Chapter Text
“Lie low at Lupin’s for a while” – Dumbledore’s voice still rung in his ears, in that calm tone that never quite matched the situation they were all in. If anything, it angered Sirius, who wanted to remain in Hogwarts as Padfoot, sleeping in Harry’s bed, making sure he was minimally alright. He did not want to use whoever’s wand it was that Dumbledore had placed in his hands, and he did not want to Apparate all over the country, first to contact that old hag Figg in Surrey, and then to track down Mundungus Fletcher in a dirty pub in Cheshire. In the bloke’s drunken state, it had taken Sirius nearly three hours to remind him that no, he was not a murderer and to inform that yes, Voldemort had come back to life after performing some macabre ritual with help from the very man Sirius had been falsely accused of killing.
So when he finally managed to reach Remus’ cottage in the Middle of Bloody Nowhere, Yorkshire, exhaustion had taken over his weakened muscles. The shots of firewhiskey he and Dung had shared at the back of the pub had not helped, and as soon as he heard Remus move to open the door for him, he regretted having drunk at all.
“Ask me something only the real Sirius Black would know,” were his first (slightly slurred) words for Remus, after almost a year of not seeing him in person.
“What was my main concern when you invited me over to your parents’ house for the first time in fourth year?” Remus asked, barely hiding an amused smile, his muggle attire of sweater and jeans just as shabby as the wizard robes Sirius had last seen him in. His hair was still the same tawny colour as always, despite the new streaks of grey, and for a second Sirius actually forgot what he’d come all the way over there to tell him. The faintest of smiles crossed his own expression, and suddenly the inappropriateness of it all made him drop it, a frown taking its place.
“You asked if they’d finally given in and installed muggle plumbing, and the answer was no.” He still responded, shaking his head. “I appreciate the humour, but you must know why I’m here all of a sudden.”
“Voldemort is back.”
“How…?”
“Had a hunch.” He heard Remus respond with a shrug, and then saw him step aside to let Sirius in. The house was small, but the little sitting room the door lead to was decently furnished, at least. None of the wooden pieces of furniture matched, but there was a reasonably sized fireplace in the corner and live plants in ceramic vases. Remus had made a home for himself, or so it seemed.
“Dumbledore sent me over, told me to lay low for a while. Let me tell you, it’s not easy to get a drink when you’re a convicted murderer, but I managed to get Dung Fletcher to buy me one on the way here.” Sirius sat down without an invitation, propping his feet up in the coffee table. After all that had transpired, he had no idea of where to start – Harry, the labyrinth, Peter’s role in everything; the facts had refused to sink in, still swimming around in his head. Yet, all Sirius could register was how thin his own ankles looked, as they peeked from under the filthy robes he’d been wearing for too long now.
“Is it alright with you, if I stay?” He asked, instead of waiting for a response from the other man.
Remus was quieter than Sirius had expected, but the news was probably to blame. He had a feeling that they had left too many things unsaid since that night when he’d escaped Hogwarts in Buckbeak’s back, a year ago. The letters he and Remus had exchanged didn’t seem to have covered it all and the apologies they had traded were only just enough to get them to stay in contact – vague notes scribbled in damaged parchment, careful not to denote either of their locations. Now being face to face after so many years didn’t seem nearly as doable, if Remus’s rather unenthusiastic welcome was anything to go by.
“Sure. D’you want something to eat?” Remus spoke, coolly. Sirius watched as he crossed the room and entered the small kitchen space, which was mostly visible from his seat. It was interesting to note how it was equipped with all sorts of muggle contraptions, such as one of those large white ice boxes, from where Remus had retrieved a carton of eggs and package of sausages. He seemed to know his way around what Sirius recognised as a gas stove, and the strange normality of the scene made him even more aware of his current indecent state of dirty hair and fingernails.
It didn’t take much for Remus to be done with the cooking, though, and they ate in silence until Sirius started retelling what he’d heard from Harry. Remus had offered his sentiments for the dead Hufflepuff boy, whom he remembered having taught; but Sirius was more concerned about Harry than anyone else. He’d been through enough with the Triwizard tournament, having to live with the fact that someone out there wanted to kill him. He was only fourteen !, his godfather had exclaimed, punching the top of the cheap formica countertop. Harry didn’t deserve this. And neither had James and Lily, nor Remus standing before him or Sirius hhimself, his brain completed.
“I could draw you a bath,” the suggestion came in a warmer tone than Remus had used before, interrupting his musings, and Sirius had the sense not to be offended by it. He’d been washing in the rain as Padfoot only, and according to his recollections, he hadn’t had a proper bath since bloody 1981.
Thanking the man before him, Sirius let himself be guided to the washroom. There was no second floor for Remus to escape to, but having a closed door between himself and another creature as he disrobed and bathed was a privilege he had not had in over a decade. His skin thanked the warm water as he sunk down, matted hair taking more effort to be washed than he’d expected. Sirius’s arms ached with the effort, but it seemed to have been worth it. He felt clean enough exiting the bathtub, and Remus’s clothes he’d borrowed smelled artificially like flowers and… soap. It felt truly delightful to have the worn-out fabric wrap him, and for the first time that night Sirius didn’t wish he was drunker, or that the world would just give him a break already.
“We ought to get your hair cut, too,” Remus teased, and Sirius thought of saying no. He couldn’t just walk into a barber shop, so that meant one of them would have to do it. Sirius couldn’t be bothered to do it himself and, for some reason, having Remus take care of his hair seemed too intimate; something that didn’t quite feel right in their present situation.
“I’ll think about it.” He conceded, eventually, firewhiskey’s effect having worn off and left only tiredness behind. Sirius had half a mind to transform into Padfoot and curl in front of the now lit fireplace when Remus opened the door to his own bedroom, which he’d skipped during their quick tour upon his arrival.
“Thought you might want to take the bed, for a change. Sheets are not silk, but I reckon cotton must beat old newspaper, anyway” Remus smiled, and Sirius had no comeback. He was used to jabs on him being a posh brat – or had been, one day – and the familiarity of it made him uneasy. He accepted the offer quietly, then, taking a moment to look around the room while he watched Remus leave, blanket and pillow in hand as he settled on the sofa – now transfigured into something larger and, hopefully, less lumpy than it’d felt when Sirius was sitting on it before.
The room followed the same décor pattern as the one they’d been in before – mismatched bed, nightstand and dresser, knitted quilt and books everywhere filling the small space – and Sirius felt strangely comfortable. The sheets smelled of the same artificially-flowery soap, and the warming charm Remus had put on the mattress was a pleasant surprise. It didn’t take much for sleep to catch up to Sirius in there, eyelids heavy after he’d had all the fight in him drained. Besides, Moony’s pillow was soft under his sunken cheek, and there would be enough time to worry later on.
***
“I offered Dumbledore my parents’ house, by the way,” Sirius had said, a few days later. He could sense another joke about the place coming, but Remus refrained. They had not talked much to each other, but hadn’t stood in uncomfortable silence, either. He and Remus had listened to the wireless and watched the muggle news in the telly-vision. People seemed excited for a movie about a man-bat and these new frozen coffee drinks, with no suspicious deaths to be reported. Remus had shouted at Sirius only once so far, when he’d managed to disappear for a whole afternoon, only to come back mounted on a ‘bloody hippogriff’, concealed by the ‘worst sodding disillusionment charm’ Remus had seen ‘since they’d banned smoking in the tube trains’ – whatever that meant.
Sirius had to tell himself not to take it personally, but had still hoped Remus would realise on his own that he hadn’t been able to do magic for over twelve years, and then feel bad for insulting his abilities.
“It’s the only thing I can do to be useful anyway,” Sirius had completed, huffing in annoyance as he turned back to the passive-aggressive task of transfiguring the frayed hems of Remus’s trousers he’d been wearing. The old maple wand he’d been using wouldn’t agree with him too well on a good day, and as the frustration built, it tended to perform even more poorly.
“You’ll be safer there,” Remus had replied after a moment of contemplation, nose scrunched up as he tinkered with one of the bigger muggle appliances – the one that twisted clothes inside itself with water and soap (and something called fabric softener, as Sirius had learnt) to wash them up. It had started to behave strangely in the past week and though fixing it with magic had seemed logical to Sirius, he ended up surprised and a bit impressed when his old friend had shown up to the kitchen with a metallic box full of tools and started messing with the machine’s buttons. ‘Muggles get suspicious if you fix their stuff without these’ he had said, and Sirius wondered what else Remus had learnt to do for money over the years.
“I thought… you might want to come too. It’s a big house. There’s supposed to be a lot of work to be done to make the place liveable and I’ve heard you’re particularly good with boggarts these days.” Sirius cleared his throat as the washing machine – what a silly name, really – went back to humming peacefully, the pieces of clothing once again twisting inside. Remus seemed to ponder, but the smile that’d appeared on his face when Sirius mentioned him being good with something didn’t leave his expression once.
“We’ll have to fix the plumbing situation, though. First order of business. We’re installing proper loos.”
“Deal.”
There wasn’t much to pack at the cottage but clothes and books, though Remus had insisted on bringing the telly-vision with them. ‘It’s good for background noise, you’ll see,’ he’d argued, and Sirius had acquiesced with a shrug. Moving wasn’t exactly hard, but Remus did let a small comment about missing the fresh air of the fields escape. With the ghosts of life in Number 12, Grimmauld Place already making his skin prickle, Sirius decided to stay silent and not think of the way he himself would miss looking out of Remus’s window and watching the sun rise over the vegetation every morning.