes. With a huff he pushed it away. Sirius liked that, too. This Remus was funny. “They're all
just loud. And there's always customers around, in Mum and Dad's shop. Just wanted peace and
quiet.”

That was weird. Sirius couldn't imagine living like that. In his house, it was always peace and
quiet. Too much. And he was always the one getting in trouble for “disturbing” it. It was like
Remus came from opposite-land. For all Sirius knew, he really did. Remus certainly looked
opposite of Sirius: light-haired and a little tan, quiet and shy, with his plain clothes and trainers .

The scared feeling seized Sirius' stomach again, tightening like Walburga's sharp-nailed grip. It
had somehow managed to escape from his shoes. “I probably gotta go...” he murmured, eyes on
the rubble beneath his feet. Then an idea seized him, like sunlight at dawn slicing between the
townhouses and into his bedroom window: all soft-colored and warm. “Hey!” He grabbed at
Remus' wrist, holding it tight. For just a moment Remus flinched, whole body tensing. But then
his eyes widened – not scared, just surprised – and Remus left Sirius hand on his wrist, staring
back as he waited. “D'you wanna meet here again? Tomorrow?”

Remus' eyes stayed wide, but he quickly nodded his assent. “Sure. I can come after lunch,
probably.”

Sirius' grip tightened around Remus' wrist. “Okay. After lunch. Maybe we could play
hide'n'seek?”

Remus' smile was bigger this time, but still reserved, held back. Sirius found it so curious to
watch: a smile that flickered at the edges, not because Remus was pretending, but because he was
keeping it from getting bigger. Sirius could tell the difference; he'd spent his whole life watching
Walburga and Orion and all the relatives do the fake-flickery smiles. Remus' was just the opposite
of that. “Yeah,” Remus agreed, quietly. “But I get to hide first.”

“Wicked.” Sirius beamed. “I like to seek.”

An odd sensation filtered up from Sirius' hand to his brain. He looked down. Remus was curling
his fingers loosely around Sirius' hand, where he could twist them and reach, caught as his wrist
was in Sirius' grip. They fluttered gently against Sirius' hand before both boys let go. Sirius stared
down at his hand, then back up at Remus. “Tomorrow,” Remus repeated. “After lunch. Right?”

“Yes,” Sirius replied, almost too-fiercely. “Yes. Tomorrow. After lunch. We'll play hide and
seek.”

Reluctantly Sirius turned away and set about scrambling over the low section of wall again.
Perched on top, one leg thrown over and one dangling behind him, Sirius looked at that boy,
Remus , one last time. He was squinting up at Sirius, freckles scrunched up in his nose and hair
blowing in the slight breeze. “Tomorrow,” Sirius repeated. “Promise!”

“I promise!” Remus called after him.

With that reassurance, Sirius threw himself the rest of the way over the wall and hurried off back
to his door, and his house. And Walburga.
 Chapter 3
Chapter Summary

The boys get to know each other through the time-honored tradition of tag.

Sirius' feet swung inches above the ground as he waited on the bench. The stone was cold and
rough against his palms, and gravel skittered beneath the soles of his loafers with every pass. His
stomach was churning, nervous and doubtful and maybe even a little scared as he waited.

They hadn't set a time or anything, Remus and him. It was just “after lunch”. In Sirius' house that
meant one thirty, on the nose. Now it was just gone two and no Remus. Sirius tried to rationalize
it, to think of any reason Remus wouldn't show; any reason besides that Remus broke his promise.
Maybe “after lunch” didn't mean the same time for Remus. Maybe his family ate lunch really
early, like eleven thirty, and he had already come, waited, and left. Or maybe he was eating lunch
right this moment, and wouldn't show for another hour or two (or maybe, just maybe, he didn't
want to show up again. Maybe he didn't like Sirius and didn't want anything to do with him,
because Sirius was too loud or too messy or broke everything around him even when he tried
very, very hard not to).

“Sirius?”

Sirius' head jerked up from where it had come to rest: bent low, angled at the ground. Remus was
standing in front of him, toeing awkwardly at the marble stones beneath his feet in a pair of worn-
out boots that looked a size too big at the bottom of his legs. He was wearing tattered old
corduroys that were patched up at the knees and sewn up messily at the hem – so they could be let
out later as he grew, Sirius presumed. He had trousers fitted like that of his own. But the stitches
on his were done by the family tailor, and looked just like Orion's expensive trousers. One of
Remus' trouser legs was even hanging down in the back, where the stitch had dropped.

Jumping to his feet, Sirius started forward across the chipped and spotty marble ground. Then he
stopped, hesitated, and started forward again. He stopped again. Remus' head turned to the side as
he watched Sirius do his little dance of uncertainty. Without any airs to put on or propriety
expected of him, Sirius didn't know how to interact with the other boy. It had seemed easier
yesterday, once they had got started talking. Maybe it would be easier again if Sirius could just
figure out how to get past all the awkward introductions.

“It's a pleasure to meet you. Again.” Sirius fumbled a hand out to Remus, taking a step forward so
they were close enough to touch.

When Remus smiled, his nose scrunched up again, squishing his freckles into his face. Sirius
noticed for the first time that Remus had missing teeth, his mouth lousy with gaps. His front teeth
were coming in: two big things, reminiscent of that rabbit Sirius had read about when he was
smaller. Abruptly he felt more at ease. He and Remus weren't all that different. Sirius ran his
tongue over the holes in his own mouth. They both lost teeth, just like every other kid out there.

“Hullo, Sirius.” Remus replied, sticking his hand out and shaking Sirius'. Both boys pulled their
hands back to themselves quickly: Sirius bringing his in to tug at his waistcoat, Remus pulling
ratty, orange sleeves over his fingers and shoving the whole mess into his trouser pockets.
Sirius glanced over Remus' shoulder, then around, then up at the sky. It was nice out. Sunny and
bright. Not like the weather at home, where it was grey and cold (as always, it seemed). Sirius
wondered about it, just as he had last night when he was lying in bed, replaying the day's events in
his head. Wondered, but didn't question. The weather was just how it was, just like the rest of this
place: it existed, it didn't make sense, and Sirius did his best not too think too hard about it. This
place, the weather, Remus... Sirius was treating it all like the little clear squiggles he would see in
his eyes on occasion: not thinking too hard about it, not looking directly at it. If he did, this place,
Remus , might disappear. Just like the little squiggly lines.

“Hide and seek?” Sirius put forth. Remus nodded, amber eyes bright. “I call 'it' first,” Sirius
reminded Remus of their agreement yesterday. Then he winced. He always got yelled at when he
insisted on stuff at home.

But Remus was smiling, still. He did that a lot. Sirius liked that. “Yeah. Whatch'ya count to?”

Sirius didn't know there was an option. He didn't even know if there was a normal amount to
count to. “Thirty?” he offered.

Remus' eyes grew careful, calculating, as he turned slowly around without moving his feet. He
looked and looked around him, peering at the great big world they had. “Fifty?” was Remus'
counter-offer after a minute.

Sirius shrugged and nodded. “Okay.” He turned, caught sight of the bench he'd been sitting on
earlier, and pointed at it. “Bench is base.”

“'kay,” Remus agreed. Then he stared at Sirius, expectant. Abruptly Sirius realized what he was
waiting for.

With one last glance at Remus and his funny freckles and dusty clothes, Sirius turned around to
the wall next to the bench. The stone was cool and rough beneath his hands as he pressed them to
it, eyes squeezed shut. He could cheat – he always did when he and Regulus played – and look or
listen hard to Remus, but he didn't want to. So Sirius kept his eyes tightly shut and counted loud,
loud enough to drown out whatever soft noises Remus might make that would give away his
location. “Fifty! Forty-nine! Forty-eight! Forty-seven!”

**

Sirius skidded to a stop, stones his running had disturbed rolling along for several seconds after he
had gone still. His heart was racing in his chest, lungs heaving empty and full as he tried to shush
his body and listen . Everything was quiet where he was. The sound of the ocean was faint, calm
and dulled as it was blocked by several rows of crumbling buildings and neglected horticulture.
But Remus was out there. Somewhere. Sirius had almost caught him, just a minute ago.

The lighter-haired boy had been originally hiding in one of the mostly-intact buildings on the
seashore. Sirius had spotted one booted-foot peeking out from the inner corner of some sort of
shallow hole in the middle of the house (or rather, the building Sirius thought of as a house, since
it had rooms that reminded him of bedrooms and kitchens and sitting rooms in their size and
layout). Sirius had jumped in, headless of his own safety, and tried to tag the other boy out. But
Remus had been too fast for him, jumping up and pulling himself out of the little rectangular hole
(was it a bathtub? Sirius giggled at the thought) and dashing off, out of the house. By the time
Sirius had followed him out into the sunlight, there was no sign of Remus.

First thing Sirius had run to check was the bench. But it was empty. Then Remus had probably
dashed off the opposite direction: toward the side of the world he came from, and the woods.
Sirius was standing in front of the woods now. They were dark. And deep. And dense. He
couldn't see more than a row of trees inside it: the undergrowth was so thick, and the trees grown
so close together. Words from a poem flittered through his head as he tried to peer into it, tried to
sort of Remus had hidden in there or not. ...silent, dark, and deep... miles to go before I sleep.
Woods were dark and deep. Miles to go before you sleep . Would Remus have gone into there?
They hadn't said the woods were out of bounds, or the ocean, for that matter. But Sirius had kind
of figured they were.

Suddenly there was the whisper of rubber soles against marble behind him. Sirius spun around,
already knowing he was too late. Sure enough, Remus was throwing himself onto the bench,
grinning over at Sirius triumphantly.

Sirius hurried over to him, frowning. “Were you hiding in the woods?”

Remus shook his head.

Sirius' eyes narrowed. He might have been. Sirius couldn't know if this other boy was a cheater or
not. Regulus was, whenever they played. He was always hiding in Walburga's room or Orion's
study: places that Sirius refused to go for any reason, but that Regulus was more comfortable with.
More welcome in. It was why Sirius cheated with keeping his eyes open and listening close with
Regulus.

“ Were you?”

Remus shook his head, then stopped. Peering up at Sirius from the bench, he seemed to consider
something for a long moment, eyes darting over Sirius' face as he looked and looked. Finally, he
stuck out his hand to Sirius. “Promise.”

Automatically Sirius shook Remus' hand, and he nodded. Right. Remus hadn't been cheating,
then. After all, Remus had promised like that yesterday, that he would come back after lunch
today, and he had. So Remus wasn't a cheater, or a liar. He kept his promises.

“Okay. My turn!”

As Remus went to turn around on the bench and close his eyes, Sirius started forward and tugged
at his thin sleeve. Remus topped turning and looked up at him, big eyes blinking once as he
waited. “Woods and sea out-of-bounds, yeah?” Sirius instructed. Remus nodded. “And our
houses! No going out!” Again, Remus nodded.

Sirius smiled, bigger than he ever did at home. Remus smiled back. Then Sirius released Remus'
sleeve and started off, backing up as he continued to shout out instructions: “Okay. Fifty! And
count loud, so I can hear! And no peeking! Okay! Go!”

Remus' voice was clear, but not really all that loud, as he started counting. “Fifty. Forty-nine.
Forty-eight.”

Hurrying onto the main road, Sirius glanced around. Directly behind him was his house: no go.
To his right was the blank circle he had seen on his first day. That was no good: it didn't have
anywhere to hide. Then the ocean, past that. So he had to go toward Remus' side of the world, if
he was going to hide anywhere.

The first building on his right was the house that Remus had been hiding in first of all. Briefly
Sirius considered hiding in the exact same spot as some sort of super-smart double-trick thing , but
he decided against it. Mostly on account of he wanted to look around some more, to find some
new places.
There was a building with great big arch entryways in it just across from the bench and the wall
where Remus was still counting - “Thirty-nine. Thirty-eight. Thirty-seven.” – but that was too
close. So Sirius hurried down the road, taking care to step as much as he could either on the
patches of grass that had recaptured the land, or the solid, complete stones. He didn't want any
crumbling, shifting pavers to give him away.

“Thirty-two. Thirty-one. Thirty.”

Sirius hurried down the strip of land that once was a street, glancing frantically around. A row of
half-broken columns and rectangular spaces with overgrown flowers on his left: no. On his right,
an area paved with great big marble slabs, completely cleared and open: no. Then, on his left, just
passed the... maybe a garden, in an age ago?... it was another house! “Twenty. Nineteen.
Eighteen.” Glancing quickly ahead of him, Sirius only had a moment to register that there was
another wall with a door in it in front of him – different from his but oh-so-similar. Then he was
darting into the house and scrambling around for a hiding spot.

Glancing around, Sirius realized why Remus had chosen the hole in the middle of the house he
picked. All the little rooms around the house were traps: one way in, one way out. If Remus found
him, Sirius wouldn't be able to dart past him without getting tagged out. But Sirius didn't want to
copy Remus, even if it was a different house. So then, maybe... Sirius frowned deeply as he
looked around. So. Then.

Ah! An opening caught Sirius' eye, toward the back of the house. Some of the walls were
crumbling away there, but there was a big open space, kind of like a garden, maybe. There were
those pillars all set up in it, kind of like the thing that looked like a garden that Sirius had seen
outside. Climbing over a wall, Sirius positioned himself behind it, back to the entrance of the
house. In front of him was plenty of open space to run from Remus: both from the crumbling outer
wall of the house and from the fact that the garden itself seemed to be originally designed to open
up the back of the house to the outside.

Sirius settled in, crouching on the balls of his feet, to listen for Remus. His fitted trousers didn't
exactly make for the best crouching clothes, but he was okay. There was a cool breeze filtering
through the cracked and broken walls of the old building, and the sun coming through the open
roof was bright and warm. The sound of the ocean waves breaking on the shore was faint, but still
audible in the quiet of the world. Sirius couldn't hear Remus anymore, but he didn't know if it was
because Remus was done counting, or if he was just far enough away that Sirius couldn't hear him
anymore.

It wasn't too terribly long later that a new sound came to Sirius' attention, faint at first but most
definitely there . It was the skittering of stones and the very, very soft susurrus of feet over marble.
Turning around without coming up from his crouch, Sirius peered through a crack in the wall he
was sequestered behind. He had a clear view of the entrance to the house from his position. Sure
enough, a second later Remus stepped inside, looking around carefully. Sirius noticed that he had
slipped his shoes off at some point. Tricky. This Remus was really, really smart. Obviously.

Remus was stepping closer by the second. He was methodically peering into each room –
stepping inside, turning around, then stepping back out – and thusly making his way over to
where Sirius was hid. He'd have to make a run for it soon, or Remus would be too close.

The next time Remus stepped into a room, Sirius threw himself up from his crouch and darted
through the space between walls and pressed himself against the outside of the house. He waited
for a second, heart pounding, as he listened. He couldn't hear Remus, which was probably good: it
meant the other boy hadn't started racing after him. As quickly as he could while being careful not
to make a sound, Sirius hurried around the side of the building, back in the direction of the bench.
Years of hiding from Walburga and Kreacher, of staying quiet and out from underfoot at all the
“dinner parties” his parents insisted he attend, had made Sirius very good at this.

As he reached the main road, Sirius got ready to run. It was almost a straight shot from there to the
bench, with just a few piles of rocks and debris in his way. But those were easily avoidable. He
just had to get past the house he had been hiding in, then he could-

“Tag.”

Sirius blinked, stopped. Blinked. He turned to his right, staring in disbelief at the other boy who
was standing there with a small, proud smile quirking at his lips. “Tag,” Remus repeated.

Sirius stomped at the ground, shocked. “How'd you do that?!”

Remus shrugged, hand dropping from Sirius' arm where he had tagged him out to fiddle with his
too-long sleeves. “Dunno. Heard'ya.”

Sirius glared down at Remus' feet. “Should've done that,” he observed. “Taken my shoes off.
That's smart.”

Remus' lips quirked higher at the compliment. “'s how I always do it, when I'm seeking. Don't
you?”

Sirius pictured a dozen instances when he had tried playing hide-and-seek with Regulus, and how
Walburga or Kreacher had always stepped in with vicious fingernails or evil grins and put a stop
to it barely into the game's infancy. He shook his head. “I'll do it now, though. I'm copying.”

Remus seemed to accept this as the compliment Sirius meant it as, because he nodded and started
back with Sirius to base.

As they walked, Sirius peered over at Remus from beneath his mess of silken black hair. He
grinned at how serious the boy looked, then jammed his shoulder in Remus'. The other boy
looked startled, but then smiled when he seemed to realize Sirius meant the gesture affectionately.
“I'm going to catch you, this time,” Sirius threatened.

And then Remus said something absolutely brilliant . “Haven't yet.”

Sirius' laugh echoed off the old, broken walls and bounced all around the boys as they made their
way back to the bench.

**

The water in the pool was cool as it flowed gently over Sirius' sore feet. Visible through the slight
distortion of the water were Remus' feet, just next to his. Their shoulders bumped and hands
brushed as they shifted and squirmed around on the edge of the pool, feet kicking lazily at the
water.

“I always win when I play against Regulus.”

Remus turned toward Sirius without taking his feet out of the water. Their feet brushed under the
cool, faintly blue liquid with the movement. “Your friend? From-” he stopped, and Sirius didn't
rush to offer up a name to where he was from. Remus was nice, and fun. But Sirius knew he'd
never be allowed back home, in his house filled with proper clothes and serious faces. Remus'
clothes were more low-class than Kreacher's, even.

“My little brother,” Sirius explained instead. “I always find him, and he never finds me.”
Remus shifted away from Sirius, who abruptly and acutely felt the loss. “Sorry.”

“No!” Sirius slammed his shoulder into Remus, grinning as a shy smile flickered into existence
beneath a fringe of blonde hair. “'s fine. Just weird.”

Gingerly, like he was uncertain of how to proceed with the gesture, Remus nudged his shoulder
into Sirius'. “'cause you were hiding from someone littl'r.”

Grimacing, Sirius thought back to all the times he had ran and hid from Walburga or Kreacher,
and how sometimes, once in a lucky while, he managed to succeed. “'ve hid from Kreacher.”

“Kreacher?” Remus' freckles scrunched up into his face as he wondered at the name. “Who's
that?”

“Our servant.”

“Oh.”

Abruptly Sirius remembered that not everyone had servants, did they? He hesitated, wondering
what to say to explain things, to make sure Remus didn't hate him. Because it was obvious from
the way Remus dressed and talked that he wasn't from a family like Sirius'. And Walburga was
always saying stuff, wasn't she, about how the poor people wanted their money, and were all
covetous and greedy and jealous of them, and that's why there was never anyone else around
besides the other wealthy Families, because everyone else was just trying to get their money.

But that wasn't Remus. Sirius liked Remus; he know Remus didn't want him for his money. But
he might get upset that Sirius' family had loads and loads.

“Why'd you hide from a servant?”

Sirius blinked. Remus had spoken before he had figured out what to say to diffuse the situation.

When Sirius glanced over to his right, he saw that Remus was peering at him, genuinely curious
and confused. “Aren't servants 'posed to, you know: do what you tell them?”

Sirius pouted. “Kreacher does what my mum tells him.” And that's usually to punish me . But
Sirius didn't want to talk about that. He didn't want to talk about any of that stupid home stuff with
Remus. The other boy was obviously there for Sirius to play with, for Sirius to forget about his
stupid house and all the stupid, mean people inside. Out here, it was always summer and never
winter without Christmas. This place was for him and Remus to play in, Sirius knew. So they
should do that.

“D'you know how to swim?”

Immediately Remus slid out of arm's reach of Sirius on the cool deck, shaking his head vigorously
as eyes widened to take up half his head. “No! Don't!”

And with that Sirius was laughing again, thoughts about dreary, scary old Grimmauld Place
pushed to the back of his mind. “No! I didn'... look!” Sirius stood up, feet wet and dripping onto
the cool deck around the pool. “I meant, see the thing? At the bottom?”

Sirius pointed toward the bottom of the pool, where a shimmering scene was laid out. It was some
sort of... Sirius didn't know the name for the type of art it was. It was all tiny tiny pieces of
different colored stone glued together, or something, making a big, giant scene that took up the
center of the deepest part of the pool. Sirius could see it was some sort of pattern of squares and
triangles and stars, wrapping up into itself and repeating endlessly in even bigger patterns of
shapes and colors. But he wanted to go down to it, to trace it, to feel the little pieces of stone
beneath his fingertips, all smooth from the gently flowing water it was hidden beneath (and it was
kind of like buried treasure in plain sight, with the glints of maybe gold and ruby and emerald that
shown out from under the water).

Remus was edging closer to him, looking at the design himself. “Uh-huh.”

“I'm going to touch it. Sometime,” Sirius announced. “We'll have to learn how to swim. Because I
don't know how.”

Remus nodded. “Okay. We'll learn.”

Sirius turned to look at Remus, to smile at him, and found himself already being smiled at. They
stayed that way for a long moment, two boys smiling at each other beneath bright sun beside the
ancient pool. Then a worry started niggling at the back of Sirius' mind, growing and growing until
he could't ignore it any longer. He turned away from Remus, looking behind him. There was the
archway that they had come in through to find the pool. Beyond that was the road, and beyond
that Sirius' wall, with Sirius' door in it. And beyond that... home.

Sirius shivered, wrapping his arms around him. “I gotta go.”

Remus accepted this as he did everything, and nodded. “Okay. Do you want to play tomorrow?”

Immediately Sirius nodded. Yes. Yes, of course he did. “After lunch?”

“Okay.”

Sirius had to leave first, hurrying to the bench where he had left his shoes and socks. Remus stood
with him, waving goodbye and Sirius opened the heavy door back to his house.
 Chapter 4
Chapter Summary

Remus introduces Sirius to fairytales.

Sirius' tears felt dusty on his cheeks where they were starting to dry. He sniffed loudly, scrubbing
at his face for the thousandth time as he did his best to stop crying. It was okay. He was okay.
Sirius wrapped his arms around himself and rocked on the cold, wood floor, his eyes focused as
best they could through blurry, itchy tears on the great big door in front of him. He was okay. His
bum didn't hurt that much, really. He'd stop crying, soon. And then he'd get to see Remus, and
they'd play, and everything would be okay. He'd be okay. Just as soon as his eyes stopped
stinging.

It was only a few minutes later when Sirius decided he was collected enough to venture through
the door. He couldn't leave Remus waiting, after all: he had promised . They were going to meet
after lunch again today, and already Sirius was running late. First he had the incident with the
dishes which had got him in trouble in the first place. Than had come the running, and hiding.
And Walburga. And all this time he had wasted trying to stop crying. He wouldn't be surprised if
Remus had gone and left by now, getting sick of waiting.

Another sob escaped Sirius' throat as he reached up and wrapped a hand around the door lever.
He hoped that wasn't true. He hoped with all his might that Remus was still there, on the other
side of the door. With one big, deep breath to push back the last of the tears, Sirius pushed the
door open and hurried inside.

The moment Sirius rounded the wall to their bench, he let out a cry of joy. Remus was sitting there
cross-legged, head bent over a book splayed open in his lap. Or at least it was, until Remus heard
Sirius' cry. Then his head jerked up, expression smoothing into a smile the second he saw Sirius.

“Hullo!” Sirius called, hurrying across the small section of loose stones to settle on the bench on
Remus' right. Before Remus could say more than a happy “Hello” in response, Sirius stuck his
hand out and grabbed the book Remus was reading. He kept his thumb on the page, because
Sirius wasn't mean . He didn't want Remus to lose his place, after all. “Watch'ya reading?”

“It's fairytales,” Remus explained. “I'm on 'Hansel and Gretel'.”

“'re they?” Sirius queried. He'd never heard of them before.

Apparently he had just said something quite unimaginable , because Remus took the book back
and clutched it tight to his chest, amber eyes gone wide. “You've never heard 'Hansel and
Gretel'?”

Sirius shook his head. Fairytales weren't exactly standard reading in his house. His tutors had him
translating the Aeneid or Timeaus more often than not. No time for fairytales.

“Oh, they're...” Remus shifted, bringing his feet down to the ground, then back up under him, like
he was getting so excited he didn't know whether to stand up or sit down. Making a frustrated
noise, Remus finally just opened up the book and flipped back a few pages. “I could read it to
you. If you want. It's short.”
Sirius breathed in sharp. Suddenly he felt tears pricking at his eyes again, though he wasn't sure
why. “Okay,” he whispered. “Read.”

They shifted together on the stone bench, until Sirius was leaning against Remus' side and peering
down at the book in his lap. Remus started reading, voice clear and steady. “ Next to a great forest
there lived a poor woodcutter who had come upon such hard times that he could scarcely provide
daily bread for his wife and his two children, Hansel and Gretel. Finally he could no longer even
manage this, and he did not know where to turn for help...”

**

The sun was lower in the sky when Remus had finished. Sirius stretched, big and long, before
relaxing back into Remus' side. He traced at one of the well-worn pages with a careful finger.
“What happened next?”

Remus shrugged, closing the book. “Dunno. Doesn't say.”

After Remus had closed the book, Sirius let his head slide into Remus' lap, so he was staring up at
Remus outlined in the late-day sunlight as he talked. Sirius considered this information, then
nodded. Even if there was more, he wouldn't be able to hear it today. It was getting late, and
Walburga would be looking for him to eat his dinner, take his bath, and go to bed. Maybe, if
Sirius was quick enough, he'd be able to catch Regulus alone for a minute this evening. He'd love
the story of Hansel and Gretel. After all, it was about a brother and sister escaping from their evil,
evil mum. Regulus wasn't a girl, but that was okay: it was close enough.

“Gotta get back.”

Remus nodded, but made no move to shift Sirius away. Eventually Sirius sighed and hauled
himself up, re-buttoning his cuffs where he had undone them listening to Remus read. He scuffed
his shoes on the ground as he stood, shifting and hesitating in front of Remus. “See you again?”
he muttered.

“Yeah.” Remus' answer was immediate, which made Sirius' heart leap and dance. “Definitely.”

With that promise extracted, Sirius hurried off back to the house. He ran the story of Hansel and
Gretel over and over again in his head as he went. He was going to tell it to Regulus as well as he
could, as close to the way Remus had. It wouldn't be perfect, nor anywhere as good as Remus. He
read stories like... like... Sirius' chest hurt as he swung open the door to his house. Remus read the
story like Sirius imagined other kids' mums read them stories at night. He didn't know for sure, but
felt so.

Carefully Sirius made his way out of the empty room where his secret door was, being sure not to
dirty himself more than he could help it, or snag any of his clothes on the odd corner he squeezed
past to get out. The grandfather clocks around the house were just chiming as Sirius stuck his head
out the door of the room, checking the hallways for Kreacher or Walburga. Seven o'clock. Time
to get washed up for supper, than. He'd have to tell Regulus the story after, then. That was fine.
Time enough after supper for that.

**

“Sirius?”

Choking back sobs, Sirius wiped his face hurriedly and tried to school his features. If Walburga or
Kreacher caught him crying they'd just end up hurting him more. “Give you something to cry
about”. And he didn't need anymore of that. Not tonight.
“Sirius, can I come in?”

Wordlessly Sirius nodded. It was just Regulus, peering through Sirius' door, opened a crack. Just
as wordlessly Regulus entered, pushing longish black hair that matched Sirius' out of his eyes
awkwardly. He shifted by the door, biting his thumbnail before yanking it out of his mouth and
making a face. Sirius knew that face. Walburga put something on their fingernails, something
spicy, so they wouldn't bite them or suck their thumbs. Regulus was having a harder time stopping
the nervous tick than Sirius, and still had to submit to the spray every morning, noon, and night.

Coming to a decision, Regulus shut the door with a soft click before padding hurriedly over to
Sirius' big bed and climbing up. Automatically Sirius opened his arms to his little brother, pulling
him into his chest even as he tried to stop his chest from heaving with sobs and the tears falling
from his eyes. He pressed his cheek to Regulus hair, smoothing a hand to his little brother's back.
It was as if all the comfort Sirius gave to Regulus rebounded and came back to him. He had
figured out years ago it was his best way to calm down after evenings like this one, when there
was no one to comfort him besides a little, wide-eyed brother who couldn't really do the job
properly.

As Sirius calmed down, hand running up and down Regulus' back, it occurred to him that he
hadn't shared the Hansel and Gretel story with Regulus. In fact... Sirius' heart raced. Maybe he
should tell Regulus about the Door, and the World. Regulus could escape there with Sirius. For
whatever reason Sirius didn't like the idea much – the World felt like his and Remus', a special
place just for the two of them, that no one else was supposed to know about. But Sirius had done
things more distasteful than share a special secret to keep his little brother safe before, so he could
do this.

Regulus spoke when Sirius was still lost in thoughts of Remus and sunshine and their perfect, self-
contained world. “You shouldn't've done that.”

Shocked, Sirius pushed Regulus off his chest and gripped his shoulders tight. Regulus was staring
up at him with big, scared eyes. They looked just like Sirius' – in color and shape, at least. But
Sirius always thought there was something different between the two of them, something deep and
unchangeable. When Sirius looked into his own eyes in the mirror, he saw something rumbling
and restless, something waiting to come out and run, run, run. That something was always absent
in Regulus' eyes when Sirius looked, and in its place was a sort of dullness, a timidity. Never
before had Sirius noticed it more than he did now, though he didn't have the words to put name to
it. “What?”

One of Regulus' hands snaked up to his mouth before he jerked it away. “Talking back to Mum.
You shouldn't've done that.”

Sirius' indignation was such that his sobs stopped and tears dried up almost instantly. “She called
me dumb! In front of Bellatrix and Lucius and everyone!”

Regulus shrugged, looking down at Sirius' duvet. “You picked up the wrong glass.”

“Oh, bollocks that! Who cares ?!” Sirius knew what the right glasses were. He'd been in etiquette
classes since he could remember. He just wanted a sip of plain water instead of sparkling, and
didn't feel like asking Kreacher to get him a new glass. It was just a sip . “And Mu- Walburga
shouldn't call me stupid! That's not right!”

Regulus shrugged, big grey eyes nervous and sad. “But. Sirius. Mum-”

Sorrow and guilt and a complete, utter feeling of aloneness overwhelmed Sirius as he watched his
little brother betray him. Regulus was saying he deserved it! That Walburga had been right to beat
him until he limped back to his bedroom and cried and cried. “Get out!” Sirius shoved at Regulus'
shoulder for good measure, though not hard enough to do any damage.

“But, Sirius. If you tried harder, maybe Mum-”

“Out, out, out!” Sirius lashed out, hands flying at Regulus as he slapped and scraped. Regulus
cried out and fell off the bed, before picking himself up and scrambling out of the room. Sirius
reached next to him and threw a pillow at Regulus' retreating back for good measure, then threw
himself down and buried his face in his remaining pillows.

It wasn't right. It wasn't fair . Walburga was mean, and wrong, and Regulus just took her side!
Saying if Sirius tried harder, like he didn't try hard. He did! He just always messed things up. He
broke a plate, or drank out of the wrong glass, or talked back because his mouth moved faster than
his brain half the time.

It didn't matter. It didn't matter why Sirius always messed up, why he always disappointed
Walburga. What mattered was that Regulus didn't take his side, didn't care. After all, Sirius always
stood up for Regulus, always protected him. He'd taken more than one beating for his little brother
before, even if there had been other times when he had tried to blame Regulus for the broken vase
or lost pocket watch or ripped trouser knee. But to have Regulus try and tell Sirius to behave,
when there was no Walburga or Kreacher around to act like a good son for... Sirius shoved at his
mattress with curled fists, thrashing and lashing out until his exhaustion caught up with him, and
he fell asleep where he was.

**

Sirius was waiting for Remus for over an hour the next day. It was because he was early, Sirius
knew. The moment he could escape the table “politely” he had, rushing straight to door with
hardly a glance over his shoulder to check on Regulus or watch out for Kreacher.

The stone of their bench was cool through Sirius' light button-down shirt. He had already
abandoned his shoes, socks, and waistcoat right next to his door as soon as he had come in. He
didn't want to get in trouble with Walburga for messing up his very expensive clothes, after all.
Plus it was always easier to play with Remus if he had less clothes on, like Remus did. Maybe
Sirius could get Remus to give him some of his poor clothes one day, so Sirius could change into
them instead of having to worry about his stupid suits with their fancy stitches and cut and
whatever else Walburga was always going on about.

“Sirius?”

Sirius shot into a sitting position quick as could be, smile spreading uncontrollably over his face as
he caught sight of Remus, stepping onto the marble stones that marked this little intact area behind
the crumbling wall. “Remus! I've got a game!” Leaping up from the bench, Sirius hurried over to
Remus and grabbed his bony wrist in one hand. “With Hansel and Gretel,” he continued. “I
thought we could be them. After the witch. Because I bet they had load of adventures fighting evil
magic creatures in the forest around their house, and we've got all this space, and we could be
them and fight the monsters after the witch.”

Remus' expression was a little overwhelmed, but mostly attentive as Sirius spoke. When he
paused for a breath, Remus wrinkled up his nose and cut in. “But Gretel's a girl. We're both
boys.”

Sirius waved this objection aside. When he had woken up that morning, he had to revise his plans
to fit Remus instead of Regulus. If it had been him and Regulus playing, he'd have just made
Regulus be the girl – he was the little brother after all; he had to do whatever Sirius said. But since
Remus was just the same as Sirius, he couldn't do that. Luckily, Sirius had come to an ingenious
solution over a breakfast of cold oatmeal and burnt toast (Sirius suspected Kreacher ruined his
meals just because he hated him).

“We swap! Hang on.” Sirius ran back to where his clothes were folded neatly by his door. Remus
followed him, watching curiously as Sirius set to work. First he shucked off his belt, then used it
to tie his waistcoat around his hips. Then, Sirius took his socks and pulled his longish hair into
pigtails, positioning the long black socks so that they looked like pigtails themselves. With a
flourish he turned to Remus, making sure the waistcoat fluttered as close to a skirt as he could.
Once Remus had taken in the whole effect, he started laughing: quiet, little noises he tried to hide
behind his hand, but definitely laughter nonetheless.

Sirius bounded over to him, striking poses and twirling around as he did. “See? I'll be Gretel first,
then you can be. Isn't it brilliant?”

Remus nodded, very seriously (but not really, because Sirius could see his eyes were smiling).
“You look very nice, Gretel.”

Sirius wobbled as he tried to curtsey, the way he'd seen his cousins do before. “You too, Hansel.
What evil monster are we fighting today?”

Remus frowned, thinking hard. Then his eyes lit up. “Ever heard of a werewolf?”

Sirius shook his head, mock-pigtails slapping his cheeks lightly. “No. Is it like a wolf?”

Remus nodded, eyes wide and serious. “Except it's normally a human. But one night out of the
year, when the moon is full, it turns into a blood-thirsty monster wolf!”

Clutching at Remus' arm, Sirius drew him closer. He pitched his voice a little higher, like a girl,
and asked: “Isn't it a full moon tonight, Hansel?”

Taking time to look to the sky, and then down at a watch that he didn't actually have, Remus
nodded. “It will be. In just an hour.”

“That gives us time to get weapons!”

With that, the two boys separated and started to hunt around the ruins for weapons. Sirius had to
stop every few steps to clutch at his makeshift skirt and pull it up again from where it had started
to fall. He was definitely trading off being the girl to Remus as soon as possible. The skirt was just
too hard to walk in.

Sirius went first to the pool they had found in one of the buildings, because he recalled a few
metal pipes lying around somewhere in it. As he walked past the water, he caught a glimpse of
himself reflected in it. Sirius paused, cocking his head and peering in. His sock-pigtails almost
looked like real pigtails, distorted as they were in the gently-flowing water. Sirius scrunched up his
nose and laughed, the sound echoing off the high walls surrounding him. He looked pretty , with
the pigtails. It was funny.

The pipes were where Sirius remembered them being a few days ago. Sorting through them, he
decided on one that came up to his shoulder, but wasn't too thick. Some of them were so big and
heavy he couldn't even lift them. And that wouldn't do much good in defeating that wolf-monster
Remus had decided they were fighting. Experimentally Sirius hefted the pole, spinning it around a
few times and hacking at the air. The metal was dull grey, but not all rusty like some of the older
pipes he had discovered in the more remote areas of his family home before, even though it was
almost certainly older than anything the Blacks had ever owned.
“Sirius?”

Remus' head appeared through one of the archways that were the entrances to the pool house. He
was holding onto a branch and... some rocks? Sirius peered at it, curious. “What's that?” He
pointed at the stick-thing with his metal pole. Because he felt proper tough, doing that.

Remus held it up for Sirius' inspection, tugging lightly at the rubber band he had wrapped around
the back. “Slingshot,” Remus explained. “Like David against Goliath. You just...” Tongue
sticking out from between his teeth, Remus tucked all but one of the little stones in his trouser
pocket. He then placed the one stone in the rubber band, then pulled back with one hand, the other
holding the stick steady. Sirius stepped back as Remus aimed for some spot over on the other side
of the pool. He let the rubber band go with a twang, followed a moment later by the click of the
rock bouncing off the far wall.

“Wicked,” Sirius breathed. “Let me try!”

Obligingly Remus handed over his slingshot and dug a single rock out of his pocket for Sirius.
Without hesitation Sirius tossed his pole the ground, snatching up the slingshot and the rock. He
aimed carefully at the far wall of the pool house, just as Remus had. Unfortunately, when he let
the rock go his fingers got all tangled up in the rubber band or something, because the rock fell to
the ground just a foot in front of him. Sirius pouted down at it.

To his credit, Remus didn't laugh. He just bent down and picked up the rock, then held it out to
Sirius. “Do you want to try again?” he turned his head a little sideways, as if he wanted to ask
something else but wasn't sure if he should.

Determined, Sirius snatched the rock up and nodded. “Yeah. Move.”

But again, the same thing happened. The little rock clicked over the tile at Sirius' feet, like it was
making fun of him. Remus said nothing, and only moved to give Sirius the rock back. Sirius
growled, low in his throat, and ignored the bitter taste of disappointment choking him in the back
of his gullet. He could do this. It was just a matter of putting the little rock in the rubber band, then
pulling it back while holding the stick steady. Then all he had to do was just... let... go...

The stone clicked to the floor in front of him. Wordlessly, Remus picked it up and handed it back
up to Sirius. Just as wordlessly, Sirius tried it again, ignoring the tears starting to build up behind
his eyes. He could do this. He could.

Four, five, six tries later, and the stone was still falling to the ground at Sirius' feet. On the fifteenth
try, the stone cracked. Before Sirius could throw the slingshot to the ground and run off, Remus
was there with a fresh rock clutched between his fingers. So Sirius put it in the slingshot and tried
again. And again. And again.

Sometime around try number forty-eight, vision blinded by tears and fingers shaking with
exhaustion and shame, something happened. Sirius' fingers slipped, or moved different, or
something . The rock shot across the room, clicking against the back wall. Sirius dropped the
slingshot in shock.

“You did it!” Remus' voice was right in Sirius' ear. He had come up next to him while Sirius was
still staring after the rock in shock. He turned to see Remus smiling warmly at him. “Want to fight
the werewolf, now?”

Sirius felt... he didn't know how he felt. Happy. Even with the tears in his eyes and his fingers
shaking and sore, he was so happy . Remus had let him keep going, even when he could have just
taken over and shown Sirius how to do it. No one had ever done that for Sirius before. No one
had ever had the patience to wait and watch as Sirius tried and failed at something, until he
succeeded on his own. It was always Walburga snatching away whatever it was and doing it for
Sirius herself, doing it right , she would say as she sneered down at him. Even Orion, who never
really spoke one way or the other at Sirius, would just do things for Sirius instead of letting him
figure it out. But Remus hadn't done that. He'd let Sirius do it himself.

“Yeah,” Sirius said. Then he shook himself and picked up his pole, hefting it like a real warrior.
He grinned, chest puffed out and feeling big and brave... skirt and sock-pigtails notwithstanding.
 Chapter 5
Chapter Summary

Sirius and Remus do battle and make a map.

“Like what?”

Remus closed his book, squinting up at the sun as he seemed to mull over Sirius' simple question.
“Like... the sea is in the east.”

Sirius blinked, then looked at the wall on his right. Beyond that he knew lay the sea – he was
starting to get to know their little world as well as he knew his own house. “How do you know?”

“Because that's where the sun rises,” Remus explained simply. “Sun rises in the east, sets in the
west. So then the forest is the west. And, since it goes North, South, East, West, and that's east
and that's west, then my wall is north, and your wall is south.”

Sirius watched as Remus sketched a little compass rose into a patch of dirt which had managed to
rise up and push aside the marble slabs beneath their feet. It made sense, Sirius realized. “You
knew that just 'cause of where the sun comes up,” he wondered. “That's brilliant.”

Remus shrugged. “ That's easy. There's harder stuff.”

“Like what?”

Remus' shoulders brushed Sirius' as he leaned back, deep in thought. “Like, there's stuff with
currents that you can figure, how to sail across the world using the stars and wind.”

“Show me.”

Without a thought, Sirius was leaping to his feet and grabbing at Remus, trying to get him to run
to the seashore with him. Remus let himself be dragged, after closing his book and taking careful
note of his page. When they reached the shore, Sirius stopped before the top of the waves,
pointing out toward the boundless horizon. “What do you see?”

He turned to look at Remus, who was squinting out at the horizon. The way he was looking,
like... like there was more going on in his eyes than there were in Sirius'. Like when he looked at
the world, there were labels and notes and numbers, all scattered across his vision, telling him
things that Sirius didn't know. It was like when Remus looked at things, the world conveniently
pulled up a card catalogue for him, and Remus only had to flip through it. Maybe that's why he
was quieter than Sirius, and took longer to answer things: because he was flipping through that
card catalogue that the world was giving him.

“It's low tide,” he said at last.

“How do you know? What's that mean?”

Remus pointed at the sand line. “See how the wet sand goes all the way up there? But the waves
are only coming up to there? That means it's low tide. It'd come up all the way to that top line if it
was high tide. And it means we don't want to sail now. You want to catch the high tide as it's
going out.”

“We should learn to swim,” Sirius mused, looking out at the horizon. The sea breeze whipped at
his hair, and he pushed the black locks absently from his face as he tried to see out as far as he
possibly could, straining to catch sight of any land on the other side. None was visible. That only
served to encourage Sirius. “Or build a boat. And sail out there until we hit the other side.”

“We might find the place where the sky meets the sea. Or discover New Worlds.”

“What do you think would be in them?”

Remus' mouth quirked as his eyes scanned the horizon. “One-footed people. They don't have
heads, only torsos with eyes and mouths on them. And they only have one leg, so they hop
everywhere they go.”

Sirius' eyes went wide. “What? Who told you that?”

Remus shrugged. “Read it somewhere. Adventure books, 'pose.”

Sirius' eyes narrowed as he scanned the shoreline, wondering at what he could do with that
information. Great big one footed people, with no heads... there could be an invasion. Or they
could find themselves washed up on the island of these people, two stranded adventurers... Sirius'
gaze stuttered and stopped when it reached the side where his wall was. He hadn't spent much
time staring at the place where his wall met the sea, but now that he was, he realized it was just as
impassable as the rest of the wall, or the great big sea itself. Sirius frowned. “Hey, look.”

They wandered over to the juncture, waves tickling their feet whenever they drifted too close to
the tideline. Sirius was the first to try out the natural and man-made boundary. There was the wall,
which went much too high to ever hope to climb. Then there was the sea, which was great and
vast and possibly endless. But where they met, Sirius had kind of figured he'd be able to just...
walk around. After all, the wall had to end somewhere, and it didn't go into the sea forever.

But right where the wall ended and touched the sea, great, massive piles of jagged and terrifying-
looking boulders extended from the wall far, far into the sea. Sirius carefully stepped to the end of
the wall, trousers rolled up so they wouldn't get wet with seawater. With one hand on the wall,
Sirius tried to touch one of the boulders. It was so slick with water his hand slipped right off, and
Sirius almost overbalanced and face-first into the sea. A hand clutching the back of his shirt
stopped him just in time. Sirius glanced back, shooting a grateful smile over his shoulder.

“D'you think we could get around?” Sirius pondered as he stepped back and stared at the
boulders.

Remus shook his head. “No. And don't think we're 'posed to.”

Sirius snorted. “So? Not about if you're 'posed to or not. That makes it better half the time, doesn't
it?” Even as he spoke the words, Sirius knew they were wrong. It wasn't that he wanted to be a
good boy and obey the rules – he got enough of that at home with Walburga. This place was
about breaking all those stupid rules, leaving them behind the second he stepped through that
door. But at the same time, it was like this place has its own set of rules – rules even Sirius was
reluctant to break.

“Come on.” Sirius nodded over his shoulder, without waiting for Remus to reply to his last
outburst. “Let's go look at the forest. I bet you can tell me all sorts of brilliant adventure stuff about
it.”

**

Sirius shook the sand off him, blinking up blearily at the shore above him. Where was he? How
did he get there? Oh no! The ship! The storm! It all came flooding back to him.

“First mate Remus! Remus! Are you safe?”

Sitting up, Sirius looked around the beach. Ah! There was Remus, just coming to next to him.
Scrambling over on hands and knees, Sirius grabbed Remus' shoulders and shook them. Oh. A bit
too vigorously, as he ended up conking Remus' head into the sand. “Oops. Sorry. You alright?”

Wincing, Remus reached a hand back and touched his head. “Yeah. 'm fine. Keep going.”

With that confirmation Sirius threw himself back into character. “Remus! Wake up! We survived
the storm, but our ship is gone!”

“Oh no,” Remus murmured, pretending to be groggy. “What're we going to do, Captain?”

With steely, brave gaze, Sirius surveyed the new land before them. “We'll have to find shelter.
And see if there's any animals or people here. Do you know where we are?”

Slowly Remus got to his feet, aided by Sirius. Out of his pocket he pulled a small pocket watch-
cum-compass and held it out in his palm. He studied it very intently, scanning his hand back and
forth as Sirius looked on. “It looks like the storm washed us somewhere not on the maps!” Remus
wondered.

“What's that?!”

Gripping Remus' shoulder tight, Sirius pointed out into the ruins. From there great, big people
were coming. No: not people. They were... monsters! They looked like a gigantic leg, cut off at
the top of the thigh. They had a whole face pressed into the smooth, meaty part of the thigh, which
were all dead-set in an angry expression. They hopped to walk, their giant feet making thump-
thump-thumping noises on the ground. Bravely, Sirius drew Remus behind him and pulled out his
sword (definitely not the pipe he had defeated the werewolf with a few days ago), brandishing it at
the monsters. “Back!” Sirius shouted. “Or I'll stab all of you! Through the leg!”

At his back, Remus pushed forward, moving Sirius aside. “We came in peace!” He held his hands
out, empty of weapons. But Sirius knew his first mate of course had his trusty pistol tucked away
in the back of his trousers, just in case. And he could be ready to draw it in just a second . “There
was a storm, and our ship wrecked! We just need food.”

“Foreigners! Intruders!”

The one-legged tribe hopped forward menacingly, teeth barred and looking ready for a fight.
Sirius brandished his sword again, and they hesitated. “I'll do it! I'll stab all of you until you're
dead!”

The leader of the one-legged monsters growled, then shouted so loud his voice echoed through the
ruins behind him: “To the death!”

With a shout equal to that of the one-legged leader, Sirius ran forward and started hacking at the
monsters. Behind him, First Mate Remus drew his pistol and started firing, shot after shot landing
true between the eyes of the armless, headless monsters. Sirius laughed, cutting his sword back
and forth, felling the monstrous leg-people as easily as he'd push aside his bedroom's curtains in
the morning.

But then, oh no! Sirius was turning to shout something brilliantly clever at Remus, when he saw
one of the monsters sneaking up behind him. Sirius' heart raced, his breath catching in his throat.
With every ounce of strength he could muster, Sirius mightily swung his sword, cleaving a
pathway through the monsters and to his loyal first mate. Finding breath in his lungs again, Sirius
managed to call out a warning. “Remus! Down!”

Immediately Remus crouched to the ground, spinning around at the same time. And, oh, that was
brilliant . Remus was the best at playing. Almost at the same time, Sirius drew back his sword for
a mighty blow and Remus carefully aimed his pistol at the attacking leg-monster. They struck him
as one, Sirius with his sword and Remus with his gun. The monster fell to the ground in a
moment.

Sirius and Remus shared a victorious, adrenaline-filled look before they remembered the fight
going on around them. But the leg-monsters were retreating, hopping back to ruins with their
metaphorical tail between their metaphorical legs. The leader was the only one left standing on the
beach, expression solemn as he gazed at all the corpses Captain Sirius and First Mate Remus had
left scattered in their wake.

“We Legarians surrender to you, oh superior Sirius and Remus of the two-legs!”

The leader bowed – oh, wait, no, knees don't bend that way. The leader bent backwards... sort of
bowing? And then Sirius was bursting out in a fit of giggles and calling time-out. “How does he
bow?” he asked Remus. “Like...” and then Sirius tried to bend backwards at the waist, imitating
the picture in his head. He just ended up overbalancing and falling down into the sand, laughing
some more.

Remus joined him, grin just a fraction more subdued. Sirius knew it wasn't because Remus was
any less happy – he just smiled smaller than Sirius, for some reason. Even though they hadn't
known each other very long, Sirius had already figured that much out.

Humming happily to himself, Sirius tossed his lead pole down to the sand next to them, then threw
his hands behind his head and stared up at the evening sky. “You know what we should do next,”
he thought out loud. “We should make a map . Like a pirate map. Or like we were explorers
going around the world and figuring it out.”

Remus let his head roll in the sand to look at Sirius, eyes squinting in the red light from the sunset.
“I could bring pencils. And paper. Do...” then Remus stopped abruptly, and his eyes kind of...
shut down. Like they were closed, except they were still open.

“Remus? Remus?” Sirius rolled over onto his side, looking at Remus. Tentatively he stuck his
hand out and Remus' shoulder. “Remus? What is it? What's wrong?”

“You said you couldn't come tomorrow.”

Sirius heart clenched at the thought, and a tendril of fear made itself re-known in the pit of his
belly. “Right,” Sirius mumbled. “Right. I have... stuff.”

What he had was was his mother and father's anniversary party. Normally Sirius might be left
alone for such a grown-up event, but Walburga said he was getting old enough now to attend and
be a good, proper example of what she and Orion had created: the next heir to the Black family
fortune. So now Sirius had to go and suffer through an evening in even stiffer clothes than normal,
itching and twitching and probably making some sort of terrible mistake halfway through that had
Walburga dragging him out of the dining room, talon-like fingernails digging into his arm so hard
they left bruises for days after. Then it was just a matter of whether Walburga would take the time
herself to punish him that night, or if she'd just have Kreacher do it.

“Stuff,” Sirius repeated, eyes unfocused even as he looked down at Remus.

His self-pitying was broken by a hand touching his cheek gently. Sirius blinked and saw Remus
was smiling up at him, in his cautious little way. “But you can come the next day, right?”

Sirius found himself smiling back. “Yeah. After tomorrow, I'll come. And we can make the map.”

**

Sirius' right arm and shoulder were so sore from the night before – and the wall that he had been
thrown into – that he had to use his left to drag open the heavy, ornate door to his and Remus'
world. He wanted to cry some more even as he pulled down on the lever, but he had so much the
night before that there didn't seem to be any tears left in him. Then Sirius managed to pull the door
open a fraction more, and sunlight filled this eyes and the spaces before him. Sirius breathed deep.
His aches and pains even seemed to fade as he stepped forward and shut the door behind him.

Remus was waiting for him at their bench, already sketching something on a piece of paper he
was holding on a clipboard. Sirius grinned, Grimmauld Place well and truly left behind with the
closing of the door, as he hurried over to Remus. “Hey.”

Remus looked up, smiling fast at Sirius before bending his head back to his work. Impatient
already, Sirius flicked at the clipboard. “Where'd you get this?”

“Nicked it,” Remus replied oh-so-casually. Sirius' respect for him reached impossible levels.

“Really? Cor. From where?!”

Again, that overly casual shrug from Remus. He didn't even look up from what he was sketching.
“Backroom at the store. 'm always stuck there anyways, when I get tired from all the other... from
the noise.” Before Sirius could ask about that – and he really wanted to, since Remus' home life
sounded so utterly alien from his own – Remus looked up and smiled again: quick as a camera
flash. “Ready?”

Sirius nodded, leaping a step back as Remus started gathering up his things. “Yup! Do you know
how to make maps? 'cause you said about the east and west with the sea and forest, and those are
map-things. Seen a few in Orion's study, 's'all.” Sirius explained in a rush. He'd never really
learned maps, but he liked to stare at the expensive ones, printed on thick parchment and
extensively detailed, that lined his father's study.

“I read books,” Remus explained. “Yesterday, and before. I looked some things up. Like, you put
the rose compass on all the maps.” At the bottom of the page, Sirius could see Remus had draw a
little compass indicating north, south, east, and west in a pinkish-red color. He nodded. That made
sense.

Remus continued, pointing at something else. “And then there's the key. Maps have to have a key.
So when I draw the two little lines, that means roads. And then when I draw these little cotton-
candy things, that's trees. And the little squiggles mean water.”

Sirius squinted down at the key. That looked like a lot of work and brains.

Coming to a decision, Sirius scooped up spare papers and pencils from Remus, leaving him just
with his clipboard and single pencil. “Here. Since you know the most about maps, you're in
charge. And I'll be your 'ssistant.”
Remus' smile was almost embarrassed, but definitely more pleased, at Sirius' orders. Sirius smiled
back, because he had made Remus smile. “Okay,” Remus nodded. “Assistant Sirius, let's start at
your door.”

So Sirius trailed after Remus, holding onto his spare papers and the like and ready at a moment's
notice to replace Remus' pencil or hand him a new sheet of paper. And Remus started doing very
serious map work, like counting out the length of Sirius' wall with paces, from end to end. And
then he added a little line at the bottom of his map, next to the key. “That's a legend,” he
explained. “It says how far stuff is. So, like, this page'll be as wide as the wall, which is five-
hundred steps.”

Sirius nodded. That made sense. After all, maps were used for exploring, and the pirates or
conquistadors or whoever needed to know how far away things were when they were looking at
maps.

About halfway through the map-making, both Sirius and Remus looked up at the sun, that each
other. They were hot, and sweaty, and it was getting late. Sirius peered over Remus shoulder at
the perfectly laid out (if maybe a little bit squiggly and kind of drifting to the right in this weird,
undefinable way) map, then back at Remus. “Lemme just do the rest,” Sirius suggested.

Wiping a hand on his face, Remus nodded. “Yeah. That's a lot of work.”

And so Sirius practically ran through the rest of the world, Remus laughing and stumbling after
him as Sirius rapid-fire sketched things on the map. The old garden, the abandoned house, the
stones laid out in squares and lines like there used to be a house there. And finally Remus' wall
and his door, which Sirius had never really had a good look at before.

Standing in front of it, Sirius stuck a hand out and tentatively stroked down the rough wood. It
was... different, from his. He could see each of the boards of wood separate from each other, and
all these lines squiggling in the middle of them. And the wood itself wasn't smooth: there were bits
and pieces sticking up, like his hair when he just woke up in the morning. Even the handle was
different: a round door-knocker looking thing, rather than the curved, polished lever that was in
Sirius' door.

“Done?” Remus questioned, breaking through Sirius' contemplation. His neck craned as he
looked over Sirius' shoulder at the now-completed map.

The difference between the two bits of the map was obvious: Remus' all painstakingly measured,
but a little bit off and odd in spite of all its careful detail. Sirius, on the other hand, had the luxury
of making things look right, disregarding how they measured out in the big scheme of things. So
even though his side of the map was less detailed and neat, his buildings were lined up in nice
rows and didn't have that weird slant that Remus' buildings did. Of course, they didn't have the
detail, either. And the sizes and distances were probably all manner of off.

“Come on.” Sirius shoved his shoulder into Remus. “We should hide this somewhere. Maybe at
the bench?

Remus nodded, contemplative as they walked back to their bench in the dying sunlight. “We
could put it under the bench for now. But we should have a... a box. To keep stuff safe in.”

Sirius grinned. “Like a treasure chest! Our very own one. And we could keep things in it,
brilliantly secret things, like our treasure map, and... and stuff. That we find.”

“Costumes,” Remus suggested. Sirius' eyes lit up, brain firing all sorts of directions as he
wondered at the sort of bits and bobs he could collect from around the house and secret away to
their treasure box.

“Yeah,” Sirius breathed. “Costumes. And weapons! And treasure.”

As they reached the bench, Remus took the completed map from Sirius and carefully rolled it up,
then produced a rubber band from somewhere and slid it over the middle of the map. Then he put
it under the bench, tucked away in a back corner so it wouldn't get wet or blow away before they
could get a treasure chest to keep it in.

They said their goodbyes, both boys turning to head to his own door for the night. But then a
thought occurred to Sirius and he stopped, spinning around on one polished shoe. “Hey! Remus!”
When Remus was satisfactorily turned around and paying attention, Sirius waved his hand
around. “We should come up with a secret handshake. Sometime.”

Sirius couldn't tell if it was the late afternoon sun or if it was excitement for his idea, but Remus'
eyes definitely shown brighter. “Yeah!” Remus agreed. “Yeah. We'll do that. Next.”

After dinner that night, Sirius spent the time before his bath searching around for costumes and
boxes that wouldn't be missed. Arms laden with scraps of old clothing, curtains, sheets, and even a
pair of old boots from goodness knew where, Sirius went about setting up a little box for himself
outside the Door. He hid it beneath an old desk covered in a sheet, and then covered the box itself
in another sheet for good measure. When he finished, he beamed at the invisible box beneath the
desk. Now he didn't have to be careful not to ruin his trousers or waistcoat or shoes when he
played with Remus. He could just change into these clothes, and not have to worry about
Walburga's keen eyes finding a grain of sand caught in his trouser cuff and having to answer
impossible questions.

When Sirius went to bed that night, his arm and shoulder were already feeling better.
 Chapter 6
Chapter Summary

Remus helps Sirius with his maths; Sirius saves Princess Remusa from the evil witch.

With a growl Sirius threw his books, pencil, and papers across the clearing. Of course, Remus
chose just that moment to appear, starting backwards at the movement and eyes wide as they
tracked Sirius' pencil rolling gently toward him. Sirius threw himself back on the bench and
crossed his arms, not saying anything as he watched Remus lean down and pluck his pencil from
between a seam in the marble pavers. Then Remus went and picked up everything else – his
papers, his book – and carried them all over to the bench. He sat down on Sirius' left without
saying anything, just fiddling with the pencil for a little bit before he looked down at the papers.

Sirius watched him out of the corner of his eye, then more raptly as Remus put pencil to paper. In
minutes, Remus had filled up a scrap sheet of paper with what looked like all the answers to
Sirius' homework, then continued on to start writing... something else. Some sort of numbers table.
Curling his bare feet under him on the bench, Sirius leaned over and watched.

When he was finished, Remus handed the sheet of paper with the tables on it over to Sirius.
“Hasn't your teacher ever show you the patterns?”

Staring down at the paper, Sirius slowly shook his head. It looked like Remus had written the
times tables. But they were... different. They were organized all weird, except they were
organized in this way that made some kind of perfect sense that no one had ever told Sirius about,
and he'd never found out on his own. Absently he corrected Remus: “I've got a tutor.”

For a moment Remus was silent as Sirius continued to pore over the table. Then, tentatively:
“Like... to help you out? After school?”

Sirius shook his hair out of his eyes as he looked up. When he saw the expression on Remus' face,
he suddenly realized what Remus was saying. Oh . Right. Most kids went to primary school, with
a single adult teaching a whole bunch of them at once. Sirius knew this, in some abstract corner of
his brain. He had just never met anyone who went to a primary school before.

He squinted, twisting his lips to the side as he considered how to explain the difference. “No. I... I
don't go to primary school. I have tutors that come to the house and just teach me and Regulus.
Not even at the same time. So, it's not like I'm tutored 'cause I'm dumb...” Sirius frowned down at
the table Remus had handed him. “But maybe. 'cause I didn't think of this.”

Remus shrugged. “You're not dumb. I just... I like puzzles and patterns. When the other kids are
playing footie, I like to do that. Like. Fiddle with numbers.”

When Sirius saw that Remus was sad about that for some reason, he tapped his shoulder into
Remus'. Remus looked up, sun catching in his eyes. Sirius grinned. “Yeah, but you play with me.
And our world is way more brilliant than any ruddy playground.”

Remus' nose scrunched up, just a little bit, as he smiled. That was enough for Sirius.

“What's primary school like?”

And then the smile was gone, replaced with something... nervous. Sirius thought maybe he'd seen
that expression before, or felt whatever emotion was behind it, but he couldn't quite place it. For a
long moment Remus thought, like there was a right way to explain it to Sirius and he just had to
figure it out. Maybe there were secrets Remus didn't want to tell him about it. “It's... loud.”

Sirius laughed, but Remus shook his head and peered earnestly at him. “No, really! There's all
these kids, bigger'n littler than you, and they're all making noises all the time with screaming and
talking. It's like being in Mum and Dad's shop, except times a million. And there's loads of kids
around all the time.” Again, that flicker of something across his face, that expression Sirius
recognized but didn't, in some corner of his brain. Remus shrugged. “But my teacher's nice. Ms.
Franklin. She teaches us fun tricks for maths and grammar. And she makes everyone be quiet for
reading time every day, which is nice.” A smile spread across his face, and Sirius watched,
enthralled. “She even lets me stay inside, sometimes. When we're supposed to go outside and
play.”

“Do you have friends?” Sirius rubbed his chest, other hand gripping the stone bench tightly as he
watched Remus. To think: he went to a school with loads of other kids, and he didn't even want to
play with them. It was... impossible, in Sirius' mind. He'd give anything to play with some kids
that weren't his mean big cousins or his lame little brother. It was why he liked playing with
Remus so much – well, part of it.

“Not really.” Remus shrugged one shoulder. “But it's okay. I don't like the other kids very much.
They don't-” His eyes went sad. But then a moment later he grinned, and Sirius smiled back
because it was so unexpected. “They're not like you,” he explained. Sirius' chest tingled at that.
“'cause, you're loud. But not like them,” Remus continued. “And you play right.”

Sirius laughed and punched Remus lightly in the arm. “'course I do! Who plays different?”

Remus grimaced. “Lots of kids.” Then he looked curiously at Sirius, almost... hungry. Or
something. What he asked next certainly wasn't something Sirius would have associated with
whatever expression was on Remus' face. “What's having a tutor like?

Sirius thought about this for a moment. Thought about Ms. Antonia, and her mean, sharp eyes.
The way she wrapped her knuckles against the table and stared at him over her glasses every time
he got a question wrong, or took too long to answer. “Awful,” he grumbled. “She's always...” the
thought for a moment, trying to flip between his life and how Remus' must be. “She's always
watching me. Like, there's no other kids to answer, or for her to look at. So I have to answer every
question. And she knows as soon as I don't know something.”

Remus seemed to consider this, but Sirius could tell he didn't believe it was that bad. In fact,
Remus looked like he wanted his own tutor. Sirius shuddered. He couldn't imagine anyone
wanting that.

“But if you have questions, you can just ask her, can't you? Without all the other kids around.”

Sirius shrugged. “Not really. When I used to ask questions she'd yell at me.” Sirius didn't ask
questions much anymore.

Silence grew between the two boys, and Sirius mulled over what Remus had said about primary
school. Then he looked down at the paper in his hand, the patterns of numbers so clearly laid out,
and he had an idea. “If you were my tutor, I'd like you. That'd be the best.”

Remus gaped for a moment at Sirius, then snapped his mouth shut and scrunched up his nose.
“Really?”
Seeing how pleased Remus was with this off-handed thought, Sirius eagerly pursued it. “Well,
because you knew the patterns right away. And that was... when my brain saw it, it like, lit up.
Like you knew just what my brain needed for everything to make sense. You should be teacher
when you grow up.”

Remus shrugged shyly, staring pointedly down at his toe scuffing the marble beneath the bench. “I
want to go to uni. Mum and Dad thinks I could go. I'd be the first in my family ever to go.”

Sirius groaned. “Everyone in my family goes. I have to go, even if I dun'wanna.”

“Donch'ya? Wanna?”

Sirius thought about this, tilting his head back to look at the sky. Clouds raced across the bright
afternoon sun, moving more noticeably when he looked at them next to a reference point, like the
wall crowding in Sirius and Remus on two sides behind them. In his head, he pictured the next ten
years speeding by, just like those clouds. He'd have Ms. Antonia for two more years, then he'd go
to boarding school at eleven: Hogwarts Preparatory School for boys, just like his dad and his
uncles and all his male cousins. Then it was seven years of being trapped in stuffy uniforms with a
bunch of boys just like cousin Lucius, all pointy edges and mean, calculating eyes. Then
university with the same types of boys... but he'd be away from home. In just two years, he
wouldn't be living with Walburga and Kreacher anymore. And by the time he was uni, he'd barely
have to see them even on holidays. He might even be taller than the both of them by them, if
Orion was anything to guess his height by.

“Maybe,” Sirius finally conceded. “I want to leave home, and do stuff the way I want to. And I
could do that at uni.” Fast as quicksilver, Sirius' mood changed and he grinned, bright and big, at
Remus. “Maybe we could be flatmates! In uni! We'd go to the same one and get a flat together.
That'd be brilliant.”

Remus grinned, freckles scrunching up into his nose. Sirius liked it when that happened: it meant
Remus was smiling big; it meant Sirius had done something extra good, said something extra nice,
for that to happen. “I'd help you with your maths. If you did my chores.”

Sirius nodded, quite solemn. Maths was hard enough that Sirius would be willing to do all the
chores if Remus helped. He stuck out his hand, and Remus did his. The backs of their hands
pressed together before coming apart, circling, and pressing against each other again. Then their
hands slid back and their fingers meshed, just for a moment, before they pulled away. Remus
beamed at him.

“Ready to fight the witch?” Remus asked, changing the subject.

Sirius nodded. Definitely. And this time, Remus was going to be the girl, and Sirius got to be the
hero saving the day. With a flourish Sirius reached beneath their bench and pulled out his pipe,
brandishing it proudly. “Yup! Get up in your tower, princess.”

Remus laughed and ducked his head, but accepted the sheet from Sirius so he could wrap himself
up in it, like a dress. They even had bits of tarnished jewelry Sirius had found a box of in the loft
of his house and brought in. Remus put on a few rings – many sizes too big, so he had to curl his
fingers to keep them from slipping off. Sirius placed a tiara on his head. Or, at least: a fancy
headband that sort of looked like a tiara. He spun Remus around once, laughing as Remus almost
tripped over his dress and had to fling a hand up to clutch at the tiara. Then Remus was hurrying
off, to the back house where he could climb up a half-broken wall and wait for Sirius to rescue
him.

Sirius set about arming himself, preparing for a gruesome battle. After all, it was the Evil Witch he
was facing: she was going to be really tough to defeat. So Sirius tucked Remus' slingshot into the
back of his trousers and wrapped the pouch they had made from an old piece of rope and
sackcloth. It was filled with stones picked out to fly perfectly from the slingshot. He tucked two
sticks into that belt, for daggers, and then hefted his great big pipe, aka sword. He was ready. He
was going to defeat the Evil Witch and save Princess Remusa from her tower.

He started forward, darting from cover to cover, looking out for the Evil Witch. She was bound to
be around here somewhere, just waiting to surprise Sirius and beat him, throw him to the ground
and stomp on him with her tall shoes and pointy nose and sharp eyes and...

Sirius shook himself. He could defeat her. He had to defeat her. He had to save Princess Remusa.

Just as Sirius was thinking maybe he'd be able to rescue the princess without ever seeing the Evil
Witch, she appeared. He was just starting to climb over the collapsed wall, or rather, the craggy
mountains, when he spotted her. She was waiting for him the garden: the garden of poisonous
roses and thorns. She was chopping the rose part off her roses, just leaving the thorns all around
like some sort of intentionally malicious vine. And Sirius knew the thorns were all poison, because
that had been how the Evil Witch had captured Princess Remusa in the first place: by giving her a
poisoned rose.

“For the Princess!” Sirius shouted, then hurled himself over the wall and started slashing with his
sword.

It was a fierce battle. The Evil Witch was much taller and nastier than Sirius, with her evil talons
for fingernails and chomping, yellow teeth: like some sort of monstrous London sewer rat, the
kind the servants talked about like there was no way they were real. At first she reached for Sirius,
lashing out with her talons and gnashing her teeth in her mad way. But Sirius blocked her blows,
slashing his sword this way and that as they danced around her poison garden. Then the witch
opened her mouth, and the words started spilling out.

They were magic words, of course. Evil, evil magic words that wrapped around Sirius and bound
him up. His pole sword dropped to the ground and the thorny vines crawled in and swept it away,
swallowing it into their deadly depths. Sirius struggled against the words, reaching with straining
fingers to his trouser pocket. If he could... just... reach it...

Aha! Sirius' fingers finally grasped the slingshot in the back of his trousers. With a single violent
movement he managed to toss the Evil Witch's words off of him, just for a moment. But it was
long enough for him to grab a stone and load it into the slingshot. He took aim and fired.

Direct hit! The Evil Witch went down, screaming and trashing as Sirius' special stones, give to
him by Princess Remusa, burned through her evil skin. But she wasn't dead yet. No, for that Sirius
would have to screw up his courage and get close. Dropping the slingshot to the path, Sirius drew
one of the daggers out of his side and advanced on the still-thrashing Evil Witch. With a single,
mighty blow, he struck the Evil Witch through the heart with his dagger.

Her scream echoed off the crumbling walls around them. As the light faded from her eyes, so did
the magic behind her spells. The thorny roses all around them wriggled with their dying throes
before giving a sort of last, pathetic movement and then collapsing to the ground as one. The
green faded from them, and they shriveled up: lifeless, dead things, without the magic of the Evil
Witch to sustain them. The invisible bonds that were nipping at Sirius, trying to restrain him after
he broke free, fell away and dissipated. With one last gurgle the Evil Witch fell back, body
dissolving into a bubbling acid puddle on the garden path.

Wiping the sweat from his brow, Sirius tucked his dagger back into his belt. He turned to look at
the castle. The path was now clear for him: all the thorns were cleared away, and the roses were
blooming again. Bending down, Sirius retrieved his slingshot and sword, tucking the first into his
trousers and holding fast to the second, just in case the Evil Witch had one last trap waiting for
him.

“Princess Remusa! Princessa Remusa!”

Sirius waved his sword above his head, hollering at the top of his lungs at the tower Princess
Remusa was held captive in. “Are you there? Princess Remusa!”

“I'm here. Who is there?”

Sirius stifled a giggle at Remus' pitched high voice. Swiftly he made his way into the building,
climbing the many winding stairs up to Princess Remusa's tower (which consisted of him
stamping around in a circle for a few moments, imagining a spiral staircase in his head). When he
had decided he had probably climbed enough stairs to reach the top, Sirius finished his stomping
facing the wall where Remus was perched, looking down at him.

Sirius opened his mouth to call out, then shut it, then opened it again. “Oh, wait: time out!” Remus
cocked his head and peered down at Sirius curiously. “Are you Rapunzel or Sleepy Beauty?”

Remus considered this for a moment. “Well, I'm not asleep,” he though out loud. “But I don't have
loads of hair. You can just come get me down.”

“Okay. Time in.” Sirius pretended to stab his sword into the ground, then dropped it off to the
side. “Princess Remusa! I am Prince Sirius, and I've come to rescue you! I killed the Evil Witch!”

“My hero!” Remusa clasped her hands to her chest in a swooning sort of way. Sirius grinned.
“Help me down and we can ride off to my kingdom together!”

Sirius hurried forward to hold his hands up to Remusa. After a silent count of three shared
between them, Remusa jumped, breaking her fall in Sirius' arms. Both boys spared a moment to
laugh at their ungracefulness, then went back into character. Princess Remusa pushed her tiara out
of her eyes and fluttered her eyelashes at Sirius.

“Thank you so much for saving me, my Prince!” Then Princess Remusa leaned forward and
kissed the air around Sirius' cheeks.

Even though Remus hadn't actually kissed him, Sirius' cheeks flamed hot at the gesture. His eyes
dropped to their feet, where Remus' makeshift dress was still visible, fluttering in the edge of his
vision. “'welcome,” Sirius mumbled.

“Come on.” Remus' voice was quiet, and not really Remusa's anymore. Sirius chanced a glance
up and met Remus' eyes. He was looking kindly at Sirius. “You saved me.” For just a second,
Remus' amber eyes got very, very sad. Sirius' hand fluttered up, brushing gently at Remus' elbow
from some sort of innate gesture of comfort. “You always save me, here,” Remus whispered.
Sirius didn't know why, but those words seemed so very important, suddenly. Then, between one
blink and the next, the spell was broken, and Remus' eyes were smiling softly at him again. “Let's
go to my kingdom together.”

Sirius smiled back and nodded. Right. He had defeated the Evil Witch, and saved the Princess.
Now they'd ride off together, and celebrate with great big parades and feasts and crowns and
everything. Because Sirius was a brave knight, and a hero.

**

Sirius was still imaging himself back at Remus' castle, with the bards singing songs about him and
the swooning over him and the king thanking him for saving his daughter when he was seated at
the dinner table that night. So distracted was he that he didn't hear Walburga's question.

“Sirius Orion Black. You answer your mother when she speaks to you!”

Sirius' head jerked up, entire body recoiling at the tone in Walburga's voice. He shivered in his
seat, mouth flapping as he searched for a reply. “Pardon me?” he finally settled on.

“I said,” Walburga sneered, long-nailed fingers curling around the bottom of her wine glass, “Ms.
Antonia thinks some of her tutelage is finally getting through that thick skull of yours. You'll be
sure to thank her next time you see her.”

Unthinking, Sirius rolled his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. It hadn't been Ms. Antonia
who had showed him the patterns in the numbers, it'd been Remus . And it wasn't his fault he
didn't get it: it was Ms. Antonia's. “Sorted it on my own,” he grumbled. “Dunno why I got to
thank Ms. Antonia.”

“What did you say?”

As Walburga rose from her seat, lips pressed so tight they were white with lack of blood, eyes
flashing as she loomed over the entire table, Sirius cowered in his chair. Oh. That hadn't been
good. That'd been a mistake. A really, really bad mistake.
 Chapter 7
Chapter Summary

Remus teaches Sirius what a real birthday party should be like.

The stupid, formal clothes landed on the covered furniture in a heap, crumpling into messy
wrinkles. A moment later Sirius was there, grumbling his way through folding them. He didn't
want to fold the stupid nice clothes, and make them neat, but he had to. If he didn't, Walburga
would beat him. Again.

Finally, finally Sirius was in his tattered play-clothes, and his nice clothes were folded, and he was
ready to go . He yanked open the door and hurried through it, reluctant to spend a moment longer
in cold, dark Grimmauld Place.

At the last minute Sirius decided to be quiet as he entered the World, snicking his door shut gently
behind him before creeping over the crumbling roads, stepping on the soft dirt and grass when he
could, doing his best to avoid disturbing loose stone at any other time. He managed to reach their
stone wall undetected, Sirius was fairly certain.

His subtly was confirmed when Sirius peered around the corner of the wall, spotting Remus with
his head bent over one of his books. Sirius couldn't be certain, but he thought maybe Remus
looked kind of sad. It was probably because Sirius hadn't been able to come yesterday, even
though he said he would. He had just forgot, was all. About the party and all. “Remus!”

Remus' head jerked up at the sound of Sirius' cry. But after surprise and recognition flittered
across his face, the same sadness overtook it again. Sirius frowned and hurried over.

“Hey.” He nudged his shoulder into Remus' ducking his head to try and cast Remus' downcast
eyes. “Alright?”

Remus shrugged, fingers running pages over them incessantly, like a flip book. Sirius knew that's
what Remus did when he was upset. Without thinking Sirius stuck a hand out and placed it over
Remus', stopping the distraught movement.

“Sorry,” Sirius tried again. “I forgot I had to go to my party, yesterday.”

Remus didn't say anything for a moment, and Sirius worried that maybe Remus was really angry
at him, that they were going to have a fight and then Sirius wouldn't be able to come back. He
detangled his hand from Sirius' to rub at his other shoulder, an expression Sirius found
nauseatingly familiar flickering across his face. But before Sirius could ask – who hurt you? How
could anyone hurt you? Where are they so I can hurt them worse? – his head turned, just a little,
toward Sirius. “Party?”

Sirius groaned, throwing himself off the bench. He stared up at the sky, limbs spread all akimbo
on the cool, uneven marbles beneath him. “Uck, yeah. Right terrible. My ninth birthday.”

Remus made a weird sound, causing Sirius to twist his neck up to look at him. The expression on
Remus' face was utterly baffled.
“How could you forget your birthday?”

Sirius shrugged. “Don't like to think about it. 's never any fun.”

“Why? How?”

Sirius knocked his head back on the marble, closing his eyes against the sunlight. Red spots
danced behind his eyes. They cheered him up a bit. He could pretend they were party balloons, or
something. “Always is. All the cousins and aunties and uncles come over, and I have to sit and
accept all the presents and watch my manners, and Walburga...” Sirius stopped, trailing off. He
didn't want to tell Remus about how Walburga would stand over his left side, hand gripping his
right shoulder and ready to dig in with her nails the moment he looked too bored or tired or said
anything out of line.

“'s just always awful.”

Remus was so quiet for so long that Sirius opened his eyes and craned his neck again to look up at
him. “What?” Remus was staring at him with an expression Sirius had seen before but never
sussed. “What?”

“Don't you get cake? And presents?”

Sirius shrugged. “There's food, but it's never anything messy. And it's all fancy desserts that the
grown-ups like, not good stuff. Even the ice cream has fruit in it.”

Remus smiled and wrinkled his nose. “Ew.”

Sirius nodded in agreement. Definitely ew. “And the presents aren't wicked things, like toy cars or
swords or anything. It's always expensive clothes, or pocket watches, or rings, or...” he threw
himself backwards again as he recalled his latest terrible gift from Uncle Malfoy. He was certain
the mean man did it on purpose . “Or bone china tea sets .”

That got Remus actually laughing, just a little. Finally he slid off the bench and joined Sirius on
the ground, stretching out next to him on his belly. “Really?” he asked.

“Really,” Sirius moaned.

They fell silent for a moment, Sirius soaking in the sun like old Ms. Callidora's cat. He could feel
Remus next to him, lying quite still like he was good at doing. Remus could be the stillest of
anyone Sirius had ever seen. Sometimes Sirius envied that quality of his. If Sirius could only go
still like Remus did, maybe he wouldn't get in trouble so much at home. Maybe he wouldn't break
things or spill juice onto his formal shirt and receive a lashing with Orion's belt.

“You thought I wasn't coming.” Sirius spoke before he even had the thought, but when he did he
realized he was probably right. Remus had been looking all sad, like he thought Sirius was gone
and wasn't coming back. Unless he had other reasons to be sad. Reasons having to do with his
sore shoulder.

To Remus' credit, he punched Sirius in the arm and grumbled: “Shut it. Tosser.” Sirius grinned
and didn't bother opening his eyes.

It was because he was right. Remus had been scared something had happened. With the way their
schedules were, Sirius was almost always there first, and always had more days to spend in their
World than Remus did. Between primary school and helping out in his parent's shop, Remus
could only sneak away a few days a week when school was on. But Sirius had all the time in the
world. His school was a tutor who only bothered him a few hours every day, and God forbid he
even mention the word “work” to Walburga. She'd wash his mouth out with soap. Or worse.

So as it stood, Sirius was almost always the one waiting for Remus, playing around their World
before he showed up. Once Sirius had even managed to scare Remus by jumping out from behind
his door as he shut it. Remus had laughed and tried to tackle Sirius to the ground, but Sirius had
been too fast and ran around the entire world twice before Remus gave up and panted out a truce.
So when Sirius didn't show up yesterday, even though it was one of the days Remus could be
there, Remus must have gotten nervous. Remus had missed him. Sirius held onto that thought with
the ferocity of a scientist coming to his great Eureka moment.

Of course, that still didn't explain the shoulder. But maybe Remus had just been roughhousing
with some of the blokes at primary school and got himself shoved into a tree or something. Wasn't
like Remus was the biggest of boys – Sirius could certainly manhandle him easily enough.

“D'you still want to be the princess today?”

At this Sirius finally cracked open an eye, letting his head list sideways as he looked at Remus. “'s
my turn, isn't it?”

Remus shrugged one shoulder. “But it's your birthday. Was yesterday. You should get to pick.”

Sirius beamed. Oh. That was the sort of stuff that happened to normal people on their birthdays?
That was brilliant! No wonder people liked them. “Okay! No, wait: I've got a better idea.” Sirius'
eyes glinted. He knew a way to be the girl and be the hero. “Let's do Cupid! I'll be Psyche.”

Remus grinned, and Sirius basked in the warmth of more than just the sun. He knew he was being
clever, and Remus always liked cleverness more than anything else. With Psyche, Sirius got to be
the one to have an adventure while Remus waited, and still use up his turn of being the girl. It was
the perfect plan. And Remus'd have to agree, since it was his birthday .

Birthdays really could be brilliant. Sirius had never known that before Remus.

“Okay,” Remus agreed. “But we're together first, remember? And I'm invisible.” Remus
rummaged through their costume box, finally pulling out a cloak. “Here. When I have this on I'm
invisible.”

Sirius nodded, rolling up to his knees to look through the box himself. He'd have to wear the girl
clothes again, but that was okay. When they were playing ancients they both ended up dressing
like girls anyways, with the togas and such. Remus started sorting through the props they'd need,
like an old box for the bag of grain and some scraps of fabric for the golden wool. Now Sirius just
had to figure out how to do his hair. He needed to be beautiful enough to make Cupid fall in love
with him, after all.

**

Sirius was still fiddling with the sleeves on his play-shirt when he stepped into their meeting area a
few days later. There were great big holes in the shirt, to the point where one of the holes went
from his elbow to his wrist, and his hand kept slipping out through it. He could just rip it off, or let
it slide out, but Sirius fancied himself a bit of a pirate in the shirt, and pirates had big, billowy
sleeves. Not vests.

So intent was he on fixing his shirt that Sirius didn't even look up to greet Remus as he rounded
the wall. It wasn't until Remus said “Surprise,” in his shyest voice that Sirius looked up. And
promptly found himself amazing, incredibly, unbelievably surprised.

In their little space, Remus had decorated. Like a real birthday party. He had strung colorful paper
chains all at the top of the walls, wherever he could reach. And their bench was covered in a
blanket, with a whole spread on top. There were two muffins, one of them with a candle poking
out the top, and both were heaped with piles and piles of icing. And there was even a card
propped up against the candle-impaled muffin, with Sirius' name written carefully on it.

Remus was standing just in front of the display, hands wringing at each other as he waited, rolling
back and forth on the balls of his feet. “I dunno how you spell it,” he started. “I thought it was like
the star, but I never asked. I hope it's right.”

Sirius stopped. Just... stopped. His whole body stopped right there in their little meeting place
shadowed by two walls, because his brain had stopped, and his heart had stopped. Only, really,
his heart wasn't stopping so much as going a million times faster than it should, than it could ,
because he just couldn't feel everything that he was feeling. It was all this pressure in the middle of
his chest, all different sorts of thoughts and words and feelings that he didn't... he couldn't... And
they all wanted to get out, right then and there. So he was going so fast that he was still, and
stopped, because he couldn't even find the space within himself to consider thinking about how to
respond.

It was Remus – of course, it should be – that got Sirius slowed down and started again. “Sirius? Is
it okay?”

Then Sirius moved, and it was to grab Remus and tug him tight to his chest, hugging him like he
never, ever wanted to let go. “You're my best friend,” Sirius whispered. “You're my best friend
forever . We're going to go to uni and get a flat together and be best friends forever because you're
my best friend.”

When Sirius let Remus go for air his face was flushed between the light spattering of freckles. He
looked down, then up, then down again as he finally replied: “You're my best friend too, Sirius.
You're my only friend.”

Before any more feelings could beat at the inside of Sirius' chest he held out his hand, and him and
Remus went through the motions of their secret handshake. Sirius turned to the spread on the
bench and examined it more carefully, now that he was closer. “Walburga always makes me open
the card, first,” he thought out loud.

“Let's eat, first. Oh, no! First-” and Remus produced a tattered old matchbook from somewhere in
his trousers. Sirius watched, fascinated, as Remus carefully ripped a match out and struck it
against the back, lighting it on the fourth or fifth try. Then he carefully lit Sirius' candle, and
starting rushing through “Happy Birthday”.

When he was done Sirius didn't even know what to do. He looked down at the candle and then up
at Remus for prompting. This was something entirely out of his depth, for once. “Blow out the
candle,” Remus instructed. “And you have to think of something you wish for. But you can't say
it out loud, or tell me after. Or tell anyone . Otherwise it won't come true.”

Screwing up his face, Sirius thought. What could he wish for, at the best birthday he had ever
had? Then he looked across at Remus waiting for him to blow out his candle, and he knew. I wish
me and Remus stay best friends for ever and ever and ever. And that we get a flat together one
day and I never, ever have to go back to Grimmauld ever again .

Sirius blew out the candle in one go, and Remus cheered. There was a tingle across his skin,
maybe like magic setting to work. Sirius could only hope he had done the wishing part right.

The muffins were delicious . The best kind of dessert: so sweet Sirius thought his teeth might fall
out and his blood jump right through his skin. And the cake part of it was so gooey and thick that
Sirius found himself almost unable to finish the dense, rich dessert. But he definitely managed it,
even if his stomach was left feeling big and full. It was the best birthday dessert he'd ever had; it
was probably the best dessert ever he'd had in his entire life .

When Sirius said as much to Remus, the other boy grinned and licked the last bit of sticky cake off
his fingers. “Mum made it, for the customers. I nicked two this morning and saved them all day.”

Sirius licked the cupcake wrapper. “Your mum's brilliant .”

Once the cupcake had settled in his stomach and wrapper all but devoured, Sirius turned his
attention to the card. He took a moment to look at his name, spelled out perfectly in Remus'
careful handwriting. It wasn't as fancy as Sirius' – born from years of painful calligraphy lessons –
but it was nice, and neat, if simple. It was like Remus.

“Did I spell it right?”

Remus was sitting close to Sirius, peering down at the card as he asked.

“Yeah,” Sirius reassured him. “Yeah. Just like that. Like the star.”

Never before had Sirius been eager to open a card before, but that was just the sort of day it was.
Remus had given Sirius a birthday party entirely unlike any other he'd had before: someone fun
and nice and about him instead of about the Blacks. And then Remus had given him desserts that
were actually yummy instead of gross puddings or ice cream with fruit in it. So even though Sirius
had never been excited about a card before, now his fingers slipped and tore at the paper with
nervous anticipation.

When he tugged the card out of the envelope, Sirius grinned. There was a drawing on front, and
glitter. Some of it transferred to Sirius' hand even as he was just holding the card. He marveled at
it, turning his hand in the sunlight and watching the way it glinted at different angles. “It's the time
we played Prince Ali and the magic carpet. See? There's you and me on the magic carpet, fighting
the sorceress above Baghdad.”

Sirius grinned, touching the drawing lightly. The glitter was a trail flying behind the carpet – Sirius
supposed it was meant to indicate magic. Inside the card were the words “Happy Birthday, Sirius!
Sincerely, Remus” written in Remus' careful penmanship. Sirius closed the card and placed it
down on the bench, smoothing out the edges.

“Thank you,” he whispered. In that moment, Sirius realized why people said thank you, what they
were supposed to mean when they said it. All his life he'd memorized a dozen, a hundred different
instances when he was supposed to reply with “thank you”: when someone passed the salt, when
Mr. Malfoy said something mean to him, when Walburga let him go to bed after dealing with him.
But now, suddenly, viciously, Sirius knew what it felt like to be thankful.

“Thank you,” he repeated, looking Remus in the eyes. “This is the best birthday I've ever had.”

Remus shrugged, fingers fiddling with his cupcake wrapper. “It's not much. Next year I'll know,
and we'll do something really brilliant. Have a whole week of adventures just about your birthday.
Big feasts with the whole court, and magicians and jugglers and acrobats from all over world and
time.”

Something occurred to Remus. “What about your birthday? We have to do something for it.”

Remus shook his head. “I'm already nine. And I don't turn ten for months. It's all the way in
October.”
“You have to tell me when it's coming up. Because I want to do something just as brilliant as you.
Promise!”

Remus smiled, ducked his head. “Okay. Promise.” They shook on it with their special secret
handshake. Rocking forward onto his ties, then back again, Remus nodded at their costume box.
“Want to play? I read a whole new book about constellation myths: Orion and Castor and
Pollux... I was thinking we could be Castor and Pollux.”

Sirius winced. He had a great-uncle Pollux. He wasn't very nice. “I call Castor,” he declared.
Remus voiced no objections, so they set to work picking out their costumes.

**

Late afternoon found Sirius stepping back through his door and into Grimmauld Place, card from
Remus clutched close to his chest. As he was changing back into his normal clothes, Sirius took
one last, long look at the card. Then he put it in the bottom of his clothing box, covering it with his
dirty clothes. Then came the top of the box, a sheet over that, and the whole thing got tucked
under its desk with a sheet over that . Satisfied the present from Remus was well and truly hidden,
Sirius spared one last look at the door before making his way out of the dusty room.
 Chapter 8
Chapter Summary

Stargazing.

The night air had just enough chill in it that the two boys decided it'd be best to drag one of the
blankets out of their costume box before heading down to the beach. Since Remus had brought
the telescope in the first place, Sirius was left with carrying the blanket. It dragged in the grass
between the ruins, catching on a piece of broken pillar here, a half-decayed wall there. Sirius
almost fell backwards once, and had only been saved because the cheap fabric of the blanket tore
at the last moment. Remus turned around at the noise, toes curling in the empty circle of dirt he
was standing in. “Alright?”

Sirius nodded, gathering up as much of the material as he could into his arms. Then his hair fell in
his eyes, and he tossed his head back to try and see. What he saw was Remus grinning at him.

“Oi!” Sirius grumbled. “I've got all the-”

Sirius snapped his mouth shut when Remus tucked his telescope in the back of his trousers and
hurried to him, arms out. Between the two of them, they managed to scoop up all the blanket and
successfully carry it the last few feet down to the beach.

Once there, both Sirius and Remus shook the blanket out, as high as the could, and let it fall to the
sand. It was big enough that they could both lie on top of it and wrap it around themselves, so the
two boys proceeded to do just that. There was some squirming and adjusting as they rolled
themselves up like meat pies – Sirius took a moment to figure out how to keep the most amount of
his body covered as possible while still retaining use of his hands, while Remus tugged the
telescope out of the back of his trousers. Finally, finally they were settled, and Remus went still
beside Sirius.

Above them, the stars were shining brighter and clearer than Sirius had ever seen them. Not that
Walburga had allowed much time for star gazing, but the few times Sirius had crawled out of his
bed and tugged back the curtains to look at the night sky, it had all been almost completely
obscured. Between the London city lights and the trees and buildings on all sides of Grimmauld
Place, Sirius had only been able to see the brightest of stars, and only if they were in the exact
right spot.

Of course, he had spent a good part of his tutoring learning maps of the night sky, thanks to his
family's predilection for naming everyone after stars. Naked eyed, Sirius could pick out all the
main constellations. Of course, there was really only one that mattered when it came to his family.
“There's Orion.” He pointed to the clear constellation, a little ways up from the horizon. He waited
as Remus trained the telescope on the easy-to-spot constellation. Sirius shivered a little as he
looked at it, then wrapped the blanket tighter around himself.

His father, Orion, was no great hunter. At least, not in any way that Sirius had ever been able to
ascertain. Walburga was more to be feared and raced away from than Orion, but there was
something Sirius thought his father and his stellar namesake had in common: they were both cold,
distant, and unreachable. Orion hardly ever spoke to Sirius: not at dinner, not when he came home
from work, not at family engagements. Sirius had only been called into Orion's office twice, and
from work, not at family engagements. Sirius had only been called into Orion's office twice, and
he didn't much like to think about those two times. The only two times Walburga and Kreacher
had found themselves unwilling to deal with Sirius themselves.

“Aren't you up there?”

Sirius shook his head, then realized Remus wouldn't be able to see him with his eye glued to the
telescope. “No. Down further... no, further...” Sirius watched as Remus slowly scanned
downward with his telescope, eyes flickering back and forth between the end of Remus' telescope
and the night sky as he tried to mentally trace the line of sight. “To the left just a little... do you see
it?”

Remus' mouth was turned down in a frown as he shifted the telescope minutely around. “No, I-
oh! Is it bright?”

Sirius grinned. “Wicked bright. Brightest star in the sky. Even in the Iliad: παµφαίνονθ᾽ ὥς
τ᾽ ἀστέρ᾽ ἐπεσσύµενον πεδίοιο / ὅς ῥά τ᾽ ὀπώρης εἶσιν, ἀρίζηλοι δέ οἱ αὐγαὶ
/ φαίνονται πολλοῖσι µετ᾽ ἀστράσι νυκτὸς ἀµολγῷ, / ὅν τε κύν᾽ Ὠρίωνος
ἐπίκλησιν καλέουσι. / 30λαµπρότατος µὲν ὅ γ᾽ ἐστί, κακὸν δέ τε σῆµα
τέτυκται...”

Sirius trailed off as he reached the “Orion's dog” bit. He never did like that part very much.
Brightest star in the sky, and still just a possession of great, cold Orion.

When he thought to look over to Remus, he found the telescope resting on his chest, the other boy
staring at him with great big eyes. “What was that?”

Sirius flushed. Right. Remus didn't have the same tutors as him – didn't have any tutors at all,
actually. And apparently private schools weren't teaching Ancient Greek. “Nothing,” Sirius
mumbled, inexplicably embarrassed.

“No, really. That was...” Chancing a glance at Remus' face, Sirius found he was looking at him
like... like he was a superhero, or something. “What language was that? And how'd you
remember it all?”

Sirius shrugged, feeling a little bit better once he realized Remus didn't think he was trying to
show off. “It was the bit from the Iliad about my star, in Greek. Learned it ages ago. Greek 'n
Latin are all they make me do,” Sirius complained. “Well, that and maths.”

“What's it in English?”

Hardly with a thought, the words slipped from Sirius' tongue: “Him the old man Priam was first
to behold with his eyes / as he sped all-gleaming over the plain / like to the star that cometh forth
at harvest-time / and brightly do his rays shine amid the host of stars in the darkness of night / the
star that men call by name the Dog of Orion. ” When Remus continued to stare at him, Sirius
grew uncomfortably and needlessly pointed out: “That's me. Sirius: Dog of Orion.” He wrinkled
up his nose. Even with Remus staring at him like he really was the brightest star in all the sky,
Sirius still didn't find being called “Orion's Dog” any more palatable.

“Yours is too, you know,” Sirius pointed out, trying to change the subject. When Remus'
eyebrows wrinkled together, Sirius explained. “Your name. It's ancient.”

Remus' expression immediately brightened until he was actually smiling. Sirius noticed he had lost
another tooth – almost far enough back that it was invisible. Sirius only had the last molars left to
lose. “Yeah! It is! Have you ever heard of it? Romulus and Remus? It was in Livy, you know.
Mum read it to me when I was little.”
Sirius nodded. He'd read loads of Livy. In the original Latin, even: Iam primum omnium satis
constat Troia capta in ceteros saevitum esse Troianos, duobus, Aeneae Antenorique... Sirius
could recite whole passages of it by heart – much to his dismay. Then he glanced over and
realized Remus had gone silent since he confirmed he'd heard of Romulus and Remus before. “I
want you to tell it,” Sirius announced in a rush.

Remus shrugged, lifting the telescope back up to his eye and scanning the heavens again. “You
already read it.”

Rolling over so that he was hovering over Remus, Sirius yanked the telescope away and stared
down at a shocked Remus. “But you tell everything better. Even the stuff I've heard before.”

Sirius' face was close enough to Remus' that his hair brushed Remus' cheek. He couldn't quite see
Remus perfectly in the light provided only by the moon and stars, but Sirius thought Remus' face
darkened. He knew his lips for sure parted, because he could feel the moist air from Remus' breath
on his chin. “Tell me,” Sirius repeated.

“Okay.”

Grinning, Sirius set the telescope down on Remus' stomach and moved off him, so he was curled
up at Remus' side, leaning on his elbow as he waited. Remus' eyes stay trained on the sky for a
long moment, then he licked his lips and started to tell Sirius the tale of his namesake and his twin,
being raised by the she-wolf and founding Rome. When his voice faded away, Sirius plucked at
his sleeve. “But you don't have a twin. Do you?”

Remus shook his head. “When I was really little, Mum used to say I was going to get a little
brother. Then she got sick, and Dad said she couldn't have babies anymore.”

“Oh.” Sirius' mind flickered back to his own little brother, and how they barely spoke to each
other since Sirius started coming here to be with Remus. Maybe that was wrong. Maybe he should
spend some more time with Regulus. After all, Remus spoke about a little brother like it was
something he wanted.

“What's having one like?”

Sirius had forgotten that Remus knew about Regulus. He thought about this for a moment. Briefly
he thought about comparing having Regulus to having Remus, but he stopped himself. How he
and Remus was, that was... it was different. It definitely wasn't like having a brother. Sirius wasn't
sure if that was because Remus didn't grow up with him all these years and so it might be like that,
years down the line when he and Remus still knew each other. But Sirius' stomach kind of
squirmed at that idea. Being with Remus was different from being with Regulus, and Sirius
suspected it'd always feel different.

“Having a little brother...” Sirius thought some more. “It's annoying,” he finally admitted. “It's
like... he's supposed to be your friend, and you're supposed to be on the same side all the time, but
you're not. Even when it comes to your parents or getting in trouble, you're usually fighting each
other instead of your parents. Which doesn't make sense. We should be... brothers should be
together. But we're not.”

In the dark and chill of the night, a single warm hand reached out and took hold of Sirius'. It
squeezed, and Sirius squeezed back.

That was just one way having Remus was so different from Regulus. Remus understood when
Sirius needed him to talk and play, and when he needed his stillness to calm himself. Regulus was
always pestering, always poking and prodding at Sirius, and saying the exact wrong thing. Remus
might not know all the things that happened to Sirius like Regulus did, but somehow, in spite of
not knowing him better, Remus understood him better.

Sirius squeezed Remus' hand back, and they went back to staring up at the stars.

**

A few days later after dinner, Sirius noticed Regulus hurrying off to his bedroom, a sort of sullen
worry tugging his lips into a frown. Deciding to put his plan of “Be a Good Big Brother” into
action, Sirius trailed after him.

When he got to Regulus' room, Sirius didn't bother knocking as he entered. Regulus' door was
cracked open and anyway, it wasn't like Sirius had never seen him naked before or anything.
They'd taken baths together up to just a few years ago.

Regulus jumped at the intrusion, spinning around in his desk chair toward the door. When he
realized it was Sirius, however, he just pouted and turned back to his desk. “Go 'way, Sirius. 'm
doing homework.”

Okay, so, Sirius could do that. He could help. Operation “Be a Good Big Brother” was going to
turn out just fine. “Lemme see,” Sirius stepped into the room. “You having trouble? I can help.”

Regulus' eyes were wary, but he moved his hand away from the paper he was working on long
enough for Sirius to look over his shoulder and gather what he was doing. “Oh, maths. Let... I
know this. Oh, I know a shortcut to this!” Sirius grinned. It was something Remus had taught him
with factoring things. Remus called it the “birthday cake” method; Sirius called it “upside-down
division”. Either way, it had helped it immensely – not only when it came to prime factorization,
but also with getting common denominators for fractions.

“Here, look.” Without asking permission, Sirius grabbed the pencil from Regulus' hand and
started sketching out the upside-down division. “Okay, so you take a number, like twenty-eight.
And you got to look at the primes, okay? Only the primes. So what's a prime that goes into
twenty-eight?”

Regulus looked skeptical, but thought about it for a moment and finally said: “Two.”

“Right!” Sirius scribbled the two next to the twenty-eight, on the outside of the upside-down
division box. “So then you take two out of twenty-eight – divide it, I mean, not subtract – and
watch'ya got? And think about it like halves, since that's easiest with twos.”

Regulus' expression was slowly closing down as he watched what Sirius was doing, but after a
long moment of quiet he mumbled. “Fourteen.”

“Right! So then what's a prime that comes out of that?”

“Two. But-”

“Shh! We're almost done.” Sirius waved aside Regulus' protests and kept writing. “Okay, so two
comes out, and that gives you seven, right? And then seven's prime, so you're done! All the stuff
on the outside is your factors. So you've got two twos, so that's two squared, and then the seven,
so...” Sirius wrote “22 x7” below the work with a flourish. “See how brilliant that is? You can do
this when you get to fractions, too. See-”

“But that's not how Ms. Antonia does it!”

Sirius stopped, mouth hanging open as he stared down at his little brother. Regulus was close to
tears, expression fiercely angry as he glared up at Sirius. He snatched the pencil out of Sirius'
loose grip and clutched it to his chest, like a weapon. “It's not how Ms. Antonia does it,” he
repeated.

Sirius waved a hand over his shoulder, still not sure what had gone wrong in the two minutes
since he started helping Regulus with his homework. “But this is better. And it's the same
answer.”

Regulus shook his head. “I have to do it the way Ms. Antonia showed me.”

Sirius laughed. “No you don't.” Regulus was being stupid. Of course he didn't have to do it the
was Ms. Antonia showed him. This was maths. So long as he got the right answer, it didn't matter
how he got to it!

“No!” To Sirius' immense shock, Regulus stuck one hand out and shoved at Sirius' chest, sending
him stumbling back a few steps. The other hand still clutched the pencil protectively. “You never
do things right,” Regulus cried. “That's why Mum's always so mad at you, and Ms. Antonia calls
you stupid.”

Sirius' chest burned where Regulus had pushed him, even though his little brother hadn't managed
to put much force behind it. Tears swelled in Sirius' eyes, blurring his vision. In his attempt to
ignore them, he let hot anger well up within him, taking over his reactions. “ You're stupid!” he
shouted back.

“Not-uh! I do things right!” Regulus brought his fist down on his homework. “Ms. Antonia says
so! You're always the one who does them wrong.”

“I was trying to help, you stupid prat!” Sirius shouted back. “Go... go bugger yourself!”

Regulus gasped, eyes going wide. Sirius abruptly realized what he'd said, and all the anger
drained out of him. Regulus was going to tell Walburga he cursed. And Walburga didn't let them
curse – it was “common”. Sirius' tongue curled up in his mouth at the very thought of what sorts
of punishments Walburga might inflict on him for this.

“Sorry! Sorry. Don't tell Walburga. Please.”

Regulus pointed one small finger at the door. “Leave me alone!”

Praying that meant Sirius could avoid punishment, he complied immediately with Regulus' order
and fled. So much for having a little brother. Remus was better off without one.
 Chapter 9
Chapter Summary

Sandcastles are tricky things.

Sirius poked his head up from behind his fortress to take a look at what Remus was doing. When
he saw Remus' fortifications already reached all the way to the house next to the beach, Sirius
gasped. “How'd you do that so fast?!” he shouted over the noise of the ocean breaking next to
them.

Remus' head appeared from behind his sandcastle walls, hair blending in almost perfectly with the
sand all around him. “What?”

Sirius gestured at the sandcastle wall, which extended from the old house next to the beach all the
way down to the waterline. He was even starting to build a tower on the wall! Meanwhile, Sirius'
sand was alternatively melting and crumbling beneath his careful, dedicated fingers. It was barely
tall enough in one section to cover him, and certainly not so for its entire length.

“Truce?”

Sirius' reply was immediate. “Truce! Come help!”

Remus had to scramble all the way into the surf just to get around his wall, and then trudge almost
all the way back up the beach to get to the small section of Sirius' that was barely standing. While
he walked, Sirius found between his sand and Remus'. Was it different , somehow? It looked like
a different color. Maybe Remus had better sand on his side of the beach.

When he reached Sirius' wall, Remus immediately stuck a hand out and tore a chunk of sand from
the wall.

“Hey!” Sirius shouted. “That's my wall!”

Remus shook his head, sand melting between his fingers. “That was too wet. It was melting. And
this,” Remus went over to another section of Sirius' wall and tapped. It almost immediately started
to sift apart. Sirius grumbled. “This section's too dry. It's super specific,” Remus explained,
“lemme show you.”

So that was how Sirius found out that there was a specific ratio of water-to-sand that he needed to
use if he wanted his sandcastle to have any sort of good, solid structure. He also needed to dig out
a foundation for the wall, which needed to be filled with water. As Sirius helped it take shape, he
marveled at how much better Remus' method was.

An hour – maybe even more – later, Sirius and Remus stopped, sweaty and sandy, to check their
work. Sirius' wall was starting to look like an actual wall now. Sirius grinned and slung an arm
around Remus' sandy shoulders. “Brilliant!” He then wrinkled his nose and pulled his hand back
to himself, glancing down at how completely and utterly covered in sand their skin was. “Ew. I'm
going in the ocean.”

“Careful!” Remus called out, but he was already following behind Sirius to the sea. It was an
impossibly warm day out, considering it was approaching November back home. But Sirius had
already figured out that seasons didn't really work in their World the way they did at home. In fact,
the only rule the weather seemed to follow in their World was that it was whatever they needed it
to be that day. When they talked about making mud pies or have epic battle scenes in the pouring
rain, the weather obliged. When they wanted to build a fire and sit out under blankets together,
there was a nip in the air. And when it was freezing cold at home and all they wanted was a
scorching summer day, they got a day like today.

The sea water was cold, but not like the Channel. Remus seemed almost to read Sirius' mind as he
laughed and splashed water on his chest. “Once I went in the North Sea with my cousins. It was
so cold my lips turned blue in a couple minutes. And it was summer !”

Sirius laughed. Remus had family in the oddest places, like the North. Sirius' family didn't even
associate with families from the North, much less have anyone in their own family from there.

“D'you think you can do the rest yourself?”

Sirius nodded, wiping the last clump of sand off his chest. Remus was watching him, finished
cleaning off and left with water glinting off his chest and trousers with wet patches all over them.
Sirius grinned, mischievous, as he bent down as if to rinse himself off some more. But then he
leapt up and heaved great big handfuls of water at Remus, laughing hysterically at the shock that
paralyzed Remus. He stood there, dripping wet from head to toe, as Sirius raced off back up the
beach, to behind his wall.

“Sirius!”

Sirius laughed and dove behind his wall. His water bucket was still there, mostly full. A good
thing, because he was going to need a ton of sandballs pretty soon, if Remus' shouts of indignation
were anything to go by.

“Sirius! Sirius! I'm... I'm declaring war on you!”

“Okay!” Sirius giggled as he started carefully applying the right amount of water to his sand and
forming them into balls with his hands. Carefully he smoothed out a section of sand to use as a
bullet... dispensary... thing. What was it the royals had? Some sort of place just for all their
weapons. Probably had a whole word for it, or something. Whatever it was, Sirius had one now,
filled with a rapidly-increasing amount of sandballs.

When Sirius decided he had about a million sandballs in his armory (or at least a hundred), he
peeked his head up about his walls. Remus' side was relatively quiet... except... Sirius gasped.
Remus had built two more towers! And they even had little windows in them, like all the castles
had.

Grumbling, Sirius set back to work. He could beat that . He'd build five towers on his castle. And
they'd be twice as high! He'd even build stairs to go up to them, they'd be so tall. And he'd be able
to fire sandballs down onto Remus' head easy. Setting to work, Sirius started building up a tower
the way Remus had showed him. When he finished with that, he built another. And another. He
didn't manage to catch anything more than the briefest of glances of Remus the whole time, mostly
when he ran to the end of his wall to gather up more water in his bucket.

By the time the first shot was fired, Sirius had almost forgotten they were waging war. In fact, the
sandball that struct his head was so unexpected that he glanced around for a good fifteen seconds,
wondering what part of his painstakingly constructed wall was collapsing onto him. Then another
ball crashed to the ground less than a foot from him, and Sirius gasped with abrupt
comprehension.
“Blaggard!” Sirius shouted. He didn't even know what the word meant, but he'd heard a pirate say
it once. It sounded wicked. “You'll pay for that!”

Remus' voice was faint and tinged with laughter as he shouted back. “Prove it!”

Sirius grumbled and started gathering up his weapons. He'd added a few cannonball-sized
sandballs to the armory since he started, though he wasn't quite sure how effective they'd be. He
didn't have any way to propel them, and they'd probably end up falling apart as soon as they left
his hands. While that remained a problem, Sirius hefted up two regular-sized sandballs, one in
each hand, and shouted: “We'll see who'll win, King Remus!” With that, Sirius jumped up from
behind his wall and flung the two balls, one after another, at where he thought Remus was.

Of course, Remus was on the exact other end of his castle, and managed to nail Sirius in the cheek
before Sirius even realized his mistake. Sirius groaned and dropped behind his fortification as
Remus' laugh followed him. “I'd get new archers if I was you, King Sirius!” he shouted. Sirius
groaned again. Remus was even better at shouting castle-y insults than he was!

By the time the sand had settled, Sirius' castle was horribly, horribly mangled. One tower was
almost completely destroyed, another had the top sheered off. There were two gaping holes in his
wall, and the whole thing was probably a good six inches lower than it was when they started. His
ammo was out, including the cannonballs (which, indeed, had proved entirely ineffective). He
crouched behind his crumbling wall and grumbled as he tied a ripped-off piece of his trousers to
his finger.

“King Sirius! King Sirius! You give up?”

Sighing, Sirius stuck his hand above his wall, piece of trouser securely tied to his index finger. A
sandball hurtled over his head, as expected. After it landed he shouted: “I surrender! You win!”

There wasn't a noise from Remus' side of the beach, which Sirius found odd. Cautiously –
because as he had learned today, Remus was above dirty tricks to achieve victory – Sirius poked
his head up from behind his wall. No movement from Remus' side. That was odd.

Then something tackled Sirius from behind, crashing him into his precariously surviving wall.
Sirius cried out, but his surprised laughter at Remus' antics spoiled his attempt to be angry. “I
win!”

Remus' eyes were bright as he settled on top of Sirius, beaming down at him. He had sand in his
hair and sticking to his chest, back after their quick bath in the ocean thanks to Sirius managing to
land a few shots in their heated battle. Sirius grinned, swiping at the sand as Remus seemed
content to stay seated on top of him. Sirius didn't mind. Remus was light enough for it not to be a
bother. And he had won, after all.

**

It was nearly a week later before Remus had said he'd be able to meet again. Something about a
school Christmas play and rehearsals being mandatory, much to Remus' chagrin. The day they
had agreed to meet again was a weekend, so Sirius had off from his tutor the same as Remus had
off from school. However, Sirius was still expected to wake up in the morning at the same time
and join the family for breakfast, just like every day. Because of that, he managed to get to the
world long before Remus was probably even up.

Sirius grinned as he changed into his junk clothes. He was going to spend the whole morning
building up even more fortifications. Remus had managed to defeat him last time, but Sirius had
been studying since then. It turned out, there were lots of books in his family's library on stuff like
battle tactics and wars in castles and stuff. He hadn't found anything on building sand structures,
but that was why he was here early. He'd build everything back up, then build more and better :
weapons, towers, everything . Maybe he'd even manage to build those towers with stairs this time.

Hurrying through the door and down to the beach, Sirius built up his plans in his head. First he'd
have to repair the damage from last time. But that shouldn't take very long: no more than an hour,
at the absolute most.

When he reached the dirty circle just above the beach, Sirius stopped cold. He was looking down
at the part of the beach where his and Remus' castles were, but... nothing. There was nothing there
anymore. But... how could that be? They'd built it up, way up over the tideline. Hadn't they? And
there was so much of it, there was no way the ocean had taken it all away so fast.

But no: there was nothing. Not bumps for the walls, not even dug out places where Remus' moat
had been. Sirius threw himself down the beach, stumbling and racing to it. He stared at the little
road that ended at the beach, where they had drawn their literal lines in the sand. Nothing. There
was nothing anymore. Nothing left. Collapsing down onto the beach. Sirius shoved his hands into
the sand, and started to cry.

When Remus found him there an hour later, Sirius had dried his tears. Because big boys didn't
cry, and they definitely didn't cry over something as stupid as a sandcastle. But when he heard
Remus' footsteps behind him on the path, and some small noise of dismay that escaped Remus'
throat, tears burned hot and real at Sirius' eyes again. He choked them down, wiping his miserable
face against his sleeve. He couldn't cry over this. More importantly: he couldn't let Remus see him
cry over this.

“Sirius?”

Sirius grumbled something.

Remus fell silent, but Sirius could feel him at his back: watching, considering. After a moment or
two, while Sirius did his best to get his sniffling under control, Remus clambered to set himself
down next to Sirius on the sand. Their shoulders bumped. Remus didn't move to put any more
distance between them, so they stayed touching.

“It's okay,” Remus said after a while. “We can build another one. Or play something else.”

Somehow that easy reassurance just served to make Sirius angry. “I don't want to do something
else!” he shouted. “I wanted to keep playing castle! We worked so hard, and now... it's all gone.”

There was a long pause, like Remus was letting Sirius' words float away before he filled the air
with new ones. His arm slipped around Sirius' back, and Sirius found himself curling up into
Remus, letting Remus comfort him. “Maybe it's a good thing,” Remus mused. Sirius' head was
tucked just under Remus' chin, and his lips tickled Sirius' hair as he talked. “If you think about it
like, the sea took away the castles because we weren't supposed to spend anymore time on it. We
were supposed to do something better. Because the sand stuff's never going to last forever. And
the sea was telling us we should do stuff that would be better, like the buildings here and all.”

“I don't want to do something different,” Sirius grumbled. But his eyes were already feeling dryer,
his chest a little less desperately hurt.

“Maybe the sand's like when you're drawing a picture, and you do it in pencil first. Then you can
erase and make mistakes and change it. But then when you go to do something really important,
you do paints. Because those are permanent. Maybe that's what the sea was doing: taking away
our pencils.”
Sirius listened to Remus' breathing after he finished, head shifting with the gentle rise and fall of
Remus' chest. He was pressed so close he could even hear Remus' heartbeat beneath his ear: a
reassuring, steady thing. Something permanent. Like paints.

Sirius must have drifted off for a little bit, because when he opened his eyes again the sun was
noticeably shifted towards afternoon. He moved away from Remus, untangling himself from
Remus' arms and chest. The other boy just watched him move, eyes patient, unquestioning.

“I have to go soon,” Sirius said. Gone too long, and Walburga would eventually notice.

“Okay.”

Impulsively, Sirius pulled Remus into a hug, clutching him tight to himself. Remus hugged back,
nose settling in the crook of Sirius' shoulder. “See you,” Sirius mumbled when they separated.

“Tomorrow,” Remus promised. “I can be here tomorrow. And we'll play something new.”

Sirius nodded as he pushed himself to his feet and brushed sand from his clothes. Tomorrow
they'd start something new, and it'd be okay. So long as Remus said it, it would be.
 Chapter 10
Chapter Summary

Sirius and Remus play some new games.

The world was so much more quiet down here. Not completely silent, but definitely muffled.
Sirius wondered if this was how it was inside Remus' head. Not less active, because Sirius could
still see everything and hear some. But quieter. Calmer.

Sirius broke the surface of the water, breathing deep as he shook water from his hair. Next to him,
Remus was just dropping down into a crouch, submerging himself in the shallow end of the pool.
Sirius tapped his head to get his attention.

“What?” Remus rubbed at his eyes with wet hands, blinking to try and get all the water from
them. Sirius noticed his eyelashes were still wet and clumped together in pretty little brown
triangles.

“Do you want to play something?”

As Remus pondered this, he let himself float backwards a bit, toes keeping himself steady on
bottom of the pool.

They had decided today, with the sun sweltering high over head and shining fiercely, that they
should try to go for a swim in the pool. Of course, since neither of them actually knew how to
swim, this had just resulted in them splashing around the shallow end of the pool, sticking their
heads under the water and resurfacing when their lungs deigned themselves in need of a reminder
that they weren't fish.

When Remus had suggested them try and go for a swim, Sirius had frowned and felt a little flare
of shame spark in his chest. He didn't have what anyone might consider “normal” swimwear:
rather, it was clothing designed to cover as much skin as possible while still looking somewhat
like it was beach-worthy. He had settled on protesting by fibbing just a little in telling Remus that
he didn't have any swim trunks. Remus had just laughed and started stripping down to his pants.
After a brief moment of stomach-flipping confusion, Sirius had realized that Remus intended them
to wear their pants in lieu of swimwear. Sirius had ducked his head in embarrassment at his
naivety and quickly followed suit. Their clothes were waiting for them in a windowless window
ledge, plenty far away from their splashing and general carousing.

“We could play Marco Polo.”

Sirius waved his hands lazily through the water, watching with fascination the different eddies and
mini-Charybdis’s he could make. The pool had some sort of minimal current flowing through it
(which was probably why it had never gone all gunky and gross like that old broken down
fountain that occupied a far corner of Grimmauld Place's backyard). The current made it so that
the water flowed fundamentally differently than any other water Sirius had been in: it wasn't
completely still, like his bath, but it wasn't a quick-moving, strong current like the ocean. Sirius
thought he could try out different splashes in the water for a long time before he was satisfied that
he had it sorted.
Finally he lifted his head and cocked it at Remus. “What's Marco Polo?”

Remus' expression shifted quickly from ponderous to excited. “Oh, it's brilliant. I shut my eyes,
and call out 'Marco'! Then, you have to say 'Polo', unless you're underwater, and then I have to
find you and try to tag you out. Oh, and if you get out of the water and I think you are, I get to call
“fish out of water!” and you have to be it.”

Sirius nodded his understanding. So it was like water-tag, only with a couple more rules. That
could be fun. “You be it first,” he decided. “Because you know the rules.”

Remus nodded, unfazed. “Okay. I'll close my eyes and count to twenty.”

Even as Sirius nodded, he was looking around and strategizing. Neither of them could go into the
deep end, so that was out. Sirius supposed he could cling to the edge of the pool and drag himself
around the deep end, but that'd be kind of cheating. Plus Remus wouldn't be able to save him if he
slipped, and the marble floors around the pool were pretty slippery when they were wet. So his
smartest route would probably be to go to the opposite corner from where Remus was, which
would be the spot just before the pool dropped off to the deep end and agains the far wall. Then,
as Remus got closer, Sirius would just have to keep on hurrying ahead of him, as best he could in
the odd bouncing-walk they'd both adopted for moving around in the water.

“Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Marco!”

Sirius grinned. Calling out to the person who was It where you were seemed to totally opposite of
everything he had ever learned about tag. It was bizarre, but kind of fun and exciting. “Polo!” he
called back.

When Remus turned to perfectly face him, Sirius felt a little nervous. He had a feeling he wouldn't
feel as sure about Remus' direction when he was It and had his eyes closed. Remus might be
really, really good at this.

Sure enough, to Sirius' immense dismay, Remus closed in on him quickly. Sirius found himself
boxed in at the front corner of the pool, only managing to get as far as Remus' starting point before
he could himself unable to go any further. Remus was so close to him, hands stretched out and
eyes closed, face tilted slightly up as if he was almost sniffing Sirius out. Sirius quivered with
suppressed laughter against the corner of the pool. He could try and get out, but he was certain
Remus would hear him. And he didn't want to become It because he was almost kind of cheating.
So Sirius just made himself as small as he could pressed up against the corner, and did his best not
to giggle hysterically as Remus continued to inch forward.

“Marco?” Remus called out one last time. His right hand swept an inch from the tip of Sirius'
nose.

“Polo,” Sirius whispered. Remus moved forward the final foot, and Sirius found himself plastered
between Remus' soft, warm skin at his front and the hard, cold marble of the edge of the pool
behind him.

Remus laughed, opening his eyes and looking to Sirius'. They grinned at each other, Sirius doing
his best to stop quivering from some sort of nervous excitement that had taken over him. This was
definitely a good game. They'd have to play this loads .

“You're it.”

Sirius laughed for real this time, because he could. He shoved at Remus' chest playfully. “You're
too good! I'm never going to catch you, am I?”
Remus' grin was quick but brilliant. “You gotta try.”

Sirius scoffed. Of course he was going to try. It'd be no fun if he didn't. But he definitely didn't
think he'd be able to catch Remus.

They separated and Sirius turned into the corner, closing his eyes. “One, two, three...” The sounds
of Remus splashing away from him were loud for a moment, and then... quiet. Sirius grumbled to
himself. If Remus was already about to get so quiet, there was no way Sirius would be able to find
him. But then again, he'd still have to say Polo. So Sirius could find him that way.

Turned out, Sirius really should have paid more attention Remus' little rule about having to reply
“Polo!” “ except when under water ”. That addendum was apparently Remus' key to winning the
whole thing. Sirius called out Marco and received a “Polo” back for his efforts twice through the
whole thing. After an hour (or it felt like an hour, at least) of hands held out in front of him and
throat getting sore from yelling “Marco!” so many times, Sirius finally conceded defeat, opening
his eyes and staring around for Remus. He was under water, of course.

When he came up for breath it was so quick that Sirius had to splash and head toward him a
couple times before Remus realized they weren't playing anymore. He grinned victoriously,
rubbing his eyes again as he tried fruitlessly to dry them. Sirius glared daggers at Remus and made
sure to dunk him under the water once when they swam together. Remus laughed and combed his
hair back with his fingers, still smiling. Sirius grumbled and headed out of the pool. It was easy to
smile when you won.

“Sirius!” Remus climbed out after Sirius, looking a little worried. Sirius bit back a grin and waited
at the edge of the pool for Remus to join him on dry land. “Sirius, don't be mad. Sorry. I play
loads with my cousins, and-”

The moment Remus was standing on his own two feet, Sirius' hands shot out and shoved him
back in the pool. The look on Remus' face! Total shock. Sirius laughed and danced around on the
marble, making faces as Remus resurfaced, gasping for breath and coughing water out his nose.

“Ah! There. Now we're even.”

As Remus got back to the edge of the pool, Sirius realized he was studying Sirius' ankles
carefully. Quick as could be, Sirius darted back from the edge of the pool and toward the
archways of the building. Remus laughed and leapt up to make a half-hearted grab for Sirius' legs,
but Sirius was already well out of range by then. Splashing the water in disappointment at his
attempted revenge being thwarted, Remus started to haul himself out of the pool again.

As Sirius went to reach for his clothes, Remus stopped him and nodded out of the pool house.
“Wait. Let's go dry out for a bit.”

Sirius blinked, pondering this for a moment. Wet fingertips brushed the fabric of his trousers as he
looked at Remus, dripping wet with nothing covering his skin except a small strip of barely-there
modesty provided by his skivvies. Sirius nodded. “Okay.”

Across the road from the pool house were the foundations of a completely destroyed building, by
what Sirius couldn't fathom. With all that was left being the foundations, the entire floor plan of
the building was exposed to the sun. The old stones that once supported the building provided the
perfect place for two little boys to spread out like geckos and dry out in the sun.

Sirius traced his fingertips along his stomach was he squinted up at the sky, eyes staring at the sun
before snapping shut, filled with water, before repeating the process. He'd been told – he wasn't
sure when – not to look directly at the sun. Now Sirius took every opportunity he could to stare at
the big ball of fire. Which, he had learned, was actually a star just like all the others in the sky.

“D'you think there's aliens?” he asked Remus, still staring at the sun.

Somewhere to his left and a little further down, by his thighs, Remus replied. “Definitely. What
with all the planets and stars and all, there's gotta be. Not on the Moon or Mars or anything, but
somewhere.”

“I was thinking...” Sirius stared up at the sun some more. When his eyes could take no more he
snapped them shut. Miniature red suns danced behind his eyelids. “I was thinking about our sun.
And how like, if there're aliens, then they see our sun as one of their stars. And then I was
thinking about constellations, and how our star might be in a constellation for some aliens. Or how
my star might have aliens on planets around it.”

Remus giggled. “D'you think if they met you they'd make you their king?”

Sirius laughed. He hadn't thought of that. Wouldn't that be brilliant. One day they came down on
their spaceships and took Sirius away from his home, from Walburga and Kreacher, form the
whole Earth , and just sped him away to their home planet.

Sharp as a knife, Sirius felt something he'd never felt before when fantasizing about escaping
Grimmauld. He felt reluctance. That feeling had everything to do with the other boy lying just a
few feet away, close enough to reach out and touch. Sirius would miss Remus horribly if he ever
got saved from Grimmauld, if he ever got swept away. Well. If the aliens ever came to make him
king, Sirius would just have to make sure they knew Remus was his co-king.

“You'd be my co-king,” Sirius announced.

Remus took this in stride, as Sirius knew he would. “Okay. And if we ever get sucked back in
time to the Romans, you can be my co-emperor. We wouldn't fight like the original Remus and
Romulus did.”

Sirius nodded. Of course they wouldn't. They'd be brilliant co-emperors together.

“I was thinking about something.”

Those simple words coming from Remus always made Sirius tingle all over, like a grand
adventure was just on the horizon. After all, Remus' ideas were almost always brilliant . Even if
he did sometimes have ideas like Marco Polo, where he was the best and Sirius was simply awful.

Sirius practically held his breath as Remus continued. “When I was floating around under the
water, I bet that's how astronauts feel. Like, in space. And how we bounce-walked around: that
looks just like the videos of those American astronauts when they landed on the moon. Did you-”
Abruptly Remus' voice cut off, and he made some sort of sad sound. Sirius' brows drew together,
quick as a flash as he wondered at Remus' abrupt nervousness. “I mean... I know... It's not. It's not
wicked. Astronauts. Only I like them.”

Sirius laughed. “Who said that ?! Astronauts are so totally wicked!” Eyes still closed, Sirius felt
Remus' hair brush against his thigh as he turned his head, and a relieved gush of air warm his skin.
Sirius had no idea who gave Remus the idea that astronauts were for nerds, but they were
obviously the stupid type. Astronauts were brilliant . Of course he'd seen the moon landing!
Everyone had seen it! And it was brilliant . Sirius hoped England started their very own astronaut
program soon, or maybe started training with the Americans. Maybe he could be an astronaut,
even. If he somehow figured out how to become one without Walburga knowing. Maybe he
could train to be one in secret, and Walburga wouldn't even know what he was doing until he
blasted off. After all, it wasn't like she could chase after him into space .

“I saw them walking around,” Sirius confirmed. “You're right: they were bouncing just like us.”
Abruptly he scrambled upright, realizing where Remus was going with this. “D'you think we
could pretend to be astronauts?! What... what were their names, do you remember? Walburga
doesn't-” Sirius cut himself off. He didn't like to tell Remus too much about what Walburga did or
didn't let him do, or really about anything that she did. Remus was so much better than everything
at Grimmauld, Sirius wanted to keep the two perfectly separate, like they could never, ever
overlap in a million years. “I forgot,” he finished lamely.

If Remus noticed Sirius changing his explanation halfway through, he gave no sign of it. He sat
up with Sirius, little droplets of moisture that had yet to evaporate sliding down his chest. “Neil
Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins. I was thinking, we should do like, fairytales.
Except with space things. Like, there's an evil alien, right? And he kidnaps up the astronaut
princess...”

**

“Come on, Astronaut Princess Remusa! The alien's knocked down, and we have to run!”

Sirius' hand closed around Remus' wrist, skin sliding against skin in the water. Remusa was very
seriously focusing on Sirius, shooting the occasional glance over his shoulder to the Deep Space
area, where Sirius had just kicked the gigantic alien monster into.

They hopped around their space ship, the no gravity making it slow-going. When they got to the
sliding doors Sirius pushed Remusa ahead of him, then dove through himself just as they slid shut.
There was a gigantic explosion behind them a moment later, which pushed Sirius and Remusa to
the floor of the space station. When they got to their feet a moment later, Sirius spun around and
looked out through the window in the sliding doors. The bomb that Sirius had sent after the evil
alien into deep space had blown up, and blown up the evil alien with it! There were blood, guts,
and pieces of gross green alien skin floating in big globs all through deep space.

Sirius' eyes shown with excitement as he turned back to Remusa. “You're safe, Princess! The evil
alien will never be able to hurt you again!”

Remusa fluttered her eyelashes at Sirius, hands clutched to her chest. “Thank you, Sirius! You
saved my life!” Then she floated forward and kissed him on the cheek.

Sirius froze. Remusa- Remus. Remus had kissed him on his cheek. He wanted to say something,
but that would mean moving his mouth, but that would mean moving his cheek, and Sirius didn't
want to move it. Not yet. Because Remus' lips had been there, wet and smooth and if Sirius just
held completely still for the very rest of forever he could keep the perfect outline of Remus' lips on
his cheek, somehow. He could still feel them, like they were still there.

“Sirius?”

Blinking, Sirius saw Remus – definitely not Remusa, definitely Remus – flushed and nervous,
chewing his lip as he looked up at Sirius. “I... um...”

Several things happened in Sirius' head at once. The first was the immediate knowledge that
Remusa should do that more. And Siria should do it to. They should end every single story like
that. All the time. Second, Sirius' brain kindly informed him that Remus was about to say
something that would amount to them not doing this again. So finally, Sirius came to the almost
instantaneous conclusion that he'd have to do something, right quick, to make sure Remus didn't
apologize.
“You're welcome, Princess.” Sirius said in his most astronaut-y voice. Then he leaned forward
and kissed Remusa on the cheek, just as she had kissed him. It was wet. And soft. And smooth.
Sirius wondered if it tingled for Remus just like it had for him. Sirius hoped so. Otherwise he was
doing it wrong.

When he pulled back, Sirius realized that it must have felt the same for Remus, because he was
smiling that big, ridiculous smile he only got sometimes, and only ever when Sirius did something
absolutely brilliant. Sirius beamed back, eyes flickering between Remus' lips and shining, amber
eyes.
 Chapter 11
Chapter Summary

Sirius is sad with Remus, then he's sad without him.

The sun was most definitely making its very last appearance over the treeline as Sirius tried to
avoid saying goodbye to Remus. He scuffed his foot on the marble stones beneath his feet, curled
his hands around the bench, and just generally avoided how Remus was staring at him sidelong.
Remus knew Sirius always had to leave in time to get cleaned up for dinner, and it was definitely
that time already, if not a little bit later. But Sirius didn't want to leave. Not yet – not ever, really.

“Can we play house while I go?” Sirius whispered. Next to him, Remus stopped scratching out
story ideas on a spare bit of paper and looked up.

“D'you wanna pretend you're going to work?”

Sirius nodded, feeling miserable and sorry for himself. The only way he could convince himself to
go back to Grimmauld Place right now was to play house. Remus would be his wife Remusa, and
Sirius would gather up his things and act like he was heading out for work. Remusa would give
him a kiss on the cheek and tell him to work hard and that she'd be waiting for him when he came
“home”.

Sirius didn't sniff. His eyes didn't tear up. They didn't . But sometimes, it was better to pretend this
World he had with Remus was home, and Grimmauld Place was just something to be endured. It
was better to think of Remus as his family, instead of the people waiting for him on the other side
of his door. And Remusa's kisses always helped. They always made everything just a little bit
more bearable.

Sometimes Remus asked for the same thing in return, for Siria to send him off to work with a kiss
on his cheek. But it wasn't as much as Sirius asked for it, and it was only on days Remus seemed
really, really sad. Those days weren't often, much to Sirius' relief. He couldn't stand the thought of
sending Remus home to something just as bad as he had to go back to every day. Remus' home
had to be better than Sirius'. There couldn't be two Walburga's in the world: nothing was that
cruel.

“Come on, honey.” Just like that, Remusa was tugging at Sirius' arm, encouraging him to get up
from their kitchen table. “You'll be late to work if you don't hurry. And you wouldn't want your
boss to get angry.”

Sirius' laugh ended up coming out more a mixture of a sniff and a sob, but he stood up. Remus
didn't really know about what happened in Grimmauld, because Sirius didn't like to talk about his
house or Walburga or Kreacher. He didn't want Remus tainted by Grimmauld or all Sirius' bad
feelings over it. But Remus was smart: he knew Sirius never wanted to go home. And sometimes
Sirius let things slip, on accident.

“Okay, love,” Sirius replied. It'd been Remus who first told Sirius about the funny nicknames that
husband and wives had for each other sometimes. He himself had never heard Walburga or Orion
address each other by anything other than their names. Sometimes even by their last names.
Remusa helped Sirius gather up his briefcase and hat and walked with him to the front door. Once
there, Sirius turned to Remusa, eyes pleading.

Just as always, Remusa leaned in and pressed a kiss to her husband's cheek. Sirius let his eyes
close, focusing on the soft, warm press of Remusa' lips to his skin. Though when she started to
pull away, a great, big loneliness rose up in his chest, clawing inside and begging him to do
something to stop it. On impulse, Sirius grabbed his wife's wrist and stopped her, eyes looking
straight into hers. Then he leaned forward and pressed his lips to hers.

Remus jerked in Sirius' grip, but before Sirius could pull away and apologize he – she, Remusa –
was kissing back. It was just their lips pressing tight against each other, puckering up and moving
their heads a little like Sirius had seen on the telly before. When they pulled away, Remus' face
was bright red, his lips slightly parted as he panted for breath.

“I-”

Sirius cut his wife off with a little, lopsided grin that hid how much Sirius' stomach was doing flip-
flops just then. “I'll see you after work,” he promised.

Remus tried to become Remusa again, Sirius could tell, but he was still bright red and looking a
bit dazed. “Okay. Dear. Have... have a good day. At work.”

As Sirius went through his door and closed it behind him it was with a lighter heart than he had
returned back to Grimmauld Place with in a long time. Remus was utterly brilliant at making
Sirius feel better about everything. So long as Sirius had Remus, everything'd be okay.

**

Sirius sniffed as he pulled the duvet tighter around him, curled up in the center of his big, empty
bed. All the lights were off. All the lights were off. Sirius had ended up being late for washing-up,
which meant he had been late to dinner. After she was done punishing him, Walburga got it in her
head that if Sirius was a big enough boy to defy her and her schedules, then he was a big enough
boy to go to bed without a nightlight.

And so Sirius sat up in his bed, trembling and tugging the duvet even tighter, if that was even
possible. His room was so dark. Pitch black. Pitch black for Sirius Black. If he could make it over
to the curtains and open them, maybe a little bit of light would filter in from the street. But to do
that, he'd have to move from the center of his bed and walk over to the window. He couldn't do
that. First he'd have to get near the edge of the bed, where anything could reach up and grab him.
Then he'd have to actually step onto the floor . And who knew what would happen then?

Sirius trembled. He wanted to squeeze his eyes shut and go to sleep, but he didn't want to close his
eyes and miss something moving in the dark. If he just stared a little harder, spread his eyes a little
wider...

What was that? Sirius' head whipped to his right, to where he thought he had seen something.
Anything? As quick as he could confirm that he still couldn't see further than the nose on his face,
Sirius turned his head forward again. If he kept his head forward he could see the most, and
something couldn't sneak up on him. Probably.

He was so scared . And there was nothing he could do about it. Morning was hours and hours
and hours away. He couldn't open the curtain to let some light in lest something grab at his ankles.
And of course turning on any lights in the room was out of the question: even if he could reach
any of them from the center of his bed (which he couldn't), Sirius was sure someone would notice.
Kreacher, or Walburga would come storming in and snap the light off. After snapping something
at him.

Tears started filling Sirius' eyes as he trembled. His mind cast about for some way to make it
better, some way to make himself not so horrifyingly scared . It landed on the one bright point it
always did, the one bright point in Sirius' whole, stupid life: Remus.

Maybe... Sirius choked down tears, wiping at his eyes. Maybe he could pretend with Remus. Like
they were on a spaceship and the lights had gone out, and they needed to get to the reactor room
and fix it. Remus could be the Captain this time, because Sirius was too scared to be in charge.
Remus would know what to do. Remus would protect him, and take care of him, and fight off all
the things in the dark that Sirius was scared of. Because Remus always made everything better,
even – especially – the things Sirius couldn't make better himself.

All Sirius had to do was blink, and Remus was there. For a moment Sirius felt something squirm
uncomfortably in his stomach at doing this. Whenever they played together, they always
pretended with people who weren't real: Captain Hook or the Evil Witch or Mission Control (who
Sirius supposed actually were real, but he didn't know them). Playing with a pretend-Remus
seemed... wrong. Like he was cheating. Or being creepy. But then Sirius thought he saw
something flicker to his right, and he was clinging to pretend-Remus with all his might.

“It's okay,” Remus whispered. “There's no monsters out there.”

“How do you know?” Sirius whispered back. He wished Remus was actually there, that he could
actually feel Remus' hands on him, holding him tight. Sometimes Remus would stroke his hair
when they were sitting on the bench together, or hugging when they were playing. Sirius wished
Remus was doing that, for real, right now. But he would just have to pretend he was.

Sirius imagined Remus' breath stirring at his hair as he spoke. “Because I've got night-vision
goggles on. I can see in the dark, and there's no monsters.”

“We could play like we're thieves, and in the forest hiding from the Sheriff.”

Remus nodded against Sirius' head. They both knew that game. It was one of Sirius' favorites,
because he got to be a dashing bandit in it. “I can take first watch.”

Sirius nodded. “Yeah. You watch for the Sheriff and wolves, and I'll sleep. Then you'll wake me
and I'll take second watch.”

Suddenly, it was loads easier to fall asleep. With Remus right there, holding tight to Sirius and
watching into the night with his night vision goggles, no monsters could attack Sirius. He wasn't
quite as scared anymore, so long as he kept imaginary Remus in his head, right there on the bed
next to him, watching and protecting him for the whole night.

**

The next morning after tutoring Sirius found himself, for the first time, reluctant to go through his
door to the other World. He had managed to fall asleep with pretend-Remus' help, but now he felt
weird about it. It wasn't just that he had pretended about someone he actually knew, though that
was a big part of it. But it also made him wonder if maybe Remus wasn't actually real. Maybe the
whole World wasn't real. Maybe Sirius had just made it up, because he was scared and lonely and
wanted someone to play with. It didn't feel that way: Remus seemed loads realer when Sirius
played with him in the World than he had last night, but maybe... maybe.

Sirius wandered through the halls of his house, avoiding Walburga's floor, as he thought. He kept
to the center of the hallway, taking care not to stray too near the perfectly clean walls or the
expensive vases and family relics that dotted the edges. Normally if Sirius was unsure about
something he'd ask Remus about it, but obviously that wasn't an option for this particular problem.
Maybe... Sirius stopped, cocking his head at the door he had managed to wind up in front of. It
was Regulus' room. There was a sign on the door in Regulus' painstaking – if not particularly
nice-looking – calligraphy that read:

Do Not Enter

Without the Express Permission of

Regulus Arcturus Black

Sirius rolled his eyes at his little brother. Yeah right.

Sirius knocked on the door, then opened it without waiting for a response. It wasn't like Regulus
ever did anything interesting on his own: Sirius had only ever seen the favorite son do his
homework or practice his calligraphy or other stupid stuff like that to please Walburga.

Sure enough, Regulus was bent over his desk, writing what looked to be a thank-you note. It
occurred to Sirius that Walburga had taken Regulus with her to visit some relative or another,
when she had decided Sirius would have been too embarrassing to bring along. Regulus was
probably writing a thank-you for their “hospitality” or whatever nonsense. Just like a good boy.

“Oi! Regulus.”

“Go away, Sirius,” Regulus grumbled, not even looking up from his thank you. “I'm working.”

Sirius ignored Regulus, instead hopping onto his bed and bouncing around. Regulus put down his
pen and looked frustrated, face screwing up like he wanted to tell Sirius off but wasn't sure how.
Sirius didn't give him the opportunity. “I got a question, a serious one,” Sirius explained. “I'll leave
if you answer it.”

Regulus glared at him. “You're messing up my sheets. Kreacher just did them this morning.”

With a heavy sigh Sirius threw himself back on the bed, messing up the sheets even more. He
heard Regulus squeak in protest. How Regulus managed to get along with that awful, mean, nasty
man Kreacher, Sirius would never know. But Kreacher seemed to like Regulus, just like
Walburga did. When he was littler Sirius thought it was unfair, but now he didn't mind. After all,
Remus liked him , and Remus was worth a hundred Walburgas, a thousand Kreachers.

“'course Kreacher just did them this morning: that's when you woke up,” Sirius grumbled. Then
he kept going, because he really did need someone to talk to about everything that was a tangle in
his head, and Remus wasn't a possibility. “Do you ever play pretend?”

When Regulus was silent for a moment, Sirius lifted his head from the rumpled sheets and looked
over at him. Regulus was staring at Sirius, little frown pulling down eyebrows and mouth. “You
mean like make-believe?”

Sirius nodded.

“Not anymore. I did. Once. But then Kreacher saw me and told me that little masters didn't do
that, because it was for babies and poor people.”

Kreacher . Sirius wanted to... wanted to... he didn't even know what he wanted to do to Kreacher.
He wanted him to go away and never return, and then disappear forever so he never bothered
another family ever again. He wanted to make it so no one in the world had to look at Kreacher's
stupid, mean, ugly face ever again. For “babies”. And “poor people”. Kreacher was awful.

But Sirius didn't say any of this, because he still wanted to talk to Regulus and insulting Kreacher
would just make Regulus throw him out. It happened all the time. Instead he just glared at Regulus
hard enough to make sure he knew that Sirius hated Kreacher with all his might. Then he went on.
“Well, do you ever think something isn't real? Like maybe you just pretended it? Like, what if
Kreacher wasn't real and you had just been making him up in your head this whole time?”
Mentally, Sirius basked in the thought. If only he'd been making Kreacher up in his head this
whole time. Then again, if he was , then he had a really scary brain.

Regulus just looked confused, now. “But he's real. You see him. Mum sees him. Everybody does.
I know he's real.”

Sirius bit his lower lip. And there was the problem. No one else had ever seen Remus – well, his
family had, but Sirius only knew about them because Remus told him. And he had cards and stuff
from Remus, but maybe he just did those himself and pretended like they were from some made-
up kid named Remus.

“How else do you know things are real?” Sirius wondered, only half-asking Regulus. He could
touch Remus, but then again, he could pretend to touch Remus, too. There were things Remus
knew that he didn't, but maybe Sirius had just read about them and then forgot? For all he knew,
his time with Remus could just be really vivid, brilliant dreams. Maybe he was stepping into a
brick wall every time he went into the World and knocking himself out.

Okay, that was silly. Sirius laughed, startling Regulus who he had forgotten was even there. Sirius
refocused on him. “How do you know?” he asked again.

Regulus thought for a moment, features which were so similar to Sirius' held so differently,
somehow. Sometimes Sirius thought if they switched bodies they'd end up looking just the same
as they did now. Their outsides were identical, but it was the insides... something about the way
they moved their bodies and their faces made Sirius and Regulus so very different.

After a moment, Regulus shrugged and answered simply: “If you know it is.”

Sirius pondered this. Maybe. Maybe it was that simple. He knew Remus was real. He knew the
Remus last night wasn't. So maybe Regulus was right. “Thanks,” Sirius murmured. When surprise
flickered across Regulus face, Sirius felt the smallest flash of guilt. Even though Regulus was a
great big ponce and cared too much about pleasing Walburga and Kreacher, they were still
brothers. He'd have to help him out more, spend some more time with him. Tomorrow.

“Cheers.” Sirius hopped off the bed and hurried out, headed for his Door. Now that he'd at least
firmed it up in his own mind that Remus was real, he felt okay about playing with him again. He
still felt a little weird about using a pretend-Remus last night, but he could ignore that. The thought
occurred to Sirius that maybe Remus even did the same thing: played with a pretend-Sirius when
he got lonely.

For some reason Sirius' entire body felt flush with the thought. Something about Remus playing
with a pretend-him when he was at home... Sirius squeezed his eyes shut tight and rubbed at his
face, standing in the middle of the hallway. That felt weird. And embarrassing. Kind of in the
same way Sirius was embarrassed last night when it first occurred to him to play with a pretend-
Remus.

Sirius shook his head and started walking again, careful as he rounded corners and padded down
stairways not too move to fast or step too loud or touch any of the precious, expensive things that
littered his house. He definitely wasn't going to ask Remus if he thought about him or played with
a pretend-him when he was at his own house. He'd just keep the whole thing to himself. And only
ever use a pretend-Remus when he really, really needed him, like he had last night.
 Chapter 12
Chapter Summary

Sirius gives Remus a tenth birthday to remember.

The glow from the torch illuminated all around Sirius, but he knew the light didn't go any further.
He had stuck it under the duvet when he had first found it, to test if Walburga or Kreacher would
see the glow. Thankfully, the piles of linens and the thick duvet muffle the light enough so it was
like it was even there. But it lit up the space under the covers brilliantly.

Sirius was working hard, long into the night. The torch was clenched in his mouth, angled down
onto the paper he had in his lap. It was Remus' tenth birthday tomorrow – or rather, it had been
Remus' birthday three days ago, on Thursday. But Remus had to do school stuff Thursday and
Friday, and then have a family dinner Friday night for him, and then his mum had a birthday party
for him Saturday with all his mates from school. Sirius had pouted when Remus told him this, but
Remus had assured him that they weren't really his mates, just all the kids from his class. He'd
even look upset as he said it, which shouldn't have made Sirius happy, but it did. So tomorrow,
Sunday, Sirius and Remus were celebrating his birthday officially. And Sirius had some brilliant
plans.

He had searched high and low in his house for the past two weeks, looking for some sort of fun
craft supplies to make Remus' card out of. He still had Remus' cards from his own ninth birthday,
squirreled away in his little shoebox. It was brilliant: colorful watercolor pictures and glitter
scattered everywhere. But Sirius didn't have that sort of stuff in his house. There were some oil
paints that he and Regulus were supposed to use when practicing their art lessons, but they were
expensive and only Ms. Antonia had access to them. And there was certainly nothing like glitter
or colorful cardstock anywhere in his house.

Instead, Sirius had to make do with his fountain pen and some cream-colored paper that were
standard issue in his and Regulus' rooms. They were supposed to write thank-yous or
“correspondences” to important people on them. Well: Remus was an important person. The most
important. So Sirius really wasn't even using the materials incorrectly.

He had thought about doing some sort of drawing, but Sirius wasn't nearly as brilliant at it as
Remus was. What Sirius was good at was making letters so fancy they looked like they deserved
to be read by the Queen herself. So he decided to do up Remus' letter like Remus was the most
important person in the world, deserving of all the most expensive, fancy things. He had already
done the front of the paper all up: little swirls and scrolls and whatnot all around the edges, like it
was gilded or something. Then he made a fancy border around it, double-lined, even. The
envelope he had designed for it had Remus' initials done in Sirius' absolute best calligraphy, and
set up in that silly out-of-order way he had learned: RLJ, Remus John Lupin.

The only problem now was trying to figure out what to say . Sirius took the torch out of his mouth
and rested it on his thigh as he thought. He had decorated the inside of the card all nice and pretty,
too. But the space where he needed to write something was blank. He knew he should say
“Happy Birthday”. That much was easy. But he wanted something... special. Something that
would make Remus feel as good as he made Sirius feel. Something that told Remus how
important he was to Sirius. But the words for how Remus made him feel, or how important he
was to Sirius, just weren't in Sirius' head. It was like they all resided in his chest, in that floaty,
tingling feeling he got whenever he stepped through the door, in the way everything just lightened
and became better . Sirius wasn't even sure if there were words for that sort of thing. He'd
certainly never heard or read them.

Maybe... Sirius glanced around, even though he was cut off from the rest of his bedroom, under
the covers. Maybe books could do it better, could tell him what to say. One passage in particular
came to mind.

Torch kept carefully dimmed beneath his covers, Sirius scrambled out of his bed and over to his
bookshelf. He snatched down his copy of Metamorphoses and hurried back to his bed, throwing
the covers over himself. Safe back in his self-enclosed world of light, Sirius set to flipping through
the text for the poem in his head, two lines in particular floating around in there. When he found
them, he copied down the Latin on the left side of the the card, then translated it on the other side.

Te quoque, Amyclide, posuisset in aethere Phoebus,

tristia si spatium ponendi fata dedissent.

qua licet, aeternus tamen es, quotiensque repellit

ver hiemem, Piscique Aries succedit aquoso,

tu totiens oreris viridique in caespite flores.

Phoebus for thee too, Hyacinth, designed

A place among the Gods, had Fate been kind:

Yet this he gave; as oft as wintry rains

Are past, and vernal breezes sooth the plains,

From the green turf a purple flower you rise,

And with your fragrant breath perfume the skies.

Biting his lip, Sirius stared down at the card, wondering if he should say something else.
Something besides “Happy Birthday” – something explaining why that passage came to mind
when he was thinking of Remus. But he found he couldn't, just like he couldn't put words to that
feeling in his chest earlier. So he just settled with writing:

Happy Birthday, Remus.

Sincerely,

Sirius Orion Black

He stared for a moment at the whole thing, going over it one more time. It wasn't perfect, and it
didn't do what Sirius wanted to do in the sense of making sure Remus knew just how important he
was. But it would have to do, because Sirius couldn't make it any better.

Sirius folded it up, then scurried over to his desk. Quick as could be and with the torch shoved
under his nightshirt to dampen the glow, Sirius melted some wax onto the seal of the envelope.
Carefully, just as he'd been taught for years and years, Sirius pressed his seal into the center of the
wax and held it there as he waited for it to cool. It was finished in a matter of seconds. Sirius
hurried back to his bed and snapped the torch off. He hid the envelope under the pillow he never
used, then turned over and curled up under the duvet. Tomorrow was going to be brilliant. He
only hoped Remus liked his present, and his card.

**

To Sirius' surprise, Remus was already waiting for him when he rounded the wall to their bench
the next morning. Sirius threw out his arms in frustration, present and card clutched in one hand.
“Why're you here already?!”

Remus was already hurrying over to Sirius, smile big and eyes shining. “Skipped breakfast. Didn't
want to wait.”

“Won't you get in trouble?”

Remus laughed. “No. 's'alright. Just told Mum I was meeting a mate.”

Sirius didn't question Remus' parents' leniency. He had figured out a long time ago what when on
in the Lupin house and what went on at Grimmauld Place were two very different things. Even if
Remus did sometimes get the sad, scared expression Sirius knew his own face carried whenever
he thought of Grimmauld Place, it was never to do with his parents. Remus' parents seemed to
love him very much.

Remus' eyes were flickering to the present in Sirius' hand, even though he was polite enough not
to actually come out and say anything. Grinning, Sirius held the presents above his head and held
out one arm to Remus. “Happy Birthday!”

Without a moment's hesitation Remus stepped into Sirius' arm, giving him a big hug. Sirius
squeezed him back as tight as he could with one arm. He kind of wanted to give him a kiss, too,
but they weren't playing anything. It'd be weird if one of them wasn't a girl, after all, and if it
wasn't part of the story.

When they broke apart Sirius lowered his arm and stuck it out to Remus. The other boy grinned
and took them, peering curiously at the square-shaped present wrapped in one of Sirius' spare junk
shirts (he'd been too afraid to venture over to Walburga's rooms, where he supposed she must
keep all the stuff she used to do up presents). Then he looked at the card, and his eyes went wide
as he admired it.

“Did you buy this?”

Sirius shook his head, grinning as he watched Remus stroke his fingers softly over the calligraphy
on the front, then turn it over and rub at the wax seal on the back. At least all those stupid lessons
had finally come in real use. “No. Made it.”

Remus' eyes widened more, and he looked up. Sirius imagined his gaze was admiring. “Wow.
Sirius, this is brilliant!”

Sirius shrugged, real casual-like. “It's nothing. Learned all the fancy letters ages ago, so.”

Gingerly Remus stuck a finger under the seal on the back, tearing the envelope open with little
damage. Sirius hoped that meant Remus liked it enough to keep it. He didn't want to be the only
one who kept little trinkets collected over time from the other boy. And of course, he liked to
imagine Remus thought about him when he wasn't around, even when Remus was all the way
back home in wherever-he-lived.

Silent as a church mouse and expression giving nothing away, Remus read over the card. He
examined the front, the inside left, and the inside right. Then he looked left again, and right. After
a moment Sirius realized he was trying to match up his translation to the Latin.

“Do you...” Sirius knew Remus couldn't read Latin, but he thought that'd be okay. It was
supposed to be a proper, fancy card after all. And all Sirius' life he'd been taught that the upper
class learned their Greek and Latin. “Do you not-”

“Thank you.” Remus' eyes were bright, his smile soft but totally, completely happy as he finally
looked up from the card at to Sirius. “Thank you, Sirius. It's the best. And I've never heard of H...
Haykinth?”

“Hyacinth,” Sirius said. “And Apollo. It's actually really sad: Hyacinth ends up getting killed on
accident, but then Apollo is really sad so he makes him into a flower. I don't mean... You don't
die, or anything. Or I don't. I just... dunno.” Sirius flushed, embarrassed. He hadn't really thought
about the rest of the myth until just then. It had just been those lines that had appeared in his head
as he tried to find the words to express how he felt about Remus. “I just thought it was pretty.
And.”

Remus' smile hadn't waned as he listened to Sirius' explanation. “I think it's pretty, too,” he
replied. Sirius' heart jumped, grin spreading across his face with joy.

“Oh. Good.”

Turning his attention to his wrapped present, Remus tugged the cloth from around it. Sirius took it
from him – that was one of his play shirts, after all. When Remus saw what was inside he gasped,
mouth dropping open in shock. “Sirius! This is... “

Sirius shrugged. It was nothing. It was just some notebook he'd gotten back for his own tenth
birthday a few months ago. Walburga had told him to thank the person loads in his thank-you
letter, since it was apparently wicked expensive. Something about ivory inlays and real gold leaf
on the cover. Whatever it was, Sirius didn't need it. There were a million more expensive things all
around his house – one fancy journal wouldn't go missing.

He told as much to Remus, who shook his head. “It's... it's brilliant, Sirius. But, I don't-” Remus'
face crumbled as he glanced up at Sirius. “The present I got you-”

Oh. Sirius realized what Remus was on about. He shook his head vigorously. “No, Remus! The
present you got me was brilliant! I've never had a pair of jeans before!” They were brilliant. Sirius
would wear them all the time if he possibly could – they made him feel like some sort of
Hollywood movie star or tough guy or something.

Remus was still upset. “But they were just an old pair of mine. They weren't-”

Sirius shrugged. “And this was just a'old journal of mine. Not like I was going to use it. And
'sides: you're always the one with the brilliant ideas. Now you've got something so you can write
them all down in own place, instead of us using scraps and losing them all the time. And if you
can keep track of everything in there, then all our adventures can be way more brilliant. So it'll be
like a present for me, too.”

Remus still looked skeptical, but he finally smiled just a bit. “Thanks.”

Sirius shrugged, all casual again. “Yeah. 's'alright.”

Remus hugged Sirius, then, and Sirius kind of wished they were playing again so Remus would
kiss him. He'd have to suggest something like that for today. Maybe something having to do with
birthdays...
But when they separated, Remus' eyes were already gleaming with that look that Sirius knew
meant he had a totally brilliant idea. Sirius grinned, waiting. When Remus looked like this it meant
he had something new to tell Sirius about, something exciting and brilliant. “We could play
detective.”

Remus was already turning to the bench to gather their supplies, so Sirius hurried after him. He
accepted the dress they had managed to acquire at some point and tugged it on over his clothes. It
was a generally understood rule that whoever's birthday it was got to be the boy, no matter whose
turn it was.

“I saw these old movies, old American ones, with private detectives. Kind of like Sherlock
Holmes, except they weren't as brilliant. And there was always some girl who would mess things
up and turn out evil or something.”

Sirius frowned. Before he could even say anything Remus hurried on. “But we won't make you
evil! You'll just come to me in my office with the crime, and then team up with me. You won't be
evil. We'll stop the bad guy in the end.”

As Remus spoke, he had tugged on a jacket and hat. Sirius grinned at the too-large coat sleeves
hanging down over his hands. They didn't hang quite so long on Sirius when he wore it – he was
a good three inches taller than Remus by now. He had thought about arguing once that he should
always play the boy because of that, but then he figured it wasn't fair. He also figured that one day
Remus might end up taller than him, and Sirius didn't much want to have to always be the girl.

“The house can be my headquarters, and then the whole place'll be the city. The other house can
be a pub or something where we go talk to people for clues. And the pool can be where you saw
the murder.”

Sirius pointed at the notebook clutched tight in Remus' hand. “What'll you do with that?”

Smiling, Remus pulled out a pen and tapped it against the cover of the journal. “It's my notepad.
Private eyes always have one, for writing down clues and stuff.”

That made sense. Just as Sirius was about to turn to head to the house with Remus, he saw Remus
bend down and reach under the bench for their box one more time. Frowning, he opened to ask
what Remus had forgot. But then he saw Remus tuck his birthday card carefully away, nice and
flat at the bottom of the box. Sirius' words died in his throat as he watched.

Remus was definitely keeping the stuff Sirius gave him, just like Sirius did. Which meant Remus
thought about him when he wasn't here, too. Sirius brain kind of stopped working at that, stalling
as he stared and stared at the box where his card was hidden, safe.

“Come on.” Sirius blinked, refocusing on Remus standing in front of him. “I gotta go to my office
and sit and look busy. Then you come in and tell me all about the crime. And be all scared and
stuff.”

Sirius swallowed, nodded. “Right. Okay. You go. I'll go to the pool and see the murder, and you
be busy, and I'll run in and ask for help.”

A quick smile exchanged between them, and then they were office in opposite directions, Sirius
crossing the street ahead of him to the pool house, Remus hurrying across the street on their right
to the house. As he walked, Sirius faded away and Siria took his place. She was just going to the
pool house for a quick swim today, before she went home alone. Because she didn't have a
husband or anything. And of course she didn't know the wonderful Private Eye Remus, yet.
 Chapter 13
Chapter Summary

Remus is late; Sirius is insecure.

The stone skittered forward as Sirius kicked it, bouncing over broken cobblestones and patches of
grass before coming to rest a few feet in front of him. When Sirius' stride brought him just behind
it, he kicked it again, watching its path with downturned gaze. It came to a stop in one of the two
parallel ruts in the road, worn into the stones by millions of wagon wheels hundreds, thousands of
years ago. Sirius let the stone rest there, picking another one out mentally as he walked and
kicking that new one forward.

Three, four kicks and the new stone disappeared into a pile of rubble, vanishing into the broken
off chunks of pillars and walls. Sirius let it go, eyes already casting about for something else to
kick.

The stepping stones were just ahead of him for the crosswalk across the road. With hardly a
change in pace Sirius stepped up onto one, stretching his legs almost as far as they went to step
from one to another. It wasn't so long ago that he had to jump from one stone to the next at the
crosswalks scattered around the roads in their World. Now he could manage without jumping if he
stepped just right and stretched his legs far enough. Another year and he'd be able to walk
normally, Sirius figured.

Sirius stepped off the stepping stones and onto the sidewalk and kept walking, head down. He
didn't want to look up because he knew what he'd see in front of him: Remus' door. Shut. Just like
it had been for the past two days.

There was a sizable rock in front of Sirius. He lifted it, feel the weight bend his wrist and the
smooth marble under his fingers. There was the slightest hint of doric fluting on one side of it. In
one smooth motion Sirius pulled his arm and let lose, hurling the rock at Remus' door.

It bounced off and fell to the ground utterly anticlimactically. Sirius continued his walking, head
down to avoid looking at Remus' door.

It'd been two days. Two days since the day Remus had promised they'd meet up again. They'd
done the secret handshake and everything. Really, it had been over a week since he'd seen Remus,
but he knew that with school and all Remus was going to be busy that week. So Sirius had asked,
like he always did, when they'd see each other again. And Remus had replied with Friday after
school. But now it was Sunday, and Remus still hadn't shown.

Sirius should have known something like this would happen. It was because Remus didn't like
Sirius as much as Sirius did him. It was because Remus didn't need Sirius like Sirius did. After all,
it had been Sirius who had initially asked if they could meet up again, after the first time they met
years ago. Maybe Remus wouldn't have even have wanted to meet again after that: maybe he had
already figured out that Sirius was rotten, and a loser, and didn't want to be associated with him.
But he had agreed because he was polite, so they met again.

And every time after that first meeting, it was always Sirius who made plans to meet the next time.
At first it was just because he was happy, because he was excited to see Remus again and play
with him. So he'd speak first, whenever they were about to head off back through their own doors.
“Tomorrow?” “When next?” “I can't come tomorrow, how about Wednesday?” &c. Remus never
asked those question; it was always Sirius prompting the next time they'd play.

Now Sirius rushed to ask because he was scared: scared Remus didn't really want to play with
him anymore, scared that maybe Remus just kept coming back out of a sense of obligation, or
politeness, or – even worse – pity. If Sirius didn't make the plans, ask Remus when they'd see
each other again... Sirius was scared Remus wouldn't. That he wasn't really interested in being
friends, and he'd be happy to just... let things go.

Sirius stopped walking, looked around. He was standing in front of Remus' wall now, not too far
from where Remus' door was. Anger welled up in Sirius' chest, like the sea at its most vicious,
storm-churned. His foot lashed out, kicking at the wall. The solid, unyielding impact that jolted up
Sirius' leg was like oxygen to a fire. He kicked, punched, scratched at the cold stone. It wasn't fair
! Sirius had one good thing in the whole wide world, a single person who he thought cared about
him and wanted to play with him and make everything better when it hurt, and even that wasn't
real. Remus didn't really like him. Remus didn't really want to play with him. If Sirius stopped
coming, Remus wouldn't give it a second's thought. He'd probably be happy for the peace and
quiet.

Sirius' fists twinged, then stung. He pulled them away from the wall, examining the cuts and
scrapes all down the outer edges. Still angry, Sirius cast about for something else to hit, to hurt.
There were more broken pieces of road and wall around here, probably from the old house that
had been reduced to no more than its foundations. Snarling, Sirius started snatching cricket ball-
sized pieces and hurling them at the wall. They impacted with a satisfying thud most of the time,
even chipping pieces of all the wall away some of the time. Maybe... maybe if Sirius hit hard
enough, and long enough, the wall could come down. Everything else in this place was coming
down around him. Why not Remus' wall, too?

His shoulder ached with the motion, his fingers stung with the graze of stone against his cuts. Still,
he slung rock after rock at Remus' wall, until he fell down to the ground, eyes too upset for tears
and body aching with some terrible, heretofore unknown disappointment.

The sun moved, slowly but surely across the sky up above him. He knew that eventually he'd
have to go back home to Walburga and Kreacher. But just for a few minutes more, he'd let himself
lie here on the ground. Just a few minutes more of mourning.

“Sirius?”

The sound of Remus' voice, so close behind him, cause Sirius to jump and twist around. With the
sudden motion came instability, and Sirius found himself awkwardly falling backwards among the
stony rubble.

Standing before him was Remus, hands fiddling with each other and expression nervous. Maybe
even contrite. But that'd probably be too much to hope for.

Sirius first instinct – his absolute first one, before his anger and pride and everything else caught
up to him – was to run up to Remus and throw his arms around him, to apologize for ever
doubting him and go back to playing all their games like nothing had ever happened. But Sirius
clamped down that reaction before he could even twitch a pinkie, and instead lay there on the
ground, uncomfortable and accusing as he stared up at Remus.

“I need to go home,” Sirius grumbled finally. Pushing himself to his feet, Sirius dusted off some of
the dust and dirt from the road and started walking away from Remus. He'd never pick Walburga
over anything else, but he could just hide out in the store room or his bedroom until dinnertime. It
wouldn't be much harder avoiding her in Grimmauld Place than it was here.

“Sirius...”

Sirius didn't want to hesitate. He tried really hard not to. But just the sound of Remus' voice was
enough to tug his body back, like he was a puppet on strings. Remus obviously saw the small
movement, because he took it as an invitation to hurry forward and wrap his hand around Sirius'
upper arm. Sirius kept his head turned away as Remus spoke.

“I'm sorry. I didn't mean to stay away. Thursday Dad said we were going to visit Aunt Carole,
and I couldn't get away to the shop to tell you. We just got back ten minutes ago.”

Sirius didn't care about Remus' explanation. He didn't. Because really, it didn't matter why Remus
had gone, or that it wasn't his fault and couldn't be helped. What mattered was Remus was never
the one to ask if they were going to see each other again, and that Remus obviously didn't need
Sirius. So Sirius tugged his arm out from Remus' grasp and started walking away, back to his
door.

“Sirius!”

“I have to go!” Sirius shouted over his shoulder. Now would be when he should ask Remus when
they'd meet again, when he'd make plans not to lose the only friend he'd ever had. Staring
resolutely forward, Sirius pressed his lips tight together and kept walking. He'd come back, sure
he would. This World was too easy of an escape from Walburga and her hideousness not to. But
he wouldn't force Remus to, out of a sense of obligation or pity or anything else.

**

Sirius couldn't say he was especially surprised to see Remus walking up to their bench to the next
day. After all, this place was Remus' too. And Sirius had made sure to come after Remus would
be out of school – no reason to actively avoid him. But what was surprising was how Remus
walked straight up to him and shoved something in his hands. Sirius blinked and stared down. It
was a book.

“Thousand and One Nights,” Remus explained. “It's Arab. It's about a woman who marries a man
who's going to kill her in the morning. So she starts to tell him a story, but doesn't finish it. Since
he wants to hear the end, he keeps her alive that day. The next night, she finishes the first story
and then starts another, but doesn't finish it. This goes on for a thousand and one nights, with a
thousand and one stories. At the end of it the king doesn't execute her because they're in love.”

Sirius's fingers strokes at the book. The spine was cracking and the glue melting and some of the
pages starting to slip out. It was obviously a well-loved book back at Remus' house. He chanced a
glance up at Remus, who was staring down at him with eyes pleading.

“It's... I'd never. Because our stories. They don't end. Like the king and his bride.”

“Oh.” Before Remus could say anything else, or Sirius could allow the emotions flittering around
in his chest to solidify into something horrible and girly, he shoved the book back into Remus'
hand. “Pick one, then. Or should we start at the beginning?”

Remus shook his head. “We can do them in any order. I was thinking The Young King of the
Black Islands. You could be the king.”

Rising slowly to his feet, Sirius circled around Remus as he was flipping through to the story. He
leaned his chin on Remus' shoulder, skimming over the text once Remus had settled on a page. “Is
there a girl?”
“Yeah.”

Sirius didn't turn his head to look at Remus, but he could feel his own breath tickling Remus'
cheek as it fluttered back to touch his lips. Sirius swallowed. “Can you play her?”

“Yeah.”

Remus shifted beneath him, and Sirius moved back to let him turn around. Remus' eyes were cast
down for a moment at his book before they flickered up to Sirius'. “Could...” Remus stopped,
licked his lips. Sirius found his gaze focusing on that and not much else. “We could start out as
Scheherazade and Shahryār, the bride and King. I'll be Scheherazade.”

“Okay.”

And then Scheherazade leaned up and kissed her king sweetly on the mouth, almost like an
apology. Little did Shahryār know that his new bride was apologizing for how she would be
tricking him over the next one thousand and one nights, as she tried to save her own life. As
Shahryār lifted his hands from his side to wrap around his new bride, he too was apologizing in
advanced, for ever doubting her loyalty to him.
 Chapter 14
Chapter Summary

Escape.

Sirius wanted to slam the door behind him as he stepped into the bright sunshine of their World.
Wanted to, but his body trembled at the thought of Walburga finding him, and his hands were too
slippery with fear-sweat to get a good grip. Instead he nudged it closed, back sliding up against it
as he rested, cringing and exhausted and scared.

It was there that Remus found him who knows how long later, as he was walking toward their
bench. “Sirius?”

Turning his head to the door, Sirius pressed his cheek there, trying to cool it against the cool
veneer of the wood. Everything still hurt, even if it didn't actually hurt. It just hurt knowing it had
happened, that he had been so stupid as to mess up again and get onto Walburga's bad side. And
at Bellatrix's engagement party, no less. He was lucky Walburga had waited for the next morning
to deal with him. He was lucky he was still alive.

He could see Remus' hurrying toward him, dropping his books or whatever he had to the ground.
Sirius whimpered and tried to hide his face, hide his tears. Sometimes, telling himself “just one
more year” until boarding school wasn't enough. Sometimes, Sirius didn't think he'd be able to
survive another day at Grimmauld, much less another year.

“Sirius? Sirius, are you okay?”

At the first touch of Remus' hand to Sirius' shoulder, Sirius flinched and moved away. Remus had
unwittingly touched one of the welts from the belt. Remus stepped back, hand still hovering in the
air as he watched Sirius. “Please, talk to me. Please, Sirius.”

Sirius shook his head. He couldn't talk. Not yet. He'd just end up crying and sounding like a big
girl's blouse. He'd be fine. He just needed some time, just a few minutes to breathe and collect
himself and wait for everything to stop hurt.

“Sirius, please. You're... I'm scared. Are you hurt? Do you want me to leave you alone?”

Sirius started to nod, to tell Remus to leave him alone. It'd be much better if he could just have this
time to himself. But then he thought about how Remus wanted to take care of him, wanted to do
whatever Sirius wanted him to do. And suddenly Sirius wanted nothing more than a cuddle and a
cry.

He turned into Remus, burying his face in Remus' shoulder. Remus didn't even flinch: he just
wrapped his arms around Sirius and held on as Sirius gripped Remus' shirt and cried. He cried and
cried as he thought about how he would always mess up, how he'd never be good enough for his
mum or big and brave and sure enough to fill his father's shoes as head of the Black house. He
cried at the sneering disappointment that was the only expression Sirius ever saw his mother wear
outside of a horrifying, blood-chillingly mad rage. He cried at how Regulus had just slid his eyes
away and made himself scarce when he realized what was happening, how his little brother never,
ever came to his defense, even though Sirius had to his before.
Then Remus started murmuring in his ear, and the things he said just made Sirius cry harder. They
were all things about how brilliant he was, about how he was the best at playing pretend and how
no other kid Remus had ever met could come up with stories and act out parts the way Sirius did.
He told Sirius about how nice he was, and how wonderful his presents always were. Remus
admitted that sometimes he was jealous of how much Sirius knew, all the Latin and Greek and
ancient myths that Remus was just now discovering and struggling to catch up on. And Sirius just
cried harder, and clung to Remus' shirt, and didn't even flinch that much when one of Remus'
hands accidentally brushed one of his welts.

When Sirius was too tired to cry anymore – because it wasn't like he could ever be done crying,
with... everything – he pulled away from Remus, shaking his head. “'m okay.”

Remus shook his head but didn't stay anything. Instead he tugged a sleeve over his hand and used
it to wipe at Sirius' facing, drying his tears. Sirius waited, doing his best not to cry again in the face
of such tenderness. When he lost that battle, Remus simply pressed his cloth-covered hand over
one of his eyes and absorbed the tears even as they escaped. He did the same to Sirius' other eye,
neither boy speaking as slowly but surely Sirius regained control of himself.

When Remus spoke, it was slowly and quietly, like he was taking care to choose each one of his
words. “You don't have to tell me,” he said, “if you don't want. Sometimes it's... Sometimes you
don't want to. But I'd listen, if you wanted. And I wouldn't make fun. Promise.”

Half-laughing and half-sniffing, Sirius stuck his hand out to Remus for their handshake. Remus'
smile was wobbly as he went through the motions. His fingers lingered for a moment at the end,
curled around Sirius', before he let go. “We can just sit. I can read to you. If you want.”

Sirius shook his head, taking as deep a breath as he could around his stuffy nose and sore throat.
Great. Now more parts of him hurt than before, thanks to all that stupid crying. Of course, a lot of
parts of him felt better, too. Thanks to Remus.

“It's Walburga,” Sirius explained. He refused to look at Remus. “My mum. She... I did something
stupid at my cousin Bella's engagement party last night, and-”

“What'd you do?”

Sirius shrugged. That wasn't really the point, but Remus didn't know that. So he told him: “Got
into a fight with Lucius. Another cousin. He was teasing Regulus, making him eat... stuff.
Garbage.” Sirius wrinkled his nose up at the memory. “I shoved him. Lucius said some things. So
I hit him. And then I hit him again. And then...” Sirius winced. “I threw him in a pool. And threw
a chair after him.”

Chancing a glance at Remus, Sirius saw his mouth hanging open. Sirius' stomach clenched.
Remus thought he was bad, too. Remus wasn't going to want to be his friend any more, and-

And then Remus laughed, freckles folded into his skin the way they did when something was
really, really funny. Sirius blinked, then risked a small smile in response.

“That's mad!” Remus said. “And brilliant! You really threw a chair at him?!”

Sirius shrugged. “Well. Kinda... like. Pushed. Across the floor. And into the pool.”

Remus grinned, then nodded firmly. “Well, he was being a prat, wasn't he? Picking on your little
brother. You had to protect him!”

That was how it felt at the time. But obviously that wasn't right. The entire party had been ruined.
If Bella had been the type to cry she might have, at all that. But instead she turned to Walburga
and said something . At that, Walburga had turned white . Sirius had never seen anyone make her
look like she made him feel all the time, but somehow cousin Bella had managed it. Then
Walburga's cool, calculating demeanor had returned. She politely made all the excuses and
apologies and promises to pay for the damages. Then she took both boys in one steel-fisted grip
each and practically dragged them from the Lestrange house. The punishment had waited 'til
morning, because Walburga had apology letters to write and phone calls to make.

“Your mum got mad, didn't she?”

Sirius turned his head down, looking away from Remus. He nodded, biting his lip to keep himself
from bursting into tears again.

“It's not right.” Remus' grip was gentle but firm on Sirius' arm. “It's not. Mums shouldn't be like
that. Sirius-”

“I just don't...” Sirius gasped through a fresh sob, shaking his head. “I can't. It's a whole seven
months before boarding school, and there's hundreds of parties before then. I can't... I'm going to
keep messing up, and it's going to get worse and worse...”

“Come with me.”

Sirius' heart stopped. Those three words... it seemed so easy . But it couldn't be. He had Regulus
to think about, and all his stuff, and if they did it but then Walburga caught him, everything would
be a hundred thousand times worse.

His jaw worked, trying to explain all this to Remus. But Remus just took his hand and held it
tight, looking up into Sirius' eyes. “Sirius. You could be brave. Like Oliver Twist. Or Jack
Dawkins, or...” he grinned, eyes teasing just a bit. “Or Wendy.”

Sirius snorted. “Why do you get to be Peter Pan?”

Remus' smile was kind – something Sirius didn't realize smiles could be until they met. “Because
I'm taking you away.” Then Remus turned serious again, tugging on Sirius' hand insistently. “You
could run away, and my parents would take you in. We'd get your brother, too. I promise.”

Sirius' hand trembled in Remus' grasp. But then Remus just gripped it harder, held it to his chest,
and the trembling stopped. “Promise?” Sirius whispered.

Remus released Sirius' hand only long enough for them to do their handshake, then tucked it right
back in his own and didn't let go. “We can go right now,” Remus said. “Just walk through my
door. We'll tell my parents you're my pen-pal. You took a train. And we'll tell them all about your
mum and all, and get Regulus saved, too.”

Sirius shook his head. “Not today.” If they were going to do this... and didn't Sirius' head just light
up at the possibility? They might actually do this. All Sirius had to do was gather some things: a
few pairs of clothes, his shoebox he kept in the storage room on the other side of his door that had
all of Remus' birthday cards and presents to him from over the years. Since he was going to be
leaving Regulus, just for a little bit, he should probably say goodbye to him, too. He couldn't
actually say goodbye, because then Regulus would know what was going and would probably
tattle on him, but he could do something nice for Regulus. Give him something.

“Tomorrow,” Sirius said. “I need to do some things, but... tomorrow.” And then he looked Remus
square in the eyes. They were gleaming with hope, so just for right now, just for this day, Sirius let
himself believe. Maybe, maybe. Maybe he'd be able to escape, and live with Remus, and save
Regulus, and never, ever have to get beaten by Walburga again. Maybe he wouldn't have to wait
seven months to escape her vicious fingernails and biting belt. Maybe he'd be gone tomorrow.

**

“Regulus?”

The cold metal of the locket was pressing into Sirius' hand as he squeezed it tight. He was
nervous. He couldn't tell Regulus what was going on, but he didn't want to leave his little brother
without a single reassuring word. So he settled for this, and only hoped that Regulus would realize
what it meant after he had gone.

Regulus was hunched over his desk, dark hair in his eyes as his pen scratched something carefully
out. Sirius craned his neck to look as he edged further into the room, but Regulus had another
paper over it before Sirius was close enough.

“What do you want?”

Sirius swallowed, locket warm in his palm, now. It felt practically hot , with how sweaty and
fevered his skin was. “I want...”

Regulus was peering up at Sirius, eyes narrowed as he scrutinized his big brother. Sirius suddenly
felt so, so bad for Regulus. He looked like he was trying to do a tiny imitation of Walburga's
condescending look, but he couldn't even remotely achieve it. He was just too small, and sweet,
and – if Sirius was being a bit mean to Regulus – not quite as sharply, fiercely intelligent. Sirius
should have tried more, to make sure Regulus had never saw that stare as something to be
emulated.

His hand squeezed around the locket. Well, now he was doing something about it. In just a little
while, he'd get Regulus out of here and bring him to live with Remus and his family. And
everything'd be okay, after that. Regulus would start being a good little brother, and Sirius could
be a brilliant older one. And Remus would get the brother he always wanted, and – most
importantly of all – they'd all be safe, out from under the vicious, omnipresent heel of Walburga.

“I brought you this,” Sirius said, holding out the locket by its chain. The silver photo locket hung
down, swinging in the air.

Regulus looked down at it, eyebrows furrowed together. “That's yours.”

“Yeah,” Sirius confirmed. He stepped closer, pushing the locket at Regulus. When Regulus didn't
take it, Sirius set it on the desk. “It's got yours and mine picture in it. Walburga gave it to me when
you were born.”

Still looking at Sirius like he was expecting to be the butt of a nasty prank, Regulus gingerly
picked at the locket. The clasp popped open, revealing the two photos inside: one of Regulus as a
tiny, wrinkly baby; the other of Sirius, barely older than a babe himself. Regulus glanced up at
Sirius, eyes more soft but still suspicious. “Why're you giving me it?”

Sirius shrugged as casually as he could. He couldn't give anything away. “Just came across it.
Thought you might like it. Brothers, and all.”

Slowly Regulus seemed to allow himself to believe Sirius' answer, because he dropped his gaze
from Sirius' face and turned it on the locket. He lifted it in one hand, turning it over in his palm
once before snapping it shut.

“Thanks. Sirius.” Regulus hesitated, glancing back down at his desk. The chain of the locket hung
between his fingers, swaying in small little lines through the air. “I gotta...” he nodded at the desk.

“Sure.” Breathing deep, Sirius looked over Regulus one more time. Black, silky hair, pointed
nose, grey eyes and high cheekbones. They looked so much alike. And now, maybe, when Sirius
stole Regulus away, they'd actually get the chance to be alike, instead of Regulus always getting
tricked and scared into being a miniature embodiment of everything Walburga thought was proper
and right and good. Sirius' gaze dragged over Regulus one last time, then he nodded. “Okay.
Bye.”

As Sirius left Regulus' room and returned to his own he realized his hands were shaking.
Determined, Sirius balled his hands into fists and then forcibly relaxed them, repeating the
movement over and over again. He could do this. He and Remus could do this, together.

**

The overnight bag was heavy in Sirius' hand, the leather stiff and underused cutting into his palm.
He waddled to the bench with it in one hand and his shoebox tucked up under his other arm. His
arms were still bruised and sore from his beating two days ago, but he could bear a little
discomfort now. After all, in just a matter of an hour – or maybe even less – Sirius would never
have anything to complain about ever again.

Contrary to their normal routine, Remus was already waiting for him. He didn't look quite as
nervous as Sirius felt, but there was an underlying edge to his smile that belied his outward calm.
He rose from the bench as soon as he saw Sirius, one hand outstretched as he took the heavy
duffle from him. Sirius stretched his hand out, flexing his fingers in relief.

The boys shifted where they stood, looking uneasily everywhere but at each other. Sirius thought
about breaking the silence, but then he realized that maybe Remus was having doubts. Maybe
Remus didn't want to take him and his brother in anymore; maybe Remus had decided it'd be best
just to let Sirius rot in that house with Walburga for the rest of the year – for the rest of his life.

So then it was Remus who broke the silence, except of course it wasn't to tell Sirius to take his bag
back and turn around. “Ready?”

Taking a breath, Sirius nodded. Yes. He was ready. He could do this.

The walk to Remus' door wasn't very long, but it seemed that way to Sirius. Every step he took
alongside Remus came coupled with a thousand doubts and worries and hopes. What if Remus'
parents kicked him out? What if they phoned Walburga and told her all about what her terrible,
pathetic son did? What if Remus got tired of Sirius, and turned him out after just a couple months?

What if it worked? What if Sirius never had to see that horrible, mad woman ever again, and
managed to save Regulus from her vicious insanity, too? What if he and Remus got to live
together, to grow up together?

They were at Remus' door. The shoebox slipped under Sirius' arm an inch before he stopped it,
squeezing tighter on the cardboard. They were going to do this. He was going to go through that
door and escape Walburga's talon's forever. Sirius felt like he might be sick, or his head might
float away from dizzying happiness.

“Come on.” Remus' hand was light on Sirius' arm.

Sirius let Remus start forward first, taking a moment to straighten his back and jut out his chin. It
made him feel braver than he was, more ready to follow Remus through the door. In front of him,
Remus lifted the door handle and yanked it open and went through.
Sirius gaped. Remus had gone through a stone wall. But...

Scrambling forward, Sirius touched his hand to the wall. It didn't give, it didn't disappear. It was
still stone.

Fear and doubt gripped his belly, but Sirius refused to give up. Not yet; not when he was so close
. “Remus! Remus!” He pounded on the stone with his free hand, heart thudding in his chest with
fear. “Remus! Come back!”

A moment later Remus appeared through the stone wall, practically falling on top of Sirius. The
boys separated, Remus looking between Sirius and the wall in confusion. His eyes looked hurt.
“Do... You don't have to. I just thought-”

“No!” Sirius pointed at the wall, horror slowly seizing his heart with the revelation. “No, I can't!
It's stone. I can't get through.”

Remus blinked, turning from Sirius to the door again. “No it's not. There's my dad's shop store
room, right there.”

Oh no. Sirius' entire future felt like it was crashing down around him. He was stuck, he was stuck,
he was stuck with Walburga for the next seven months, 'til the end of time. And he couldn't
survive it, he just couldn't, he couldn't wait around for that long and do everything right. He'd do
something wrong, he'd bollocks things up again and Walburga would finish him, she'd kill him
next time...

“Sirius! Sirius!” Remus had dropped the duffle at Sirius' feet and was shaking his shoulders
desperately, trying to make eye contact. “Sirius, please. What do you see?”

Slowly Sirius refocused on Remus, tuning out the soul-destroying mantra's circling in his head. He
realized his breathing was going fast. Too fast. He tried to stop it, to slow it down, but it was like
he wasn't getting enough air. If he slowed it down he'd die. “It's,” he gasped, “stone. Stone. It's
stone. Nothing...”

He couldn't breathe. Sirius dropped to his knees, then back, as he tried to regain control. “Wait,
Sirius! Please. We can try. You can hold my hand. Come on. Hold my hand.”

Blindly Sirius took Remus' hand and let himself be tugged up by the smaller boy. He stumbled
over rocks and cobblestones as Remus dragged him forward, to his door. Some small portion of
Sirius' mind registered Remus going through, and then... nothing. Remus' hand slipped from
Sirius' for a moment, and the other boy was gone. Sirius stumbled backwards, would have
collapsed back onto the stone-littered ground if it weren't for Remus dashing back through his
door and enveloping Sirius into a fierce hug.

“No, come on. We can make it work. Look, what if-” and then Remus was trying to pull Sirius
through again, this time while staying practically wrapped around Sirius, every inch of them
touching. Sirius let himself be manhandled, mind still stopped short or spinning to fast or
something, because he couldn't think anymore – he couldn't do anything anymore. All he could do
was let Remus try to drag him through the door again.

It didn't work. Remus ended up falling backwards through the wall while Sirius was left staring at
the cold, unyielding stone. A moment later and Remus was back, eyes expressing some sort of
horrible, ruined emotion Sirius had never seen before.

Sirius sat down on the ground in front of Remus' door and cried.

Remus was with him in a moment, arms around him and holding Sirius tight. Sirius let himself
cry, ignoring everything Remus was saying and doing besides the feel of his arms around him and
the soothing, if not just a little heartbroken, tone of his voice. Sirius cried and cried for everything,
for everything in his life that was wrong. He cried over Walburga not loving him, nor Orion. He
cried for all the punishments he had received and the more that were sure to come. He cried for
Regulus, who was already going rotten, who Sirius wouldn't be able to save now. And he cried at
the thought of having to endure that and so much more for seventh whole months. He didn't think
he could.

When it was late and the sun was low in the sky, Remus took Sirius' chin in one hand and wiped
at his tears with another. He took Sirius' hand and led him to the pool, cleaning him up by dipping
his sleeve in the water and pressing it to Sirius' stinging red eyes. He disappeared for a little while,
during which time Sirius stared at the mosaic at the bottom of the pool. It looked so nice and calm
down there. If only he could live down there forever. Or in this World forever. But apparently it
didn't want him to escape Walburga. It had made that point very clear this afternoon.

Remus returned a few minutes later and collected Sirius, holding his hand as they walked back to
Sirius' door. Sirius still had the presence of mind enough to realize that Remus had gathered up his
duffle and shoebox and put it next to his door for him. The sight of them – the thought of Remus
doing that, packing up his things so he could go back to Walburga – made Sirius want to burst out
into a fresh torrent of tears.

Then Remus' face was buried in Sirius' neck as he hugged him tight, tight: as tight as he could.
Sirius relaxed and hugged back, tears still threatening but not quiet as violently.

“You have to go back,” Remus whispered.

Sirius knew. He knew. So he stepped away from Remus, gathered his things, and went back.
 Chapter 15
Chapter Summary

Sirius heads off to boarding school after a long goodbye to Remus.

Sirius watched from around a corner as Kreacher set the last of his bags by the door. This was it,
then. In just a few hours the could come and take him away from this wretched place. A tingle of
nervous excitement blazed through Sirius from head to toe. There was only one thing holding him
back – one reason why he couldn't be completely, unreservedly excited about the whole thing.

Hurrying himself away from the commotion at the front door, Sirius made his way up to the fourth
floor storage room. He had a few things to give Remus before he left, and of course, they needed
to say their goodbyes and plan when they'd meet up again. Sirius wouldn't be at boarding school
all the time, after all. He'd have to come home for Christmas and Summer holidays. And he
wanted to make sure he and Remus would meet up with each other every chance they got.

When he stepped through the door he was surprised to find the skies an overcast grey and the
finest mist of rain coming down. Tucking his supplies for Remus under his shirt, Sirius hurried
over to their bench. Remus was already waiting, huddled miserably with one of their costumes
tugged over his head and a big, brown tote bag tucked under his feet under the bench.

“Remus!” Sirius waved a hand at him, gesturing for him to come here. Remus leapt up in a
moment, shrugging the costume shirt off and picking up his bag. Sirius waited for Remus to get to
him, then reached out and linked their hands. Remus' was cold and wet from the rain, but Sirius
still felt a surge of warmth as soon as it was linked with his own. “Come on,” he said. “Let's go to
the house.”

They hurried across the street, picking their way over fallen walls and loose cobblestones. None of
the houses had roofs, but this one had something that was close enough. When they entered it both
boys headed straight for the back, to a room that Remus had decided looked like a kitchen. In
there was a small, covered alcove – an old stove or countertop or something. It protruded from the
wall and offered just enough space for both boys to cram themselves beneath it with legs tucked
up to their chests to keep them out of the rain.

When they were safely ensconced beneath the stone overhang, Sirius turned to get a good look at
Remus for the first time – for the last time, too. Last time in a while, at least. His hair was soaked
and smushed down onto his forehead – the costume shirt didn't do him much good, then.
Touching a hand to his face, Sirius felt that it was cold and damp. Instinctively Sirius moved
closer to Remus – the inch or so that he could – and wrapped an arm around him, rubbing up and
down in an effort to share his warmth. Remus leaned into him, face pressed to Sirius' chest as
Sirius wrapped his other arm around Remus' front.

“How long have you been waiting?”

“Bit,” came Remus' muffled reply. A fierce shiver going through him told Sirius maybe it had
been longer than just a “bit”. “Didn't want to miss you,” he explained.

Even though Sirius knew they didn't have much time, he allowed himself a few more minutes of
rubbing at Remus, trying to get him warmed up to more human temperatures. When Remus
stopped feeling absolutely frozen to the touch and no longer shivered quite so harshly, Sirius
released him from his tight grip. He didn't move to put any extra space between them, though.

“I have stuff for you,” Sirius said. “For when I'm gone.”

Remus shook his head, hands still shaking a little as he dug into the big tote he had managed to
cram into the space on his left between himself and the wall. “Tell me when you'll be back, first.
We're going to meet the very first day when you get back, so we don't miss each other at all.”

Imitating Remus, Sirius tugged all the items out of his shirt and fumbled through them for his
schedule. He had made sure to get it from Walburga in advanced, so he and Remus had been able
to coordinate. Walburga had thought maybe he was showing an interest in coordinating his breaks
with the Black “social calendar”. Sirius hadn't dared correct her.

The crumpled bit of paper was a little damp in Sirius' hand, but all the typeface on it was still clear
enough to read. “Half term break is first during Michaelmas term – that's this one. That's October
twenty-first to the thirty-first.”

Next to him, Remus dutifully wrote down everything Sirius was saying in his notebook. It was the
one Sirius had given him for his tenth birthday. Sirius continued: “So then the term ends
December nineteenth and winter hols start. Then Easter term-”

“Wait, wait.” Remus' tongue was sticking out of his mouth just a bit when he wrote. Sirius waited
for him to catch up. When he did Remus turned to Sirius and tapped his pencil on the notebook
page. “When do we meet, then? Because it'll take you ages to get back, even if you leave right in
the morning, right? So do we meet the twenty-first or the twenty-second?”

Sirius thought about this for a moment. Remus was right: it was going to take ages to get to the
school today, so it would take just as long to get back. Then of course he'd have to see his family,
probably give a report to Orion or something about how he was doing in his classes. Still.

“Let's meet the twenty-first. At night. Can you?”

Remus nodded, eyes sad. Sirius didn't like that – he didn't want Remus sad today. It wasn't like he
was leaving forever: they were still going to be best mates, and see each other. And all the time
Sirius spent away from Remus, even though that part'd be terrible, would also be time he wasn't
under Walburga or Kreacher's vicious gazes.

“I'll meet you at night,” Remus promised. “I can sneak down to the shop. October twenty-first.
Nighttime. And then December nineteenth, same time.”

Sirius nodded, still staring at Remus. He was trying to take a picture with his mind. Remus, with
his golden hair a shade more brown than normal from the damp. His amber eyes were big and sad,
but staring up at Sirius with... something. Something good, Sirius knew. He was shivering, and
smaller than Sirius, but not by much. Would he be taller next time they met? Would Sirius? Maybe
Remus would be taller than Sirius next time – and wouldn't that be funny? Maybe Remus would
get a new scar on his knee, or finally lose that last baby tooth still stuck in his mouth. Remus
might get a haircut, or might not and have longer hair when they saw each other again. So much
might change between now and the end of October: it was months and months away. But there
was one thing Sirius knew wouldn't change: Remus' eyes. Those eyes had been the same since the
day they met, and Sirius knew they'd be the same months from now, years from now. If they
didn't see each other again until they were old men, Sirius would be able to recognize Remus by
his eyes.

They went through the rest of the schedule together, making plans to meet for half-term break in
Easter term and summer term, as well as Easter hols. Remus had insisted they plan out all the
breaks in advanced, just in case Sirius couldn't make it for the first one or something. With
schedules done, Remus closed his notebook slowly and Sirius tucked the slip of paper into his
trouser pocket. They shifted awkwardly next to each other, knowing the end was soon. All that
was left was to exchange going away presents and their goodbyes. Sirius didn't want it to end. But
then again, he didn't need to give Walburga any new reasons to punish him. Especially since she
seemed particularly eager to dole out a few more strident reminders to Sirius about what kind of
behavior was expected of him and the consequences if he didn't adhere to such behavior while he
was away.

“Got my new uniform,” Sirius said, breaking the silence. “I look like a right prat it in. More than
even usual.”

Remus laughed at that. He'd seen Sirius' normal clothing, on occasion. He thought it was horribly
constricting and all-around terrible looking. “'ve got one too, you know,” he put in. “'s red and
gold.”

Sirius grumbled, crossing his arms over his chest. “Those are wicked colors. Mine's green. And
silver.” He wrinkled his nose. The same color as everything in his house. Sirius was beginning to
realize that going to this boarding school wasn't going to be much different than being at home.
He just hoped he'd meet some kids there who he wasn't related to. Maybe they'd be okay.

Remus shifted to his left after a second, hand disappearing into his tote. Sirius felt a pang at the
sight, but he knew they were going to have to leave eventually. He reached under his shirt and
tugged out Remus' present.

“Here,” Remus said. “You can't open it 'til you get to school, though. Promise.”

Sirius took the thick, heavy envelope from Remus, feeling at it curiously. It wasn't hard enough to
be a book – at least, not one with a cover. Sirius bent it, feeling at the thickness curiously. Remus'
hand appeared, pressing down onto Sirius' own. Sirius looked up to see Remus smiling and
shaking his head. “Nope. Promise. Not until you get to school.”

Sirius rolled his eyes but grinned. “Okay. Promise.” They shook on it, Sirius feeling a little
wobbly halfway through when he realized this might be the last time they did their secret
handshake until he came back for half-term break.

“This is yours,” Sirius said, ducking his head so Remus wouldn't see how sad he suddenly felt.
“It's just... You can't open it until school, either. Not if I can't open mine.”

Remus grinned and agreed readily. Really, Sirius was just nervous Remus wouldn't like it. He'd
given Remus another present he'd gotten ages ago and didn't like very much: a fancy writing set.
Actually, it wasn't that Sirius didn't like it, it was just that he had dozens of them and didn't think
he'd ever go through them all, even if he became the next Arthur Conan Doyle. As it was, Remus
was sure to put it to better use that Sirius: Remus always had the best ideas for stories and the like.
And now he could use it with his notebook instead of all those old, chewed up ballpoints he had
on him all the time.

“I have to go.” Sirius whispered the words. He didn't want to go. Except, he did, a little bit. He
wanted to go because going meant he'd be heading off to boarding school, which meant escape
Walburga for giant chunks of time. But he definitely wasn't looking forward to a school filled with
Lucius' or Bella's, and he definitely wasn't looking forward to not seeing Remus for months and
months.

“We can play house.” Remus whispered back. The rain was stopping, if it ever had really gotten
going in the first place. The whole World was just horribly damp and overcast now, though not
actively trying to get the boys wet.

Sirius pressed his hand to Remus' ankle, squeezing at the strip of skin there. He didn't look up
when he spoke. “What'd we do?”

Remus had the perfect answer – he always did. “You're going on a business trip. A long one. And
you'll miss me, but you have to go. And you'll come back.”

“The coach is here,” Sirius said to his wife. Remusa nodded, and the two of them crawled out
from their cramped shelter. They gathered their presents and schedules up, tucking them into tote
bags and pockets as they readied themselves to say goodbye. They held hands as they walked to
the front door – Sirius' door.

Sirius turned to Remus – Remusa – not sure what to do. He knew what they normally did, but this
was so much more... it was so much longer. His heart was beating hard in his chest, and his
stomach felt like it kind of wanted to eat itself, or him, or maybe it didn't want to eat anything and
actually wanted to vomit. It all hurt and confused him.

“Don't make another best mate,” Sirius warned. Then he remembered they were playing, and he
corrected himself. “Don't find another husband. I'm coming back.”

Remusa grinned – a sad, crooked thing that didn't reach her eyes. Those eyes that Sirius would
definitely, definitely remember forever. “Don't you find another wife,” she fired back.

Sirius shook his head. “Never. Never ever.”

With no other way to express and the conflicting feelings churning in his gut and heart and brain
and everywhere, Sirius leaned down and kissed his wife. Remusa kissed back, hard. Sirius
stumbled a little with the force of it, hands coming up to grip at Remusa's shoulders. Remusa's
hands were clutching at his chest as he continued to mash their mouths together, lips pressed tight
against each other and themselves as they kissed and kissed and wished to never, ever have to let
go.

They did part, too soon, Sirius chasing after Remusa's lips for a second before he realized they
needed to stop, that he needed to leave.

“I'll see you on the twenty-first,” Remusa reminded him.

“Twenty-first,” Sirius repeated. “Twenty-first. I'll see you.”

With his heart pounding in his chest, Sirius opened his door. He stared after Remus, feeling like
there was something more to do, something more to say. But he couldn't find the right actions or
words, so after one last look he clutched Remus' envelope close to his chest and stepped back to
Grimmauld Place.

**

It was just a half hour before lights out when Sirius finally was settled enough to pull Remus'
envelope out of the bottom of his trunk. His cheek still smarted where Walburga had managed to
find an excuse for one last ring-wearing backhand, but that didn't impeded the grin that spread as
Sirius tugged a thick sheaf of papers out of the yellow envelope.

The top paper was in Remus' handwriting and started with “Dear Sirius”, so Sirius figured he was
probably supposed to read that first. Legs dangling over the edge of the bed, Sirius settled in and
started to read.
Dear Sirius ,

You better not be cheating and reading this in the car. Put it away if you are. I'll wait .

Sirius snorted, eyes tearing up a little. Trust Remus to tease him first thing, and to question his
integrity. Sirius poked at the words a little bit, like he might have if Remus had said them in
person.

Okay. You better be in the dorms.

You sure?

Right then.

Sure?

Just fooling. So, here's your present. It's copies of all different stories I looked up over the summer
that we could do. There's stuff from Grimm, Sherlock Holmes, Jules Verne (if you've never read
him, I think you'll like him loads), Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Arthur C. Clarke, some Captain
Britain comics, Hollywood movie scripts, and loads more. I even wrote out a whole table of
contents and everything. I made the copies on my dad's mimeograph in the store. I don't think
he'd mind. There should be enough to keep you reading for the whole year, I reckon. But only if
you read one a night. No more! So you're not allowed to cheat on this, either. I'd make you secret-
handshake me, but I can't do that through paper.

Beneath was scribbled a little imitation of two hands slapping against each other. Sirius grinned,
tapping the paper with the back of his hand. “Promise,” he whispered. “One a day.”

Okay, now that I've made you promise, I know you'll only do one a night. Come back with loads
of ideas for stuff we can pretend!

Sincerely,

Remus

PS: Don't even think about reading those American comics. I'm not going to be Robin.

Sirius was beaming so hard down at the paper and re-reading it a dozen times that he didn't notice
anyone walking up to him. Then the paper was snatched out of his hands and the copies sitting in
his lap went flying to the ground, spreading out everywhere like spilt milk. Sirius gaped before
jumping to his feet, eyes blazing.

In front of him were a group of boys, one of them looking his age at the front. He was the one
holding onto Sirius' letter, looking a bit confused and glancing at the older boys around him. “Go
on, Snape. Read it.”

The greasy, nasty looking boy cleared his throat and started to read: “'Dear Sirius, You better not
be reading-'”

“Hey! Stop it!” Sirius darted forward, trying to snatch the letter out from that ugly little boy's
hands. But someone grabbed him, tugging him back. One of those mean-looking older boys,
sneering down at him. Sirius assessed him quickly. He didn't look like anyone he was related to.
Figuring that was good enough for him, Sirius leveled a swift elbow to the boy's stomach, then
stamped down as hard as he could on his foot. The older boy snarled and his grip loosened, just
long enough for Sirius to break free and scramble forward again.
That Snape boy was still reading. “'Okay, you better be in the dorms...'”

“Give it back!” Sirius snarled, flying at the other boy. He didn't even try to slow down, instead
throwing his entire weight into the smaller boy and knocking them both sprawling backwards into
the legs of the older boys. Without thinking Sirius let his fist fly, landing a solid blow on his
cheek. If there was one thing he'd learned over the years from his dear mum and servant, it was
how to inflict pain.

The paper crumpled between them as Sirius snatched at it, still scratching and clawing with his
other hand at that greasy git beneath him. That boy, Snape, was crying and shouting, trying to get
away. For just a moment Sirius wanted to continue going at him, to hurt him even more, but then
he remembered all the copies strewn about on the floor around him, and thought about how
Remus' eyes must have been shining with excitement as he worked on copying them, one by one
on his dad's pilfered mimeograph.

With one last punch Sirius crawled off the boy, Remus' letter crumpled but mostly intact, held
tight to his chest. He didn't even spare a glance for the older boys as he scrambled around
desperately for the papers, just trying to gather them up into a single pile again. He'd sort out the
order later, when there weren't so many other boys around.

As Sirius reached for another paper a foot came down, hard , on his hand. Sirius cried out, trying
to pull away. The foot just pressed down harder, the rough sole scraping the top of his hand, the
weight slowly crushing the bones and tendons between it and the hard wood floor. Sirius kicked
and shouted, trying to reach his tormentor. But all the other boys were laughing, and too far away
to reach. The foot pressed down harder.

“Hey! Ger'off him!”

The pressure on his hand abruptly ended and Sirius yanked his hand back, clutching it to his chest.
Ow ow ow ow . It hurt. It hurt so much. It was throbbing and searing. He couldn't move it.

Sirius looked up to see what had happened. There was another boy standing there, looked to be
his age. He had messy black hair and glasses, which he was glaring behind at the older boys.
“What're you doing, pickin' on 'im?! You're proly three stone biggr'n'im, you fat arse! That weight
might'a worked for Churchill, but you'nt got his cigar size, if you know what I mean!”

The older boy sneered, tugging his uniform trousers up in some sort of dismissive movement.
Sirius hand still throbbed where it was clutched to his chest, but the pain had dulled just a fraction.
Maybe it wasn't broken, then. He couldn't imagine what Walburga would do to him if he got a
broken hand on his first night at school. Probably break his other hand, just to show him.

Just when Sirius thought this other bespectacled boy was going to be joining him in the infirmary
that night, the overhead lights flickered three times. That was apparently some sort of signal,
because the older boys backed off with one more snarl and headed to their beds. One of them
hacked and spit at Sirius. It landed on top of one of Remus' copied papers.

“Hey, you all right?”

Sirius started, spotting the messy-haired boy a moment later. He was standing above Sirius,
holding a hand out.

“Can you get up?”

Sirius shook his head. He wasn't thinking about his injuries – he was thinking he had to collect all
Remus' papers before lights out. Otherwise the older boys would probably end up stealing them
away in the middle of the night, and then Sirius would have nothing of Remus' with him for a
whole half a term. But the other boy must have thought Sirius was badly hurt, because he dropped
down to his haunches with something close to horror on his face.

“Oh, no, do you need to go to the nurse? 'm not sure how yet – I'm first year, too. I could ask
when they come in for lights out.”

Wiping his eyes with his good hand, Sirius shook his head again. “No. No. 'm fine. I just have to
pick these up.”

“I'll help.”

“No!”

Possessively Sirius' good hand darted out, grabbing every paper within reach. The other boy held
out his hands, eyes wide behind his glasses. “Oi! I was just trying to help. It's going to take forever
with that bad hand.”

Glancing down at his hand still cradled to his chest, Sirius could see it was already swelling, and
was red and scraped from the underside of the older boy's shoe. Cautiously Sirius looked over at
the other boy, eyes narrowed. He seemed like a decent bloke. No Remus, certainly: he was too
loud and bossy for that. But he'd stood up to the other kids for Sirius, even though he was just a
first year.

“Yeah,” Sirius finally muttered. “Okay.”

They set to work in silence, collecting all the papers into two piles. When Sirius reached the piece
the older boy had spit on he wiped it on his trousers until it was dry enough, then set it on top the
pile with the rest of the papers. It still seemed readable, which was all that mattered.

They were done shortly – much faster than if Sirius had tried to go at it alone. The other boy
collected his and Sirius' piles together, then presented them to Sirius. “Do you want me to put
them somewhere for you?”

Sirius nodded over at his trunk. When the other boy set them in there, Sirius held out Remus' letter
to him, too. James took it without comment, smoothed it out, and put it on top the stack.

“Your mum?” he asked. When Sirius stared at him, utterly confused, the other boy nodded at the
closed trunk. “The care package. From your mum?”

Sirius laughed. Walburga? Send him with something? Sirius laughed again, shaking his head.

The other boy tried again. “Mate, then? From back home?”

Slowly Sirius nodded. Sure. Remus was a mate. From back home... kind of. Close enough.

“Well, I'm James.” The other boy stuck out his hand. Then, after a moment's consideration, stuck
out his other hand. Cautiously Sirius took it with his good left hand. James pumped it up and
down once. The handshake didn't have the same reassuring feel of his and Remus' secret
handshake, but it still felt good. Comfortable. Like maybe this James bloke wasn't so bad.

“Sirius Black,” he offered.

James grinned crookedly. “Alright then, Sirius Black. We'll stick together, yeah?” He leaned
closer, lowering his voice as he spoke. “And we'll get that Snape git back tomorrow, yeah? Think
of something right rude to do to him.” He winked, and Sirius found himself grinning back. Just a
little.

“Right then! Night!” With a slap to Sirius' shoulder James was off, dashing over to his own bed
just as the door was opening to let in the adults. Sirius scrambled to get his pajamas on with one
hand, and somehow managed it by the time the adults came to check on him. He even managed to
force his throbbing hand down to his side and uncurled it.

As Sirius pulled the sheets up to his chin and listened to the boys sleeping and shifting around
him, he whimpered. Just a little. Then he imagined Remus' small, warm body laying in his bed
next to him, keeping watch on the big boys throughout the night. He was able to fall asleep after
that.
 Chapter 16
Chapter Summary

Sirius is back at Grimmauld for a holiday, and can't wait to see Remus.

It was late – much later than Sirius had intended it to be. But he'd had to wait for the entire house
to go to sleep before he could sneak over to the fourth floor storage room, and since Walburga had
insisted they host a party the day Sirius came home for half-term the household bedtime had been
much later than usual. So late, in fact, that Sirius had to fake sleeping for over two hours as the
adults continued to mingle and chat and eat little tiny sandwiches off little tiny trays.

But now the last of the guests had gone and Walburga was locked away in her bedroom,
performing her night time rituals that Sirius couldn't even begin to comprehend. Kreacher was
probably still skulking around somewhere, cleaning up dishes and polishing tables. But Sirius had
spent eleven years avoiding Kreacher, so he knew he could manage to sneak two stories up and
six doorways over.

Sirius wasn't even sure Remus would be there. He told himself it'd be okay if Remus was already
gone – it was terribly late, and Remus was already sneaking out in order to meet Sirius as late as
they had previously planned it, which was early compared to the current hour. Still, even as Sirius
braced himself for the possibility that Remus wouldn't be there, he felt excitement clawing at his
chest, begging to be let out. Remus would be there. Remus would be there no matter how late, no
matter how long Sirius made him wait. Remus would be there.

Sirius hurried through the dark, moonlight streets of their World. He had never been there so late –
even the night they had looked at the stars together had been hours earlier than this. It might have
been scary, if it were any other place. But it wasn't. The light given off by the stars and moon just
bathed the streets in an almost liquid white glow. If Sirius stared hard enough, he thought he might
see fairies darting in and out of the woods, or Dark waiting to teach him how to switch on the
night.

As he rounded the wall to their bench, Sirius thought for a moment that Remus hadn't waited. The
bench was empty except for a dark lump: there was no silhouetted figure of a little boy sitting
under the moonlight, waiting for Sirius. His heart dropped to his feet, and his steps stuttered. An
odd rock skittered across the marble stones at his jerking movement, the noise loud in the still of
the night. Then Sirius realized that the lump on the bench was Remus, curled up and just twitching
awake at the sound of his approach.

“Si'us?” he murmured.

Nervous energy running through him like electricity, Sirius ran up to Remus and tugged him
upright in his seat on the bench. Remus had covered himself with their costume dress, tugging it
up to his chin like a blanket. Without even waiting to absorb anything that was different – was his
hair a little bit longer than the last time? His shoulders a little broader? – Sirius clutched Remus'
shoulders and swooped down for a kiss.

Remus was so relaxed and sleepy beneath him that his mouth fell open, a little whimper escaping
it. Sirius gasped at the sensation, the feeling of wet and good and... what...
Sirius pulled away with a gasp, head buzzing with a hundred different things until it just stopped
working, it shut down from being so overwhelmed. Remus was staring up at him, head rolled
listlessly back, mouth still hanging open, eyes half-lidded. Sirius swallowed. Choked. Swallowed
again.

“Love. Home,” he finally sputtered out. Because he was finishing their game. Because he was
giving his wife Remusa a kiss when he came home from his business trip.

“Time out,” Remus whispered.

Sirius blinked, and nodded. Of course, Remus wouldn't want to play. Not yet. They had to catch
up on everything, first. They could play tomorrow, or the next day. Right now they should just be
themselves so they could talk. Sirius didn't know why he had thought continuing the story like that
had been a good idea.

“I have something for you,” Sirius said immediately. Rummaging through his trouser pocket,
Sirius dug out the glossy paper he had been looking for. It was a photo of him and James sitting
on James' bed together. James had a Polaroid camera his mum had gotten him for his birthday that
year, and insisted on taking photos of everything and everyone, and having everyone take photos
of him. This had been just a spare Sirius had out of dozens stuffed in his trunk. He thought maybe
Remus would like it – not because it had him in it, or anything. Because it was a picture at the
boarding school. And so that when Sirius told him about James, Remus could know what he
looked like.

Remus took the photo from Sirius, looking at it in the dim light of the moon. “Who's that?” he
asked, pointing at James.

“That's James. He's a mate.”

For a moment Remus was silent, staring at the photo. After a moment he nodded. “Oh.”

Throwing himself down onto the bench next to Remus, Sirius let his shoulder nudge into the other
boy forcefully. “Oi. Not like you. Just a mate.” Remus flashed a smile at that, and Sirius grinned.
He knew Remus would worry about that. But what he'd said was true: James was a mate, a great
mate. But he wasn't a mate like Remus. Being a mate with James was as different as being a mate
with Remus and being a brother to Regulus. Worlds apart.

Still, Sirius felt a small thrill of satisfaction to know that Remus had been worried. Because Sirius
had been thinking the same thing every time him and James played a prank or helped each other
with their homework: was Remus meeting other blokes? Was he getting along without Sirius?
Was he replacing Sirius?

Sirius jabbed a finger at James in the photograph. “He helps me play pranks on Snivellus – that's
this right rotten boy that goes there. James is a right laugh: you'd like him. Always teasing the
teachers and making paper airplanes. You know his dad and him built a model rocket, once? He
says the first time they had a go at it, bloody thing exploded everywhere! But then they got it
sorted, and now him and his dad build rockets every time he goes home. Well, he's a first year,
like me, so he dunno's if they do that yet, but they're supposed to.”

Sirius stopped poking at the picture and let Remus tuck it into his pocket. “Did you make any
mates at your school? That grammar school one?”

Remus shrugged one shoulder, not really looking at him. Sirius frowned. That was suspicious.

“Hey, Remus? What? It's okay if you didn't. I'm your friend. Your best mate ever in the world.
Right?” Then Sirius froze. Oh. What if Remus had made a friend, but a good friend? One that he
liked better than Sirius? One that wasn't as loud and didn't mess things up all the time, one that
could eat a meal without spilling something or play pretend without trying to take charge and
making things turn out the way he wanted them to?

“Kind of,” Remus started. Sirius' throat constricted. Oh no. Then Remus said: “But it's a girl.”

That stopped Sirius' worrying cold in its tracks. Then rewound, rebooted, and started it in a whole
other direction. Wait, what? Remus had a girl for a friend? But... how? “'re there girls at your
school?”

Remus shrugged. “Yeah. Boys and girls. Her name's Lily. She's nice. Reads a lot, and all.”
Leaning a little closer, Remus finally looked at Sirius. “Promise you won't tell something?”

Sirius stomach churned. Did Remus have a girlfriend ? Was Lily his girlfriend? Did he kiss Lily?
Ew, no. If Remus kissed Lily, and Sirius had just kissed him, then that meant Sirius was kissing
some bird he'd never even met before!

Somehow Sirius must have nodded his head and gone through their secret handshake even in his
state of shock because Remus was pressing his lips to Sirius' ear and whispering: “She protects me
from bullies.”

Oh. Oh . Sirius laughed, loud and echoing among the decaying walls and steadfast buildings.
Remus looked at him a little strange, and a little hurt, but Sirius was too relieved to care just yet.
Lily was just like James, then! Her and Remus met because she stood up to some bullies, and now
they were mates just like him and James. Remus wasn't dating her. And now that Sirius heard it
again in his head, he realized how silly that sounded. No, Remus wouldn't have a girlfriend. Not
yet! And certainly not some bird he just met.

With Remus still looking a little hurt, Sirius finally calmed down enough to reassure him. “No, no,
not that. I thought she was your girlfriend!”

Remus' nose wrinkled up immediately at that, then he burst out laughing, too. Sirius couldn't see
his freckles in the moonlight, but he imagined they were all scrunched up into his face just like
they had been that summer. “Ew, no! No!”

“Bullies are rotten, aren't they?” Sirius commiserated.

Remus nodded. “Yeah. But Lily: she's tough . And scary! Once, this boy was trying to get me to
eat mud-”

Heat flared up in Sirius' chest. His eyes went wide and he gripped at Remus' thigh. No one did
that to Remus!

But Remus was already shaking his head, putting his hand over Sirius'. “No, it's okay, listen. He
was trying to get me to eat mud, and then Lily saw and she ran up and hit him. Then she started
yelling at him: all sorts of things! Sirius, you haven't ever heard curse words like this, I swear. And
she yelled so much at the boy that he started crying! It was brilliant.”

Sirius grinned, some of that worry over Lily and girlfriends rising up again in his gut. But Remus
didn't seem to be getting all gooey and dreamy over Lily. In fact, if Sirius had a good long think
about it, the way he sounded talking about Lily was pretty much the same as when Sirius himself
talked about James. So that would be okay, then. Because Sirius knew that James was brilliant,
but he wasn't Remus. That meant that Remus could think Lily was brilliant, but she wouldn't be
Sirius for him. Then it was all alright.
“You should get a picture of this Lily bird,” Sirius suggested, squeezing Remus' thigh lightly.
“With you in it. Then I could have one of you and your guard dog, since you've already got one
of me and mine.”

Remus laughed at that. Then his eyes lit up and he stroked his fingers over Sirius' hand – just the
lightest touch, but Sirius knew he was excited from just that. “Did you open my present? Did you
like it?”

Immediately Sirius turned to Remus and enveloped him in the tightest hug. “It was brilliant !” he
breathed.

The next morning after the older boys had knocked all of Remus' painstakingly organized pages to
the ground, James had come over to Sirius' bed and asked him if he could help with it. Sirius had
been reluctant, but then he figured that so long as James didn't ask to be included in any of it –
because the stories were something Sirius and Remus did together, and no one else – then he
could use the help. After all, if he tried to do it himself, he might spend the entire term getting them
back in order. So that afternoon he and James had set to work, reordering all the papers. Luckily
most of the stories had come from different places: pulp zines, comic books, old novels, picture
books, and more. This made all the stories look sufficiently different from each other that it was
easy to separate them by story, and then the page numbers at the bottom of most of them made
putting the stories in order easy. There were only a handful Sirius had to sort out himself with a
little bit of critical reading, but for the most part he and James had managed to get the daunting
task done in the afternoon.

“I'm only reading one a day,” he promised as he pulled back. “Sometimes not even, with
homework and playing pranks with James. But I've read loads. Especially Asimov and Bradbury.
They're brilliant.”

Remus' eyes gleamed. “Did you read the robot ones?”

Sirius nodded. “Some of them. I like Robbie loads. Do you want to play robot? I don't know if I
want one of us to be a robot though, because that's no fun. Maybe we could be a team
investigating the robots? Like Susan and Robert, you know?”

Remus nodded. He shifted, turning away from Sirius for a second. Sirius craned his neck to see
what Remus was doing. By the time he realized Remus was grabbing something off the bench on
his left Remus was already turning back to him, grin on his face. “I've got some stories just like
that planned out,” he said. He flipped open a page, fingers stroking over the ink scratches, almost
invisible in the dim light of the moon. Sirius noticed a few ink blotches around the page – at least,
he thought he could see some.

“Did you use mine? The-” The words died in Sirius' throat, his excitement over seeing Remus'
reaction to his present overwhelming him. He might have been just the tiniest bit nervous, too.
What if Remus hadn't like it? What if he had just kept on using his old ballpoints because he liked
those better than the fancy calligraphy set Sirius had gotten him? What if he just thought it was
Sirius being all rich again, rubbing his wealth in his face.

But then Remus' leg twitched, knee sliding against Sirius' firmly, and Sirius knew he was excited.
“I loved it,” he breathed. As Remus exhaled the words Sirius drew a sharp breath, as if he could
inhale the gratitude and... and all those words: “I loved it”. Sirius wanted those words, coming
from Remus, kept in his lungs, inside of him, forever.

“I felt proper fancy,” Remus continued, fingers skittering excitedly over the pages. “I felt like a
proper writer, with the pens and the scratching sound they made. And all the stories I made, it was
like I was writing real mysteries for you, like it was old times and...” Remus breathed sharply, little
noises bubbling up from his throat like he couldn't contain them. Sirius pressed his knee harder
against Remus', skin and head buzzing with shared enthusiasm.

“Mysteries?” Sirius finally pressed, when it seemed that Remus' excitement had ground his ability
to express it to a standstill.

“Mysteries.”

Sirius' eyes widened. Whoa . That was brilliant. “ Real mysteries?” he asked. Because if they were
mysteries like the ones Asimov wrote, then... wow. Remus was loads smarter than absolutely
anyone Sirius had ever met.

Remus shrugged, ducking his head a little. Sirius watched the fringe of Remus' hair fall into his
eyes, knowing that if he could see colors right now in the dim light of the moon he'd be able to
spot a tell-tale stain of red on Remus' cheeks and nose. “Not like Asimov ,” Remus mumbled.
“Just... just mysteries. You know.”

Unthinking, Sirius reached his hand up and brushed the fringe of hair out of Remus' eyes. He
smiled when Remus smiled and peered cautiously up at him. “I bet they're just as good. I bet I
won't be able to solve them, and you'll have to come in and be the hero of the whole thing, even if
I'm playing hero.”

Remus shrugged, shoulders still hunched bashfully. “I'll give you loads of time to figure it out,” he
promised. “And hints. And I'll only come in at the end if you really, really, really can't get it.”

“Deal,” Sirius promised. They shook hands, the sound of their secret handshake echoing off the
ancient stones around them.

A yawn cracked Sirius' jaw, and suddenly he realized how utterly exhausted he was. He groaned,
jabbing his forehead into Remus' shoulder just a bit.

“You should go to bed,” Remus advised. Then he yawned, too, then laughed. “I should go to bed,
too.”

“You'll come tomorrow?” Sirius asked. “Promise.”

“Promise.” They did their handshake again, only this time Sirius held onto Remus' hand at the end
and clutched it to his chest. He pressed his forehead into Remus', and they just sat there for a
moment, resting against one another. As Sirius felt himself dropping off to sleep he finally
extracted himself, dragging Remus with him as he stood. “Tomorrow,” he said again.

Remus nodded. And then they were off to their separate households. But they had the whole
week to play together, and Remus had a whole host of stories planned out for them. And after
that, just another half-term and Sirius would be home for Christmas hols. It looked like everything
in Sirius' life was finally, miraculously bearable. Maybe even more than.
 Chapter 17
Chapter Summary

Sirius and Remus play in the snow.

Sirius laughed as he raced through the snow, feet sinking into the six inches or more on the
ground with every step he took. Therefore, his racing really wasn't racing so much as it was
tripping and stumbling and tumbling forward and desperately pinwheeling his arms to keep
himself upright and letting gravity propel him forward.

Remus was just there, on the other side of the road and laughing as Sirius ran to him. Sirius
grinned, knowing that Remus didn't realize what he was in for. With one last final burst of energy,
Sirius propelled himself forward and tackled Remus into the snowbank piled up high behind him.
The two fell in a shower of kicked up snow and crunching ice. Remus yelped, squirming and
rolling away from Sirius, but Sirius was too quick. He grabbed a fistful of the stuff with one hand
and Remus' coat and shirt with the other. In one smooth movement he had shoved a lump of snow
the size of his hand up Remus' shirt, causing him to scream like a girl.

With a cackling laugh Sirius was off again, racing through the slippery ruins and crunching over
the snow. It never snowed this much in London! He could bound through it like a dog, almost.
Sirius wondered if it snowed this much where Remus lived. He imagined it snowed this much
somewhere in the world: he'd seen films and such where there was even more snow on the ground
than there was here. But never in London. It was fantastic.

The crunching of snow behind him reached Sirius' ears a fraction of a second too late. Just as he
was turning to look behind him Remus was there, throwing two snowballs straight into his face.
Sirius sputtered and stumbled backwards, slipping on some stones and falling straight down on his
arse.

“Sirius! Sorry! Are you alright?”

Faking injury, Sirius pressed one hand to his rump, wincing and screwing up his face in an
imitation of pain. “Ow, Remus ,” he whined. “That really hurt .”

Remus was down on his knees in a moment, hands fluttering by Sirius' side and face pulled tight
in contrition. “Oh, no, Sirius, sorry, I didn't mean-”

Sirius waited one more beat. Then another. Then, just as Remus' hands were settling on his hips
and face bent downward in consternation, Sirius grabbed Remus and flipped him over. He threw
his legs of Remus, straddling him, and picked up two fistfuls of snow. Remus was laughing and
squirming beneath him, screaming: “No! No, Sirius! Don't!” But Sirius ignored him, and
proceeded to shove a pile of snow in Remus' mouth.

He took off running again as Remus spluttered and shouted after him, snow crunching beneath his
boots as he did his best to navigate the slippery and treacherous terrain. He and Remus had spent
years mapping out the rubble with feet and eyes, but every once in a while Sirius' foot would
catch on a piece hidden beneath the snow that he had forgotten was there, and it would send him
stumbling, arms flapping as he regained his balance before he was off running again.
Yanking himself around a corner, Sirius caught sight of the house closest to Remus' wall. It was
half-decayed, with a wall down the back that climbed upward steadily in its brokenness, like a
crooked-toothed set of stairs. It was covered in snow, now, but that only encouraged Sirius. With
a grin he wrapped his hands around the cold, icy stone and started hauling himself up.

When Remus appeared around the corner, Sirius was already halfway up the crumbling wall.
Remus stopped just beneath him, gasping. “Sirius!” he shouted. His neck was craned back, hand
over his eyes as he shielded them from the sun. “Sirius, get down! You're going to fall.”

Sirius laughed at that. Him? Fall? Yeah right. Obviously Remus hadn't been listening when Sirius
told him stories about the crash course in climbing James had been giving him back at school.
There were loads of trees all around the campus, and James had gotten it in his head one day that
they should climb every single one. That, and they had read about bird incubation habits in
science class, and Sirius and James had both decided they'd make the best baby bird dads ever. Of
course, they'd need a bird egg for that, and bird eggs were typically in nests in trees. Ipso facto:
Sirius learned a lot about climbing this last term. And he hadn't gotten (seriously) hurt even once .

His hand wrapped around the next stone, and Sirius awkwardly crawled another level higher. He
was almost to the top. Once there, the walls ran all the way around the other three quarters of the
building. Sirius could probably walk like he was on a balance beam around the whole thing. And
wouldn't that impress Remus! He bet Remus' new friend Lily never did anything as brilliant as
that !

“Sirius, please!” Remus' tone was so shaky and scared that Sirius' head jerked around, scanning
for Remus. He was standing just below Sirius on the outside of the house, arms outstretched as if
he was going to have to catch Sirius at any moment. If Sirius looked hard enough, he could swear
Remus' face was turning all red, like he was going to cry. Sirius rolled his eyes, sprawling on top
of the wall. His shirt and coat rode up together, letting a little shock of cold snow touch his bare
skin.

“Remus,” Sirius moaned. “I'm fine.”

“You're scaring me!”

Sirius groaned, pressing his face into the snow on the wall. That wasn't fair . He wanted to show
off to Remus, but Remus knew if he used that tone then Sirius would give in and do whatever he
wanted. But if Sirius went and did that , then Remus wouldn't get to see how brilliant Sirius was.

Mulling over his options, Sirius rocked back and forth on the wall. He supposed he could climb
back down, since Remus sounded so upset. But then again, he could just-

Abruptly Sirius' stomach lurched. One hand slipped off as he had tilted too far to his right, and his
leg fell off the edge. Palms immediately breaking out in a cold sweat, Sirius scrambled to right
himself. His hands slipped and fingernails bent back as he tried to reach for the stone, but it was
too late. One moment there was a stone wall beneath him, the next his stomach was flipping and
he was falling through the air, away from Remus, nothing between him and the ground besides a
blanket of snow. For an irrational moment Sirius hoped snow was soft when you fell on it.

A second later Sirius found out no, it wasn't. Searing pain shot through his shoulder, and he felt
some sort of sickening, violent, wrong scrape of bone against bone and tendons stretched to far.
Sirius cried out, tried to roll, and was stopped by a wave of nausea. His stomach heaved and he
threw up into the fresh snow, warm vomit cutting a whole through the snow like a red hot poker.
His body heaving and retching only made the pain in his shoulder even worse.

Sirius cried, scrambling with his good arm as he tried to do something, tried to move or stand. It
hurt, it hurt, he had to make it stop hurting...

“Sirius!” There was Remus. He was running in through the door of the house, eyes wide and
horrified as he looked down at him. Sirius only hoped that didn't mean something was really
wrong. He didn't think he was bleeding everywhere. It was just his shoulder, the searing,
throbbing, overwhelming pain slicing through his shoulder and blocking out almost everything
else. Everything except for Remus, who was scrambling over and hooking his arms under Sirius'
good one.

A fresh wave of pain shot through Sirius shoulder and he cried out again, clutching to Remus and
trying to control his sobs. Every time he shouted or sobbed or just generally filled his lungs to
breathe it hurt even more. If he could just stop all that, the fresh waves of pain lancing through his
shoulder would stop. They had to stop, it hurt so much, he couldn't... he couldn't...

“Oh, oh my God, Sirius. Sirius, I think... your shoulder. It's... I think it's dislocated. I read. It was a
book. Sirius, Sirius I have to- I can't bring you home oh my God I'd have to send you to your
home but I can't get through Sirius, Sirius, no. I can. I know how. Here. Hold on...”

Some dim corner of Sirius' mind informed him that Remus was dragging him over to the wall.
Irrationally Sirius felt afraid: it was the wall he'd just fallen off. Remus couldn't be taking him back
there, no, it hurt too much, he didn't want to go.

“Okay. Okay. I. Read. Just hold on, okay? Please. Just grab-” Somehow the fingers on Sirius'
good hand obeyed Remus' command, and he gripped the wall tight. A moment later Remus left
him, and Sirius panicked.

“No, no, Remus, please,” he cried.

“I'm here! Okay. Hold still. I don't. I don't know-”

And then Remus was gripping his bad arm and it hurt. It hurt so much . Sirius' legs buckled
beneath him but somehow he kept holding onto that wall, that stupid wall and why was Remus
making it hurt so much?

Remus' pulled his arm, yanked it, and the pain flared up again. Sirius could feel his bones sliding
over each other in a way that made him gag again, made bile fill his mouth. He could hear Remus'
chanting “Sorry sorry sorry it hurts sorry sorry I'm trying,” and then the bones in Sirius' shoulder
popped in place.

The pain was... it wasn't exactly gone . It still hurt, loads , but the churning in Sirius' gut ceased
and the throbbing, unbearable pain in his shoulder dulled to a sharp ache. Sirius breathed once.
Then twice. He could do that, again. Blinking tears from his eyes made him realize they had been
clenched shut – his jaw, too.

Remus' hand was gripping Sirius' waist so hard it almost hurt. His breathing was loud in Sirius'
ear, panicked and choppy. “Sirius? Sirius, is it right? Did it work? Sirius? Sirius!”

“It's better,” Sirius finally managed to grit out. He tracked his eyes slowly sideways until he was
able to see Remus. His face was pale beneath a red flush of tears and panic. “It's better,” he
repeated. “I think you fixed it.”

Instead of being reassured like Sirius thought he'd be, Remus burst out into a fresh flood of tears,
grabbing the front of Sirius' coat and holding on tight. His tears were cold as they dripped on
Sirius' neck, but he found himself not minding. Instead he reached a hand up – on his good arm,
because even if Remus had done whatever he'd done to Sirius' other arm, it still hurt – and patted
Remus' back, utterly at a loss at what to do.

“It's okay, Remus,” Sirius said. “It's okay. My arm feels loads better, now. Whatever you did was
spot-on.”

“It's not okay!” Remus cried, words muffled in Sirius' coat. His grip tightened, small fists moving
like they wanted to hit Sirius' chest but stopped themselves out of fear of doing further harm.
“When you fell, I thought... you fell and then I heard you crying and... and...” Remus lifted his
head from Sirius' coat, staring up at him with tears tracking down his cheeks. In one, swift
movement he stood up on tiptoes and started kissing Sirius: first on his lips then, when Sirius was
too shocked to respond, everywhere else he could reach. He kissed Sirius' cheeks, and his nose,
and his chin, until finally Remus pressed his lips to Sirius' neck and just kept pressing tiny,
desperate kisses to the exposed skin there.

Sirius stood very, very still. They'd never done that before. They'd never kissed when one of them
wasn't a girl. And Sirius knew that probably wasn't exactly right, but... but really, it wasn't kisses .
Not like boyfriend and girlfriend kisses. It was more like mum-kisses – not that Sirius knew much
about those first hand, but he'd heard Remus talking about his mum kissing boo-boos to make
them feel better. That was the type of kisses Remus was giving Sirius, expect more to make
himself feel better than Sirius, really.

Sirius didn't mind. Not a bit. He ought to get hurt more often, if it meant Remus would pepper him
with kisses all over the place. Sirius shifted, trying to bring Remus in tighter, to reassure him, and
the pain in his shoulder abruptly flared up again. Okay. Maybe not injured like this . But maybe
they could play at it, in a couple days when Sirius' shoulder wasn't hurting quite so much and he
could enjoy it more.

Too soon Remus pulled away, wiping his face on his sleeve and sniffing loudly. “You fixed it,”
Sirius reminded him. “It feels loads better, now.”

Remus shrugged, fiddling his sleeves pulled down over his hands in an unconscious gesture of
insecurity. “I read about it, once,” he explained. “In a fantasy book. One of the warriors dislocated
his shoulder, and one of the other ones tugged on it like that and popped it back in place.”

Gingerly Sirius poked at his shoulder with his good hand. It was still really sore, but it was okay.
He'd be able to hide it from Walburga and Kreacher for the few days it took to heal up, for sure. It
might even keep him out of trouble: if he was focused on just staying still and not hurting at all the
stupid “social events” he had to attend, he wouldn't be fighting with the cousins or running around
and teasing Regulus.

“I don't want to play anymore today,” Remus mumbled. He sniffed again, loud, and Sirius
suddenly felt terrible. It'd been his stupid fault, anyway, for climbing up on the wall in an effort to
show off to Remus.

“Come on,” Sirius said. Sticking his good hand out, Sirius closed it around Remus' and tugged
him close. “You can show me that book you wanted to, earlier: the one with all the boring trees
and stuff.”

A little hiccuping laugh escaped Remus as he wiped at his eyes one last time with the hand Sirius
wasn't holding. “It's horticulture ,” he said, pronouncing the word nice and slow.

Sirius just rolled his eyes and gently led Remus out of the house and back into the open December
air. “Dunno why you're reading books about plants ,” he teased. “You know, I read some stuff
you didn't tell me about.”
Remus' eyes lit up a little at that. “Yeah? What?”

“It's this bloke Poe,” Sirius explained. “James said it was his dad's favorite. You ever read his
stuff?”

Remus nodded. “I read the 'Cask of Amontillado'. I didn't like it.” He smiled sheepishly up at
Sirius. “Too scary.”

Sirius' eyes grew wide and he bumped his shoulder into Remus'. Ow. Okay, no. Even though it
had been his good shoulder, the dull impact had still traveled through his body and into his other
shoulder. Sirius winced and did his best to minimize movement as he walked. “Well, Poe's
brilliant ,” he continued. “I read this one of his, 'Fall of the House of Usher'? Right mad , it was! It
was about this old rich family, and everyone in the house was mad, and then the daughter died,
but she didn't , not really!”

Remus shivered, huddling himself closer to Sirius as they walked. Sirius slung and arm around
him and held him close. “See, that's why I didn't like 'Amontillado'. It was about a bloke that got
buried alive in a wine cellar.”

“Cor,” Sirius breathed. He was going to have to read more of this Poe bloke. James had lent him a
couple old, tattered copies of his dad's collection. So far he'd only gotten through “Pit and the
Pendulum” and “Fall of the House of Usher”. But if Poe had more stuff about dead guys and not-
so-dead guys and creepy things like that, Sirius would have to be sure to read them. Even if
Remus didn't like them so much.
 Chapter 18
Chapter Summary

Sirius thinks maybe he and Remus play games differently from other boys. And
maybe they should stop.

“I can't believe you don't know who Jo is!” James shouted.

Sirius just shrugged his shoulders on the warm grass, turning the crumpled magazine photo this
way and that above his head, trying to see the appeal James saw in the woman.

“Oh, she's brilliant. She's the Doctor's Companion, and she's pretty and fights evil and travels
through space-”

“Space?” Sirius' ears perked up at that. “The Doctor travels through space?”

James rolled his eyes, appalled at Sirius' lack of pop-culture knowledge. Sirius couldn't help that:
although they had a telly at Grimmauld, it wasn't like Walburga would approve of him watching
this Doctor Who show. Though if it was a show about space, maybe he'd be able to sneak it. Or
maybe Remus watched it!

Snatching the photo out of Sirius' hands, James smoothed it out, then clutched it to his chest. “Isn't
she pretty though, Sirius? She's a right fit bird, I tell you.”

Again, Sirius shrugged. He didn't understand what all the fuss was about. Then again, it didn't
seem like any of the birds the boys around school obsessed over were really all that pretty.

“Oi! Turnip head!”

Something brushed Sirius on the head, making him jerk up from the grass in shock. James was
grinning at him, a flower between two fingers. Glancing around, Sirius found its twin fallen next
to his head on the grass. He rolled his eyes and propped himself up on his elbows. “What?”

Flinging the remaining flower in his hands at Sirius for good measure, James repeated himself
slowly. “I said : You ever kissed a bird before?”

Huh. Sirius' brain churned, trying to figure that one out. He'd never kissed anyone besides Remus
– not for real, not the way James meant it. And Remus wasn't exactly a girl. Then again, Sirius
had kissed Remus as Remusa , which was sort of like kissing a girl. Maybe. Unless girls had
different types of lips from boys or something, which Sirius highly doubted was the case. Just
because they smeared lipstick on their lips didn't make them different from boy lips.

Still, if he told James he had, James would be prodding him for the details, Sirius was sure of it.
And then he'd have to tell him about kissing Remus...

The beginnings of some uncomfortable truths were niggling at the back of Sirius' mind. For the
moment he chose to ignore them, and just shook his head. “No,” he replied. “Never. Not much
anyone to kiss.”
James sighed, flopping back onto the grass with his photo of Jo Grant clutched to his chest. “One
day, I'm gonna kiss Jo,” he swore. Sirius hummed in agreement, fingers plucking at the grass.

In two days, he'd be home with Remus again for summer holidays. And now that James
mentioned it, Sirius wasn't sure if there should be any kissing at all in his Remus-related future.

**

Sirius tried to shove the dress at Remus, ducking and running away when Remus tried to shove it
back at him. “I was it last time!” Remus called after him. “Back at half-term! Sirius!”

Sirius laughed, racing over stones and bits of fallen rubble as he fled in the direction of the beach.
“But I was it three times and you were only two!” he reminded Remus. Sirius skidded to a stop on
the circle of cleared earth just above where the town ended and the beach began. Remus was
peering at him over their wall, glaring and holding the dress in his fist. Sirius stuck out his tongue
and laughed, stepping in place around the empty earth like he was getting ready to run again soon.

“I'm going to be a teenager this year!” Sirius pointed out. “I can't dress up like a girl anymore!”

Even from here Sirius could see Remus rolling his eyes. The dress disappeared as Remus threw it
to the ground behind him, on the other side of the wall from where Sirius was. “No you're not!
You just turned twelve a month ago!”

“This school year!” Sirius shot back.

“I'll be thirteen before you are!”

They stood there, across the road from one another and in a stalemate, for what felt like a full
minute. Finally Remus slumped his shoulders and disappeared on the other side of the wall. An
odd look had crossed his face just before he moved, making Sirius worry. It was... it wasn't scared
, not exactly, but it certainly wasn't happy. It seemed familiar to Sirius, in a weird way. Like
maybe he'd worn that same expression before. Maybe when something reminded him of
Walburga's punishments. Which certainly wasn't a good thing.

Sirius waited a moment, thinking Remus might appear on the road after coming around the wall.
When he didn't after a long moment, Sirius sighed and started jogging over to him. When he
reached the wall Sirius frowned, thinking. The hole was still there – the one where he had seen
Remus for the first time. It seemed loads closer to the ground, now: he could stand on tip-toes and
just about see through it. Carefully Sirius climbed up the rubble heap that was still there, gaining
himself the extra couple inches he needed to peer through. He could see Remus through the hole:
sitting on their bench and plucking listlessly at the dress, that churning, not-scared-but-not-exactly-
worried expression still on his face. Resting his chin on the stones lining the perimeter of the hole,
Sirius considered him for a moment.

Remus had gotten taller since Sirius had last seen him. Not by much, and he hadn't started to get
broader like Sirius himself and James had. Both of them were starting to notice muscles in their
arms and legs, which they measured against each other practically daily. But Remus still was a
skinny little thing, though he wasn't falling too terribly behind Sirius in height just yet. His hair
had gotten darker, Sirius noticed. Not much, but it wasn't so much sandy blonde as it once was.
Instead it was a sort of light, cozy brown. Like the leaves when they were right between yellow
and brown. His freckles weren't as noticeable anymore, which made Sirius sad. He liked to see
them scrunch up when he laughed.

But mostly, Sirius was examining how definitely not feminine Remus was. Sure, he was a little
shorter and slighter than Sirius or James, but he wasn't a girl. He didn't have long hair or that
pretty, girlie face – though Sirius kind of thought Remus' face was plenty pretty without looking
like a girl. His chest was flat and his hips narrow; he didn't have any of that fleshiness to his bum
and breasts like all the girls James liked to look at. There was no way Sirius could ever mistake
Remus for being a girl, even when he was dressed up and playing one. And yet...

Sirius tilted his chin back to talk, still letting it rest on the rough stone of the wall. “Psst. Remus.”

Remus looked up slowly, as if he had already known Sirius was watching him. Without even
asking, Remus pushed himself off the bench and trudged over to the hole. Sirius peered down and
watched as Remus stepped onto the pile of rubble on his side, crossing his arms and resting them
on the hole beneath his chin.

“What is it, Sirius?” Remus asked once he was comfortably level with him.

For a moment Sirius considered what he was going to say. He wasn't even sure himself, at this
point. It wasn't that he wanted to stop playing games with Remus where they dressed up and went
on adventures together and sometimes, occasionally, kissed... whenever the story called for it. But
there was also something about it, something that made Sirius uncomfortable thinking about his
and Remus' games whenever James was talking about some bird.

Because that was kind of the crux of the matter, wasn't it? Blokes like James and the other fellows
at school didn't play games where they kissed their mates. Well, thing was, none of them played
games like Remus and Sirius did at all : kissing and all that aside. Remus and Sirius... well, their
games were brilliant . There were stories and plots and they always knew the rules in whatever
universe they were playing in, so they never messed things up. And their universes were loads
better than anything Sirius had heard any other boys talking about: there were space battles and
comic book worlds and lands that worked off cartoon logic that were utterly daft and utterly
brilliant all at once.

But Sirius had heard some other things. Things about “poofs” and “gay arse”; things that the older
boys shouted at each other to be cruel. Once Sirius had figured out what those words meant,
James' conversations about birds just got more uncomfortable. Remus had always been Remusa
when they kissed (except that one time, that brilliant time, even through all the pain), but Sirius
doubted any of the other boys would see it that way. Remus was Remus, whether or not he was in
a dress and they were playing. And Sirius was always Sirius, even when he was the one wearing
the dress and being Siria.

“Do you fancy Lily?”

That hadn't been what Sirius had meant to say at all. But once he said it, suddenly that seemed like
the most relevant question in the world. So Sirius stared with wide eyes at Remus as he waited for
a response.

Remus blinked, clearly taken off-guard by the question. Then he laughed, brows furrowing in
confusion all at once. “No! She's my mate. Do you fancy James?”

Sirius flushed. “No! 'Course not!” He wanted to shout “I'm not a poof!” but he felt like that'd be
mean, somehow. He didn't like when the older boys said it or the way they said it: like the dirtiest
of dirty words. Sirius wasn't about to roll his tongue around the world and let it come out of his
own mouth. Instead he settled on, “But that's different.”

Remus shrugged, bony shoulders looking even more so in the vest he was wearing in deference to
the summer heat. In that moment Sirius realized he could see freckles on the exposed skin there. It
was like they had migrated from his nose to his shoulders. “Not really. Just because Lily's a girl
doesn't mean I fancy her. We can be just mates.”
That didn't reassure Sirius very much, but he shrugged as if he accepted it. “I guess,” he grumbled.

“Do you think we're too old for one of us to be a girl?” Again, not exactly the question Sirius
wanted to ask, but it was close enough. This one Remus didn't laugh at, but seemed to consider
more carefully, his expression carefully blank. If Sirius didn't know Remus as well as he did, he
might have missed out on the hurt that flashed in his eyes, or the little flinch that moved through
his whole body. “It's okay!” he said, trying to make up for whatever he'd done. “Just... you know.
No one else... The other blokes at school...”

Sirius sputtered to a stop. He didn't want to explain it all to Remus. It made him nervous, putting
voice to all his confusion. It was like if he spoke the words aloud, if he had to untangle them and
put them in the right order and bracket them between periods and commas and capital and lower
case letters, then suddenly he'd realize what it was he didn't want to think about; then that weird
feeling in his stomach would reveal itself to be something negative, and he wouldn't be able to be
friends with Remus anymore. And of course that was the last thing Sirius wanted to have happen.

Thankfully, Remus just nodded real slow after a moment. “Yeah,” he mumbled. His eyes skittered
away from Sirius after he spoke, stopping and focusing on a piece of gravel between the two of
them, resting in the hole in the wall. “'pose.”

“It was just little kid stuff,” Sirius continued. Because of course it was okay when they were little.
It wasn't weird or anything. They just didn't know any better. The two of them hadn't had any
friends besides each other, and left to their own devices they ended up coming up with rules for
playing and allowing things that no one else really had. They hadn't known any better. That was
all.

“Right.” Remus still didn't look happy. Sirius maybe understood. Or at least, Sirius didn't feel very
happy at the fact that they were stopping any of their boy-girl games. But it was for the best. That
was kid stuff, and it was okay if it was kid stuff. But if they kept doing it, then it... they just
couldn't keep doing it. And it'd be okay. Even if neither of them seemed very happy at the idea.

“I'm sorry,” Remus said abruptly.

Sirius blinked. “Sorry? What for?”

Remus' fingers picked at the crumbling stone bits of the wall, nails scraping at the mortar. “Sorry I
made you. The. Us. Girl and boy games. I'm sorry.” Remus' eyes seemed close to tears, and he
was trembling just a little. “I know it's not... I know I'm weird. And bad. For it.”

Sirius reached through the hole, clutching Remus' hands in one of his and squeezing tight. “
Remus ,” he said sharply. He waited until Remus looked up, met his eyes, before continuing. “It's
not . You're not . I did, too. And... the games, they were guy and girl games, right? So one of us
had to be the girl. And we switched off. I was the girl just as much as you! It's not...” Sirius
couldn't understand it: the fear, the... what was that in Remus' eyes? Like he had just rolled around
in something foul smelling, and was ashamed to be subjecting Sirius to the stench. But that didn't
make any sense . “We both played,” Sirius tried again. “And it was brilliant . We're just big kids
now, you know?”

Remus turned one of his hands beneath Sirius', so he could lace his fingers through and squeeze
back. The gesture made a flutter of heat flow from Sirius' chest to his stomach. A shaky smile
finally crossed Remus face, and Sirius smiled back. Even if some of that... whatever it was... still
was darkening the depths of Remus' eyes.

Casting about for a change in topic, Sirius' mind alit on the last thing that had happened before he
came here this morning. “Walburga's right mad about me being friends with James,” he informed
Remus. “Smacked me with a hanger until I promised not to be friends with him anymore.”

Remus' eyes went wide, and Sirius realized too late that his choice of conversation topic probably
wasn't the most bland of things. “Sirius!”

Rolling his eyes, Sirius nodded his head backwards. “Hang on.” With one last squeeze he released
Remus' hand before scrambling down from his rubble pile step stool and walking around the wall
to where Remus was waiting. Together they sat down on the bench – Sirius on the right, Remus
on his left – and Sirius told the story from the beginning.

“His family's related to mine, kind of. Real distant like, you know? But still somewhere along the
way.”

Remus nodded, though Sirius knew he didn't really understand. Not first hand, at least. Remus'
family was the type that just had all the main relatives, and then they stopped counting. Once it got
out past grandparents no one paid attention anymore. Sirius was horribly jealous of that, but it
certainly wasn't the first thing he was ever jealous of Remus for.

Sirius continued with his story. “Yeah, but apparently James' family is, dunno, common or
something. Or almost. Married normal people, mixed around, that sort of thing. So no one in my
family pays attention to them because they're like that. So anyway, when I came home Walburga
asked me who I was 'keeping company' with and all. I said James, because I didn't even know we
were related: 'cause, remember, his family's not invited to all my family's dumb parties and all.
Then Walburga checked, and she was all 'No son of mine!' and 'Cut ties this instant!' and on and
on.”

Remus' eyes were wide as he listened to Sirius' tale. By the end his hand had snuck over, pinky
finger resting gently against Sirius' thigh. For a moment Sirius stared down at the pinky,
wondering if he should tell Remus that blokes their age didn't do that, either. But then he let it stay
there. It was nice to know Remus was shocked by Walburga's behavior, instead of complacent
like his good-for-nothing brother Regulus. “So're you going to stop being friends with him?”

Sirius snorted. “Yeah right.”

The pinky resting on Sirius' thigh became a whole hand which squeezed at him. Sirius rolled his
eyes and tilted his head over to Remus, who was peering at him with naked concern. He didn't
even have to speak; Sirius knew exactly what he was going to say.

“I'm not going to just stop being friends with James,” Sirius grumbled. “Think if she said to stop
being friends with you! I'd never do it, no matter how many coat hangers she took to my arse!”

Remus' lips twitched into something resembling a grin. “Dunno whether to be happy or not.”

Listing sideways, Sirius let his shoulder bump into Remus and left it there. He turned to face
Remus, his nose brushing Remus' jaw in the process. “You know only reason I come back at half-
term is because you're waiting for me. I wouldn't come back at all if it weren't for you, Remus.”

Beneath him, Remus stiffened. Where before his hand had been shifting in comforting little
motions on Sirius' thigh, it suddenly stilled. Sirius pulled back, confused.

“What? What's wrong?”

Remus' eyebrows drew together, his eyes big and sad. “I don't want you to get beat for me. Or
come home for that. You don't have to if you don't want to.”

Sirius' immediate response was to laugh. “Don't be stupid , Remus. I'm always coming back home
for you. Otherwise how are we going to stay friends until uni and get a flat together?”

Remus seemed mostly reassured by that. Before he could get more worries into that over-thinking
brain of his, Sirius grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him harshly. Remus laughed as he
flopped back and forth beneath Sirius' comradely violence. “Come on!” Sirius said. “I'm sure
there's loads of stuff for us to play where we can both be boys. How about Powell and Donovan?
Or we could play astronaut: they're all blokes.”

Sirius grinned as he watched Remus pull out his ivory journal and start to chatter away excitedly
about which of their stories could be easily modified to fit with their new, more grown-up way of
playing. The sun glinted off his hair, and his eyes shone even as they squinted in its brightness.
Sirius was almost overwhelmed with the desire to tell Remus to wait, stop, that maybe they could
still play games with Siria and Remusa. Sirius would even go first; that was how bad he wanted to
play boy-girl games with Remus again.

But it was right. It was for the best. They were too old to do that anymore. If they stopped now, it
was okay, because they could pass it off as being weird little kids. But now that Sirius knew other
boys didn't do it, he'd had to tell Remus that they definitely couldn't continue on with it anymore.
It was only too bad that doing the right thing made Sirius' chest somehow ache and skin felt like it
wanted to droop off his bones with sadness.
 Chapter 19
Chapter Summary

Sirius has a strange dream; eventually he works up the courage to talk to Remus
about it.

Sirius collapsed into bed that night, happy and exhausted from a day of playing with Remus. It
was definitely worth suffering Walburga's scorn and disdain every break he came home just to see
Remus. Especially since spring was just about awoken, the flowers and grass starting to push their
way back up through the not-so-frozen ground to try and capture the bits of warm sunlight that
were appearing from behind the spring storm clouds.

As Sirius' eyes drifted shut, he thought of all the brilliant games he and Remus would play
tomorrow, and the plans he had for the space station they were building.

**

Wherever Sirius was, it was good. Things were... warm. Warm and... Moving...

Some sort of pressure was building within him, but Sirius didn't know what. All he knew was he
didn't want it to stop. He needed to keep moving, to have the sensation keep going, got get more.
There was someone there, too. Someone with him, moving and warm and. It was building.
Whatever it was felt good. Wet. Wet and.

Sirius awoke with a gasp, panting and shivering and wet all over. He twisted in his bed sheets,
finding them tangled impossibly tight around his body. He was covered in sweat, his skin tingling
with some sort of odd sensation, like he'd gone for a run then been dipped in cold water and then
put in an oven. The tingling was strongest-

There was a wet spot in his pajama bottoms, and on his sheets. Sirius whimpered in dismay. Oh
no. He thought he was done wetting his bed ages ago!

Scrambling, Sirius climbed out of bed, ignoring the way he wanted to twitch and moan with every
movement of sheets over his skin, and the way his groin almost hurt when his pajama bottoms
brushed it. He had to get these cleaned up before Kreacher saw them, and before Kreacher told
Walburga. The last time he had wet his bed was nearly a decade ago, and he still flinched at the
thought of the consequences from that time. This time was sure to be a hundred times worse,
especially since he was so much older. Big boys didn't wet their bed; boys only a couple months
away from being a teenager definitely didn't.

Sirius threw on a spare pair of pajamas before he hurried downstairs to the basement, where the
washing machine was located. He only hoped the noise of the machine wouldn't wake Kreacher,
whose bed was just a floor above it.

As he shoved his pajamas and sheets into the machine, Sirius paused, something catching his eye.
He tugged the sheets back out and looked at them, specifically at the wet spot on them. It wasn't
very big. It certainly didn't seem large enough to be the contents of a full-to-bursting bladder.
Curious, Sirius took a small sniff. It didn't really smell like urine, either. A little bit, but not really.
Something was off.
Still, the sheets were soiled and needed to be run through the wash. Sirius shoved them in and
poured in the detergent before flicking the machine on. Then he sat down on a stool to wait,
knowing he'd be safer catching the machine before the timer went seated down here than he
would trying to sneak back up and down the stairs in the slumbering house.

As he stared at the machine, Sirius considered what he was mentally dubbing "the mystery of the
not bed-wetting". Because he definitely hadn't had a normal accident in bed. It must have been
something else.

Sirius thought back. He'd relieved himself just before bedtime, as always. He hadn't drunk more
water than usual at dinner or after, and had gone to sleep with a decidedly empty bladder. Then
his dreams had been... What had they been?

A flash of skin, heat, and pressure rose to the forefront of Sirius' mind. He flushed, but wasn't sure
why. Try as he might, he couldn't remember any details about the dream. Just that it had been
good, really good. But somehow, embarrassing. It had felt wrong, like, maybe he didn't want to
think about it. Like it was a bad smell hanging over his entire night.

Thinking back, Sirius could recall some of the older boys teasing each other over wet bed sheets.
Only they hadn't actually been bed wetting, it'd be that other thing. That thing that James had
laughed about while curling his fingers into a lose circle and jerking them...

Oh. Oh.

Sirius flushed, gut churning. Oh. Oh no. It'd been... He'd... Oh, that was so much worse than
wetting the bed! If Walburga ever found out about it... Oh no.

Shame rose hot and thick in Sirius's belly, searing away any lingering feelings of contentment
from the dream. Sirius clenched his hands tight, stunted fingernails digging into his palms. Oh no.
He knew he wasn't supposed to be doing that; that was wrong and disgusting and for commoners.
But he hadn't even been trying to do that – it'd just happened! Not that such an excuse would
make any difference to Walburga. That would probably just make it worse, somehow.

Silently Sirius willed the machine to tumble faster, any remnants of filth and shame to be washed
away now. If he got caught, Sirius was sure to use the excuse that he'd wet the bed. whatever
punishment Walburga doled out for that would be world's better than the unimaginable horror she
was sure to have prepared in case Sirius shamed her in such an extreme way.

Once the sheets were out of the washer and tumbling in the dryer, Sirius had calmed down
enough to think a bit more rationally about what had happened. He knew it was supposed to feel
good – that's why those older boys were always laughing and talking about it, like it was the
world's most brilliant thing. So Sirius wasn't that odd, if he'd thought the dream had made him feel
good. Apparently that was standard. He could never let it happen again, because of Walburga, but
he wasn't a weirdo or a freak for having enjoyed it.

Which, Sirius thought as he watched his sheets and pajamas tumble around in infinite circles, was
actually a bit of a relief. What with James' continuing obsessions over a new bird every week and
the older boys discussing the latest bird they claimed to have bedded over whatever break was
most recent, Sirius was beginning to think he was a bit... off, somehow. He'd stopped the whole
kissing games with Remus in an effort to curb whatever odd notions he'd developed in his less-
than-traditional childhood, but that hadn't seemed to make much of a difference. He still wanted to
play with Remusa again, though he never gave into the temptation. And Remus seemed perfectly
happy to continue their normal games, with both of them as boys.

Sirius sat up straighter. Oh. Now that he was thinking of him... did Remus do that? Like James
and the older boys did? Sirius felt his face heat up just thinking about it.

He opened the door to the dryer before it could beep, patting at the sheets and pajamas to make
sure they were dry. Then he gathered them up in his arms and tiptoed as quietly yet swiftly as he
could back up to his room. He managed to make his bed and slip his pajamas back on – and the
spare ones back into their drawer – just as the first hint of grey started to tinge the sky. Sirius fell
asleep almost immediately, exhausted as he was with his night's escapades. But he did stay awake
long enough to think about Remus one last time, and set his mind to asking Remus about his own
nocturnal... incidents... tomorrow.

**

The last few patches of ice crunched and snapped beneath Sirius' boots as he stumbled down to
the beach, yawning and still half-asleep, what with his interrupted slumber last night. His eyes
were itchy and his throat a little scratchy from being tired, but he wasn't about to skip out on the
handful of days he got to see Remus over Easter hols just because of a little lost sleep. Plus, maybe
after they played this morning, he'd be able to convince Remus to read to him while he took a nap.
That sounded like a possibly brilliant plan.

Remus was already on the beach, seated on a large block of marble with a blanket over it. There
was a twin one next to it, which Sirius knew was meant for him. There were two fishing rods with
Remus, too: one standing up against Sirius' marble block, the other in Remus' hands, his head bent
low over it as he fiddled with something – the line, Sirius could see as he got closer.

The sea was grey and a little choppy, and Sirius didn't think they were likely to catch anything.
Neither of them were sure there even were fish in the water: they'd never seen any swimming
around. But there were crickets, and cicadas, and birds. Though the boys had never actually seen
any of those animals, they'd certainly heard them all raising a fuss in all their various noisy ways
on hot summer days or nights or heralding in the return of warmth with the spring months. So it
stood to reason that there might be some fish in the ocean.

“Hullo!” Sirius waved as he approached Remus, smiling tiredly when the other boy looked up
from his fishing pole, line tangled well and truly around his fingers.

“Yours is done,” Remus announced, nodding without moving his hand as the pole leaning up
against Sirius' marble slab.

Tossing himself down onto the stone, Sirius peered curiously at the tangle of fishing line that
enveloped Remus' hands. “Can I help?” he asked. He didn't move to start untangling immediately
just because he was worried he might mess up whatever it was Remus was doing.

But Remus nodded, smiling as he held his hand out to Sirius. “There was a knot in it. I don't know
where it went or if I fixed it, but...”

Sirius reached out and slid his fingers over the line, trailing over Remus' hands as he tried to
follow the Gordian mess of tangled line. His eyes traced the line with his fingers. There'd be a
knot somewhere, a bit where one loop was slipped through another, probably. It was probably
expanded out, too, since Remus had managed to stick his fingers between everything. Remus'
index finger twitched when Sirius' hand moved over it.

Their eyes locked for a moment. Then Sirius glanced back down, tugging at random at a string. It
must have done the trick, because a large section of the line relaxed. Carefully Remus extracted
his fingers from the rest of the line and straightened it out. No more knot.

The shaking somewhere in his stomach made Sirius pull away from Remus and settle back onto
his block. He grabbed his fishing pole in an effort to steady his hands; next to him, Remus was
doing the same. Wordlessly they slipped some bait Remus had brought with him in a small tackle
box onto the lines and cast their lines out to sea. Sirius managed on the second try, after watching
how Remus did it. It didn't go as far as Remus', but that was okay. He was better about letting
himself get better with practice, rather than expecting to be able to do things on the first go-ahead.
Remus had helped him sort that in his head – to undo all the muddled mess of disappointment
Walburga had put up there. Luckily, he'd get plenty of practice today.

They sat in silence through two more casts. Sirius wasn't sure exactly was going through Remus'
head, though his eyes were dimmed like the sun behind spring storm clouds. As for his own mind,
Sirius hadn't forgotten that he meant to ask Remus about a certain type of accident ... as well as
not-so-accidental occurrences with the same end result.

On the third cast Sirius steeled himself. He'd just have to pluck up the courage and ask. Remus
was never going to bring it up – Remus wasn't one to divulge any personal stuff except in
response to Sirius' woes and complaints. He'd just have to phrase it in such a way that it didn't
sound like it was him. But saying “so a friend of mine...” was way too obvious. Even Sirius was
old enough to know that.

“D'you have any boy friends yet?” Sirius finally opened with. Remus jerked at that, eyes wide and
scared. Sirius was a little confused by that, but kept going, hoping to clarify what he meant:
“Besides Lily, you know. Any blokes you're friends with.”

Abruptly Remus relaxed, air punching out of his lungs like a popped balloon. Sirius wasn't sure
what that reaction was for, but then Remus shrugged, slowly tugging in his line in an effort to
entice any of those invisible fish out in the stormy sea. “There's blokes in my class. One who
always is asking for help on his homework – Peter. But they're not my friends, really. Just you and
Lily.”

Sirius bit his lip as he considered his next line of questioning. The wind swept his hair into his
eyes, which he brushed away absently. If Remus didn't have any bloke friends, maybe he didn't
do anything. Maybe he didn't know about it. But then again, if he didn't, he would someday, when
what happened to Sirius last night happened to him. It was probably for the best that Sirius at least
warn him. Though, again: he'd have to make it sound like it hadn't happened to him.

“Why? Are you worried about... something?”

Sirius blinked, startled out of his own thoughts by the question from Remus. He turned to look,
curious about the oddly hopeful expression on Remus' face. Sirius couldn't make heads or tails of
it, so he just ignored it and plowed on. “No. Just... well, see, the blokes at my school. They like to
talk. About. Stuff .” Sirius winced, not sure how else he was supposed to say it. He wasn't going
to say any of the words out loud, for sure. He tried again. “And, well. If you don't have any bloke
friends, I thought maybe you didn't know. About stuff.”

Remus' face was scrunched up, utterly baffled. His gaze slid off Sirius' as he thought, which then
caused him to start and reel his line in when he noticed it bobbing against the beach. After
recasting it, Remus rested his elbows on his thighs and thought. “Some bloke stuff?” he guessed.
“Stuff Lily doesn't know about?”

Yes . At last he was catching on. Sirius nodded. “Yeah. Bloke stuff. Stuff that... happens to
blokes? At night? And then the other stuff. That they can... do. To themselves? The same sort of...
stuff.”

Remus' eyes widened, and he suck in a sharp breath. He didn't look down at his groin, not
exactly, but his gaze's dedicated refusal to drop any lower than the horizon line was so obvious he
might as well have looked down at his lap. His face slowly turned bright red, until the flush even
stained the tips of his ears. Sirius watched the process, fascinated. Then he shook himself into
awareness again and shifted his foot so he could poke his toe into Remus'.

“Hey. Are you... I was just wondering. If you knew.”

There was a pause as Sirius held his breath, waiting for Remus to move, to do anything besides
stare straight ahead, face red and gaze locked on the sea and sky. Then his eyes flickered over to
Sirius, just for a second before they were back at sea. Then he nodded.

Sirius felt like he'd been punched in the gut. Nodded. He nodded. So... then what did that mean?
Yes, he'd heard of one of those things? Yes, he'd heard of both? Yes, he'd had one of those things
happen? Done it... done it to himself ? Sirius felt dizzy. Really dizzy. And lightheaded – that
lightheaded where it really does feel like your head's going to pop right off your shoulders and
float away because there's no feeling in any of it, except that patch right at the top where it's trying
to tug away.

“What... Which. Of the. Which.” Sirius' throat was dry. Completely dry. Dryer than his throat had
ever been ever. He tried swallowing and only managed to produce an uncomfortable little clicking
noise.

Remus shook his head, hair buffeting his temples and eyes. Sirius wanted to jump up and shake
him. No! He wasn't allowed to stop talking about this! Not when they were so close . Sirius
needed to know , he needed help! Because he couldn't talk to James about this, definitely not.
James was a great bloke, but he was just... more bloke-y than Sirius. With James, Sirius had to be
loud and brash and a bit of a braggart – there was no room for insecurities or nerves, especially
over something like this, something so manly. Remus, on the other hand, understood him in all his
non-blokey-ness. That's why Sirius needed to talk to Remus about this, not James. But he couldn't
if Remus decided to shut down!

Thinking fast, Sirius viciously pulled his line back in and cast it out. Remus was embarrassed,
okay. But he'd said it'd happened to him before – something , at least. And Sirius had certainly
had the most embarrassing of things possible happen to him last night. So if Sirius just managed to
be brave, to tell Remus first... Sirius swallowed. He didn't want to. But he definitely had to know.

“If I say something, do you promise not to laugh?”

That finally got Remus to look over at Sirius rather than glance, rather than return his gaze as fast
he could to the horizon. He nodded, flush starting to recede just a little bit. Sirius licked his lips,
trying to figure out how he could do this.

“Can you promise something too? You'd say, if you had the same... The same?”

Remus was a little slower on responding to this one, but after a long moment of staring into Sirius'
eyes, he nodded. Just a small, jerky thing, but it was enough confirmation to lift the weight from
Sirius' chest and put a damp cloth and the blazing nerves that were trying to rise in his gullet.

“Okay. Promise.”

They stuck their poles into the sand and shook on it, their fingers dragging over each other as they
locked and separated them in the last movement. Sirius licked his lips again, steeling himself. He
wanted to wipe his palms on his trousers, but he'd just shook Remus' hand and didn't want to
replace the sensation of Remus' soft fingers slipping over his with the rough texture of his trousers,
so instead he just rested his palms on his knees. He made himself go very still, words blazing
through his brain but none of them the ones he wanted to use. Finally he forced something out of
his mouth: anything .

“Last night I had a dream. And when I'd woken up... I thought I'd had an accident, like I needed
to go to the loo. But it wasn't that. Something else. Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Remus whispered.

Sirius nodded, waiting for Remus to tell him if he'd-

Sirius' brain cut short. Wait. Had that been... had Remus meant?

His eyes shot up, searching Remus' face. The other boy was flushing as red as he had been a few
minutes earlier, but at least he was facing Sirius this time, even if his gaze was more dropped
down to the sand rather than looking at Sirius.

“You've-”

“Yeah.”

Sitting back on his marble block, Sirius thought about this. Then he thought about it again. And
maybe a third time. So, Remus... he'd had it happen to him before.

A wave of dizziness passed over Sirius again as his brain buzzed onto the next possibility. “So
then, have you ever... on purpose...?”

“No.”

Sirius breathed. Then he breathed again. So Remus had been through just about the same thing as
he had! That was good. That was definitely, totally good. That meant Sirius wasn't bad, or trying
to be defiant, or anything like that. Walburga would still kill him, but at least Sirius knew now that
it wasn't his fault, that he wasn't doing it on purpose. Slightly more disconcertingly, it also meant
there probably wasn't much of a way to stop it. Maybe if he just slept with a sock over himself
when he was at home?

And of course, to know that it happened to Remus too... that was good, somehow. Better than
knowing that James and the other boys did it. Because Remus, even though he was quiet and calm
and more thoughtful than Sirius, he was somehow more alike Sirius than Sirius was those other
boys. James and them, Sirius had in common with them a love of playing pranks and making
mischief, but somehow that wasn't exactly everything. They all went nuts over birds, for one. That
certainly wasn't on Sirius' list of priorities, and it didn't seem to be on Remus', either. There was
just always something a little bit off about Sirius, he knew: something different between himself
and the normal boys. But it wasn't like that with Remus. Somehow, whatever it was that was
different was different in Remus, too.

“Thanks,” Sirius finally said as he tugged his pole out of the ground and cast it into the ocean
again. “For telling me.”

Remus shrugged and copied his actions so there were two lines bobbing up and down over the
choppy waves. “I promised,” he replied simply.

A warm, calm feeling filled Sirius' chest. Right. He'd promised. And that was yet another brilliant
thing about Remus: he was always so understated about doing things correctly, the way Sirius
knew they should be done. The other boys, it seemed like it always came as a surprise to them
when someone did something right , or like they were always in competition with each other.
There was fighting and striving and climbing over each other in some sort of perpetual game of
king of the hill that Sirius had never realized he'd signed up for, but apparently had. But with
Remus it wasn't like that. It was more some sort of brilliant partnership, where they were always in
sync with each other and so always did the right thing for the situation, always acted and
responded exactly how the other wanted them to.

It wasn't like that when Sirius hung out with the other boys. But Sirius was perfectly fine with
that. Remus was his Remus, and Sirius got to be his SiriusandRemus when he was with him.
When he was with James, that was brilliant too, since James was mad in a way that Sirius most
definitely loved to be, and never really was when he was around Remus. But it was different, and
Sirius knew he'd never be able to talk to James like this. He'd always... he'd always be loud with
James. With Remus he could be quiet – Remus made him quiet. And Sirius knew, even at almost
thirteen years old, that sometimes he needed to be quiet.
 Chapter 20
Chapter Summary

Sirius and Remus discover something new in their World.

Remus was just being a spoil-sport, was all. At least, that's what Sirius told himself as he huffed
and puffed and tried to drag their damn bench even just a few inches forward. The sun was
blazing , summer well and truly on its way already, even though it was only May. It was nowhere
near this warm in England yet, but Sirius had always suspected that their World was somewhere
further south, somewhere like Italy, maybe. It'd make sense: all the pillars and houses and mosaics
certainly looked like something out of his Roman histories books. The little circle of dirt, even,
reminded Sirius of a wrestling pit he'd once come across while doing his translations. Their ocean
might well be the Ionian or the Adriatic... Sirius giggled and sat down on the ground in front of
their bench. Now he was just thinking about Catullus, and the new, dirty poems he and James had
found in the library one day.

“What are you laughing at?”

Sirius looked over his shoulder at Remus, who was staring disapprovingly down at him. He stuck
his tongue out at Remus. The other boy just rolled his eyes and worked harder at looking
disapproving. Sirius had to give him credit: he was really doing a brilliant job of it.

“Catullus poems. Pedicabo ego uos et irrumabo / Aureli pathice et cinaede Furi. / Qui me ex
uersiculis meis putastis / quod sunt molliculi parum pudicum.” Remus cocked his head, and Sirius
managed to stifle his giggles just long enough to translate: “I will fuck you in the ass and in the
mouth, Aurelius you sodomized ass pony. And Furius, cock-sucking little pervert-”

“Sirius!”

Sirius just howled and threw himself backward on the marble, staring upside down and prone at
the absolutely scandalized look on Remus' face. But it was brilliant , wasn't it? It'd been right
there, in the Latin poetry section! And Sirius had seen some words he didn't recognize as he'd
been skimming through them for something to do. And he'd found himself an unabridged Latin
dictionary in the restricted section of the library, and started translating, and... wow. Who would
have known? The Romans were right mad, they were! And bloody brilliant.

“It's history!” Sirius protested. “It's educational. You know, I had to look up loads of words for
this! I learned stuff translating it.”

Remus stepped closer to Sirius, frowning down at him. His shadow threw over Sirius' eyes,
making it much easier to gaze up at Remus with a shit-eating grin.

“You shouldn't say stuff like that. You'll get in trouble.”

Sirius just rolled his eyes and drummed his fingertips on his bare chest. He wanted to go
swimming – not receive a lecture from Remus on how to stay out of trouble.

Which, yes: Remus was probably the expert at staying out of trouble. And honestly, Sirius was
probably the worst in the world at staying out of it. But most of the time it was stuff his professors
didn't call Walburga about, or even the headmistress McGonagall. And on the one or two times
things actually had gotten as far as Walburga, her punishment had been no more harsh than usual.
It'd really been no more harsh that Sirius basically expected from his typical “welcome home”
punishment: the punishment Walburga made sure to find an excuse to give him every time he
came home for half-term or hols.

Remus knew Sirius getting in trouble got him punished – it was why he was trying, more and
more, to tell Sirius how to stay out of it (he didn't know about the customary welcome home
punishments, otherwise Sirius was certain Remus would make him promise not to come home
except when he absolutely had to. And no home meant no Remus: a state of being Sirius was
going to be surest to avoid, at all costs).

“Come on,” Sirius whined, stretching his hands up to bat ineffectually at Remus. “Help me move
the bench!”

Remus shook his head, hands on his hips. “No. If I let you toss it in the pool, it's either going to
break on the way over there or you'll never be able to get it out again.”

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Yes I would. Since when have I ever not been able to do something?” It
was true. Just about anything Sirius set his mind to, he could manage to do – spilt drinks and
dropped silverware from his childhood long forgotten and unacknowledged.

Still, Remus shook his head. “'m not helping.” Then he turned around and started walking away,
bare feet slapping at the marble beneath them. “I'm going to swim!”

Huffing, Sirius threw himself upright and glared at the bench. If he could just... Sirius gripped
tight to the bench, trying to tug it towards him. Nothing. Bracing both feet on the marble beneath
him, Sirius tried again. Maybe... just a little hitch forward...

Sirius' feet slipped abruptly, sending him sliding forward. He lay flat just in time to avoid conking
his head against the bench, which only made him slide further. When he finally shot his hands out
and grabbed onto the bench to bring himself to a stop, he'd managed to slide wholly beneath the
damned thing, view above him the underside of the centuries old slab of stone.

“Sirius!”

Rolling his eyes, Sirius thought maybe he should keep himself in place and fake injury, just to
show Remus. A twinge of guilt immediately put to rest that desire, and Sirius stuck a hand out
behind him. “Fine!” he called out. “Drag me out, will you?”

Just as Sirius felt Remus' hand closing around his own, he caught sight of something. His eyes
were taking a minute to adjust from the bright sunshine to the muted darkness beneath the bench,
which is why he hadn't been able to see it before. But there it was, just a few inches from the tip of
his nose and staring him in the face. Remus started to tug, but Sirius squeezed his hand quickly
and said: “Wait!”

Sirius cocked his head, looking. Then, reclaiming his hand from Remus, he pushed himself up a
few inches onto his elbows so he could look closer. It definitely looked like... words . Carved into
the underside of the bench. But it wasn't in any language Sirius had ever seen – it wasn't even in
any letter sets Sirius had ever seen. And he knew just about all of them.

Without even asking, Remus squeezed himself under the bench with Sirius and looked up,
following his gaze. “What is it?” he asked before he could even see it.

Wordlessly Sirius took Remus' hand and pressed it to the words above their heads. Blindly Remus
groped, long fingers tracing the contours of the carving one by one, spending a moment on each
word before moving onto the next. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, Remus dropped his hand and
propped himself up with it, looking close at the words. “What language is it?”

“Dunno,” Sirius said. Remus gasped a little next to him, and Sirius nodded. “Yeah, I know. But
I've never seen it before. I've never even seen those letters before.” He frowned up at the letters,
trying to make them out more clearly. It was too damn dark under the bench, he couldn't really get
a good look at the letters. If he could only get it into the sun...

“Help me tip it!” Sirius suddenly said. “I wanna see it in the light. Come on.” He slapped Remus'
leg and started to slide out from under the bench.

But Remus was shaking his head, staying still under the bench and thinking. “No, we... no. If we
tilt it – which, it's so heavy, I bet we can't even – it might break and crack right where the words
are. If...” Remus fell silent, and Sirius waited: half in, half out of the sunlight, in the middle of his
aborted crawl out from under the bench.

After a long moment considering, Remus grabbed Sirius' wrist and shook it gently. “Etching! Get
my notebook and tear out a piece. And one of my pencils.”

It was awkward sliding his body over the stones without turning over onto his stomach, but Sirius
managed it after a few moments of wriggling back and forth, his body pressing first into Remus,
then into the leg of the bench, and repeating the process until he was finally far enough out from
under the bench to sit himself up and drag his legs out with the rest of him. Remus' supplies were
in the battered leather satchel he had taken to carrying around recently – Sirius suspected it might
have been a gift from someone, but he didn't ask who. Because he suspected the answer to that,
and didn't really like to hear about that girl more often than was absolutely necessary.

They retrieved the piece of paper and pencil and handed them off to Remus, who promptly
pressed the paper to the carvings and started rubbing the pencil against it. Sirius waited, perched
on the bench with his hands curled around the edge, rocking back and forth as he waited for
Remus to finish. When he finally did, he passed the paper and pencil up to Sirius first, who set
them onto the bench with just the quickest of glances. Then Sirius was holding a hand out to
Remus, helping him slide out from under the bench with significantly less effort that Sirius.

“Well?” Remus asked, settling on Sirius' left on the bench. “Have you seen it before?

Sirius shook his head. He frowned down at the paper, thinking hard. It was loopy, the writing,
kind of like some of those eastern languages the other boys studied. Not swooping, like Chinese
or Japanese – more bubbles, like Korean, or that ancient one, Sanskrit. But then again...

“I don't think it's... what do you call it? The letter/sound alphabets. I think it's a symbols one. Like
Hieroglyphics, or Chinese.”

Next to him Remus shifted, his leg pressing into Sirius' is as he tried to get a better look at the
symbols copied on the page. “How can you tell?”

Sirius shrugged. He wasn't quite sure what would make him guess that. But the symbols seemed
too complex apiece to be just letters – letters were easy, since you had to shove so many of them
together to make words. To write down full words as a symbol, though: that had to be more
complex. After all, there were loads more words than letters.

Sirius tried explaining this to Remus, who nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense,” he muttered.
Sirius grinned, glancing over at Remus as he stayed leaning into Sirius, eyes trained on the paper.
That was one of the things Sirius especially liked about Remus: he never asked Sirius how he
knew what he did, or where he learned it. Teachers were always asking him that, and even James,
sometimes. Sirius didn't remember stuff like what book he'd read or if Remus had told him or Ms.
Antonia. The point was that he knew it, he just did, and he wanted whoever he was having a
conversation with to focus on that , not on where he got his information from.

Remus wiped a hand over his forehead, brushing his hair away. Sirius watched him. “Who do you
think left it here?”

Dragging his eyes away from Remus, Sirius glanced back down at the writing. He wasn't sure.
He'd always assumed the ruins were Roman, but now it looked like some parts – the bench, at
least – was from even older times than that. Because the writing definitely wasn't anything that
came after Latin. At least, not in the western world. He supposed it could be Aztec or something
bizarre like that, but he'd never seen any of their writings, so he didn't even know what to look for
in identifying their language. And since it looked like some kind of word-symbol language (Sirius
was sure there was a name for that, he just couldn't remember it right now...), and those generally
were older than the Phoenicians, then this was probably older than that. Unless it was Eastern, he
supposed.

Sirius rubbed his head. He couldn't sort it. And languages were usually the one thing he knew
more about than Remus!

“What's this?”

Remus' finger pressed down at the bottom of the page, where there seemed to be two spelt-out
words. At least, the symbols to make them weren't just a single symbol, but a string of simpler
looking symbols than the rest of the page. Remus' finger was still pressing into Sirius' upper thigh.
He shook his head. That wasn't important right now.

“Names!” Sirius blinked, at an utter loss as to what made him think that. But he was absolutely, a
hundred percent positive that those were two names at the bottom of the page. “Two names.
Don'tch'ya think?”

Remus' eyes lit up, and he turned to Sirius, face inches from Sirius' own. Sirius had to blink and
look a little cross-eyed just to bring Remus in focus. “Yeah! Yeah, two names. Who do you think
they were?”

Again, that odd sensation buzzed through Sirius' mind, and a moment later the information was in
his head. He flushed, eyes still trained on Remus' face so close to his own.

They'd been together. The two people that had written this, however many centuries and millennia
before, they'd been... Sirius' brain couldn't really supply the right word for it. Boyfriend and
girlfriend. Except more than that. Like, it was from one person who just happened to live in two
bodies; two people who were made perfectly for each other, to balance out everything in
themselves and each other that was wrong and make themselves into a solid, perfect, indivisible
whole.

Sirius leaned back on the bench, putting some distance between himself and Remus. They
couldn't play those games anymore – the ones where they were like the people who wrote this.
They couldn't. It was for kids. Or boys and girls, together. Not for boys and boys.

But Remus wasn't getting it. Sirius shivered in the bright sun, trembling as Remus was looking up
at him, leaning into him. “Do you think they were like us?”

Immediately Sirius shook his head. No. They couldn't be like him and Remus. Because they
were... something. Something more to each other.
Remus apparently was ignoring Sirius today, because he kept going, smile tugging at the corners
of his mouth as he stared down wistfully at the scrap of paper. “Do you think they needed to get
away from the world, and they came here? Just like we did! You had to get away from your mum
and you found the door, and I wanted somewhere quiet, away from all the estate boys. And
maybe they found each other, just like we did! Maybe...” Remus' eyes were shining as he looked
up at Sirius, his thigh warm, his hand creeping up to press a hopeful touch to Sirius' chest. It was
awful. “Maybe they became best friends, and then when they were together in the real world, like
we'll be when we get a flat together, they wrote this. Because they knew we'd find it some day.”

Remus was right. Remus was ninety-eight percent right, Sirius knew. He knew, he knew
everything Remus had just said, the tragic, sweet story he had just told was true. Except for one
bit.

The other pair of people, the other couple: they hadn't been like Sirius and Remus. They'd been
more than that. And Sirius and Remus couldn't be more than that.

Slowly Sirius nodded anyway, cracking a small smile at Remus. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Maybe. It
sounds nice.” And because he couldn't help himself, Sirius wrapped an arm around Remus' back
and held it there. Remus didn't seem to mind.

Later in the day, with the magic, unreadable letter safely tucked away in Remus' notebook, Sirius
and Remus sat in front of Remus' door. After the one time years ago when Sirius had been unable
to escape through it, they'd started playing around with the physics of the place, testing the
boundaries. Doors were a definite no-go, if they weren't their own. It even went so far that if a
door wasn't his own, the boy couldn't toss something through it. Which was how Sirius found
himself tossing rocks at Remus' open door and watching them bounce off the stone wall he saw
there.

Next to him, Remus was tossing his rocks higher, above the line of the door. Every once in a
while he'd toss one at the door, just for fun. Sirius watched wistfully as the rock sailed through the
seemingly solid stone, onto the room he couldn't see beyond. “You never talk about Regulus and
how he's doing at school,” Remus ventured, breaking the silence.

Sirius grunted. “Because there's nothing to say.”

“There's something to say,” Remus pointed out. “How's he?”

Sirius shrugged. “Dunno. Never talk to him.” The next rock he threw hit the wall so hard that it
bounced back almost to where they were sitting. Remus didn't turn and give Sirius a knowing
look, but it was a close thing, Sirius was sure.

“Doesn't he live in your dorm?”

“Assigned to a different one. Hey, want to see something James showed me?” Swiftly Sirius
pushed himself to his feet, wiping the grime from the street off his bum before casting about for
three suitably sized rocks. He didn't miss the frown that passed across Remus' face, and Sirius
counted that as a victory. He wanted Remus to feel that same pang of jealousy when he talked
about James that he felt when Remus talked about Lily. In all honesty, Remus was probably
frowning at the change of subject, not the mention of James, but Sirius liked to think it was the
latter.

Finding three stones that seemed about acceptable size and weight, Sirius started tossing them
through the air, two at a time. Slowly, carefully, he managed to pick up some height with them,
and within a moment he was juggling. He couldn't take his eyes off the balls to see if Remus was
impressed, but he was certain he was. After all, how many blokes could juggle like this? “Isn't it
brilliant?” he asked, still watching the balls.

“I gotta go.”

Sirius let the balls fall to the ground without a second's thought. Remus was standing, looking...
disappointed? Sirius rushed over to Remus, grabbing his arm. “Hey, hey! What's wrong?”

Turning into Sirius' grip, Remus gave him that look . That, “I'm-sad-and-you're-not-listening” look
. Sirius' chest constricted a little at it. He didn't like it, whenever he made Remus look like that.

Resolve crumbling, Sirius removed his hand from Remus and shoved both in his trouser pockets.
He scuffed a toe, sighing, trying to figure a way around it. But, no: Remus wasn't about to let this
go. For whatever reason, Remus expected Sirius to be a good person. It was the most endearing –
and a little terrifying, what with Sirius' firmly held belief that he'd never amount to more than the
sum of the bad blood in his veins – trait about him.

“I'll talk to Regulus,” Sirius grumbled. “Okay? Promise.”

Remus' grin was quick and easy after that, and they shook on it. Dropping Remus' hand, Sirius
sighed and tossed his head back. “ Now will you watch me juggle?”

Remus nodded. “Sure. And next time, you can be my court jester.”

Sirius laughed as he started up again, three balls rolling up into the air, then floating back down.
“Guess you'll be my king, then?”

Remus snorted. “Come now, Sirius: I'm always your king.”

Sirius was so shocked that he dropped all three the balls. Then he and Remus collapsed in a fit of
giggles in the middle of the street.

**

Margot stood alone. She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for
years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the
yellow from her hair. She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if
she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost. Now she stood, separate-

“Sirius?”

Reluctantly Sirius pressed his finger to the page he was reading and glanced up. Regulus was
stood there, looking not entirely unlike little Margot in the story Sirius was reading. He was still
smaller than Sirius by almost a head – Sirius wondered if he'd ever catch up. He kind of doubted
it: it just seemed right, that Regulus would end up smaller than him. Sirius was the big brother,
Regulus was the little brother, and that was the way things were. He was paler than Sirius, too.
Both of them were pale – Black blood, pale skin – but Sirius had at least his time spent outside
with Remus and James to add some sort of color to him. Regulus, instead, was just like Margot:
washed away.

As much as Sirius wanted to shoo Regulus away and get back to his reading, the promise to
Remus about trying to be closer to his little brother echoed in his ears. And he certainly couldn't
break his promise to Remus while reading a story given to him by Remus. Not that he'd ever break
a secret handshake promise, of course.

“What is it, Regulus?” Sirius said, doing his best not to sound too grumbly and off-putting. He
was making an effort, he really was.
Regulus' eyes slid around the room, taking in the other boys loitering around. There weren't many
there right now: it was free hour, so most were out, whether it was playing in the grass or using
the phones to call home or getting into general mischief. James had been given his walking papers
when Sirius had decided he wanted to read one of Remus' stories today, and he had gone without
much of a fuss. James didn't know much about Remus, just that he was Sirius' best mate from
back home, and that the packet of stories were from him. But he did know enough to bugger off
when Remus was involved. Sirius was intractable on that one particular subject.

“Come on, Regulus. Out with it. You need help? Schoolwork?” Sirius frowned, taking in the way
Regulus was hunched a little into himself, the way he looked nervous. Sirius' eyes narrowed. He
recognized that look. That look had been on his face the first decade or so of his life, anytime he
was stuck in Grimmauld Place with Walburga.

Tossing the story aside, Sirius sat up and leaned forward, reaching a hand out to Regulus. “Hey,
something wrong? Somebody bothering you? Not Snivellus is it, because I swear I'll pound him
good-”

“No!” Regulus squeaked. “No! It's no one. Just... I dunno what to do.”

That didn't sound any better, to Sirius' ears. Amicably he patted the bed on his left, waiting
patiently as Regulus sat himself down, squirming just a bit uncomfortably.

“All right,” Sirius prompted, “out with it. Who's bothering you?”

“No one,” Regulus insisted again. “Just... some of them. Want to be friends. But I gotta do
something first.”

Sirius' stomach twisted inside him. He wasn't sure exactly what some of the boys got up to at the
school, since he just kept his head down and hung out with James, but he had his suspicions.

“Regulus,” he started. Then he stopped, trying to figure out a way to say what he was thinking
without either terrifying Regulus and scarring him for life or being too commanding about it. “Are
you sure they're your friends?” he settled on. Because Regulus was twelve, now: he was old
enough to figure out for himself if the other boys were really his friends or not.

Regulus nodded, but it was slow and definitely unsure. “It's Malfoy's branch, you know.”

Sirius snorted, patting Regulus on the back. “Yeah, no. They're not your friends, little brother.
Come on. They're just doing what their parents tell them-” Sirius cut himself off, hand stilling on
Regulus' back. A realization was spreading through him like icy water, burning his insides with its
frigidity. “Walburga told you to make friends with them, didn't she?”

Almost immediately Regulus nodded, like he wasn't even registering why that was dumb, why
that was terrible, why... why everything was wrong with that! “Yeah,” he said, shrugging. “Last
break Mum said there's loads of Malfoy's around and they'd make good friends. So I-”

“Good for her!” Sirius shouted, removing his hand from Regulus. His little brother just stared up
at him, eyes wide in shock and mouth hanging just a bit open. Sirius growled, furious. How could
his little brother be so dumb? How could he not see everything rotten and miserable and
dangerously, dangerously mad about Walburga that Sirius did? “She doesn't care about you,
Regulus! She only cares our stupid last name and what she can do to improve our social
connections or line our pockets with a better marriage. Why would you listen to her for even two
seconds about who to make friends with?”

Regulus broke away from Sirius, jumping up from the bed and wrapping his arms around himself
in an obvious display of insecurity. Sirius might feel bad for him if he weren't so angry with him.
“I wasn't making any friends!” he complained. “You got James, but no one would talk to me.
They kept talking about you, like we were the same. And Mum cares, Sirius! You're wrong about
that. Mum loves me!”

Sirius rolled his eyes, biting his lower lip hard enough to bruise. “Yeah, right, Regulus. Yeah,
you're right: maybe about you.”

The brothers fell silent at that, both breathing hard and staring at one another from mere feet away.
It was an ocean, between them. It was a solar system, a galaxy, a half a universe. Sirius could see
that. Remus was wrong to ask him to try and work stuff out with Regulus. They were as different
as two people could be, and their coincidence of genetics wasn't nearly enough to make up for
that.

“Go ahead,” Sirius said. “Whatever Malfoy and that lot want you to do: it's probably fine.”
Something scared and nervous clawed at Sirius' gut, but he ignored it. “After all: Mum said they're
who you should be friends with.”

For some reason Sirius couldn't even fathom , those last words of his seemed to reassure Regulus.
His expression smoothed, and he nodded. “Right. Ta, Sirius.”

“Ta for stopping by!” Sirius shouted out after him. As the dorm door swung shut behind Regulus,
Sirius threw himself back on his bed, papers fluttering softly next to him. For a moment he
considered not picking them up again and just closing his eyes and going to sleep, trying to keep
his daft little brother out of his head. But then Sirius thought about how good Ray Bradbury made
him feel, and how things were always better with him. So he picked up his sheets of paper and
cradled them in his hand, whole body curled up around them on his side and started to read again.

Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass .
 Chapter 21
Chapter Summary

Sirius and Remus make a disturbing revelation about their World.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

The grass was fresh, the invisible birds chirping as they always did this time of year. Sirius
breathed it all in, filling his lungs with that air which was so definitely distinct from the musty
smell of Grimmauld Place, or even the air at his inland school. This was sea air, this was some
kind of southern air. Roman air, Sirius fancied. After all, all the evidence pointed toward
something Roman. The sea, the buildings, the vegetation. It all looked just like something out of
his Latin text books, like the way Pliny the Younger described Pompeii before Vesuvius
disappeared it under ash and rock for two millennia.

Sirius stretched as he walked, barefooted, over to their bench. He had no worries in the world for
the whole half-term break. He could just be with Remus, play some games, chat about books and
movies and all the mischief Sirius had managed to get up to so far this semester. And then Remus
would have his disapproving face on, but Sirius would manage to make him laugh with at least
one of his stories. Sirius already had one in his head he'd save for after Remus got the look,
because it was certain to make him laugh. It was about James and him'd managed to do to all the
boy's bedsheets. Sirius snorted to himself. He thought all the bright pink had really cheered up the
dorms, personally.

When he rounded the wall, Sirius already saw that Remus wasn't there yet. That was okay: Remus
would show. And it gave Sirius time to just sit out and enjoy the sun. He shucked his shirt and lay
out on the marble, grinning with closed eyes up at the springtime sun and not really shivering all
that much at the cooler tinge the breeze still managed to hold in its questing tendrils.

Sometime later Sirius found himself being shook awake – he hadn't even realized he'd drifted off.
He stretched and looked up, squinting. It wasn't much later in the day, if the motion of the sun was
anything to judge by. Above him, Remus was blocking out some of its rays. As Sirius' eyes
adjusted he could see that Remus was grinning excitedly, and clutching some sort of book.

“Wotcher, Remus.”

Lazily Sirius held a hand up. In the next moment he was being dragged bodily up, other hand
shooting out to hold onto Remus and maintain his balance. The second he got his footing the book
Remus was holding was shoved into his hand, open to one page in particular.

“Look!” Remus said. “It's Celtic!”

Sirius blinked, staring down at the page. It took a moment for his sleepy eyes to adjust, but after a
few seconds he was able to make out some old ruins, moss-covered and twisty-turny. The stones
were small, and stacked together with no discernible pattern that Sirius could tell. They weren't
even smooth and even. It all looked... quite messy, to Sirius.

“Okay,” he mumbled, still wiping sleep from his face with one hand. With the other, he reached
for his shirt to tug back on. “It's Celtic.”

Remus rolled his eyes and snatched the book back from Sirius, gesturing around them. “No, I
mean: our World! It's Celtic! The language still doesn't look right – you said it was some kind of
logographic language, and Celtic's phonetic, so it doesn't really help with translating the letter. But
maybe there's an older language or something... but the point is, the World! It's the Celts!”

Sirius was just getting more and more confused as Remus continued to talk. Remus was saying...
what? That their World was Celtic? And he thought so not based on the language they still
couldn't translate (even though Sirius had spent months in the library at school trying to spot an
ancient language that looked like it – the librarian there thought he was some sort of ancient
language genius, by now) but because of the architecture, somehow.

Sirius looked around him at the crumbling walls and half-erect structures. It wasn't Celtic. Remus
was mad for thinking so. It was obviously Roman architecture: there was a bath, and a wrestling
pit, and villas, and doric columns everywhere . And everything was marble! It was nothing like
that odd, barely-could-support-itself old English architecture that Remus was waving around.

When Sirius said as much to Remus, the other boy looked as confused as Sirius felt. “What do
you mean?” he asked. “It looks exactly like the book. Even the plants are the same.”

Glancing to his left, Sirius could clearly see a cypress tree growing by the beach. Sirius frowned
and turned back to Remus. “No they aren't. They're Roman. There's Cypress trees and organized
little places where gardens used to be.”

Both boys stood for a long moment, foreheads pulled tight as they thought about this. Slowly
Sirius turned and pointed at the wall. “What do you see when you look at that?”

Leave it to Remus to know what Sirius was asking. He didn't come back with something inane
like “a wall” or “a pile of stones”. He looked carefully at the wall, then back at Sirius. His finger
slid down the page of the book and he turned it around to show Sirius. He was pointing at one of
those messy, how-is-it-standing walls. The ones with all the little stones of all different sizes and
the no mortar between them. “That,” he said. “I see just that.”

Sirius' head hurt. That didn't make sense. He saw a marble wall, crumbling in places, but
definitely marble. Beneath his feet was marble. Blinking, Sirius tapped his foot down. “What
about here?”

Remus flipped through his book again, until he settled on a page. He turned it around to face
Sirius. The stones in the ground were dark, looking more like cobblestones he saw in the London
streets than any limestone or marble that he'd ever seen in Roman construction. They were round,
too, and messy. All different shapes and sizes, and nowhere near as carefully laid as the stones
Sirius felt beneath his feet.

The look in Remus' eyes was expectant, and maybe a little frightened. Feeling not exactly brave
himself, Sirius shook his head. “No,” he whispered. “I don't see that. I see... it's Roman, you
know. Like the Pliny books I was showing you. It's marble and smooth and perfect rectangles. It's
not like that.”

Looking at Remus, Sirius suddenly saw a gulf form between them he'd never felt before. They
saw their entire World differently. Somehow, someway, it wasn't the same as each other. To
Remus, it was Celtic looking. Pre-England Britain. To Sirius, it looked like the grandeur of
ancient Rome decayed several thousand years. They weren't the same as each other – him and
Remus. All these years, he'd thought him and Remus... SiriusandRemus. They were the same.
They had stuff in common no one else in the world had, in their World. But, now. That. It wasn't.
Sirius' heart clenched in his chest. That wasn't good. That wasn't right.

Grabbing Remus' hand, Sirius dragged him over to the Roman bath house, where they had swum
in the pool so many times before. “What about that?” Sirius asked. He pointed at the
quintessentially Roman archways. “What do you see there?”

Remus flipped through his book, trying to find an appropriate picture. Sirius waited, feeling like
worms were twisting in his intestine, like spiders were biting at his insides. When Remus couldn't
find a reference, he gestured helplessly at the bath house. “Stacked stone,” he said. “Little ones,
like the wall. Doorways, uneven and square. A round foundation.”

Sirius swallowed, but determinedly dragged Remus inside. He pointed at the pool. “That.”

“Round. Not quite an even circle. Stone all around us, beneath our feet. A design on the bottom:
circles, no, spirals, covering the whole thing. Like waves.”

A small ember of hope flared up in Sirius' chest. “The design's a mosaic, right? Lots of little
squares and pieces of glittering stone pressed together to make the waves.”

Miserably, Remus shook his head. He wasn't looking at Sirius, even though he made no move to
remove his wrist from Sirius' grasp. “Carved in.”

Feeling like his whole world was shaking at its very foundations, Sirius tugged at Remus' wrist
until the other boy looked at him. His eyes were confused, and a little scared. Sirius felt just the
same. Only, maybe even worse.

“What do you think it means?” Remus asked.

Sirius shook his head. He had an idea. But he didn't want to say it out loud. Not until he was sure
– and maybe not even then.

**

Hours later, Sirius sat with his head on Remus' lap, watching the clouds go by above his head.
Remus was reading, book rested in his lap just against Sirius' head. His fingers gently brushed
against Sirius' hair as he read, like he didn't realize he was doing it. Sirius thought maybe he didn't.

“What's under us?” Sirius asked, out of the blue.

They'd gone through everything else in their World. The walls their doors were set in looked the
same to them, apparently. Their doors looked right to each other, but Sirius thought that he should
have expected that much: his door didn't reflect Roman architecture, it just looked like the door in
his house. Same with Remus and the door in his dad's shop. But everything else, absolutely
everything else, looked different. Apparently the only solid things were the sky, the sea, and the
barriers keeping them out of each other's real life. Sirius felt horribly, desperately bitter about the
whole thing.

But they hadn't asked each other about the bench, Sirius had realized. Maybe. Maybe that much at
least was the same.

Remus, just the same as always, knew what Sirius was asking. He leaned his book forward
against his chest and peered down at Sirius, line between his eyes the same place it'd been since
they made their mutually confusing discovery. One hand purposefully moved through Sirius' hair,
brushing at the silken black locks mournfully. He didn't look down at the bench; his eyes stayed
focused on Sirius'.
“Stone,” he said. “Solid grey stone. Concrete, I think. Rectangular top. A dent around the edges –
I know that has a name, just dunno what it is.” Sirius waited, trying not to get his hopes up.
Remus continued, eyes darting over Sirius' as if looking for some sort of hint as to the right
answer. “Two legs, on either side, solid from back to front. Curved. Like the front of a sled.”

Slowly, slowly, Sirius let out a breath. Reaching out, he took Remus' unoccupied hand in both of
his own and pressed it to his chest. “It's the same,” he confirmed. The look in Remus' eyes was
heartbreaking in its relief. Impulsively, Sirius pressed a kiss to Remus' hand before returning it to
his chest, not letting go for one moment. He smiled, the smallest smile that had ever graced Sirius'
lips. “It's the same,” he said again. “At least that.”

Remus smiled back. He moved to lean down, then stopped, pulled himself back. Smiled again.
Sirius wasn't sure exactly what Remus had been about to do, but he was satisfied to just hold
Remus' hand and let his other card through his hair. For now.

It still didn't bode well, Sirius mused to himself as Remus returned to his book. His one hand
stayed in Sirius' hand, even though he reclaimed the second one to flip through his book. Them
seeing the World entirely differently... did it mean they weren't meant for each other? Ever since
they'd found the letter carved into the bench from the two lovers – lovers, Sirius repeated the
world in his head again. He'd learned it from one of those magazines James was always bringing
in and seemed to have an infinite supply of. He said his dad gave them to him, but Sirius couldn't
imagine any father in his right mind giving James those kinds of magazines. The two people that
had carved the note though, Sirius was sure they were lovers. He hadn't known the word when he
first saw it almost a year ago, but his mind had been searching for it. This place, it was for lovers.
It was to bring them together, or hide them away from the rest of the world. Sirius had been
certain of that.

And, maybe, just maybe, his mind had strayed to wonder why he and Remus had been allowed in
together. They were both boys, so the lovers theory hadn't made sense. But then Sirius thought,
well. Maybe.

Except now, no. No maybes. They weren't in this World at the same time by design – it was an
accident. Otherwise why would they see it so differently? The magic of the place must have been
wrong. Wires must have gotten crossed somewhere. Sirius was meant to find someone else in
here, some bird who would see the Roman ruins just like he did. And Remus was meant to find
some Celtic bird in here.

Sirius' gut twisted. Celtic bird. His histories were strongly lacking on anything that wasn't Greek
or Latin, but Sirius knew enough about the Celts by Roman proxy. They were known for their
fierce red hair, their warrior spirit. Like Boudicca, the great Celtic queen who defied the Romans
and led a hundred thousand of her countrymen in a charge against the invaders. The Romans had
defeated her, of course, but she'd been so fearsome and terrifying as she rode into battle a top her
chariot that even the Roman generals themselves hadn't wanted to go up against her one on one.
She was a fearsome warrior, with bright red hair and a temper and determination no man could
claim superiority over.

She sounded a lot like Remus' Lily.

Remus' hands scratched lightly at Sirius' scalp, fingertips massaging the hidden skin beneath his
hands. Sirius closed his eyes against the daylight, not wanting to see the bits of Remus he could,
nor the bright cheeriness of the spring sunshine. It was obvious to him, now. The World had been
trying to tell them for years that they had messed up by coming here at the same time. There was
the different way they saw the whole place, which they should have really realized years and
years ago. And... Sirius shifted, stirred in Remus' lap like he was having a nightmare. Remus'
hand brushed a little harder against his head, pressing like he was trying to wipe a fever from his
 brow. Sirius' body stilled, but his mind kept thrashing.

The doors. He should have realized it when he couldn't get through Remus' door. Whatever bird
they were supposed to end up with, obviously they would be able to take her through their doors,
or go into hers. Otherwise how were they supposed to be together in the real world? If Remus
tried to bring Lily through his door, Sirius was sure it'd work. He wasn't meant to be with Remus.
That's why he hadn't been able to escape through his door to Remus' life.

It all made so much sense in retrospect. Sirius and Remus weren't the ones the World was
supposed to be bringing together. It was supposed to be Remus and some bird – probably Lily.
And Sirius and some bird, too, though he had no clue who.

Sirius should have realized this when he first tried to escape through Remus' door years ago. At
the latest, he should have realized it last year when his mind supplied the words “boyfriends” and
“girlfriends” for the two people who had carved their note into the bench. Two boys couldn't be
boyfriend and girlfriend. Two boys couldn't be lovers. The World had gotten wired wrong, and
brought Sirius and Remus in instead of whoever boy and girl was supposed to be there.

As Sirius continued to walk over and over again through the same corridors in his mind, looking
for a door that would never be there ( just like Remus' door would never be there , his mind
whispered viciously at him), something broke through the darkness. Remus' hand, stroking his
hair, and the cool bench beneath his body. Remus, who was the same as he ever was, who was
still Sirius' oldest and best mate in the world. And the bench. The bench which was the same for
both of them, the bench where the lovers had carved their note.

The bench was the same. And then bench was where the lovers had chosen to immortalize
themselves. Maybe, just maybe... Maybe that was all that needed to be the same. Maybe all that
was necessary about the World was the bench beneath Sirius' body, and that two people met in
this place. Even if they were both boys. Just maybe.

Sirius clung to this one thought, to this singular hope until it blossomed like a supernova in him,
stardust filling up his every inch until he believed it. All they needed was the bench, and each
other, and the space to be together in. That could be the key to the whole thing.

Sirius remained quiet in Remus' lap until Remus shook him gently and announced that they should
both head home. He slowly opened his eyes and smiled up at Remus. To his delight, Remus
smiled back, though he still looked worried.

When he sat up Sirius took Remus' hand in both of his own again, then placed it on the bench.
Looking into Remus' eyes, Sirius told him: “The bench is the same.”

Somehow, Remus seemed to get it. Sirius couldn't explain anymore, couldn't put into words all the
other thoughts and hopes sprinkled around inside of him, trying to seep through his pores and
escape outward to drag Remus into him. But he thought maybe Remus understood. As he looked
into Remus' amber eyes, he thought Remus definitely understood at least enough.

Chapter End Notes

Two updates: 1. I abruptly realized how fast the summer is coming to an end, and
how many chapters of this are left to post, so I'm going to start upping the post rate, to
at least one chapter a day (some days of 2 chapters!) I want to have this fully online
by Labor day (first week of September, for you non-Americans). And there's...
LOTS of chapters left to post. We're only about halfway, here.

2. The angst is going to take a sharp upturn in the next several chapters. I want to
remind old readers, and inform new ones, that I am the author of ALWAYS the
happy endings. I always, always have things work out for the best in the end. So
please, don't yell at me? I'm doing this for ARTISTIC reasons :P
 Chapter 22
Chapter Summary

Kreacher observes Sirius hiding out in a forgotten storage room with an odd door
stuck in the wall.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

That stupid woman! She thought she could just tell Sirius what to do and he'd obey it, like some
sort of well-trained dog. Or well-trained Kreacher, for that matter. Sirius snorted to himself as he
stomped up the steps to the fourth floor, not caring that he was making a rugby team's worth of
noise. As if he would just nod and smile at his mad cousin Bella as she continued to insult
everything about him. As if Walburga thought he wouldn't say anything back.

For that matter, why couldn't he say something sniping back? Was he just expected to be better
than his cousins, than his whole extended family? All they ever did was insult each other: making
snide comments about Bella not having produced an heir with her husband yet; discussing Malfoy
and Narcissa's continuing torrid romance which everyone knew had long ago reached a socially
unacceptable level of “intimacy” before their already arranged marriage; yammering on about how
Andromeda had once been caught merely exchanging pleasantries with some average bloke,
unconnected to any of the stupid, incestuous circles that they were all expected to pick their future
spouses from. Everyone else said such terrible things about each other, but when those things
were being said to Sirius' face, suddenly he wasn't allowed to fire back with insults of his own.

Of course, Sirius knew the real reason why he'd been asked not-so-politely by Walburga to vacate
the party yesterday evening. It was because he hadn't insulted back in the proper, Black way. He'd
instead swore and yelled some of the more off-color insults he'd learned at James' knee to Bella,
hoping to have a right laugh at her shocked expression. Really, Sirius should have figured Bella'd
be no stranger to insults, no matter how crude they may be. She had just laughed in his face and
called him a... Sirius slapped the wall as he swung around a corner, enjoying the feel of the old
house shaking beneath his fury. Sirius didn't even see why that was an insult, or how he was
supposed to disprove it. He went to an all-boys school! Of course all his mates were boys. Not his
fault he didn't go out of his way to show interest in any of the horrid girls Walburga trotted out for
him at these stupid parties.

Yanking open the door to the storage room, Sirius started to shuck his formal jacket before the
door was even closed. He tossed the clothes on the ground, not caring how or where they landed
in the dusty wasteland of where even Kreacher daren't tread. He was into his junk clothes within a
minute, and swinging his door open while he was still buttoning his flies.

He was through his doorway before he had the chance to notice the door to the storage room
clicking almost silently shut.

**

Sirius yawned, bleary-eyed but in a decidedly better mood than he was yesterday. Walburga
hadn't even bothered to attend breakfast this morning, nor Kreacher. It was like all his Christmases
had come at once, and it was still another three days before actual Christmas. Now he could spend
the day with Remus, give him his presents that he'd been storing up the last several months since
his last birthday. Sirius had oodles of random cash lying around, thanks to Orion thinking that he
for some reason needed a bank account of his own, and that it needed to be full to bursting all the
time. Sirius certainly wasn't complaining. It just meant he had more money to spend on Remus,
and James to a lesser degree, throughout the year.

Regulus barely spared a nod for him as Sirius pushed away from the breakfast table. Sirius didn't
even spare that much for that little toe-rag. He'd been talking business with Malfoy at that last
party. Business ! Like Regulus knew anything about business at thirteen years old. Sirius
suspected Malfoy was just aligning himself now to who everyone suspected would be heir to the
Black fortune. When Sirius managed to get disowned before his eighteenth birthday. Sirius
snorted to himself. As if that was ever going to happen. As if he'd care if it did.

He made his way straight up to the storage room, not wanting to waste a single moment of his
winter holidays away from Remus if he could help it. They had plans . Remus had apparently
spent his Michaelmas term plotting out something brilliant , something that was going to put
Tolkein himself to shame. Coming from anyone else, Sirius might've been skeptical. But coming
from Remus, he knew it'd be fantastic. It was Remus, after all.

When Sirius opened the door to the storage room he started in, as usual. Then he stopped short.
His first instinct was to run, to get away, to lead them as far away from his place as possible. He
clamped down on that urge, realizing not half a second later it'd do no good. They knew.
Walburga and Kreacher somehow knew . There was no other reason for them to be standing there,
waiting for him in his secret place.

“Wa- Mum.” Sirius didn't address Kreacher. If he did, Walburg would just order Kreacher to beat
him for his lack of care with social standings. He'd made that mistake plenty of times when he was
younger before he learned.

“Sirius.”

Walburga's voice was still enough to send a tremor up Sirius' spine, to make his legs turn to jelly
and his stomach want to escape his body. Her long-nailed hands were wrapped up on her
forearms, one hand drumming dangerously against her long-sleeved dress. Never before had
Sirius wanted to run more. Not even when he broke that vase when he was six.

“Mum.” Sirius said again. “Do you need me for something?” Sirius' teeth ground against each
other as he struggled to keep his tone polite. Judging by Walburga's continued stony expression
and Kreacher's increasing glee, he hadn't succeeded.

The two words Walburga said next were simple. So simple. Sirius should have been expecting
them. But he had no earthly idea what to do when she uttered them. “Explain yourself.”

The first thought that flashed through Sirius' mind was that she had found his door and gone
through to his World. As he stood in silence in front of Walburga, his mind worked to cast that
thought aside. It didn't make sense. He couldn't go through Remus' door, so there was no way
Walburga should be able to go through his. Unless, of course, it was locked in by bloodline or
families. Or even was only closed off to people on the inside, but not the outside. Or if Remus'
door was only closed to Sirius, and vice versa.

Sirius' mind could be a horribly treacherous beast.

“It's a hiding spot,” he settled on. He'd learn young how to lie: stick as close to the truth as
possible, while keeping the most important things hidden in the dark and deep, even from himself
if he could. Sirius started building up a life in his mind: a life where there'd been no door, but he'd
spent hours playing away in this little room, in the dark and damp. A life where there was no
Remus, only James and the other blokes at boarding school, and a host of imaginary friends to talk
to while he puttered around the dusty old room. That was his life. That was the life Walburga
needed to realize had been going on under her nose all these years. It would require punishment,
of course. But that was okay.

“Hiding.” Walburga's voice snapped the word like an icicle in her clawed fist. “From me?”

“Yes, ma'am,” Sirius replied. He threw his gaze to the ground, curling into himself. He had to be
apologetic, to be deferential. Walburga was his mum, and she demanded respect.

“Kreacher said there's a door at the back. Another hiding spot?”

Sirius' gut rebelled against him, making him nauseas. He wasn't going to throw up. He wasn't.
That'd just make his punishment more harsh, and – even worse – clue Walburga into his lies. And
if there was one thing Blacks were better at than all others, it was sifting lies and truth and twisting
the resulting detritus to their advantage.

“Just a door. To a wall,” Sirius explained, eyes still on the ground.

“Show me.”

Breath coming fast and stomach churning like his and Remus' sea on the stormiest of days, Sirius
slowly made his way to the back of the room. Kreacher moved in front of him, clearing some of
the covered furniture and old boxes away for ease of passage. Walburga was Moses walking to
the promised land, and Kreacher was her staff parting the Red Sea. Except this was the nightmare
Bible, the one where everything was upside down and twisted and warped.

Sirius put his hand to the door handle and breathed. There'd be nothing. Walburga and Kreacher
would see nothing, just a stone wall. Then Sirius would get beat, and confined to his room for the
rest of the holiday. It'd be okay. Everything would be okay.

Slowly Sirius pushed down on the door handle and tugged. It came open smoothly, just as it
always did. Light flooded Sirius' eyes, and he could smell the sea air and see the World in front of
him, just waiting for him to step through. He imagined, even though it was impossible, that he
could hear Remus sitting on their bench, flipping through the pages of his ivory notebook as he
plotted the next step he and Sirius were going to take today in their adventures.

Sirius kept his eyes trained on a single spot on the horizon, imagining with all his might that there
was just a stone wall in front of him. Just a stone wall, like he saw when he tried to go through
Remus' door. Just a stone wall.

“Useless,” Walburga muttered. “Why would this even be here?”

“Perhaps an entrance to a loft that was sealed to keep out the draft,” Kreacher offered.

“Hm. Perhaps.”

Sirius wasn't hearing his mother and servant talk. He was hearing the sea, roaring through his ears
as loud as could be. He was hearing Remus' laugh, sure and as real as if he were standing right in
front of Sirius. He just had to step through.

He turned around and glanced at his mother, letting the door swing shut behind him with a soft
click of metal sliding into place. “Ma'am?”

And then pain was blazing through his ear as Walburga pinched it between two long fingernails,
squeezing and squeezing until Sirius felt the warm trickle of blood filling the shell of his ear and
dripping down his neck. “To your room,” she hissed. “Kreacher will deal with you. I have more
important business to deal with than some fanciful, pathetic little boy.”

Sirius cried out and tumbled forward as Walburga let him go. He didn't clutch at his ear, but it was
a close thing. If he made any move to clean himself up before he was alone, the punishment
would only be that much worse. Sirius had learned quickly under Walburga's so specific tutelage.

As he lay in bed that night, nursing his wounds, Sirius could only stare at the ceiling with some
emotion close enough to happiness bubbling up into his tears. Remus hadn't been found out. Their
World hadn't been found out. Sirius would manage to make his way back there, next holiday. But
most importantly, Remus had been kept secret; he'd been kept safe.

**

It wasn't until the coach was pulling up to take him home for Easter holidays that Sirius had finally
sorted out his plan with James. He gave the other boy a quick hug, smiling into his neck as he felt
James press a small leather satchel into his inside jacket pocket. “See you in a week,” James said
as they separated.

Sirius nodded, eyes carefully guarded as the driver loaded his few bags into the boot of the car.
The lock picks now in his jacket pocket were the most vital part of the plan to get back to Remus.
And thank to James' surprisingly decent teaching abilities, Sirius now knew how to use them.

When he had snuck away to the storage room at half-term, Sirius had made the unpleasant
discovery that Walburga had installed new locks on the door. Since Sirius daren't search for a key
in her bedroom or in Kreacher's little nest in the house, Sirius had known he'd have to resort to
more alternative measures. Breaking the door down was absolutely out of the question. He had to
get in some way that would leave no trace, and that he could return the door to its previous locked
state after the fact. Lock picking had seemed like a viable option. The only problem was, he had
no clue how to pick a lock.

To his amazing luck, James knew how. Sirius wondered at why , since James' family was just as
well off as Sirius', by all accounts. But apparently James' mum was a bit of a nutter and loved to
pick up all sorts of uncouth hobbies, and lock picking had just happened to be among them. She
had taught James years ago (which, knowing James as Sirius did, was an absolutely horrifying
idea, but just as equally brilliant), who in turn offered to teach Sirius when he shared his woes
with James.

He hadn't explained exactly what had happened, of course. Like Remus, James had picked up on
some degree of the horror of Sirius' home life, though Sirius tried to avoid talking about it as much
as possible. And James knew Remus was some bloke from back home that Sirius was friends
with, though through careful lies of omission Sirius had led James to believe that Remus lived on
the same block as him or something to that extent. Sirius had said there was a locked door
preventing him from going out to see Remus, and left James to draw his own conclusions. James,
being the stand-up bloke that he was, had helped Sirius concoct a plan.

It was actually a pathetically simple plan. Sirius would wait three days into break – just long
enough to lull Walburga into a false sense of security. Then he'd wait until three am on the third
night, and sneak out to the fourth floor. From there he'd pick the lock, lock it from the inside, and
leave a note for Remus explaining everything, and asking him to please meet him at three am the
next night. Then, at least, they'd have a couple days to catch up before Sirius would have to repeat
the whole process again next term. He'd lock the door again every night he snuck back out.

Theoretically, all sound. As he slipped into the coach, Sirius was already thinking about
everything that could go wrong.

Three nights later, Sirius was trembling in his silk pajamas as he tiptoed through his house,
avoiding every creaking board and patch of night in the darkened hallways. His hands were
shaking where they were clasped around the lock picking kit. He could do this. He had to this: if
he didn't, he'd never get to see Remus again. And the thought of a lifetime yawning ahead of him
without Remus – well, Sirius had managed to stumble upon something more painful and terrible
than any punishment Walburga would ever be able to come up with.

By some cosmic miracle, Sirius got to the storage room door without incident. By the grace of
what is obviously a wondrous and benevolent universe, Sirius managed to pick the lock and slip
inside similarly without incident. Once there, he tiptoe-ran to his door and flung it open, not caring
that he was in his pajamas and it was probably negative two out there. He just needed to leave his
quick note and leave, and then come back tomorrow. Hopefully Remus hadn't given up on him.
Hopefully Remus was still coming, still waiting for him.

As Sirius hurried along to their bench, some of his old childhood insecurities raised their ugly
heads. What if Remus had stopped coming? What if Remus didn't really care that much, what if
Remus just thought he'd keep coming because Sirius was good for a laugh, and kept asking him to
come back? But Sirius shrugged them aside as easily as he shrugged off the bitter chill in the air.
Remus would come. Maybe he'd already given hope for this holiday, but he'd come for the next
one, or the next. Remus wouldn't give up entirely. Not yet.

When he stepped around the wall, Sirius' eyes were immediately drawn to a dark lump staining
the top of their bench. At first Sirius thought maybe Remus had left him something, like a costume
or package or something, on the off-chance that Sirius would return. Then, as Sirius got closer and
his eyes adjusted to the dark, he was able to pick out a ruffle of hair, the line of limbs, a single
boot-clad foot sticking out from beneath what looked to be piles of their old costumes.

“Remus?” Sirius breathed. Even whispered, his word seemed to snap through the quiet, cold
silence of the night.

On the bench, the prone figure jerked, then sat up. Sirius had barely enough time to confirm that it
was indeed Remus before the other boy threw himself at Sirius, burying his face in Sirius' neck
and clinging on for dear life. His breath was warm and wet on Sirius' neck, his lips moving over
the chilled skin there – in words or gentle kisses, Sirius couldn't tell. He didn't mind either. Sirius
brought his hands up to hold onto Remus, to squeeze him even tighter to his chest as they breathed
together. Tears stung Sirius' eyes, and he turned his face to bury it in Remus' hair.

Inside, he was a sea of conflicted feelings. Remus had waited for him. For him . It'd been two
holidays since Sirius had been able to get back here, but Remus had been laying there, sleeping in
the cold, bitter night as he waited for Sirius to return. He had known that Sirius would come back
to him; he had never given up hope. Sirius' tears were cold as they tracked down his face.

Even when they finally pulled apart they stayed close, breaths mingling in the frosty air. Sirius
kept his hands wrapped around Remus' back, and Remus' hands had settled tightly on his hips.

“What happened?” Remus asked. The fear in his eyes was obvious. He knew what happened.
Maybe not the specifics, but he had managed to guess enough.

So Sirius told him, in abbreviated form. He cut out Walburga's punishment and his own
misbehavior, because those two facets of the story would only bring out Remus' pity and
disapproval, neither of which Sirius wanted to see right now. But he told Remus enough: about
Walburga and Kreacher waiting for him in the storage room, about him opening the door and
those two hateful people only seeing a stone wall. How Walburga locked the door, and Sirius
hadn't found out until last holiday. About James, and his magnificent mum teaching him how to
pick locks. About sneaking out in the middle of the night, and his plans to leave Remus a note.

“How long do we have tonight?” Remus asked when he was all finished.

Sirius shook his head. “A couple hours. I have to get back before the servants start to wake up.”

At that, Remus scooped him up into a hug again and held tight. Sirius allowed himself to be held,
body curving into Remus' like a pup around his favorite chew toy. He could spend the rest of his
time here with Remus tonight in exactly this position, and be perfectly happy. This was all he
needed: quiet, privacy, and his Remus. Moments like this would be enough to get him through the
next half-term away from Remus; moments like this would get him through the next few years he
remained under Walburga's wretched thumb, until him and Remus were off to uni together and
sharing a flat and... Sirius flushed, hugging Remus just a little tighter. Well. He was beginning to
get an idea as to some other things he'd want to do with Remus other than be flatmates, but. He
couldn't talk about those things just yet. He could hardly think them to himself.

“I wish you could run away with me,” Remus whispered.

“Me too,” Sirius replied. “But this is fine,” he continued. “This is enough.”

Even though they talked and told stories about their life at school for the past several months for
the rest of the night, they never broke contact. Sirius kept Remus' hands wrapped up tight in his
hands, or rubbed his arms when he realized Remus was shivering in the cold, or Remus laughed
and nudged his thigh into Sirius' when he told a particular mad story about a prank he and James
had pulled.

When they made to part, Sirius held tight to Remus' hands and watched the moonlight reflect in
his eyes, wondering what he could do, what he could say. Remus, bless him, saved him the
trouble.

“Be safe,” Remus ordered.

Sirius grinned lopsidedly, giving off a bravado he didn't at all feel. “Me? Never,” he teased. But
he still went through the motions of his secret handshake with Remus, promising to do his best.

When their fingers locked for the last bit of it, a powerful fear welled up inside Sirius. He would
do his best to come back at least one day every break, to see Remus until they could make their
uni plans together and run off into the shining days ahead of them in the real world. But something
might happen. Walburga might confine him to his room again, or completely board up the room,
or have his door torn down, or...

Heart clenching in fear, it was that emotion that drove Sirius forward. He kept his fingers
interlocked with Remus and tugged him forward. Remus went, small smile on his face like he
didn't know what Sirius was playing at, but he knew he'd enjoy it all the same. Then, Sirius
pressed the barest of kisses to the corner of Remus' mouth. He pulled away without giving Remus
a chance to respond. In his mind, whether Remus returned the kiss or didn't would be equally as
bad. If he didn't, then all the feelings Sirius had been having, all the tendrils of thoughts in the
darkest corners of his mind about them maybe being together like boyfriend and girlfriend, would
be razed before they even got off the ground. But if he did... that would almost be worse. Because
Sirius had to return back to Grimmauld, and his future ability to escape back to Remus every
holiday was become more and more uncertain. So Sirius pulled away quickly, and let Remus'
hand drop from his.

“I'll come back,” he whispered as he turned quickly away.

 “Sirius!”

“I'll come back,” he promised again. His door was blurry in front of him. Sirius didn't know if that
was from the dizzy nervousness vibrating through him, or the tears pricking at his eyes. “Tell me
when I come back,” he whispered over his shoulder. And with that, Sirius stepped back into the
bitter warmth of Grimmauld place.

Chapter End Notes

And today is one of those days when you'll get 2 chapters! Yay!

I would like to remind you all of my promise of happy endings. Please remember
that. ... Especially after I post chapter 23 tomorrow...
 Chapter 23
Chapter Summary

Sirius and James have a little discussion about Remus, and pull off one last prank just
before summer hols.

The summer breeze was strong this high up about campus, making what Sirius and James were
trying to do just that much harder. But Sirius was grinning through the whole process, knowing
that it was just going to be that much more brilliant with the breeze helping their bit of mischief be
even that much more chaotic and spectacular.

“Oi! Sirius, you fucking plonker, tape that there!”

Sirius casually flipped two fingers at James even as he did as he was told, slapping a piece of tape
higher and to the right of where he had been about to.

Tossing his hair out of his eyes, Sirius looked around the rooftop. They had managed to secure the
blankets full of confetti across almost the entire line of the roof overlooking the main part of
campus. James was finishing the last bit on the far end, taping it just opposite of where Sirius was
standing. Sirius watched as James leaned as far as he could over the edge, then even further on
one leg. Finally he managed to slap the tape where he wanted to, securing the last edge of the
blanket. With a grin James hopped down from his precarious perch and strutted over to Sirius.

They slid down together, backs against the wide of the roof, and waited for three o'clock to roll
around. They still had another hour or so, but neither of them had been quite sure how long it
would take to lug the pillowcases and pillowcases worth of confetti they had been making in
secret all semester up the stairs to the roof of the main campus building, not to mention taping it all
up securely.

Wordlessly James dug into his uniform jacket pocket and dug out a lighter and two old, bent
cigarettes. He passed one onto Sirius, who fiddled with straightening it out until James lit his own
and dropped the lighter into Sirius' lap. They took a few good drags on their fags before Sirius
said anything.

“Any good plans for summer hols?” he asked.

James shrugged. “Family's going to France for a week. Mum thinks I need culture .” Sirius
laughed, knowing as well as James did that even if he might complain about his parents, he still
loved them to death. “You can come, you know,” he added.

They seemed like good folk, the Potters. They'd even extended an open invitation for Sirius to
come to theirs for any holiday, no notice necessary. Sirius would love to take them up on that, but
the thought of Remus waiting for him at home always made the decision for him. And what with
him not having seen Remus since that night, months and months ago, Sirius was eager to get back
home and try to figure out what night he could manage to sneak away without Kreacher following
him through the corridors or Walburga spotting him from her now constantly-open door.

“No thanks mate,” Sirius said. “Gotta get home. Besides: wouldn't want my competition for all
those French birds, right?”
James snorted even as his hand went subconsciously up to his hair to ruffle it. Sirius laughed
quietly and rolled his eyes. James seemed to think ruffling his hair made him look more dashing,
or some stupid such thing. Personally, Sirius thought it made him look like a twat. But he didn't
mention it: James got enough shit from him as it was.

“Yeah right. You wouldn't know what to do with a bird if she had hear mouth hanging open and
legs spread.”

Sirius shrugged, taking a drag on his cigarette in lieu of answering. Honestly, James was entirely
right in that. And James probably knew he was, too. But they didn't talk about that.

Their cigarettes were about half-finished when James spoke again. “You're going home to see
Remus, yeah?”

Sirius nodded, trying not to think how related that question was to James' previous jibe. “Yeah.”

“You haven't seen him since...”

Sirius shook his head, heartache only just dampened by the knowledge that he was going to see
Remus over summer holidays. He just had to. “No. Not since the once back in early spring. But
I'll see him this time. I've got loads of time to sneak away, and Walburga's even going on holiday
somewhere or other for a whole week . I'll at least get to see him then.”

James was oddly silent. Sirius thought maybe that wasn't a good sign. He thought of chancing a
glance over at James, just to try and get a measure of what he was thinking, but Sirius decided
against it and instead focused on smoking his fag. If James was going to ask him something, he'd
ask him. He wasn't like Remus, who didn't need to say anything for Sirius to completely
understand him.

“So. You and Remus.”

Calmly, Sirius stubbed out his cigarette on the concrete beneath him. He rolled the rest of the
tobacco out between his fingers, watching it drop to the floor. Then he rolled the filter out from
inside the paper, stripping both apart until there was nothing else. It was only then that he let a
little edge of panic rise up in his chest at the thought of what James was implying. James was a
smart bloke. He'd probably had his suspicions from ages ago. The fact that he was bringing it up
now... Sirius took a breath. James hadn't sounded mean. He hadn't sounded accusing. But that
panic inside Sirius' chest grew a bit more, and he wondered if he'd been wrong to think James
would be good enough to not hate him for it.

“What about?” Sirius growled. He turned to look at James, eyes narrowed and fists curling up,
ready for a fight. “Problem?”

James shook his head, flicking his own cigarette out in front of him. “No problem, one way or the
other. Doesn't make a difference to me. But we're mates. I wanted to know.”

Sirius took a breath, then another as he slowly unclenched his fists. He couldn't be positive that
James was telling the truth, but he could be pretty sure. James was a good bloke, and only ever
really went after guys who deserved it, like Snivellus and all his rotten friends. He might not react
too horribly.

“Not... not yet,” Sirius finally settled on. He picked at his fingers, nerves jangling. “We're just
mates. But. I'd. I think I'd... like.”

“Hey.” A comforting, solid hand pressed down on Sirius' shoulder. He glanced over to see James
smiling at him, if not totally ecstatic, at least genuinely. “It's okay. We're mates. Thought we talked
about everything? I mean, I've been yammering on about birds for the past four years, the least I
can do is return the favor and listen to you go all gaga over some bloke.”

James cracked a grin at that, and Sirius found he couldn't help but grin back. James' hand on his
shoulder squeezed once and then left, settling back in James' lap. He nodded encouragingly at
Sirius. “Well? We still got...” he glanced at his watch. “Twenty minutes before we throw the
greatest end-of-the-year party this school's ever seen. Spill.”

Sirius flushed, thinking about all the things he could say about Remus. He covered up his face,
grinning like a mad man as he thought about his smile, his hair, his eyes, the way they always
knew what the other one was thinking, how he was feeling, how brilliant their plans and games
were with each other. The way his lips felt against Sirius', the one time they had gotten close to a
real kiss, back before Sirius had even known what they were, but knew that whatever it was they
had just done it had been fantastic . How perfect Remus was at comforting Sirius, or not, when he
didn't want it. How smart and wise and kind Remus was. How he was the greatest thing to ever
shine a light in Sirius' brief, dark existence.

“I love him,” Sirius whispered from behind his hands. With a jolt, he heard what he just said. He
had never said the words aloud, never even let himself think them. But it was true. He loved
Remus. He loved him so much that every minute they spent apart was like he was the Earth
without the Moon: lost and chaotic, a swirl of uncontrolled tides and storms raging all over until he
just... was lost. Remus was everything to Sirius. He loved him.

“Fuck, mate,” James grumbled. He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. “I thought you were
just going to talk about... I dunno, how hot you think his arse is, or whatever poofs like.”

Sirius laughed, a fluttery, nervous little thing. He dropped his hands from his face and blinked
tears from his eyes at he grinned crookedly at James. “Well, now that you mention it...”

James laughed and punched Sirius hard in the arm. Sirius just snorted derisively, not rubbing his
arm even though it kind of did hurt.

“But, don't you... I mean, you're only fifteen. I'm only fifteen. D'you really think?”

There was nothing in the world Sirius had ever been more certain of, in fact. He hadn't thought the
words for so long, had let himself label what Remus meant to him, but now that he did, Sirius was
absolutely certain that he was right. He loved Remus. That was a more constant fact than the
speed of light, brighter and more solid in Sirius' mind than the sun in the sky above him. “Yes,”
Sirius replied, absolutely sure. “Yes. I know. I've known forever, I just... I couldn't say it. But I've
known him since I was seven , James. That's more than half my life! I've probably been in love
with him since the first time he kissed me when we were nine. I just didn't know what it meant.
But yeah. I love him.”

James' hands were twisting together, folding around in themselves as he considered this. Sirius let
him, waiting for James to figure out a response. It was weird, he knew. It was weird for him : it
had to be just as weird for James. He seemed like he might be getting stuck up on the “kissing at
nine” bit, but then he shrugged and settled on asking: “So you haven't told him? Does he know?”

Sirius' stomach did curious little flip-flops as he thought about telling Remus, about Remus
knowing . He'd already... kind of. He'd kissed Remus that last time they were together. He wasn't
sure exactly what he'd been thinking – no, wait, he did know. He had been thinking it might have
been the last time he'd get to see Remus, and he wanted to make sure he at least did something ,
told Remus in some small way about the piles and piles of emotions he brought up in Sirius.
He told James about the kiss, and James whistled in an appropriately impressed manner. “Well,”
he concluded, hand slapping down on Sirius' thigh, “it looks like all that's left to it is to propose,
get married, and have loads of tiny... uh. Well. I guess not sprogs. Dogs? Cats?”

Sirius laughed at James' ability to be such an utterly brilliant tosser. Throwing out and arm, he
tried to pull James into a noogie, only to be rebuffed as James wrestled back. They tousled on the
ground for a few minutes until James managed to get the upper hand, then lorded it over Sirius by
pounding his chest and laughing as he sat on top of Sirius. The only recourse Sirius had was to bat
futilely at James' thighs until he just lay back and accepted James' victory over him.

When three o'clock finally rolled around, it found the two boys standing on the ledge of the
building, both of them clutching the blanket on either end and counting down together. As the
courtyard below them flooded with students and teachers ready for a nice long summer holiday,
Sirius and James released the blankets, raining confetti down on the entire campus. They laughed
and slapped each other as they watched the students – and most of the teachers, as well – smiling
up at the sky and frolicking around in the spirit of the day.

With one hand slung over James' shoulder, Sirius watched the revelry going on below him and,
for once, felt like he was a part of it. He was going to go home to Remus, and he was going to tell
him that he loved him, and that he wanted them to be together. As James squeezed his side in
congratulations for a prank well done, Sirius smiled. This summer was going to be the best
holiday ever.
 Chapter 24
Chapter Summary

Remus waits.

Remus was writing notes in his journal, scribbling out a quick sketch and erasing it a moment
later. He didn't glance up at the smallest sounds around him. Not anymore. He'd spent too many
weeks doing that – so long and so often, he'd actually developed a crick in his neck. No, now he
just kept writing, and occasionally chewing on the end of the old ballpoint he was writing with. If
Sirius showed up, then Remus would know.

The journal was almost completely filled up at this point, but Remus had managed to stretch it out
longer by cutting out new pages and pasting them into the back. It didn't really close anymore, but
that was okay. So long as he didn't run out of pages in the journal Sirius gave him, that was fine.
He just... he needed to feel the smooth ivory under his palms, to be able to hold onto something
that Sirius had given him. Otherwise the gaping hole in his chest might become to big and he'd be
swallowed up inside.

Finishing the story he was writing, Remus set down the journal on the ground next to the bench.
He allowed himself to look now, even though he knew Sirius wouldn't be here. It was late
afternoon, almost twilight, really. Sirius wouldn't come now, he could only come in the middle of
the night, Remus knew. But Remus wouldn't be able to spend the night here, not tonight.
Tomorrow was the first day of sixth form, and he had to try and get a good night's sleep. He didn't
think he would, wondering if Sirius had managed to leave him a note on his last night before
leaving home again for his own sixth form. If Sirius was still even at his home. If Sirius was ever
coming back again.

Scrubbing his face with his hand, Remus lay back onto the bench and watched the sky as it
continued to darken, the light leaching out of it like Sirius' absence had managed to leach all the
brightness from Remus' own life. Lily, sweet girl that she was, had tried to help him this summer.
She had taken him on picnics and not-so-subtly mentioned some of her girlfriends who might
want to meet a sweet, bookish boy, if he only thought to show some interest. Remus had let her
drag him around, but that was as far as he let it go. It made him sick, anytime he thought about
trying to go on dates with girls. He knew other blokes his age were doing it, and it was to be
expected. But then again, Sirius had never shown an interest.

Of course, that was just the problem, wasn't it? Above his head, Remus watched as the stars
started to come out, one by one. From where he was lying he couldn't see the dog star. He didn't
move to try and see it. He'd made that mistake the first few holidays Sirius hadn't shown. It had
just made the hurt even worse. The stars reminded Remus of the time they had been lying on the
beach together, swapping mythologies and discussing the constellations above their heads. It made
Remus think about Sirius leaning over him, body so close, lips so close. The way Sirius was
looking at him... and there was the problem yet again. Remus had been so certain Sirius was going
to kiss him, and Remus would have let him, happily. At the time, it had felt like the most natural
thing in the world to do.

So natural, in fact, that Remus tried to make sure they did it, as often as possible. He was the one
who first pressed air kisses to the sides of Sirius' head when he rescued him from the evil witch. It
was Remus who first pressed an actual kiss to Sirius' cheek when he saved him from the evil alien.
For a moment afterward, Remus had thought he had gone too far. He'd thought that Sirius was
going to hit him, to call him all sorts of terrible names like the estate boys used to and never, ever
want to see him again. But then Sirius' face had lit up and he encouraged it, he asked Remus to do
it again. So Remus had thought it'd be all right.

It had all been going great. Sirius kept playing games with Remus where one or both of them had
to give kisses at the end, and Remus was happy to play so long as he didn't always play the girl.
They'd even almost had a real kiss, that one time – a kiss like he saw his cousin Lauren having in
the back of the shop one day. Really, it was a snog . And Remus had thought they'd be doing that
from now on, and that'd be even better. But Sirius had withdrawn a little bit, and Remus hadn't
pushed it. He was so afraid of pushing Sirius just a little to fast, a little too far, that he always made
sure to pull back and accept his decisions. Which, of course, had led to no more kissing at all.

Orion was visible in the sky above him, just barely managing peer up over the wall. Remus knew
he'd have to stand up and maybe even walk around to see the dog star. He stayed lying on his
back, tracing the constellations in his mind. When Sirius had said he didn't think they should play
as girls anymore, Remus' heart had broken, just a little bit. Sirius must have figured it out, thanks
to James or some of the other boys at that boarding school he went to: boys didn't play kissing
games with other boys. Remus had thought they'd be able to go on forever like that. Too bad
Sirius had to stumble across sense on his own.

But then... Absently, Remus brought his hand up to his mouth, fingertips touching at the corner of
it. Sirius had kissed him. Sirius – not Siria – had kissed him – not Remusa. The last time Remus
had saw him, Sirius had dragged him in, smooth fingers stroking along Remus', body strong and
firm against Remus' own more bony frame. And he'd kissed him, just for a second , but it was real
and there and they were both themselves . Remus had thought Sirius had finally, finally realized
what Remus had when he was twelve and started having wet dreams about Sirius: that they could
be together, that they could kiss and snog and do other things as just themselves, and it would be
okay.

But then Sirius had walked away. And Remus hadn't seen him since.

Dropping his hand from his mouth, Remus drummed his chest absently. It still hurt , not having
Sirius here with him. He knew it was going to be difficult for Sirius to get away during the various
term holidays, for sure. It was why Remus kept trying to convince Sirius to stay at school for those
holiday breaks: there was too much risk involved, and Sirius had to suffer himself to Walburga
during times when he could have been free of her. Remus had always hated the thought that he
was responsible for any extra suffering Sirius had to endure over those holidays.

Remus had explained the situation to Lily, to a certain degree. He had needed someone to talk to,
someone to listen to his brain going through its paces and help him see any missteps. It used to be
that person was Sirius, but obviously that wasn't an option in this case. So he'd told Lily that his
penpal friend had stopped writing him, and that all of his letters went unanswered. At first, Lily
had suggested things that Remus had already thought of: he moved away, his mum wasn't letting
him write anymore (both possibilities, what with Walburga's recent realization of something going
on in Sirius' life she wasn't completely in control of).

But after two more term breaks without having heard from Sirius, Remus decided to explain a
little more to Lily. He told her about how they used to write kissing stories casting each other
when they were little, and how Remus was somewhat interested in continuing with that sort of
behavior. About how Sirius had left it, ending his letter with kisses even though there'd been no
story, neither of them had been playing girls. Lily had – after getting over how adorable she
thought the whole thing was – disagreed with Remus' fears that maybe Sirius was having some
sort of sexuality crises. As she had put it:

“You two had started having problems with 'Padfoots'' mum, right? So he knew he might not be
able to write you again, and he needed you to know how he felt about you. It was his deathbed
confession – oh, poor choice of words, sorry. But that was him telling you exactly how he really
felt. He wanted to make sure you knew. In case he never got to write you again.”

Remus' chest had just hurt more at that. Knowing – according to Lily – that Sirius wanted him
back, that he was willing to give it a go with them as boys in a real, adult, dating thing , just made
the loss of him all that much more tragic. Remus rubbed his hand to his chest again. He just
wished it'd stop hurting all the time.

It was full-on night by now. Not a touch of grey in the sky, the crickets chirping like they were a
warning system of some sort: all anxious and fast, like only summer crickets sounded. Sighing to
himself, Remus forced himself to sit up. He wouldn't be making a bed out of their bench like he
had so many nights this past summer. Tomorrow was the first day of sixth form, and he had to
sleep in his own bed for that. But he did have one way of communicating to Sirius, just on the off-
chance that the other boy managed to sneak away before he started term again.

Tearing a page he'd pre-written in his notebook, Remus bent down and taped it on the underside
of the bench, just next to the carving they had discovered years ago. Gently Remus traced his
fingers over the two names signed at the bottom of the carving. He'd known they were lovers,
back then. He'd thought maybe Sirius had figured it out, too, from the way he looked cautiously
between the carving and Remus himself. Sirius had looked like he was trying to fit things together,
to force two puzzle pieces into place even though they weren't quite right. But Remus had known
from moment one. Those two that had made the carving however many millennia about it was
here lovers, and they'd been the same as Remus and Sirius. Maybe they weren't both boys –
maybe they were even both girls! – but they were two people meant to be together, that had to
have a little help courtesy this World, whatever it was.

Except now the World wasn't enough to bring Sirius and Remus together. Walburga had
somehow managed to defeat even its ancient magic.

Remus pressed a tearful kiss to the paper before taping its other side down. Then he straightened,
brushed the dirt off his knees, and started back for his own door. If Sirius came back, he'd find the
note – Remus was sure of it. And if he didn't... Remus would still be here. He'd always be here,
waiting for Sirius to get back.

Sirius,

I'm still waiting for you. I'll spend the night here the first and penultimate day of every holiday:
half-term, term break, winter, summer, &c. I'll always spend the night those days, waiting for you,
so I'll be there in the morning the second and last days, too. Come then, if you get this. If you can.
I'll be waiting for you.

Love,

Remus
 Chapter 25

Sirius,

I wonder if you ever saw the leaves changing color in our World. They're doing it now, for me,
but if you saw cypress and umbrella trees where I see oaks and maple, maybe you never saw the
autumn colors here with me. The woods don't count – the woods are off limits.

It's autumn half-term right now. Just to let you know. Last day of it. I have to back in just a couple
hours, but I'll be back when Michaelmas term is over, and again at Christmas hols. First and
penultimate days, as usual. I've been cheating and spending a whole two days here, instead of just
one day and one morning. I just can't stand the thought that I might miss you.

Mum and Dad probably thinking I shagging Lily when I spend the nights. It's kind of horrible how
far off they are – and how much hope I can tell they have for me and Lily. I think Mum figured me
out ages out, and now she's just hoping she's wrong. Dad probably sussed it out, too, just won't
admit it until I do. I don't think they'd be too bad about it, really. Better than most, for sure. I just
don't much feel like thinking about it without you around. Don't feel like doing much of anything
without you around.

This is too long. Sorry. You won't even read it, but.

Too long. I'll see you,

Love,

Remus

Leaning back on his heels, Remus dusted his hands off on his trousers, wiping away the dirt from
the underside of the bench where he had taped his new letter. After a moment's contemplation he
pushed himself up, surveying their World with a tired eye. It all looked so nice, oranges and reds
and yellows lighting up the trees around him, fallen leaves caught between the mossy, dark stones
stacked tight together. Remus hunched his shoulders. The cool fall breeze just felt cold now, not
spicy, not exciting.

“It was my birthday two days ago,” Remus announced to the empty air. He sighed, scrubbing a
hand through tawny, messy locks as he lowered himself down to their bench. He left the seat next
to him, on his right, carefully empty.

“Lily decided to throw me a little bash – I know, I know, but you know it's not like that between
her and me, Sirius.” Remus grinned. Sometimes he would mention Lily on purpose, just to see
how Sirius had acted. It had always made him smile inside, to see Sirius' face darken and jealousy
rear its head. Remus had been worried about James, when Sirius first started talking about his best
mate. It was before he even really knew why he was jealous, or really, that the sad, angry, mixed-
up thing he was feeling was jealousy at all. He had figured it out soon enough – an assuaged his
fears just as quickly. Even if Sirius didn't quite know it himself, Remus knew Sirius didn't like
James the same way he liked Remus.

The breeze picked up again, harsher this time. Time to go, very soon. Remus just wanted to take a
little bit more time, wait a little bit longer for Sirius. Just in case. To miss him by an hour and then
find out months later that if he had just waited a little bit longer he could have quelled his restless,
frightened uncertainty would be too heartbreaking. “It was a small thing, you could guess. Lily
invited her girlfriends, and some of the blokes from class who don't pay me any mind.”
Some of the blokes. More like three. There were three blokes in class who didn't pick on Remus:
Peter, because he was almost more pathetic than Remus, and the Prewett twins, who were one of
Lily's girlfriend's big brothers. Gideon and Fabian were nice blokes, for sure – and kind of
handsome, though Remus' tastes tended to go more for dark-haired than ginger – but they
wouldn't have ever bothered themselves with looking out for Remus if it weren't for Molly
haranguing them into it.

That left everyone else. All the other estate boys who were determined to make Remus' life as
harsh and cruel as they could. Remus had thought maybe, just maybe, the teasing and bullying
would have eased up a bit in the last few years of secondary school. But no: a bit of maturity
would be too much to ask from the other boys. In fact-

“-they've gotten worse recently, if you could believe that,” Remus told the absent Sirius. “Dunno
what exactly it is.” That was a lie, or at least not the whole truth. Remus wasn't sure exactly what
it was that caused the boys to tease him even more recently, but he had it narrowed down to one
or two likely reasons. “And like Holmes said,” Remus mumbled, “once you eliminate the
impossible...” He rubbed his fingertips together, squinting up at the ruins bathed in an ever-duskier
light.

“Two choices, alright? You tell me which one you think it is.” His heart tightened in his chest as
Remus imagined shaking on it with Sirius. Their special handshake. “One: they know they're not
going to be able to tease me for long and are getting it all in now.” Remus paused, imaging Sirius
snorting and saying something back-handedly complimentary, like “They just know they're stuck
on an estate their whole lives ahead of them, and you're getting out in two years, to be all brainiac
at uni.” Remus sucked in a breath. They were supposed to be flatmates at uni.

“Two,” Remus breathed out, before he could think more on that almost certainly lost opportunity.
“They've figured out what I am.”

Silence filled the air. The breeze rustled through the trees, whistling through the ruins, scattering
dust and dirt and pressing its fingers through the moss-covered rocks that were too heavy for it to
move. Now Sirius would say something like “And what's that, Remus? Totally brilliant? Too
smart to waste his time on those tossers?” or maybe even “One gorgeous hunk of man?” Remus
choked on his own tongue, something half-sob, half-laugh escaping his throat.

The breeze fell silent, the ruins stilled, as Remus let the silence drag out. “You know,” he finally
spoke into the quiet, “I'm surprised they never figured it out earlier. Or maybe they did, but in the
back of their minds. Like they could... they could smell it on me.” Smell you on me, Remus'
traitorous brain hissed at him. But of course it wasn't Sirius' fault. Remus would never blame
Sirius for how he went wrong. He was probably gone wrong before he even met Sirius.

Then again, Sirius wasn't wrong, but Remus was sure – maybe, mostly – that Sirius was the same
as him. So then. He couldn't think of himself as wrong if he didn't think of Sirius as such. That's
what Sirius would insist, anyway.

“I think they figured out what poofs were the last couple years, and decided that I was one. So
now they've got a good reason to hate me.”

“No good reason!” Remus' mental Sirius shouted at him.

“They've got a concrete reason for picking on me,” Remus corrected himself, though it was for
Sirius' benefit, not for his own.

“I bet you wouldn't let the boys bother you,” Remus whispered.
The light was dimmer now, purple and dark blue and grey instead of the brilliant oranges and
yellows. Dusk was falling, like a gauzy veil over Remus' vision. Everything around him was
sharper, but not: clearer but harder to get a real focus on. He loved their World like this. So many
of Remus and Sirius' partings had taken place at this hour, complete with husband-and-wife kisses
and terms of endearment and promises to come back home soon, that Remus couldn't help but feel
warm and happy when this light settled over the world.

Something sharp twisted in Remus' chest as he thought about Sirius, bravely swooping in to save
Remus from all the mean boys. Taunts of “gay arse”, “poofter”, “queer”, and “nancy boy” would
fall on deaf ears as Sirius scooped Remus up, said something horribly wicked back at the boys,
and carried him off.

When they were very, very young, Remus used to imagine this a lot. Then, as Remus got to know
Sirius and he let slip some of the horrors of his home life – because Remus always knew it was an
accident, when Sirius mentioned Walburga and her cruelty; he never wanted Remus to really
know the extent of the evils that took place behind his door – Remus' fantasies reversed
themselves. No longer was Sirius coming in to scare off the mean boys and save Remus from
them; no, as he got older, Remus was the one performing the heroics, dragging Sirius and a little
rucksack away from the horrible witch that resided just behind his door. But now... Now Remus
just wanted Sirius to come back and comfort him, even if Sirius didn't know he was doing so.

Remus paused, tugging the tweed jacket his dad had passed down to him tighter around his chest.
A wind had picked up – not a storm, more a gentle reminder that it was getting late, the sunlight
was lengthening. It was definitely fall by now, and the hour was almost late enough that he should
pack up his stuff and head home, again. Almost time to say goodbye to the World for another half-
term; almost time to start praying that Sirius would find his way back to Remus next time.

Or, and this was the unselfish prayer Remus sent up, even though it hurt him so much: or pray that
Sirius had found a way out, a way out from Walburga permanently, and had taken it without a
second's thought. That wasn't the prayer Remus wanted to send up, but he knew it was the one he
should.

“It's easier talking to you now, you know,” Remus said after a pause. His mouth twisted into a
wry smile. “Not that it was ever hard talking to you. You were the easiest person to talk to ever,
really. In my whole world. But with you... I'd rather you talk. You seemed to have it so much
worse than me, with your mum. At least I had my parents, and they've always loved me.”

The wind picked up, carrying Remus' words away: “I would have loved you. I did love you. I do
love you.” His tears were swept away in the wind to follow.

It was too late by the time Remus left, taping his note in place the same as always. The stars were
starting to come out. The dog star was still too low in the sky to see.
 Chapter 26
Chapter Summary

Remus tells the story of how he found the World.

The cheerily-wrapped present looked almost depressing in the dim light of dawn Christmas
morning. Remus looked at the bow atop it, fluttering sadly in the little bit of breeze that made its
way through the ruins and down to their bench. Gently Remus tugged the ribbon to the right,
straightening it out. It listed back to the left a moment later. Remus sighed.

“Happy Christmas,” Remus grumbled, wrapping his father's big wool coat around him. “I'm sure
you're hating it, as usual.” Over the years, Remus had been fascinated listening to Sirius'
nightmare-versions of holidays, as they were in his household. Desserts that weren't sweet or hot,
but instead filled with fruit and bland-tasting. Relatives you were barely related to saying mean
things to you and giving you presents that you would hate because you would hate them.
Dressing up in stiff, ugly clothes and being trotted out like some sort of trophy. Having to watch
every little sound that came out of his mouth, else fearing the wrath of Walburga. Sometimes
Sirius' household sounded like opposite-land to a young, naïve Remus.

It hurt Remus that he couldn't powder just a little bit of cheer onto Sirius' Christmas this year, like
confectioner's sugar Mum would sprinkle on top of dessert pasties for the shop costumers. At that
thought, Remus' stomach growled, reminding him he didn't have much time to spend here. He
really shouldn't have come today – it wasn't the first or penultimate day of hols, and his family
would be wondering where he was off to.

“I've got a story for you,” Remus announced to the crisp air. “So listen up, because I'm only going
to tell it once before I head inside.” The weather might have always been a small bit milder in their
World – or at least less depressingly rainy all the time – but it was still the middle of December.

“My family and I, we live above the shop, yeah?” Remus felt the need to remind Sirius of this,
even though Sirius never seemed to forget even the smallest detail Remus let slip about his life. He
liked to imagine that was because Sirius was storing up all the little facts and differences, just like
Remus did with his. “And I told you, the very first time we met, that I was hiding from shop noise
and costumers and such, yeah?”

Remus grinned as he crossed his arms over his chest. “I lied,” he stage-whispered. He imagined
Sirius would act very shocked, but not be shocked at all. Thick-headed as Sirius could be when it
came to the two of them, he wasn't stupid. He had put together Remus' troubles with the other
boys by the end, for sure.

“I was hiding from some boys from the estate right near us. We'd just moved down south a bit,
and it seemed like everything I did made me stand out. My accent was too northern,” briefly
Remus let his original accent come on heavy, like it only did when he spent hols with the family
that stayed up north: “It's just a wee bit o'brouge.” A smile tugged at Remus' lips, feeling his lips
curl around the vowels like they were supposed to. “My accent was too northern, my clothes were
home-made instead of store-bought, and I lived where my dad worked, instead of on the estate.”

Stooping, Remus adjusted the bow again. Again, it listed to the side. Remus glared at it as he
wrapped his arms back tight around his torso. “Dunno if they could have known about me, about
wrapped his arms back tight around his torso. “Dunno if they could have known about me, about
real me, all the way back then. They probably just thought I was bookish, which,” Remus
chuckled, “Yeah, I know: surprise, I was a nerd. Shocker.”

“Anyway, I was running from them. They'd caught me out, over by the fountain in the center of
the estate. I was reading,” Remus shook his head, “still remember what I was reading, how weird
is that? Well, I was reading Secret Garden. I had finished all Narnia ages before, and tried to find
any book with secret worlds and hiding places and... Just any books where the kids escaped:
anything, anyhow. Secret Garden was way different, 'course, but dunno, it felt the same to me.
Kind of how Scanner Darkly gives me that same creepy-crawly feeling that lots of Poe's stuff
does, like Tell-Tale Heart, even though it's totally different.”

Crouching down, Remus tugged at a loose stone in the ground, straightening when it finally
pulled away from the hard earth and rested in his hand. It was ovular, smooth, a good skipping
stone if it had been a quarter its size. He wonders how that action would have looked to Sirius,
who saw the floor beneath their feet as blocks of perfectly rectangular, smooth marble. Would it
have been a broken corner of the piece to him? Or maybe just a random stone that got stuck in a
place where a marble block had gone missing? They had spent so much of what little time they
had left together afraid of the knowledge that their World looked different to them, that they hadn't
bothered to explore the physics and rules of it, like they had with their Doors keeping each other
out.

“They had started by throwing rocks at me,” Remus mused, turning the stone over and over in his
hand, brushing away the dirt that clung to it with near-numb fingers. He needed to leave soon.
“Not rocks,” Remus corrected himself, “No reason to be histrionic. Pebbles. They were tossing
pebbles at me, trying to get a rise. It started to hurt, so I tried to get them to stop, but they
wouldn't.” Remus cringed at how pathetic he had been: asking the other boys to stop, then
running when they just laughed and taunted him more. Then again, the other boys hadn't been
showing their best side that day, either.

“So I ran. I ran to Dad's shop, but since it's a shop, they could come in.” He paused, wondering
about his decisions that day. Not for the first time, he thought that maybe the World had called to
him. “I don't know why I didn't run upstairs, to my room,” he murmured. “They couldn't have
followed me up there. Maybe I had been thinking about how they made fun of our house being
the same as the shop, and I didn't want to prove them right, even if they already knew.” Or maybe
it had been the World. After all, he and Sirius had discovered it on the same day, within the same
hour. Remus wouldn't have been surprised if he ever discovered he and Sirius had opened their
Doors and stepped into the world at the exact same second, perfectly in sync with each other. It
just seemed to fit the logic of the place.

“That door had never been there before. I'd never seen it. And yet: there it was. I didn't think it
was odd. Heck, I didn't even think about Narnia or anything until after. It just seemed like a safe
place to go. I knew it was a safe place to go. So I went.” Quiet and small and hidden: that was
what Remus had learned to be; that was what Remus had learned was safe. “I was never loud,
never extroverted or brave like my dad. Or like you,” Remus smiled at the present on the bench,
as if Sirius was sitting there with it in his lap. “But I was even quieter after the boys started on me.
I figured out fast to be as quiet, small, unnoticeable as possible.”

That stupid bow still wasn't staying in place. Remus considered ripping it off entirely, then
decided to leave it. Couldn't leave Sirius a present without a bow.

“So when you noticed me...” Remus shuddered, but it was with a smile on his face. He shuddered
remembering how it had been for him before Sirius. He had been so used to attention from other
boys being bad, being painful, that the moment Sirius had tossed that rock over the wall and
knocked Remus on the head, Remus had felt an overwhelming sensation of dread. “Here was just
another place, I thought,” Remus said aloud. “Another place for me to get tossed to the ground,
for the other boys to dirty me up. I thought, just maybe, that if I acted tough right from the get-go,
maybe you'd be the one afraid.”

Remus had climbed up the pile of rubble to try and see through the hole in the wall, to try and
seem bigger and more intimidating than whatever boys were waiting for him on the other side of
that wall. Only it wasn't a bunch of boys: it was just one. And that one boy hadn't waited: he'd
been right there with Remus, peering through the hole just the same.

“That's why I didn't think you were one of those boys,” Remus mused. He shook his head,
smiling ruefully. “I mean, dunno if I knew it at the time. I didn't really have a lot figured out back
then.” Like why the boys picked on him, why he seemed to attract bullies like a magnet. It had
taken Remus quite a few years to figure that one out – though it seemed he still figured that out
long before Sirius. Remus smirked. Sirius could be right dense at times, when it came to certain
things. It was one of his more endearing qualities (not that everything about Sirius wasn't
endearing, thanks to Remus' love-tinted glasses).

“It was something instinctual,” Remus continued, thinking back on that top-five best day of his
life, that day when he first met Sirius. “You had climbed up the stones just like me, to peer
through the hole just as I was. You were trying to look bigger than you were, but keeping a solid
stone wall between yourself and the potential threat. Your eyes...” the smile fell from Remus' face.
“It took me ages to figure that out. But then again, I don't you ever figured it out yourself. I trusted
you because your eyes were just as mine. You had a lifetime of making yourself small, of hiding,
of wanting to fight back but being too tiny and scared, and being utterly helpless to change
anything about your situation, behind those eyes. They were a different color, a different shape,
but in them was the same thing that was in mine.

“You noticed me, but I really noticed you, noticed that... dunno, 'kindred spirit' for lack of a less
soppy word,” Remus grumbled at himself. “And then you came back. You kept your promise and
came back the next day.” Tears heated Remus' eyes, grief tingeing the fond memories. “You
knew how important that was, or I guess it was important to you that I came back. But, oh.
Sirius.” Remus sat his head in his hands, heels of his palms pressing into his eyes. It was getting
late in the morning. He had to go. Sirius wasn't coming, and Remus needed to get back to his
family, and Christmas.

Without lifting his head from his hands or opening his eyes, Remus whispered: “You were always
so afraid I wasn't going to come back. That I didn't need you as much as you needed me.” Remus
breathed hard. “ Sirius ,” he whimpered. “I needed- So much more , you never knew, never could
have understood...”

A wind picked up out of nowhere, blowing up Remus' coat and sending a chill through his whole
body. Without another word he turned sharply away from the bench and hurried down the street
to his door. He didn't look back at the present, with its stupid little wonky bow.
 Chapter 27
Chapter Summary

Remus remembers wet dreams and stargazing.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

“So my folks has figured out Lily wasn't my bird, and was never likely to be,” Remus started with
today. He laughed, trying to picture Sirius' reaction. Would he get it, what Remus meant? But
yeah, of course he would. Sirius always understood what Remus meant. Then would he happy,
laughing with Remus and clasping him on the back (or maybe a more intimate gesture of
happiness...)? Or would he be scared, shocked, worried for Remus and his parents' reaction?
Certainly Sirius' parents would never be as accepting as Remus' parents had been, so Sirius'
default reaction, just because of his own experiences, might be to reach out and grab Remus, pull
him close, grey eyes wide and scared for Remus' safety.

Truth be told, he was also still a little light-headed from how well the conversation had gone. One
day after he had walked Lily home (even though Lily insisted it should be her walking Remus
home, since she seemed to protect him more often than vice versa), he had stepped into the kitchen
for a snack to discover his mum sitting at the table, waiting for him.

“Mum? Something wrong?”

Remus' mum sighed, adjusting her blouse delicately. “Remus, dear, I think we need to have a
talk. About Lily.”

Remus laughed and shook his head. “Mum, I already told you-”

“She's not your girlfriend,” his mum finished for him. She smiled, just a little sadly, before saying:
“Yes, dear. We know. And I think... Your father and I love you. No matter what. This Lily girl:
she's not ever going to be your girlfriend, is she?”

Oh. Remus' first, childish instinct was to run and hide, to make himself as small and quiet as
possible until his mum stopped looking at him with those sad, knowing eyes. It was the boys all
over again, the boys who'd figured out long ago there was something wrong with Remus, who'd
figured out he was never going to be a man like they would be one day.

But then Remus remembered that this was his mum, not those boys. And he thought about his
Sirius, kissing him just once before he left that cold winter night. For just a minute, Remus could
imagine Sirius was in the room with him, holding his hand. It gave Remus the strength not to
hide, not to make himself small and stay quiet.

“Yeah, Mum.” Remus' voice was quiet, but he managed to keep it steady as he got the words out.
“Birds aren't the sort for me.”

The was a long pause as Mum stared down at the table top, fingerpads lightly tracing over the
whorls in the old wood. Finally she pressed down with her whole hand, spreading her fingers
wide and wider until her palm rested flat on the table. Then she looked up and smiled tightly.
“Alright then,” she said. “We just wanted to be sure.”

Remus nodded, a hundred questions flitting through his mind that he was too scared to ask. His
father knew, too? Would he be okay with it? Was his mum proper fine with it, or would resentment
and anger fester without being talked about, the good old English way? But, no. Remus knew his
mum better than that. She meant it when she said she still loved him, no matter what. And his
dad... if his dad hadn't come around, his mum would make him. But he might be fine with it.
Eventually. He wasn't chucking him to the curb, at least, even if he wasn't present for what was
obviously a planned conversation.

Everything might be okay.

Remus puffed out a breath and tilted his head back, gazing up at the blossoming canopy of
flowers above his head. He laughed, head bent back like that, eyes closed against the warm light
of spring. “I can't believe they're not bothered. Well, they're bothered, but not bothered-bothered.
Not enough to chuck me out or try and fix me.”

Slowly Remus let his head tilt forward as he thought about where Sirius might be: if he was stuck
under Walburga's sharp thumb for the more than another year before he turned eighteen, or if he
had managed to escape somehow, run away, and that's why he hadn't returned.

Remus wondered if Sirius had been forced to endure such a conversation with his parents. It
couldn't have gone as well as Remus'. It had to have gone about the worst it could go.

“I hope you're safe,” Remus murmured. Light mood dampened somewhat, Remus dropped
himself heavily on their bench. “I hope Walburga never found out. And if she did, I hope you got
away.”

After a pause, Remus laughed to himself.

“Because you are, you totally are, I really hope you figured it out by now, you thick-headed
muppet,” Remus teased. Sirius had never exactly indicated to Remus that he knew he was gay,
though in Remus' mind there was little doubt that they both were. That kiss... That last kiss, just
before Sirius had gone forever: that seemed to indicate that Sirius knew what he was, who he
wanted. But Remus could never be sure with Sirius.

“You know, when you asked me about wet dreams when we were twelve, I thought you'd figured
it out,” Remus told the empty air. His hands were clasped loosely in front of him as he stared at
the ruins straight ahead, pointedly not looking at the empty seat next to him. “I thought you had it
sussed, like I did. But you didn't seem to. First time...” Even though he was talking to thin air,
Remus still felt his face heat up in embarrassment. Still, if he couldn't talk about it now, when
could he talk about it?

Taking a breath, Remus plowed ahead. “The first time I woke up, 'jams all wet and head feeling
funny, I remembered the dream. It was about you. Kind of. You were older, and I was older, too.”
A pink blossom floated to settle between the smooth stones in front of him. “You were on top of
me. Warm and... wet.” Leaning forward, Remus plucked the blossom from the stone and cradled
it gently in his fingertips. “I think I was attracted to you before that. I mean, I know I was, I just
don't know if I knew that I knew...” Remus trailed off, mouth twisting wryly at his own silliness.
“You know what I mean,” he finished.

“I thought you were going to tell me then. That you were a... you know.” Remus peeled a single
segment of the blossom apart. “I would have told you if you had told me. That's what I thought
what was happening: you were going to tell me you were... like that, and I would tell you I was
the same, and then-”
Remus stopped, remembering back to that day. His heart had been going a hundred different ways
and a thousand beats a minute. He had been scared, and happy, and excited, and oh-so
tremblingly nervous. If he was honest with himself, when he had finally figured out that Sirius
wasn't admitting his sexual leanings, just that some things had started to stir, the main thing Remus
had felt was relieved . “We probably weren't ready for it,” Remus conceded. “We were so little,
we had such a muddy idea of what was going on, that we would have just bollocksed it up, given
half a chance.” He peeled another segment from the blossom and let it drift to the ground. “It was
better that you hadn't sorted it out for yourself, then.”

The rational part of Remus knew that he was right, that his assessment of his and Sirius' maturity
at the time was spot-on. But another part of Remus, the part of him that had been hopelessly in
love with Sirius since they were eight years old, had wished something had happened that day.
Would fantasize about how things might be different if Sirius had realized what – or rather, who –
he had been dreaming about. Remus had daydreamed many times, bored in class or hiding out on
the school roof while the other boys ran about after school, looking for things to hit, about what
could have happened that day.

Maybe Sirius would have asked Remus if he was interested in blokes. Or Sirius would have come
up with some kind of cautious excuse, like that all their games had gotten his brain muddled as to
who he was supposed to kiss. In his more daring fantasies, Remus would be the one to initiate, to
tell Sirius about how he had the same dreams, except about blokes. Then he'd wait, breathless, as
Sirius' eyes would widen and he'd come to the realization or admit the same in a rush.

And then shy kisses would happen as their fishing poles lay abandoned in the sand. And maybe
the kisses would grow a bit more bold, and use tongues. Then the two of them would lay around
all day in the sand, kissing and kissing and kissing until their lips hurt too much and they had to be
content to cuddle into each other, warm skin pressing together in little exposed patches on their
necks, wrists, and ankles.

Remus flushed. He had fantasized about much more than that in recent years, but back when he
was twelve those daydreams had seemed both the height of scandalous and the most sure, safe
things in the world.

The fantasies had started even before then, before he even knew what fantasies were. “Do you
remember the night we went stargazing together?” Remus asked. “You showed me your star and
quoted the Iliad at me.” Remus smiled, changing subjects for just a moment: “Non-sequitur, but do
you know how impressive that was, every time you did it? Just speaking a dead language like it
was your mother tongue?” Remus sighed wistfully. “I was so jealous of you – not even jealous,
just in awe . I wanted to have that sort of education so badly, and you took it for granted. Not that
I ever thought you didn't deserve good things, because you do, Sirius: you deserve all the best
things for what your family has put you through. It was just... It was brilliant.”

Taking a breath, Remus whispered: “Te quoque, Amyclide, posuisset in aethere Phoebus, / tristia
si spatium ponendi fata dedissent. / qua licet, aeternus tamen es, quotiensque repellit / ver
hiemem, Piscique Aries succedit aquoso, / tu totiens oreris viridique in caespite flores.” Remus'
fingers picked once more at the blossom, dropping the ripped off piece to the ground. He began
smoothing at the remaining bit of blossom between his fingertips. “Last year I found a book of
Greek myths shunted away in the back of the library. I cried when I read this one,” he admitted
quietly. “I don't think you knew they were lovers at the time. I don't think you know about such
things. But you still picked it, you still recognized something of us in there, and that-”

Why did so much of what Sirius did have to hurt so unwittingly? Carefully Remus placed the
blossom in the center of his palm and flattened it down with his other. He held his hands there as
he continued to speak. “When we were stargazing, I thought maybe you were going to kiss me. I
 think it was the first time it occurred to me. But it wasn't some grand, sweeping realization. It was
just what felt natural to do: just lift up and kiss you. We'd be hidden away from the rest of the
world by the silky, flowing walls your hair made hanging down, brushing against my cheek...”
Remus laughed, shaking his head ruefully. “You must thing I'm the biggest sap in the world, don't
you? Well, I learned from the best.”

Stretching his head back, Remus let his neck roll around, hands still pressing the blossom firmly
flat between them. Finally he stood, sighing a little at the sky. “I've got to go,” he mumbled.
Turning to the bench, he took the blossom carefully from between his fingers. He had managed to
carve it into a pink, five-pointed star. He set it down on the bench – his side, not Sirius' – and
placed a flat pebble over it. He looked to Sirius' side of the bench, shoving his hands in his
pockets as he did. “I won't be back until summer. Family trip next holiday. But I'll be sure to
spend as much time here as I can, over the summer.”

He frowned. It was his last sure summer here. Next summer, there would be planning for uni, and
flat hunting, and moving. He head no idea how much time he'd be able to set aside for childish
indulgences like this.

“Reading in here is no different from reading in the shop – better, even, since I can get some fresh
air here.”

Forcing a smile on his face, Remus nodded at the bench. “Okay. Right. Well. Be back in a few
months.”

Hesitating as he turned, Remus looked back at their bench. Quickly, Remus pressed his fingers to
his lips, then the fingers to the bench. He smiled, eyes just a touch watery. “Love. I'll be back.
This summer.” With that, Remus hurried back to his Door before he could change his mind.

Chapter End Notes

Looking to get 2 chapters up today, but things are a bit hectic, and I don't have the
next chapter edited yet. Tomorrow's even worse, of course, so I'll see what I can do
~.^

We're closing in on the end to Remus!angst, btw! Just... 5 more? Oh gosh, a whole
FIVE more of these? Sorry guys, haha.
 Chapter 28
Chapter Summary

Remus sits on a roof for some quiet, Lily finds him anyway.

Chapter Notes

SHIT, GUYS. I fucked up!!! I cheated you out of Chapter 25!!!

I'm sorry, GAH. I somehow fucked up my chapter numbering the word doc and
skipped over chapter 25 when posting. So go back! There's a new chapter 25!! DX

So sorry, guys! But hey: you get 3 chapters today, as soon as I get my shit together
and post the next chapter. So yay?

Sorry sorry sorry!!!!!!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

The worlds we create as children are just as real as our World was, with just as many seemingly
arbitrary customs and laws. The estate boys were a defined set, rigid in their membership. If you
didn't live on the estate, you were different, and bad. It didn't matter if you didn't live on the estate
because you were too posh for that or because you too poor for it. One side of the spectrum or the
other, better or worse, it was all worse. Because it was different.

Of course, once your differences compounded, then you were in trouble. To have one difference
just makes you a part of a group of outcasts. If you weren't an estate boy, then you were a boy
who wasn't one. There was a group for you. But then have something that set you apart from that
group, and you'd have to find another one. And another. Until you had enough compounded
differences that you were alone. All alone.

That's when you had to learn several things. For one, you had to learn how to stay small. Small,
and quiet as houses. Something I didn't learn was it wasn't enough to stay quiet. Quiet, small, out
of the way: that was just enough to get you noticed, really. You couldn't just stay out of everyone
else's way: you had to get people to want to stay out of yours. I didn't have that ability as a child. I
don't have that ability now, if I'm being honest with myself.

The other thing you need to learn when you're all alone is how to make your own friends. And I
don't mean leaning how to be sociable. I mean making your own worlds, designing rules and
games to play, geographies, cities and languages. Maybe I played wrong – I could never really
know, since the very reason I was creating my own world was the reason I couldn't play with the
other children and find out the way they played. But it worked for me. It might have been wrong,
might have been too elaborate and rule-based. But at least one person thought it was right. At
least one person played right.

That was probably the first thing that made me fall in love with him.
“Hiding away again?”

Quickly – but not too quickly as to draw attention to it – Remus closed his ivory-covered
notebook and slid his ballpoint in the spine. Lily's pink lips quirked at the movement, but she
didn't comment on it. Not right away, at least.

As Lily swept her skirts under her and sat down, Remus smiled down at his notebook. “Trying to
find some peace and quiet,” he teased. “Never going to get that where you and your girls are.”

Dismissively Lily flicked her long red hair over her shoulder, tutting at Remus. “Me and the girls
are the only thing between you and the Carrow and Dolohov boys.”

Remus' mouth turned down in a frown, not liking to be reminded that Lily was his protector out
her in this world. Not only was it a blow to his masculinity – though Lily would probably punch
him in the arm if he ever said as much out loud – but it was so different from how he had dreamed
of being protected as a child. It was always Sirius doing the protecting, Sirius stopping the bullies,
or at least the two of them standing up to the other boys together, finding comfort in each other.
Not Lily.

“The twins do their share,” Remus pointed out.

Lily rolled her eyes. “The twins wouldn't bother if Molly didn't ask them to. Therefore, the
continued lovely position of your nose on your face is thanks to me and my girls. You're
welcome.”

Leaning back into the wall he was up against, Remus bent his neck from side to side, working out
any cricks that had developed from writing. He sighed, glancing over the side of the building to
the ground that he could see. It was only an hour after classes had let out, so there was still a
crowd milling about: students getting out of activities or heading to them, students just enjoying
the not-so-cold-and-rainy almost-summer day. Remus wasn't going to take his chances just yet.

“No word from Padfoot, I suppose?” Lily asked after a long moment of silence between them.

Remus shook his head, hand tracing gently over the ivory inlay on the cover his notebook. No
word from Padfoot. And he didn't think there would be word. Even though he had one more year
left in college before he went off to uni, Remus had given up hope he would see Sirius before
then. Their fantasies about getting a flat together, going to uni together and maybe more... (though
maybe that had just been in Remus' head, those fantasies) were proving to be just that: fantasies.
Childish fantasies that could never come to pass. How would they have even planned it, anyway?
Sirius would end up going to the poshest unis in the country: Oxford or Cambridge, wherever his
family was more closely associated. Maybe even St. Andrews, somewhere up north. And it wasn't
like Remus, even with his high marks and CV and scores on his A-levels (which he hadn't
finished yet, but there was really no doubt. Remus might be insecure about a lot of things, but he
knew his mind and how he performed on tests) might not be enough to get him in those kinds of
places. It happened, every once in a while, but money, power, and familial ties still counted for too
much.

Even if he did get in, he might not get the funding he needed to go. He could always try and get a
job, work nights while going to uni, but he wasn't sure how much he'd be able to make working
those hours. He was counting on that money to pay for living expenses.

Of course, if he shared a flat with Sirius, he wouldn't have to worry about that so much.

“You know he wouldn't have left if he didn't have to. He wouldn't have abandoned you.”
Something indescribably painful clawed at Remus' gut as Lily's words reached him. His fingers
curled tighter around the notebook in his lap. He wanted to huddle against it, to pull it into himself
and just wrap his body around it. He might do that when he went home tonight. It wouldn't be too
out of the ordinary from him, or any other night he slept with the notebook under his pillow or
even in his arms.

“It was just that awful mum-”

“Lily,” Remus forced out. His voice wasn't steady, but it was something almost approaching that.
It was good enough, considering how his chest felt like it was going to burst open and spill all his
feelings about Sirius out onto the school roof. He imagined if he did crack open one of these days,
that's what would be found inside him: Sirius. Thoughts of him, pictures of him, memories that
consisted entirely of Remus' big eyes just staring, staring, drinking up everything that was the way
Sirius' body moved and his eyes laughed and his voice sounded, both loud and brash when he
was defeating their latest villain and soft and sweet when they were talking quietly under the stars.

“I can walk home alone today,” he finally managed.

Lily stiffened beside him. In his peripheral vision, Remus could see Lily craning her neck to look
over the side of the roof from where they were sitting. Vehemently she shook her head. “No,
Remus, don't be daft. Rugby practice will be letting out soon. Let's just go now-”

“Lily.” This time, Remus' voice was firmer. He was proud of himself. “Just go. I'll be fine.” He
just needed some more time alone, away from Lily and her sympathetic eyes.

After a few minutes of guilt-inducing staring, which Remus managed to successfully ignore, Lily
stood and brushed at her skirt primly. “Don't do anything stupid, Remus, dear.”

Remus shifted away from Lily, eyes stinging at the endearment. Sirius would say that sometimes,
when they played house. “Remusa dear,” or “Remusa love”. The extra syllable on his name never
phased Remus. He was good at imagining to make himself feel better, and he always imagined
Sirius was saying those things to Remus, not Remusa. “Remus dear,” and “Remus love,”
whispered in his head in the dark hours of the night always made sleep come just a little easier.

After another moment of expectant staring, Lily's footsteps finally started away from Remus,
carrying her across the room and to the access. The door didn't slam shut behind her, but it had the
feel of a slammed door to it. Remus sighed and rested his head on the wall at his back, throat
working as he swallowed against his mixed-up feelings.

I never shared my favorite story with Sirius. It was by Bradbury, called Statues. I couldn't tell you
about it, because by the time I found it, you had started to disappear. I read it when you were
gone, after the last time we saw each other over Christmas break. And when you came back, I
was so scared I was going to lose you

I was so scared, and we were so busy trying to catch up, so I had no idea to tell him about it.
About how Bradbury knew just how I felt, knew all about my fears of him leaving me all on my
own.

And now you have, and-

I keep changing who I'm addressing. You think something about writing would have sunk in after
all those books, huh? Oh well.

Flexing his fingers, Remus shut the notebook and rubbed his eyes. He glanced over the side of the
building. The crowd of students was a little less, now. He didn't see anyone on the rugby field, nor
 any groups of sweaty, post-practice boys. He should be quite alright to walk home.

Of course Remus made a mistake. He was always making a mistake with the other boys. That was
how everything'd gotten started in the first place: his inability to do the right thing, say the right
thing, stand the right way.

Remus held tight to his backpack and ran. He couldn't drop it just to get away. Not when it held
his notebook that Sirius gave him. So he clutched under his arm and ran and ran and ran. The
other boys closed in on him fast, their jeers louder in his ears with every step.

When they caught him Remus dropped his rucksack and refused to pay it any mind. His body
would heal. Sirius' notebook was irreplaceable.

Chapter End Notes

Oops, editing mistake! Realized I had one instance of Lily calling Sirius "Sirius" in
Chapter 24. Went back and fixed that. She doesn't know Sirius' name - instead
Remus told her about Sirius with codename "Padfoot", as you saw in this chapter.
My bad! Some of these things slip through DX
 Chapter 29
Chapter Summary

Over the summer, Remus revises his and Sirius' map.

Staring down at the map in his hands, Remus wondered how on earth they hadn't realized they
saw the World differently sooner. It should have been obvious from the differences between the
two halves of the map: Sirius' half was all crudely drawn doric columns and obviously Roman
villas, whereas Remus' had the more rustic (and his mind, magical) aesthetic of the ancient celtic
structures. They were only nine when they made the map, so to a certain degree he could chalk his
younger self's lack of observation to the fact that he hadn't known anything about different ancient
architectural styles at the time.

Smiling softly to himself, Remus turned to the other sheet of paper in his hand: the new map. He
started making it over the course of the past year and a half while he was waiting for Sirius, as a
way to keep his mind off... everything. It had helped especially to have a project to work on this
long summer. Of course, his map-making skills had improved since he was nine. And he'd learned
more about the different materials he could use, as well. Now, for instance, he had a sheet of
vellum on top of the base map. The base map was the way he saw the world: all the celtic-style
buildings and baths and the rest of it all. Lots of round shapes, really. The top sheet was the same
world, but the way Sirius had described to him in the one time. Roman pillars, and baths, and
archways. All rectangular and straight edges. Remus thought it looked infinitely more boring that
way, but Sirius had seemed to prefer it.

Remus' mouth was just upturning into a smile at the memory, before he stopped himself and felt
bad again. It was hard to remember anything about Sirius without feeling an overwhelming wave
of sadness.

The map, though, was good. It had let Remus go about work that required just enough of his
concentration to take his mind off Sirius while he waited, but not enough concentration that it'd be
ruined if he ended up stopping and staring off into space for hours as he remembered the time
Sirius had rescued him from the Evil Witch there, or when Remus had beaten Sirius miserably at
building sandcastles there.

Remus smiled again, looking down at the map. Sirius was always loud and brash, ready to lead
the charge against the evil monster of the week, but he always deferred to Remus. Because Remus
was the one with the plans: he could build the sandcastles or beat Sirius at Marco Polo or plot out
their next epic adventure. When they were little, Remus had always been waiting for the other foot
to drop: for Sirius to realize that he was the bigger boy, the louder boy, and push Remus to the
ground and take control of their playing. But he never had. In fact, Sirius went out of his way to
make sure they were always even on everything, like how many times they'd played the girl, or
whose plan they were going with today. Sirius was good like that.

Flipping between the two views of the map for a minute, Remus tried to see if there was anything
else he could add to the thing. If he couldn't, he'd need to find some new project to work on. He
certainly wasn't going to sit around here and not have something to work on while he waited for
Sirius. That'd just end in tears – quite literally. And Remus had already come close enough to
crying and actually cried over Sirius' absence enough for one lifetime.
Looking down at the map, Remus pressed a single finger to the wall that he was sitting hidden
behind right now. He'd even gone into such detail as to include the hole. After all, it'd been
through that hole that he had first met Sirius: a stormy-eyed, dark-haired boy, looking at Remus
like he was about to dole out something terrible, and Sirius was going to have to fight and bite and
scratch at him in order to save himself. Remus had been a little frightened by the almost feral light
in Sirius' eyes, but simultaneously something had clicked inside of him. Something that had told
him that within this boy was something just like what was within him. They were alike, no matter
how different they seemed. One was named after a star, told to be obedient but always tugging at
his leash, even as the cart it was attached to was dragging him along the sharp rocks on the edge
of the road. That boy wanted nothing more than to break his teeth until he chewed through the
leash, to run and be free, hair as dark as the night flying behind him. The other boy, Remus
himself, was just so opposite: hair like sunshine, eyes bright like lazy afternoon sky. He came from
parents who encouraged him to be loud, to be adventurous, to run and play and defy all the rules
and conquer everything in front of him, including those boys which worked so hard to stamp out
the sun in Remus' eyes.. But sometimes he just wanted to curl up next to someone and read his
books, to let someone else be the adventurous one while he planned it all out beforehand.

It's why they had worked. Why Remus had felt something inside of him slotting into place the
moment he'd seen Sirius. He was a friend Remus could be with without feeling uncomfortable,
without feeling like the friend was going to mess things up or do things wrong. Sirius was
infinitely willing to follow Remus' lead, as long as Remus' lead resulted in Sirius being the one in
the lead. And as contradictory and strange as that sounded, that was exactly how Remus needed
his friend to be. They worked, together. They worked better than anyone else Remus had ever
met.

On a whim, Remus took out his pen and wrote on him version of the map 1st Met 1968, just next
to the hole in the wall. As his pen made the final stroke, suddenly Remus felt compelled to write
down it all. Every little significant place around the map, for whatever reason it was most
important to him.

On the beachhead Remus drew two little lines in the sand, on either side of where the road petered
out. He wrote Fortress of King Sirius on one side and Fortress of King Remus on the other, dating
them 1969. Over by bath house he wrote First Kiss, 1969. By his door: Tried to Run Away, 1970.
He frowned and touched the page, gently, remember all the hurt and horror that had gone through
himself and been reflected a hundred fold in Sirius that day. He should have tired harder, he
thought, when he he was younger. He should have tried to figure out a way to save Sirius, to get
him away from Walburga and that obviously abusive household. But Remus hadn't really
thought... a sick churning developed in his gut as he thought about it. He didn't think Walburga
had done anything as dramatic as really hurt Sirius, but. There was no telling, with what Remus
know of that mad woman.

Sirius' door got dated with Left for Boarding School, 1971. The beach had a host of its own
special memories, from Defeated the Legarians (1969), to Stargazing, Almost Kiss (1969). Remus
cocked his head down at the map and grinned, just a small, secret thing. They had done a lot of
kissing in 1969. It'd been a good year for him. Of course, 1971 had been the big kiss, the boarding
school kiss. And 1972 had been the Dislocated Shoulder kiss. Remus had just been so upset, he
hadn't known what else to do besides kiss and kiss Sirius until the pain faded, even a little. Stupid,
stupid Sirius, always trying to show off. Remus shook his head at the paper, tears pricking at his
eyes. Okay. He set the paper down. This was exactly what he had been trying to avoid: thinking
too much about Sirius, feeling all that hurt well up in him again. It was already over a year and
almost a half since he'd seen Sirius, and the pain didn't seem like it was ready to let up anytime
soon.

Lily thought he was a great big sap and just needed a good shag. But Remus knew. Sirius was
perfect for him – he was ruined for anyone else. He just needed Sirius back in his life again.
Which was why he'd keep coming back, keep checking the underside of their bench to see if
Sirius had written anything on his note or taped a note there himself. And Remus would keep
coming, would keep waiting for Sirius as long as he possibly could. Even if his mental clock was
ticking inexorably down to Leave for Uni, just under a year from now. If everything went
according to plan.
 Chapter 30
Chapter Summary

Remus remembers some games they used to play, in the pool and out of it.

The water in the pool was still bitingly cold, but Remus found it somehow refreshing on the
warmish spring day. The sun was out and just warm enough to excuse the cold water on his feet,
Remus thought. Gently they kicked in the pool as Remus leaned back on his hands, head tilted up
and watching the sun shine into the pool area through slitted eyes.

“You were trembling when we played Marco Polo that first time. Do you remember?”

Remus' eyes slid shut as he replayed the memory in his mind. Sirius' body, wet and cool against
his fingertips, and then his torso as he moved in closer. His muscles were twitching beneath his
skin, little shivers of nerves, anticipation, or maybe fear spreading from him to Remus. It hadn't
made sense to Remus at the time, or it made perfect sense. Either option made sense, when he
thought about how he felt at the time. Sirius shouldn't be nervous, or scared of him, or anything
like that – Remus knew that much as young as they were. But then again, Remus had felt a sort of
power that day in the pool, a power over Sirius that he would never have been able to put into
words at the time.

In a way, he'd been seducing Sirius. And Sirius had been responding positively to the attention.
Remus just hadn't understood it at the time, and he would bet his life savings (a full thousand quid,
stowed safely under his mattress) that Sirius hadn't understood it either.

The next time they played in the pool, they'd played astronauts. And oh. That had been brilliant.
Remus' lips curled up at the memory, and he shifted, just a little, where he was reclining back. His
mind was going to how Sirius might react to such an advance now, with both boys much older
and swimming around the pool in their skivvies. Remus shifted again as his body responded
slightly.

“Even though I knew it was different, what we were doing, it didn't feel different,” Remus
pondered. “I knew I could never do that with the other boys: play the sorts of games we played
with Remusa and Siria. But it didn't feel wrong. It didn't feel unnatural.” Those words tasted like
ash on Remus' tongue. He'd heard them plenty of times from the other boys, and the other boys'
parents. None of them knew about Remus in specific, but there'd been plenty of talk about other
men, supposedly stomping about London and flaunting their sexuality and “alternative lifestyles”.

That wasn't how it felt to Remus, though. He didn't feel like he and Sirius were being contrarian,
were defying modern morality and making some sort of grand statement of their sexuality and
freedom and all that. They were just... being themselves. With each other. They were Remus and
Sirius, and Remus and Sirius just happened to kiss each other in cool pools on warm summer
days. Remus and Sirius just happened to touch each other more when they were happy, to hold
each other close and seek physical comfort in each other when they were sad. That was just what
they did – it wasn't a political statement. It wasn't a philosophical debate or an evolutionary one. It
just. They just were.

“You know what my favorite game was, though?” Remus grinned. “I bet you don't even
remember this one, because it wasn't one of yours. Orcs and hobbits.”
remember this one, because it wasn't one of yours. Orcs and hobbits.”

It had been warmish spring day, just like this one, when Remus had suggested the game. The air
had smelt the same, then – it was probably why Remus was remembering it now. He had just read
Tolkien that summer and was trying to force Sirius to get through it all. Sirius had only managed
to get through Fellowship by Easter hols his third year in boarding school, but had promised to get
through Towers by the time he came back for summer hols.

“There was no kissing in it, too, so I bet that's another reason you don't remember it,” Remus
commented.

His feet swished through the water as he remembered, forming little eddies and currents that
pulled at his toes. “I'd play hobbit, and you'd play the rescuing human or elf. You liked playing
human better, though, because you liked Strider. You always thought Legolas was a bit of a
ponce.” Remus grinned at the memory. “And we'd start it out on a routine expedition, or we'd be
planning a journey, or in the middle of a journey. The orcs would come up, swarm us. They'd be
after me for whatever reason we came up with that time, but it always had something to do with
me being a little hobbit. Their master wanted hobbits to work the mines, or to beat them up, or to
use as food, or something.”

The sunlight felt a little dimmed as Remus remembered how very real those games had felt – the
ones where the swarm of bigger, scarier, meaner people had ripped him away from Sirius, to do
cruel and unmentionable things to him. That fear was still real in Remus' life, just somewhat more
mitigated now that he was bigger and had accumulated enough people looking out for him to
prevent any serious harm. Although Sirius was the main light in Remus' childhood, Remus could
acknowledge that without Lily and her girlfriends – and her girlfriends' big brothers – Remus'
school years would probably, almost definitely, be worse than they already were.

“You'd fight, of course,” Remus said. “You'd fight mightily to prevent the swarm of orcs from
taking me. Sometimes you'd defeat them, but not most times. Most times they'd overpower you,
just because there were so many. And I'd get taken away.”

Briefly Remus lifted his feet from the water, stretching his toes out as he watched fresh,
glimmering droplets fall off them and into the water. After the last shimmering bits of water had
dripped off, Remus replaced his feet in the water, stirring up the calm surface once more. “They'd
have the jump on you, but you'd follow me. Over mountains and valleys and all sorts of terrible
places, you'd follow me, just waiting to make your move. Then, one night, the orcs would take a
break. I'd start to shimmy out of my ropes, and you'd come close to us, ready to spring into
action.”

It had been important to Remus to contribute to his own rescue, in a small way. He wanted Sirius
to rescue him – even now, when he more thought about rescuing Sirius than vice versa, he still
would find himself daydreaming in class about Sirius bursting in and taking Remus away, to that
flat they were going to rent together in uni – but he also wanted to be a part of that rescue, to not
be a complete and utter damsel in distress.

Plus, if his hands were still tied, Sirius would have gotten through with all the really good orc-
killing by the time Remus was rescued. And Remus wasn't mature enough or a good enough
person to not want to kill some orcs. Just a few. It was just pretend, after all.

“Even though I couldn't see you, I knew where you were in the darkness. And I'd know when
you were going to strike. We'd always move at just the same time, like we were psychic with each
other. But we weren't: we just knew each other so well after all the adventures we'd been on.
You'd come charging in, slitting a half-dozen orc throats before they even knew you were there.
Once they woke and realized they were under attack, then you'd be loud and bold, hacking your
sword to and fro as you laid waste to the orc hoard. While you were playing the big hero, I'd
sneak up behind the orcs and slit their throats, nice and quiet. Didn't want to draw any attention to
myself, but couldn't let you get all the glory.

“In the end, we'd find each other in the middle of a pile of orc corpses. We'd... hug.” Remus
wrinkled his nose. “I hated that we couldn't kiss. I hated once you figured out other boys didn't
play kissing games with each other. The orc battles always felt so dramatic, like they absolutely
deserved a kiss to be at the end of them. But you'd just hug.” Remus scrunched up his nose further
in distaste, then relaxed as he chuckled. He said dryly: “Of course, that was my reason for wanting
a kiss out of the whole thing: it would be a more proper conclusion, fit the action sequence and
story better if we kissed. Not because I just always wanted to kiss you.”

Glancing up at the sun with intent this time, Remus sighed. He should get going. Lily wanted to
talk to him about going to a fancy dress party at the end of next week – some sort of “school's
back on” bash. He was going to let her convince him, eventually, but wanted her to have to work
for it, first. He never liked the daft things anyway, and making her work to convince him meant
that he got to really layer on the guilt when she realized what a poor time he was having through
the whole affair.

“Be back in a couple months,” Remus told the empty air. He glanced around the pool area for a
moment, looking at the smooth cobblestones and mossy corners. The pool house must look so
different to Sirius, with its Roman-influenced architecture. But it was still their pool, where they
had played Marco Polo and astronauts together. Where Remus had felt Sirius' wet, trembling body
beneath his, and first pressed his lips to Sirius' cool cheek. It was still theirs.

“I'll see you,” he said with a little wave. “Back soon.”

“Bye.”
 Chapter 31
Chapter Summary

Remus got into Cambridge.

“I got into uni,” Remus breathed. His stomach churned upsettingly, his nerves jangling with fear
and excitement both. The two emotions were a single Gordian knot inside his gut, and Remus
knew that he wasn't the bold Alexander, come with his sword to cut through it. The only one who
could do that was long gone from his life. Two years gone.

“Cambridge,” Remus continued, wringing his hands together. He stood before the bench, wanting
to pace or twitch or... he had too much energy. It was bubbling up inside him, but had no outlet.
Remus was the calm one, the centered one. Sirius was the conductor to all the energy and
electricity in a room: he was the one that would spark and jump and shout whenever something
exciting happened. Not Remus. And now that Remus had all this excess energy inside him, like
lightning in a bottle, he needed his Sirius to channel it through.

Remus stayed where he was and wrung his hands some more.

“Got in a few other places, but. If the funding comes through, I'm going. I- I don't know where
your family would send you. If you're still with them. Could be- Well. Could be St. Andrews, or
Oxford. But it might be Cambridge.”

Twitching, Remus turned in place – first a hundred eighty degrees, like he might walk away; then
three hundred sixty as he turned back to face the bench. “It's not for you!” he insisted. That was
important, that Sirius understood that. “Not all for you,” Remus corrected himself.

Shaking his hands out, Remus took a breath. Then another. And another. Slowly, forcibly, he
calmed himself down. Finally, Remus was able to unclench his hands and rest them loosely at his
sides.

“I said it a few times – how I was going to uni, how no one in my family had ever been. But we
were both younger back then, and I don't think you really had the perspective to understand what
that meant,” Remus said.

Feeling more settled, Remus sorted his thoughts out for a moment, head bowed. When he began
talking, it was quietly. “My dad worked for a shopkeeper as a boy. Stocking shelves, helping
customers carry their purchases, stuff like that. Stuff that didn't take a lot of learning. All my dad
knew schoolwork-wise was related to shopkeeping. He learned sums because the old man who
ran the shop let him at the till on weekday afternoons when only a few people would come
through. He learned percents to figure the taxes and sales. He wasn't educated – didn't even do
college; certainly never did uni.

“Mum was different. She loved reading, loved telling stories and such, but never really planned on
doing anything with it. When she met my father, that was it: she was getting married, and having
children, and being a wife and mum. That's what she wanted to do: she never really much cared to
do anything else.”

Remus breathed. It was easier now that he was older to explain this. It was easier now that he
didn't have Sirius' posh haircut and clothes and soft hands to notice as he spoke. Although Sirius
never, ever looked down on Remus because of his background and family's wealth – or lack
thereof – Remus was aware of the class difference between the two of them. Possibly even more
so than Sirius was. With Sirius, wealth was so plentiful, such a basic part of his life, that he likely
had very little conception of what it was not to be like him. Remus had all-too-painful an
awareness of the differences.

“When I was really small, Mum and Dad moved further south to open their own shop. Dad had
learned enough from the man he used to work for to suss how to run the books. Mum helped.
They ran the shop together. We still live there, up above the shop. It's lovely.”

Remus paused, looking at the empty bench.

“I'd love to show you it. One day.”

When the still summer air didn't respond, Remus continued. “It's lovely, but it's working-class.
There's nothing wrong with it, but ever since I can remember Mum would read to me, and I
started reading myself, all about these amazing adventures and places and cultures that Mum and
Dad never saw, never knew about. And I learned. I learned so much from books, from the words
themselves to relationships, morality, culture, food, art... I learned everything I knew from books.
Mum and Dad were always there, to love and encourage me, but books showed me all these
things they never knew. And I was always, always, always looking for more.

“So as soon as I was old enough to know what it was, Mum and Dad were telling me I was going
to uni. Because they knew how I was, what kind of person I was, and knew I wasn't going to take
over the shop. I would, if I had to. But I wasn't made for that. I needed something more. I needed
a different sort of life. I needed different people in my life: not nice Mrs. Gershwin or old
widowed Mr. Mayson coming in every Tuesday and Saturday for a chat as they picked up their
two purchases. I needed...” Remus trailed off, laughing softly to himself. “Well, I needed people
like you. And academics.

“So I was going to go to uni. First in my family. Because that was where I belonged. So I started
being a good student. It was easy, really: I knew everything from books already. Had to work at
maths, but Dad would let me help out in the shop and that sorted it in my head better than any
teacher would. Then Mum found a book on maths puzzles, tricks and little shortcuts, and that
made even more sense. I was good at school. No,” emboldened by the silence from the bench,
Remus continued. “I was great at school. I was brilliant. It was what I was supposed to do.”

Taking a step forward, Remus reached out and touched his fingers to the air in front of the bench.
They twisted, golden in the bright, bright light of summer morning. “And I was good at teaching,
too. I think. I helped you out with your work, and even though you were brilliant and all and your
tutors were just daft, I think that meant I was good at it. Helping you out... it was a good feeling. I
knew something, I could do something you couldn't, and then I helped you and you could do it. It
was...” Remus laughed. “It was empowering, was what it was. For once I was the strong one, in a
way. I wanted to do that, more. All the time.”

Remus sighed. Talking about it without Sirius here was definitely easier than with Sirius here. It
still didn't totally negate that odd, persistent feeling of guilt. Like getting into Cambridge meant
leaving Sirius, meant leaving their whole world, behind. In just a few months he wasn't going to
be a child anymore. Sure, technically he'd been an adult for two years, but now it felt so much
more real. He'd be leaving his home behind, and his Home, his World he had built with Sirius.
He'd come back, maybe, on breaks, but they wouldn't be so numerous or consistent as they had
been these last two years since Sirius left. When he went out his door for a last time just a few
months from now, Remus knew it was going to be different. And he was so, so scared of that.
“I don't want to leave you behind,” Remus choked out. Tears started to burn at his eyes. “I just...
Please, Sirius. You have to understand. This means so much to me. It's... It's everything besides
you. There's you, and there's uni, and that's it. That's all of me. Everything there is about me is
those two things. And since you haven't been here-” Sobs cracked the words spilling out of
Remus' throat. He pressed a hand to his eyes, wiping furiously at them. “Without you, this is it!
This is all that's left of me, without you. So I have to go. I can't leave it, I can't give it up, like you
gave me up!”

With a cry Remus rushed away from the bench, running to his door. His feet skittered and slipped
over the uneven cobblestones in the street, but he stayed upright, even with tears blinding his
vision. He had run this path, with Sirius and without him, too many times for it to trip him up now.
When he got to his door he paused, breath catching more from tears and sobs than the short run.

Facing his door, head down, Remus continued to speak in a furious whisper. “I know it's not your
fault. I know something happened, Sirius. But it hurts so much, and even this, the one thing I have
that's not you, it hurts because it makes me feel like I'm leaving you. And I'm so mad at you for
that: for making the one thing that makes me happy without you hurt because of you. Because
you're not here to share it with me.”

The World was quiet. Remus breathed.

“Lily is talking about sharing a flat with me. She got in, too. I haven't told her yet, but I'm going to
turn her down. I know it's a waste of money, but I can't. I'm gonna get one by myself, and I'm not
gonna tell her why. But you know, Sirius. You know why.” I can't get one without you. That was
ours. That was our dream. Flatmates at uni. Escape together.

“So that's it,” Remus finished. “That's what's I'm doing. I'll be at Cambridge, in a flat on my own.”
Reaching forward, Remus gripped the door handle. But he paused, just one more time, fingers
rubbing against the metal. “I'll be back. A bit more. There's time, Sirius.” Not much. “There's time.
Before I go.” With that, Remus let himself back into his home, not looking back as he shut the
door.
 Chapter 32
Chapter Summary

Remus leaves for Cambridge, with one last parting note.

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Remus' stomach was churning as he sat on their bench, the right side left empty for Sirius, as he
always did. Autumn seemed to be coming early this year, with a slight coolness to the breeze that
wasn't typical for the start of the school year. Remus sighed and touched his palm to Sirius' side of
the bench. It figured autumn would come earlier this year: everything had seemed to come too
early, to go by too soon this summer.

“I'm leaving for uni,” Remus said out loud. If he closed his eyes and breathed deep, he could just
about imagine Sirius was sitting there next to him. But Remus didn't want to. He didn't want to
pretend that Sirius was there when he wasn't. When he'd never be there again. “I miss you,” he
whispered, voice cracking. The tears started then, tears that Remus thought he'd already cried in
full these past couple years, waiting for Sirius to come back to him. Remus pressed his hands to
his face, grinding them on his closed eyelids like he could push the tears back in. All that resulted
was a pathetic squelching noise, which just made Remus sob a hiccuping laugh, and then cry
harder. “I love you,” he groaned at the empty air. “I love you, and I miss you, and I wish I was
going to uni with you. I wish we were living in a flat together and going to the same school, just
like we'd always planned. God, Sirius,” Remus took a deep breath, dropping his hands to look up
at the sky, tears still falling. “I wish I could have saved you. I wish I had gotten you out of that
place. I wish my door had worked for you.”

Remus sat for a long moment, staring at the clouds passing him by. It was bright out, earlier than
Remus normally came considering that he always spent the night when he was waiting for Sirius.
But tonight he wouldn't be able to spend the night, since his family wanted to have a leaving
dinner and his mum would expect him in his own bed tonight.

“You know,” Remus said ruefully, “I lied. About not masturbating. Well, not when you first
asked. But I did, as we got older. And I'd always picture you.” Years ago, Remus' face might
have flamed red at that confession. Now, he'd give anything to have the real Sirius with him so he
could say it to his face. Remus dropped his voice, forearms resting on his thighs and hands
dangling between his legs, confiding a secret to a ghost of a memory that wasn't there, “Didn't
start out as much more than kissing you with tongues. But that was enough. When I got older, got
more of a handle on what we could do together, well. I pictured that.” Voice scratchy, Remus shut
his eyes. “Now I'd give anything just to see you again. Don't even have to touch you, or talk to
you: just to walk down a street in London and see you, know that you're healthy and happy and
still out there, somewhere, making the world brighter and more brilliant just by being in it.

“Sometimes I thought you weren't real. Sometimes I thought I had just made you up, because I
was so lonely. My entire childhood before you was me being lost in a crowd, alone among
hundreds, thousands of people. The estate I grew up next to was huge, with loads of tough boys
running around and playing with each other. They weren't for me, obviously. And the kids at
school just made fun of me for being too smart, or too quiet, or too weird. Even when I was at
home, there were always people hurrying in and out of the shop. Completely different from your
home, wasn't it?”

Remus laughed, picturing Sirius' utterly baffled expression. He had figured out early on that Sirius
had come from money, buckets of money, and that his home life was all disdainful parties and
snide expressions. Sirius was lost in a crowd just like Remus, sure, but it was an entirely different
crowd. It was one of coldness and pale imitations of affection. Remus' crowd was loudness and
heat, scary boys shoving him to the ground or into fountains, shop patrons bustling about at all
hours, and a little, bookish boy just trying to find a quiet corner away from it all.

“But you were perfect for me. You were loud and brash and adventurous, without me feeling like
I was swallowed up by you. I could be better at things than you, I could order you around for
certain bits, and you'd do what I told you. And you were good at dragging me along, just a little
bit, to do things more adventurous than I might have on my own. I don't think I'd've been able to
be friends with Lily without you.”

He could almost picture the grouchy expression on Sirius' face at the mention of Lily. He never
did like it when Remus mentioned her, and secretly that fact always thrilled Remus. It might have
been out of jealousy, possessiveness that made Sirius dislike the mention of some girl hanging
around his Remus, and that thought sent a shiver of happiness down Remus' spine.

“I know you don't like hearing about her,” Remus continued. “But she's an alright bird. Besides: I
had it figured out by the time I was eleven that I was a complete and utter poof. Poor Lily didn't
stand a chance.” He laughed, thinking back when he had finally “come out” to Lily. She had just
rolled her eyes and continued tearing at her skirt, trying to make it into a pair of trouser shorts. “No
shit, Sherlock,” she had fired back. “And I have red hair. What a revelation. Now help me with
these horrid things, I want to climb up that fire escape.”

Tugging out a pocket knife, Remus turned himself around on the bench, curling his legs up
beneath him and starting to carve. As he worked, he continued to talk to Sirius – the note he was
carving he had written and revised and memorized a hundred times over the past six weeks. He
could carve it in his sleep. “I'm going to Cambridge,” he said. “Lily's coming, too. I can't believe
two people from my estate got in, but we're both good students. I wasn't sure...” he paused, knife
carving an “s” over and over again, deeper and deeper into the concrete, as he thought.

“I know it's stupid,” he whispered. “But I just... I want to see you again, Sirius. I hope you're
there. But who knows? Maybe you ran away from home and joined a traveling circus or
something. Maybe you're not even going to university. I don't know.”

Working steadily, Remus managed to finish the carving just as the first star was appearing in the
sky. Remus didn't look at it, instead brushing at the concrete, then blowing the last of the dust
away. With one last go-over, Remus tossed the knife into their costume box, ripped away the most
recent letter he'd taped to the bottom of the bench, and walked away. He cried the whole way
back to his door, body shivering with the gravity of what he was walking away from. Maybe it
was shivering with something else, Remus didn't know. Maybe he had done something, maybe
the carving... maybe, just like the original lovers... But no. Remus had already benefited so much
from the magic from this place. He couldn't ask for any more. As he shut the door for the last time,
he didn't look back – couldn't look back. Because this was it. This was goodbye, forever.

Here sat the two most brilliant boys ever to know each other. This World brought them together,
and gave them the childhood they'd never have managed on their own. They had eight years
together, growing into themselves and each other. They loved each other, and this World allowed
them to, alone together.

Remus John Lupin

Chapter End Notes

Last chapter of Remus' part. We're back to Sirius tomorrow.

 Chapter 33
Chapter Summary

We see Sirius going about his life at 18 years of age.

Chapter Notes

Warning for some vomiting/hangovers/crude language surrounding such a condition.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Sirius rolled over, groaning as loud feet stomped to his loo. He shoved his pillow over his head as
the sound of retching reached his ears. He wasn't in nearly as sorry as a state as the poor sod
stinking up his toilet, but it didn't mean he felt well enough to deal with it. Instead, he let cottony
kind-of softness surround him as he tried to fall back to sleep.

“Oi, plonker. I need a fry up. Get up.”

Sirius' stomach roiled as a decidedly heavy body threw itself onto his bed. It rebelled even more
when said heavy body wrestled the pillow away from his head and breathed sick, alcohol-stale
breath all over him.

Oh, no. Bollocks. Rolling directly over the body – to get off his side of the bed and walk around
would have taken too long – Sirius threw himself into his loo and proceeded to be sick mostly
inside his toilet.

The bastard hadn't flushed.

Between heaves Sirius managed to call over his shoulder: “Kill you- Twat- Potter-”

James, right arsehole that he was, just laughed on Sirius' bed, sounding much too chipper for
someone who'd just done that to Sirius' poor toilet. “Hurry up. I want to get to the cafe before the
church crowd shows up.”

Wiping his mouth, Sirius grimaced down at his poor toilet. “Yeah, wouldn't want to subject them
to a heathen like you.”

As Sirius flushed the toilet and went to wash his hands – James hadn't, if Sirius recalled, which
was just lovely – James snorted loudly from his bed. “Hey, if the church-goers are going to have a
problem with either of us, it's not gonna be me, mate.”

Sirius grimaced as he dried his hands, replacing the hand towel on the rack. James always thought
his tidiness was out of character, given the wealth and multitude of servants Sirius had grown up
with to do everything for him. The simple fact of the matter was that growing up that way had
made Sirius used to things being neat. As soon as the servants were taken away when he ran away
to live with James, he'd shadowed Mrs. Potter for long enough to figure out how to make things
like he wanted them.
Sirius returned to his bedroom to the sight of James' bare chest smearing sweat-wet marker stains
and glitter all over his nice clean sheets. With a growl Sirius beat at James until he jumped up from
the bed and headed back into Sirius' living room-cum-spare bedroom. Sirius grimaced down at the
sheets, then started to strip them. Even if James hadn't just smeared a bucket of glitter and marker
onto them, Sirius would have had to wash them anyway. James' body when hungover did the
most amazing things, one of which was secrete sweat that smelled like a horrible mixture of
gasoline, stomach bile, onions, and shit. It was truly a magnificent level of disgusting.

“Besides,” Sirius shouted through the door as he bundled the sheets up and shoved them in his
laundry bin. Briefly he considered re-making the bed with clean sheets, but he was already feeling
pale and sweaty, like he might collapse at any moment. Might as well leave those for when he was
feeling more human. “It's not like I'm gonna be snogging a bloke in the middle of breakfast,”
Sirius finished. He walked into the living room just in time to see James fall over the back of the
couch as he tried to pull his trousers on. Sirius sighed and grabbed his own trousers from last night
off the floor.

On second thought... Sirius sniffed said trousers, then tossed them over by the laundry bin as he
went back to his bedroom for something that was, for one, a sight looser, and for another, didn't
smell like stale cigarettes and crotch sweat. Digging into his closet he found a pair of work
coveralls. Quickly he tugged a white vest over his head, then the coveralls up to waist and tied off
the sleeves. Good enough for a hungover full-English.

James was already at the door, clutching his stomach and whining pitifully when Sirius came back
out. He grabbed his keys from the table, hesitating at the helmet next to the door. When James
managed to turn more green – which was a feat in it of itself – Sirius rolled his eyes and left the
helmet where it was.

“Oh, thank you, mate,” James groaned. He proceeded to drape his body all over Sirius' as they
walked out the door of Sirius' flat and Sirius locked up behind them. “It's only three blocks,
anyway.”

Sirius managed a genuine grin as he slid down the banister of the building he lived in, stumbling
forward and out of James' way as the other boy did the same behind him. “That's missing the
whole point of a bike, you realize?”

James snorted. “Yeah, yeah, freedom and all that bollocks. Next thing I know you'll be off to
America, driving around the old west and looking for some ranch to commune with cows.”

As they stepped into the bright sunlight of an early September morning, both boys groaned and
lowered shades over their eyes almost in unison. “Cows?” Sirius asked as they set off down the
street. He shoved his hands in his coverall pockets as he walked, longish black hair sweeping
away from his neck in the gentle breeze. “Why cows?”

James shrugged. A pretty blonde bird walked past them, and James' hand started to drift up to his
head to ruffle up his hair. Sirius smacked it away without a moment's hesitation. James glared at
him from behind his sunglasses. “Or horses, or whatever. Maybe fluffy bunnies, to satisfy your
poofter urges, I dunno.”

Sirius laughed, never not bemused by the bizarre things James seemed to think were “poofy”.
Bunnies, apparently. Also the color pink (Sirius didn't own a stitch of it), flowers (which James
bought more than Sirius, for that new girl he was wooing), and motorbikes (lies. Horrible,
slanderous lies. Motorbikes were just about the most brilliant thing ever, and James was just a
jealous wanker).
They got to the cafe down the street with James only having to stop and vomit up bile in an
alleyway once, which made it a successful walk in Sirius' mind. When they got to the cafe Sirius
was pleased to see that they had made it before the churches all let out. It was mostly blue-collar
workers coming in for a quick coffee and students who all looked to be in a similar state to James
and Sirius. Easily the two boys slid into a booth next to the window, James curling up into the
window like it was his favorite bird. Sirius just slouched down in his seat, legs spread wide and
playing with the sleeves of his coveralls tied around his waist.

“What've you got tomorrow?” Sirius asked, once they'd ordered their breakfasts and had managed
to get a tea and coffee – James the tea, Sirius the coffee.

James grunted into his tea, curled back up against the window now that he had warm tea in his
hands. Sirius clasped his palms similarly around his coffee mug. It did feel good, grounding, in a
way. Especially after such a chaotic night. “Econ. Government. Maths.”

Sirius grinned into his coffee as he took a sip. Setting it down – softly, quietly – he asked:
“Figured out derivatives, yet?”

James glared. “No. And if someone-”

“Someone,” Sirius cut him off, “doesn't think it's funny when you assume I don't know a log from
an exponent.”

James rolled his eyes. “How was I supposed to know your stupid job meant you knew about
maths?”

Sirius pressed his lips tight together, eyes flashing. But then his head pounded thrice, nice and
fierce behind his eyes, and Sirius decided he didn't much feel like getting into a fight with James
this early in the morning.

“Do I need to pound your head into the tarmac again until you remember that almost all my
courses are maths courses?”

James shrugged, as usual unconcerned with his lack of tact. It was one of the things Sirius loved
about him, sure, but sometimes James just deserved a good thrashing.

“How am I supposed to know you lot of uni-less nutters need maths just for flying a plane? I don't
need maths to drive.”

Over at the counter the owner was waving them over, two plates of heaping food set down and
waiting for them. Sirius rolled his eyes and jumped up, leaving James to his love affair with his
tea: “Not like you can even do that much,” he commented sarcastically over his shoulder. He
could hear James throwing a fit behind him, but Sirius just ignored him and grabbed their plates.

Honestly, sometimes. James, as genuinely decent a bloke he was, didn't realize how much of a
privileged arse he could be at times. Not that Sirius was really any stranger to privilege, but. Just
because he was going to a trade school instead of fancy Cambridge like that ponce Potter didn't
mean he was a dunce. Not by a long shot. In the few weeks since he'd started classes at the
academy, he'd done more maths problems than probably the entirety of his years at boarding
school. Turned out, being a pilot required a lot of maths. And physics. And vectors and all these
fancy geometries that, big surprise to Sirius, weren't the same geometries as the ones he learned in
boarding school? Which was just nuts, but kind of brilliant. He wondered at times-

Sirius almost dropped the plates before he set them on the table. He recovered just in time, sliding
James' plate in front of him with slightly more force than necessary. James stopped it before it fell
off the edge, though, and proceeded to practically bury his face in the beans and toast.

“Oh, no, nope, no way, mate.”

Sirius blinked, looking up from his forkful of eggs. James was gesturing angrily at him with his
own fork, flicking bean juice all over the table and Sirius. At least the vest was already stained
with oil and grease from the planes.

“What'd we say about the face? You're doing the face. The Moony-face.”

James was bringing out his favorite dumb nickname for when Sirius was obviously mooning over
his lost Remus. It must be bad. Sirius grimaced and glared down at his eggs, skewering them
viciously and shoveling them in his mouth with enough ferocity to make a fox proud. When James
continued to jab his fork at Sirius, in between gulps of tea, Sirius finally relented. “Just thought of
something I wanted to talk to him about.” James just widened his eyes, waiting for more as he
returned his fork to its proper task: cramming as much food into James' gaping maw at once as it
could. Sirius sighed. “Hyperbolic geometry. I'm in this course, and I was wondering if Moony
ever knew that there were other-”

With a loud groan James slammed his head shockingly hard onto the table. Sirius, unfazed,
continued to eat his breakfast. He ignored it when James started to snore loudly. James wasn't
interested in any of that stuff, sure, he got it. It was why he wasn't going to tell James the thought
in the first place – it was why he wanted to tell Remus about it.

But of course, Remus wasn't around anymore. Sirius hadn't been able to get back into Grimmauld
Place since he ran away to James' the first day of summer holidays between fifth and sixth year.
Sirius could only hope, and dream, and fantasize about Remus making it out of wherever he had
been living safely, had made it away from those other boys he only mentioned once in a long,
long while.

Groaning, James abruptly jumped up from the table and rushed to the bathroom. Sirius rolled his
eyes and continued to tuck into breakfast. Ten minutes later James returned, beaming like he'd just
gotten a bird's number. “Fucking beer shits,” James complained. “Better now. And hey: wasn't in
your loo. You're welcome.”

Sirius grimaced. There was that, at least. If James had done in his poor loo what he had surely just
done to this unsuspecting cafe toilet, Sirius wouldn't have been able to enter the flat for the rest of
the day.

Burping loudly, James pushed his now finished plate away from him and grinned at Sirius, poncy
hair sticking up every which-way. “You wanna swing by mine later and do some work? Some
maths, right, because you pilots need maths and are as brilliant and smart as any of us posh uni
boys, I know.”

That managed to elicit a small smile from Sirius. Downing the last of his coffee, he nodded.
“Alright. Although this is a not-so-cunningly disguised plan to get me to help you with your
maths, I'll come over.”

Holding one hand over his heart and the other palm out next to his head, James solemnly swore: “I
promise to cook my mum's amazing bangers and mash in recompense.”

Sirius nodded sharply. “Deal.”

They shook on it, and Sirius was able to do so without his heart wanting to claw out of his chest,
without his hand itching to go through the motions of an entirely different handshake. He was
 healing, slowly but surely. Maybe. Who knows: maybe one of these days he'd let James drag him
to one of those clubs they'd heard whispers about, where boys going with boys and girls going
with girls wasn't looked two ways at.

A flash of tweed and sandy hair caught his eye as Sirius and James stepped out into the sunlight
outside the cafe. Neck jerking like it would separate clean from his body, Sirius followed the
colors to the sight of a shorter, skinny boy hurrying down the street. Too short. And when he
turned to look at Sirius – probably because he was making a fool of himself, just staring in the
middle of the path like that – Sirius could see green eyes looking at him, and a face no where near
the same he remembered. Sirius' heart clenched and he turned away, looking back at James who
was preoccupied with stuffing his wallet back in his trousers. So maybe he wasn't ready to meet
other blokes like him just yet. Not when he was so clearly not over Remus yet.

“Seven?” James asked, oblivious to Sirius' distraction.

Sirius nodded, plastering an easy smile on his face. “Seven,” he confirmed. They waved each
other off, heading in opposite directions.

“This'd be easier if you'd just move in!” James shouted after Sirius.

Sirius turned to see James grinning at him, walking backwards down the street, Sirius rolled his
eyes and shouted back: “And see your ugly mug every day? Ta, never!”

They both laughed, but Sirius' smile fell from his face as soon as he turned back around. Shoving
his hands deep into his coverall pockets, Sirius tried to ignore the aching hole in his chest. He'd
never be able to take James up on his offer for a flat-share. Not when the person he was supposed
to be sharing a flat with was out there, somewhere, still looking for him. Maybe. Sirius could
dream, at least.

Chapter End Notes

Bonus note/TMI: Way too much of this chapter is based in entirely real life
adventures of me and my own best friend.

....

Obviously she's James. Yup. Uh-Huh. Definitely DX

 Chapter 34
Chapter Summary

James wants Sirius to meet this new bird of his.

James' flat absolutely stank. Sirius grumbled as he hunted through the mountains of dirty lacrosse
socks and stained pants. Ugh. Sirius was just glad he wasn't going to uni with James, and
therefore didn't have to put up with his absolutely appalling personal hygiene. Sirius didn't expect
James to quite be as neat as he was – most blokes, from what Sirius could gather, weren't – but
there had to be some minimum amount of hygiene, honestly! Sirius tried not to even look at James'
sink if he could help it. Last time he had, he had seen mould growing on the topmost layer of pots
and pans. Who knew what was lurking a few layers down?

“You ready?”

“Fuck off!” Sirius shouted over at James. “I have to go back to my flat anyway,” he continued,
lifting up a bed sheet as he did. Oh, gross. Piles of used tissues. James was such a fucking slob.
“Dunno why you're making me go with you just to meet some bird!”

Footsteps behind Sirius alerted him to James' presence. He continued to hold up the sheet, turning
to James with eyebrows raised. James just rolled his eyes and stomped over to Sirius, knocking the
sheet out of his hand. “Not all of us can be poofs like you,” he shot back.

Sirius rolled his eyes. “Doesn't take a poof to keep his flat clean. Dunno how you ever get a bird
back to your bed.”

James just winked. “Don't turn the lights on, do I?” Then the philandering look that Sirius was
used to seeing the past few years left James' face in a moment and was replaced by the newer
utterly besotted look that had graced James' annoyingly handsome features more and more these
days. “And if I ever brought her over, I'd clean. Or pay you to.”

Sirius gagged at the thought. “Mate, it'd take more money than your family's ever going to have
plus all of Uncle Al's inheritance to get me anywhere near that kitchen with so much as a
flamethrower.”

James retaliated by throwing a sock at Sirius' head. Sirius ducked, doing his best not to think about
the fact that the sock had come from amidst the pile of tissues on the bed. Seriously: James needed
a good woman in his life. Thank God for this new bird, even if Sirius hadn't met her yet. Which,
oh yeah, was why he was scrounging around James' wretched flat. He was supposed to dress up
nice to meet this “Lily” girl of James'. Sirius grunted and changed his search to the bookshelf,
thinking maybe he'd left it there. He tried to ignore the pain in his chest when the thought of the
other bloke in his life he'd lost to another Lily rose up, sharp and angry.

Sirius' eyes skittered to a stop as they glanced through James' shelf, narrowing as they locked onto
a book. Tugging it out, Sirius saw it was a children's book. He thought for a moment maybe it'd
be good fodder for taking the mickey, so he flipped through it quickly as James sprayed some of
his horrid cologne on himself in the loo. As he got to the end Sirius' mood worsened, and by the
time he was closing the cover he wanted to throw the stupid book across the room.
“Oh yeah, that's a good one,” James said, just over Sirius' shoulder.

Sirius responded by shoving the book against James' chest and storming over to the half-wall that
separated the bedroom and living room. “Yeah, maybe for saps in love like yourself,” he
grumbled.

“Yeah, well maybe if you tried to find someone-” James stopped, cutting himself off abruptly.
Sirius didn't turn to look at him, focusing instead on checking between the cushions of the ratty,
hideous couch and then beneath it. He could hear James placing The Missing Piece back onto his
shelf before following him into the living room.

“Sorry,” James muttered. “I know you're still cut up over him.”

Sirius shrugged, neither confirming nor denying it. Fact of the matter was, he thought about
Remus every other desperate, lonely day, and every more lonely night. He missed him. Horribly.
When he'd been unable to get back to the room, when he'd made his escape with James, he felt
like he was leaving a piece of his heart behind. Not even: he felt like he left his entire heart behind
in the World with Remus, like he'd never, ever be able to feel that way about anyone ever again,
because he had nothing left to feel with. And no one would be able to live up to Remus, how
perfectly he understood Sirius and how well Sirius understood him in turn.

His only consolation was that he'd had the foresight to bring his shoebox with him to boarding
school after the last time, when he had that feeling, that awful, dreadful premonition it might be a
long time before he got to see Remus again. Thank God for that. Otherwise Sirius would have
nothing to remember Remus by.

Which was what he was fucking looking for right now, in James' utter hell hole of a flat. Which of
course, probably accounted for his especially self-pitying mood today. They came and went.
Besides, he wasn't looking for the whole shoebox, but the first birthday card Remus had give him,
all those years ago. There was barely any glitter left on the thing, Sirius had taken it out and
stroked it so much, but Remus' little nine year old handwriting was still there, clear as day. He had
taken it with him when James had forced him to go on a pub crawl with him. Then all he could
recall was sobbing over it, drunkenly somewhere in James' flat at the end of the night. If he could
only...

Aha! His fingers closed against something under the couch, something that didn't feel like empty
beer cans or sticky... something. He tugged, and sure enough there was Remus' card: the inky a
little bit runny, the glitter even more faded and the cardboard more crinkled than last time, but
wholly intact. Sirius would kiss it if we weren't so afraid of what he might catch from the
microorganisms that surely had set up a colony beneath James' sofa.

“I wish you'd make an effort at least,” James said, though his tone was more cautious and kind
than teasing. Sirius must have really made a spectacle of himself last night. Fantastic.

Sirius shrugged, brushing dust off the card before tucking it in the back pocket of his jeans. He
crossed his arms and looked at James. “Don't wanna,” he said simply. “Not yet.”

James rubbed the back of his head, hair all ruffled in obvious preparation for his exciting coffee-
shop date. “Yeah, but... I mean, I've got Lils, and I'm sure you'd get along great with someone,
you know. We could go on double dates, it'd be brilliant! Isn't there anyone at your pilot school?
Any bonkers poofs like you?”

Sirius rolled his eyes. James was his best mate, sure, but what he said just went to show exactly
what he didn't understand about Sirius – and Remus. Sirius didn't need someone as mad as him,
someone who wanted to go into space and fly jet planes and do all sorts of mad stunts. He needed
someone to calm him down, to bring him back to earth and hold him there without being too
cloying or fussy. That's exactly what Remus had been for Sirius, and that's what James didn't get.
Which was fine, it was great, because James was his mate and at least half as mad as Sirius, so
they got along like houses on fire. But James wasn't what Sirius needed a partner, nor did he
understand what he needed. Sirius did. Sirius had already had it. He'd already lost it.

“Hey, you know Mum's birthday's coming up. You got something?”

Sirius nodded absently, glancing around the flat to make sure there wasn't anything else he needed
before he headed back to his own flat to clean up. James wanted him “presentable” to meet this
bird of his, so Sirius was going to at least grab a shower and run a comb through his hair before he
set out. “Yeah,” he replied. “Ages ago. It's next week: you haven't gotten anything?”

The sheepish look on James' face was answer enough. Sirius rolled his eyes and thought for
barely a moment before he had something. “That handbag, you remember it? The one back in
Flourish's shop three months ago? It'll be out of season now, but that means it'll be half off and
she'll get to use it for next year.”

James stared, dumbfounded at Sirius. He just rolled his eyes and hurried onwards before James
could chalk Sirius' present-giving abilities up to him being a poof. It was because he'd been
thinking about giving others – Remus, specifically – presents since he was nine. It was easy to
figure out with a bit of practice. And you didn't need to be a poof to manage it.

“Right then,” Sirius said, snatching up his keys from the table. “Meeting you at three, yeah?”

James nodded. “Yeah. You know which shop, right? The one just off-”

Sirius rolled his eyes and threw two fingers over his shoulder as he stormed out of James' flat.
“Yeah, yeah, I know. Just because I don't go to your poncy Cambridge doesn't mean I don't
remember the student cafe. I'll be there.”

“Fuck off!”

“You first!”

Sirius smiled as he settled onto his bike, revving the engine and taking off down the street. James
was a right prat, but he was Sirius' right prat. And really, he had Sirius' best interest at heart. He'd
been witness to Sirius moping for two years over the boy he'd left back home when he'd run away
to the Potters', and he just wanted Sirius to find someone to be happy with. Only trouble was,
Sirius had already found that person. And he was gone.

Cutting between two cars and ignoring the honking that followed in his wake, Sirius raced across
town back to his flat, feeling the wind on his face, wiping away the tears before he could even feel
them.
 Chapter 35
Chapter Summary

...

Chapter Notes

See the end of the chapter for notes

Sirius unzipped his leather jacket but didn't take it off as he entered the cafe. He figured he'd have
to play the big brother role today, give off the break-James'-heart-and-I-break-your-legs vibe, and
it'd be that much easier with the jacket still on. Especially since he was sure James had told his girl
by now that he was a poof – James told everyone he was a poof, he thought it was brilliant, the
daft sod – Sirius would take all the help he could get looking unlike a fairy.

He spotted James almost immediately, sitting in a back table of the cafe. As he walked over, Sirius
eyed the four seats suspiciously. It could just be how the table was set up. But there were several
three-chaired tables over by the window, with a nice view of everybody hurrying by in the brisk
autumn air. Slowly Sirius lowered himself to a chair next to James, giving him a look.

James put on his best innocent face, which was to say, he didn't fool Sirius at all. Years and years
of running around Hogwarts Boarding School with James, getting into all sorts of mischief and the
denying any involvement to the teachers there had taught Sirius all of James' tricks.

“Out with it,” Sirius said. “You're trying to set me up, aren't you?”

James winced, shrugging his shoulders sheepishly. “It's her best mate. I figured if I was bringing
you along, then it'd only be fair-”

“He's gay, isn't he?

At that James laughed, ruffling his hair. “Well he'd have to be, to hang around a beauty like Lily
and not make a move!”

Sirius rolled his eyes. James didn't seem to understand the whole concept of personal tastes and
preferences. Just because he thought his girl was the absolute best in the world didn't make it
objectively true. But far be it from Sirius to try and ever explain that to James.

Briefly Sirius considered actually leaving the damn cafe and letting James look like an arse. It
would serve him right, for trying to set Sirius up with some random bloke. But James was
twitching so nervously, hand skittering up to his hair to ruffle it up, then pat it down, the ruffle it
up again; feet tap dancing beneath the table; fingers adjusting his glasses' frame again and again
and again on his poncy excited face. So Sirius stayed, taking pity on James, picking up a menu
and trying to decide if he wanted something more adventurous than his usual black coffee.

“You're gonna like her,” James insisted.

Sirius didn't even bother to roll his eyes, instead drawing out a bored, “Sure she's great,” as his
fingers drummed on the tabletop. He desperately didn't want to be there. He'd much rather be in
the garage, fiddling with the planes, checking the gauges. One of the older blokes there – real life
RAF pilot, from back in the war – said he'd take Sirius up soon on a few copilot runs. Sirius just
had to promise to keep his plane in perfect condition, which he did, gladly. At least sitting on a
plane, mussing through its engines, Sirius was able to get some piece of mind. Everything fell into
place, like when he was riding his motorcycle. It was like... It was almost like slipping into Siria.
No expectations, no family or nerves or inadequacies. Just a task, a plan of execution, and his
body moving to fulfill it all just right.

When the door jangled, Sirius didn't even bother looking up. Honestly, he wanted to put off
meeting this Lily bird and seeing whatever boy James thought was a suitable replacement for
Remus for as long as possible. Next to him, James was already stumbling over his chair trying to
stand up, practically upending the little table in the process. Sirius rolled his eyes and set down his
menu, deciding he better acknowledge James' bird before James killed himself trying to get to her.
So he looked up... and his heart stopped.

It was Remus. It was Remus standing next to Lily, smiling at James' clumsiness and not seeming
to have noticed Sirius yet. He was almost three years older, sure, but it was definitely him. A little
bit taller, hair an edge darker and an inch longer – curling at the bottom, and Sirius' stomach
fluttered at that, his fingertips itched to reach out and touch. He'd gotten a mite broader, too: filled
into all those knees and elbows Sirius remembered from the last time they'd seen each other. But
his eyes were the same. Those eyes Sirius had spent the better part of his childhood staring into;
those eyes that he had known he'd recognize even if it had been decades later. They were exactly
the same.

“-this is Sirius,” James was saying, apparently doing introductions while Sirius sat with his mouth
open, staring up at the one person in the world he'd never see again and the one he had to see
again, needed to have in his life, more than air and food and anything else. He'd have given up
flying if it meant seeing Remus again, since he was the one who'd instilled his love of it in the first
place.

It took Sirius a moment to realize Remus had locked eyes with him and was staring, just as equally
as dumbfounded. Abruptly Sirius jumped up, his chair skidding backwards over the stone tiles of
the cafe with a loud screech. Striding forward, Sirius stuck his hand out to Remus. Out of some
sort of instinct, because judging by the look on Remus' face his brain had shorted out about ten
seconds ago and hadn't managed to wind itself back into motion yet, Remus stuck his own hand
out. Their hands slapped against each other, circled 'round, then linked fingers in the easy
movement of their secret handshake. Only this time Sirius didn't let go. He was never letting go
again. This time, Sirius pulled Remus into a kiss.

Remus responded immediately, free hand going around Sirius' waist and tugging him closer, while
their right hands remained clasped between them. Sirius opened his mouth to Remus, melting
against him as he responded in kind, mouths sucking desperately at each other and tongues
sliding, bodies touching everywhere in a rushed, frantic attempt to reconnect, to put aside the last
three years and confirm to each other that yes, they were there, and yes, they still loved each other.
It didn't matter that they'd never said it; it didn't matter that they'd never even discussed being gay
and wanting the other. They knew each other, knew each other's mind immediately, just like they
always did.

When they pulled away Sirius blinked, vision blurry like he'd just been hit in the head. Only when
Remus' hand left his waist and came up to wipe tears from his cheeks did Sirius realize he'd been
crying.

“I love you,” Sirius whispered. It was the first thing that came to mind, the only thing he needed
Remus to know just in case they were ripped apart again.

The beatific look that spread across Remus' face made Sirius' knees feel weak, his heart fill to
bursting inside his much-too-tiny-to-contain-it chest. Remus pressed his forehead to Sirius', rolling
it gently as he replied. “I know. I've known. I love you, too.”

Distantly Sirius thought he might be aware of some jeering going on in the cafe around them, and
maybe James (and Lily?) threatening to knock the bollocks off the other patrons and cheering on
Sirius and Remus. Though honestly, Sirius' ears were still ringing with blood roaring through
them, and his vision incapable of looking past anything besides Remus' quietly ecstatic face. To
Sirius, he looked like the old statues of saints from the Renaissance: throes of ecstasy painting their
features that could only come from the divine. He was beautiful.

“Your birthday's in three weeks,” Sirius said, realizing even as he spoke what an utter non-
sequitur that was. But Remus just laughed and nuzzled his nose against Sirius' cheek, eyes
fluttering closed in happiness.

“Yeah,” he whispered. “It is. Going to get me something nice?”

“I already have an idea,” Sirius replied back. And he did. Half-term was going to fall over Remus'
birthday, and Sirius knew exactly what he wanted to do with Remus, where he wanted to go.

**

Eventually the boys did manage to separate from each other long enough to sit down together,
though Sirius couldn't help his need to stay in constant contact with Remus. A hand on his thigh, a
foot brushing against his, fingertips touching and teasing at that new curl at the bottom of Remus'
hairline. Sirius couldn't get enough, never wanted to get enough. Just wanted to keep staring and
touching and having Remus right there, forever.

Lily and James were seated together, looking a mix of confused and proud of themselves. It was
Remus who asked the obvious question first, though, for which Sirius was grateful. He honestly
wasn't sure if he could manage to tear his eyes away for the second it would take him to glare a
reprimand at James.

“Didyou two know?” Remus asked. Sirius brushed his fingertips over the inside of Remus' elbow.
The skin beneath his hand jumped a little – a ticklish spot. Sirius couldn't stop smiling.

Lily shook her head, red hair spilling over her shoulders back and forth. “No,” she insisted.
“James had mentioned his mate Sirius, but I didn't know- Is this Padfoot? The pen pal?” The
question was directed at Remus.

That managed to penetrate Sirius' consciousness, and he looked up at Remus, bemused. “Padfoot?
The pen pal?”

Remus' smile was sheepish, and oh, Sirius' stomach fluttered and twisted and generally danced
around inside of him at that. “I had to explain why I didn't know what had happened,” he said.
“And why she couldn't meet you when we were on hols.”

The question was in Remus' eyes a second later, and Sirius rushed to answer it. He'd told Remus a
dozen times in a mind, explained how badly he'd wanted to say goodbye, how he wanted to see
him just one more time so he could give him an address, a phone number, something so they could
see each other in the real world. “I ran away,” he said. “First day of summer hols. James and I
showered confetti on campus-”

James barked a laugh at that, and Lily punched him in the arm to be quiet. If Sirius weren't so
wrapped up in his own love story right now, he might have taken a moment to approve of James'
bird. She was willing to keep him in line: that was good. Sirius would put his official stamp of
approval on the girl if she managed to force him to clean up his flat.

“Walburga was there in the coach. She never came in person,” Sirius continued. Remus winced in
sympathy, and slipping down the table to curl protectively around Sirius'. “She threatened me, you
know. For when we'd get back home. Then...” he sighed, feeling the hair in his face flop up and
back down. Remus' eyes flickered to follow it for a moment, and Sirius made a note of that for
later. Remus hadn't seen him with his hair as long as it was. “Well, James had asked me about
you. And I told him bits. And I guess I was feeling, dunno... dumb and brave and in love-” Remus
smiled at that, “and I told her where to shove it. And that I wouldn't be marrying any of the girls
she picked out for me because I was a poof. She didn't disown me on the spot – that letter came a
couple months later, after I'd been living with James.”

“So you had run away,” Remus breathed, understanding passing over his face. “You couldn't get
back to your door.”

Sirius shook his head, ignoring James and Lily exchanging confused looks. “I have a box, though.
A box of all the stuff you gave me. Cards and letters and clothes. I'd brought it with me to school
the last time, because I was afraid Walburga would find it. It's got all...” he choked up, and had to
pause for a moment while Remus squeezed his hand in reassurance. “Everything. I kept
everything.”

“I still have the journal,” Remus replied. Sirius breathed in sharply, heart clenching in his chest.
He loved this man so much. “I added pages so it'd last longer. I wrote to you. Left you notes in the
World.”

“Wait, wait.” James waved his hands around in an attempt to get the attention of the two love-sick
boys at the table with him. Sirius laughed, wiping his eyes with his free hand and finally looking
away from Remus to James. “What the hell?” James asked, helplessly. “Lily says you two were
pen pals, but I thought you lived on Sirius' block or something.”

Sirius and Remus exchanged a look, then burst out laughing. James and Lily were left sitting
there, baffled in the face of the boys' laughter. Sirius groaned, trying to think how to explain it, or
if they even should. James'd probably lock him up for being completely mental. It was Remus
who finally spoke up and said simply: “It's a bit of a secret. We'll tell you one day: once we
manage to figure out how to explain it.”

James looked ready to protest and press the issue, but Lily just elbowed him and smiled sweetly at
the couple. Sirius stared at all the light hair peppering Remus' arms. That hadn't been there last
time they'd seen each other. At least, not nearly as dense. Huh. “Wait,” Sirius said, his mind
backing up and changing gears. “You go to uni with Lily? At Cambridge?”

Remus smiled. “Yeah. I told you I was going to uni. First one in my family.”

Sirius beamed aback. “That's brilliant, Remus. That's... that's brilliant.”

“I actually...” Remus flushed, and Sirius' heart sped up again. “I chose one that I thought you
might be at. Just in case.”

Sirius laughed, then shook his head. “I'm at an aviation school. Going to be a private pilot.
Probably end up jetting my relatives around, actually,” he joked.

But Remus' eyes had lit up, recognizing the significance behind Sirius' light tone. “You're a pilot,”
he breathed. “You're flying.”

“Yeah,” Sirius whispered back. “Thanks to you. You made me want to fly.”
 Sirius leaned forward, and Remus met him in the middle, kissing him gently on the lips. James
made a gagging noise, to which Sirius replied by sticking out two fingers. He didn't even open his
eyes or break the kiss with Remus.

When they parted, Sirius grinned. “I got a motorcycle,” he said, waggling his eyebrows. Remus
burst out laughing, clamping a hand over his mouth after a second of the uncharacteristically loud
display. “Wanna see how it feels to fly?”

“With you? Absolutely,” Remus smiled back, and. Oh. Sirius went light-headed for a moment.
He'd never picture Remus leering at him, or looking overtly sexy like that. In his memories,
Remus was always shy, quiet, never the one to be overt. But then again... Sirius's grin grew
crooked as he remembered all the times Remus had taken the first step: playing girl-boy games, air
kisses, cheek kisses... It seemed, now that Sirius was thinking about it, that Remus had been
seducing him for seven years. Sirius had just never been smart enough to realize it.

“Come on.” Sirius squeezed Remus' hand and tugged him up from his seat, realizing at the last
moment he was abandoning James and Lily. “Oh...”

“Go!” James said, rolling his eyes. Lily was making a similarly-encouraging shooing motion to
Remus with her hands. “Who am I to deny you two lovebirds some time alone? Oh, but...” James'
nose wrinkled behind his glasses before he asked, quite plaintively: “Could you not shag on the
couch? I sleep on that when I'm piss- uh... staying over?” He changed his sentence at the last
moment when Lily starting glaring at him from beneath her fierce mop of straight red hair.

Sirius flushed, and was glad to look over to see Remus sporting a similar reaction. “Dunno if you
have to worry about that just yet,” Sirius grumbled. “But we'll keep it in mind.”

With that, Sirius tugged Remus out into the brisk October air. He only removed his hand from
Remus' to zip up his leather jacket. Then he turned and grinned at Remus, who was similarly
bundling up his peacoat. Sirius stepped closer, taking Remus' floppy scarf and looping it around
Remus' neck several more times before tucking the ends into his jacket. When he was done Sirius
pecked Remus on the nose and smiled at the flush that spread across his cheeks. “For safety,” he
explained. “And so you don't lose it.”

As they climbed onto the motorcycle together, Remus leaned forward and spoke directly into
Sirius' ear. “So you don't share a flat with James?” he asked.

Sirius shook his head as he kicked the bike into growling life. “No,” he shouted back. “He wasn't
who I promised to live with.”

Remus' arms were tight around Sirius as they sped away, his chest bleeding warmth into Sirius'
back. The wind whipped at Sirius' face, hair tangling and stinging as it thrashed around. Never
before had riding his motorcycle really felt like flying. But now, with Remus at Sirius' back, there
was a lightness in his body that made him dizzy, made him feel like he was floating away. With
Remus there, exactly where he should be, Sirius felt light enough that he really was flying.

Chapter End Notes

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