[Podfic-TTS] Wolfstar Podfics Composed by BurningAurora

Caesura

The thing is, Remus thinks morosely while he nurses a cup of tea and watches the spirited game of chess happening in the other room. The thing is, Harry is his son.

It’s utterly ridiculous. He’s being utterly ridiculous. It’s just that, from the moment Harry stepped foot in Grimmauld Place a week ago and spotted Sirius, he’s been glued to Sirius’s side and hasn’t once stopped talking about him. Sirius, of course, is utterly delighted (well, insufferably smug, more like) by the attention, especially as it’s coming from his fourteen-year-old godson who thinks he’s cool. Which, of course, Sirius is, and that makes it so much worse. Sirius is cool, and Remus never has been, and Harry’s getting a glimpse of the life he could have had with Sirius. The one he would have had, if Sirius hadn’t been so bloody stupid all those years ago.

“Moony!” Harry crows as his queen gleefully bashes Sirius’s to pieces on the board. Sirius is trying to look put out, and failing badly at it. He mostly looks amused, which is the closest thing to happy that Remus has seen out of him since the two of them moved into this awful house a month before the end of term. “Did you see that?”

“I did, pup.” Remus settles his shoulder more comfortably against the doorjamb. “Excellent job.”

“One more game,” Harry demands, and of course Sirius says yes, because Sirius can’t deny Harry anything. It’d be sweet, really, if Remus didn’t find it so irrationally annoying.

Of course, he instantly feels guilty at the thought, because for the moment Harry is acting like the carefree teenager he should be. This is the most animated he’s seen Harry since the end of the school year, which he desperately hopes is a good thing. He’d been a pale, trembling shell of himself in Dumbledore’s office after the Triwizard Tournament, and he’d clung to Remus so hard he’d left bruises. Remus had listened with creeping horror as Harry numbly recounted the night’s events. He’d dropped his face into his hands at one point and mentally ordered himself to hold back the tears. He could break down later, when he wasn’t in front of Harry. He’d then spent a sleepless night with Harry in the Hospital Wing, and after the confrontation with Fudge the next day, had decided then and there that he was bringing Harry home immediately, the end of the school year be damned.

Well, not home. Home was the tiny cottage in Wales where he’d raised Harry, technically, but as much as Remus scolds his useless heart over it, he knows that for him home is wherever Sirius happens to be. Which, for now, is the terrible Black family home in central London.

“Moony?” Harry’s voice pulls him from his thoughts. Sirius’s pieces are in, well, pieces all over the board; Harry has triumphed again. But the look of joy is quickly melting off his face, and now he looks concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Remus forces a smile and pushes himself off the doorjamb. He goes over to where Harry’s seated and drops a kiss on his head. “Getting late, that’s all. Time for bed. You can kick Sirius’s arse again tomorrow night.”

Harry grumbles about still having a bedtime at fourteen, but he goes willingly enough. Remus knows perfectly well that he’s going to stay up until the early hours reading anyway, and Harry knows that he knows. Harry also knows that Remus won’t stop him.

Remus didn’t think this through, because suddenly Harry is gone and he’s alone with Sirius. The fire crackles merrily, but it’s not enough to offset the sudden awkward silence.

“Think I’ll go to bed, too,” he says, quickly and without making eye contact with Sirius. “Another long day of delousing this place tomorrow.”

He hears Sirius’s soft sigh, but the other man doesn’t say anything other than, “Good night, Remus.”

***

Grimmauld Place is worse than Remus imagined.

He has always known that Sirius hated his childhood home, hated it enough to run away to live with the Potters when he was sixteen and then get a flat of his own at seventeen. That hadn’t seemed so outlandish back then, but Remus looks at Harry now and thinks about how Sirius wasn’t much older than him when his home life drove him away, when he decided it was better to make a go of it on his own than spend another moment with his parents. He was a child . They all were. Children fighting a war, not the adults they pretended to be.

This house is horrid. Awful. Ghastly. There aren’t strong enough adjectives for the heaviness that weighs on Remus, especially when he thinks about Sirius as a baby, as a toddler, as a child within its walls. The queer Gryffindor son of a bigoted pureblood family. It must have been hell.

Walburga Black’s portrait screams at them. Kreacher prowls through the rooms, muttering horrible things about Sirius under his breath. There are doxies in the curtains, cursed objects in every room, mounted house elf heads, black mold on the walls, filth in the bathrooms, dust everywhere.

And every day, little by little, Sirius shrinks into himself. He picks at his food and drops the weight he had slowly started to gain since Azkaban. His hair grows out, a tangled mess he doesn’t comb. When he smiles, it’s not a smile at all. More a baring of teeth than anything else. He’s tired, and bitter, and miserable. Seeing him now is almost worse than that horrible night in the Shrieking Shack last year. At least Sirius had had a spark to him then, a fire that burned from within even if it was only fueled by vengeance. This Sirius is tired, and defeated, and old . It breaks Remus’s heart.

It hurts, too, how they are essentially strangers. They pass each other on the stair or in the corridor and Sirius won’t meet his eyes. Conversation at mealtimes is essentially non-existent--it’s only for Harry’s sake that they try at all. Whenever Remus enters a room that Sirius is in, Sirius makes an excuse to leave it. Every once in a while, there is something --an electric jolt whenever their shoulders brush in the narrow hallways, or when their fingers touch as Remus passes Sirius a cup of tea. But Sirius shies away from him, or Remus draws back quickly, and the moment is gone.

They’re meant to be getting the house ready for human habitation. This is going to be the new headquarters for the Order--Sirius can think of no better use for it, and frankly Remus agrees. But he hates that Sirius is here. He hates that he and Harry are here. He wishes he could bundle them all off to the cozy cottage in Wales, but...well.

It takes Harry another week to ask about it. Remus didn’t know how to bring it up before now, and some cowardly part of him is grateful that Harry broaches the topic first.

Some Gryffindor you are, an inner voice that sounds suspiciously like Sirius tells him.

“Moony…” Harry fingers the threadbare blanket thrown across his legs. They’re in one of the house’s libraries. Remus has a stack of books next to him that he’s been thumbing through for the past hour. Harry’s been reading one of his textbooks for the upcoming year, but for the past several minutes, his mind has been elsewhere. Remus can tell. “Why aren’t we at home?”

“This is the safest place for the Order,” Remus says. “We talked about that, remember? The amount of warding Sirius’s ancestors put on this house...”

“That’s not what I meant,” Harry says quietly.

Remus marks his page and closes his book. An ache, sudden and fierce, stabs him behind the eyes. He doesn’t want to talk about this. Given the choice, he never would have brought it up. He’d have buried it in the back of his mind, where he buries everything else he doesn’t want to think about--doesn’t want to feel--and would have got on with his life.

But he can’t do that now. Not when something affects Harry as much as him. He’s a parent, and he needs to face this.

“Harry,” he says gently, “our house is gone. It burned down.”

Harry blinks at him. “What?”

“I didn’t want to tell you when it happened,” Remus goes on, saying the words he’s rehearsed in his head for weeks--mostly when he’s lying awake in the middle of the night, staring at his ceiling. “What with the Triwizard Tournament and everything, I didn’t want you to get distracted. But the house burned down in May, right before the last task.”

Harry glares at him and says, “What?”

“Word about my being a werewolf spread far beyond Hogwarts once I resigned,” Remus says. “People weren’t pleased to learn that a werewolf had been raising Harry Potter all these years, nor that I had been teaching their children. It wasn’t too bad last summer, but after you went back to school last year...well. Things got heated. I received some threats.”

“What kind of threats?” Harry demands. “You never said!”

“You didn’t need to know,” Remus says firmly, and at least here he knows he’s in the right. He shouldn’t have kept the fire from Harry for so long, but there was no need to tell him about the threats. “What could you have done? I reported them all to Dumbledore, who spoke with the Ministry. They put some guards on the house.”

“Obviously not enough,” Harry says bitterly.

“He did what he could,” Remus says gently. “We both did. I expected the worst, so Sirius let me move most of our things here. Good thing, too. It was arson and the house is gone, but most everything was saved. I’ve been staying here with Sirius ever since.”

Several moments pass while Harry digests this. Remus sees a muscle tense in his jaw, and he’s holding himself very still, trying not to lose his composure.

“So what will we do?” Harry manages finally.

“Sirius is going to let us stay with him until we get back on our feet.” Remus gives him a smile, though it feels strained. “You leave all that to me, all right? You’re going back to Hogwarts in a couple of months, and then I’ll start house hunting properly.”

Harry absorbs this all for a moment. Then, he closes his book, gets up, and walks quietly out of the room.

***

Remus has always struggled with letting Harry go. It seems it’s all he ever does. Lets Harry go off to primary school for the first time, to his first sleepover at the Weasleys’, to Andromeda’s for the full moon, to Hogwarts as a painfully-small first-year. And then Remus gets him back, only to have to let him go again. A never-ending, eternally-painful cycle. He’d tried to put his foot down at the beginning of Harry’s third year, after Sirius escaped from Azkaban. Back when Remus still believed the man he loved was also a traitor. He was ready to pull Harry from school that year, determined to teach him at home and never let him out of his sight, but then Dumbledore had offered him the Defense position and Harry had turned imploring eyes on him.

When he thinks about all the times he let Harry go off to the Weasleys’ as a child, of the hundreds of nights Harry spent in the dormitory sleeping mere feet away from Peter Pettigrew--it makes him want to vomit. Sometimes he does. All the precautions in the world, and it might not have mattered at all. Harry could still have died.

But he didn’t. Harry is here, alive , and so is Sirius, and that’s more than Remus could have hoped for when his world collapsed on that long-ago Halloween.

Harry and Sirius are here, together, in this house, and Remus should feel elated. It’s all he’s ever wanted--well, all he’s wanted since that horrific day in 1981. He’s only ever wanted the three of them to be a family. But when he watches Harry and Sirius together, sometimes he can’t help the hot stab of jealousy in his gut.

Remus isn’t unused to feeling jealous around Sirius. Back when they were at school, it had been because Sirius would flirt with anything that moved--except for Remus. He allows himself that one, at least. Less forgivable were the thoughts about Sirius’s old family wealth, how he didn’t need to work and still would never want for anything. Remus recognized even back then that those thoughts were unfair, and knew that Sirius would switch places with him in a heartbeat if he could because at least then he would be loved. Back when Harry had first been born, Sirius was the only one of them who could ever get the infant to stop crying, the one that Harry seemed to favor over anyone else. And now, Remus is jealous because Sirius still connects with Harry in a way that Remus never has.

He pauses outside Sirius’s bedroom one morning, where he and Harry have been holed up for over an hour chatting and feeding Buckbeak. All he hears is laughter, which is heartening and jarring all at once. This isn’t the kind of house one laughs in; Remus wonders if it’s ever happened before. But he hasn’t heard Sirius’s laughter in years, true belly-deep laughter, and it transports him instantly twenty years in the past.

And then Sirius says something in a low voice, and Harry cackles. Remus feels his mouth twist. When had Harry last laughed like that for him?

You’re pathetic, Lupin, he scolds himself. Harry’s bonding with his godfather and you should be happy for him.

They’ve known each other for over a year, but this is the longest Harry and Sirius have ever been together. This is the longest conversation they’ve had, probably. Harry loves being around Sirius, but with all the work to be done on the house, they haven’t been alone much. They haven’t had a chance to bond as a godfather and godson should.

Remus should move, he knows he should. Sirius and Harry deserve to have these private moments together without him listening in. But he stays rooted to the spot, especially when everything goes silent and Harry suddenly says in a quiet voice, “Our house burned down.”

“He finally told you, did he?” Sirius’s voice is mild, with only a hint of reproach. It softens as he goes on. “I was there with him. Lying low. We barely escaped with our hides. There wasn’t anything we could have done, Harry.”

“I don’t care about that,” Harry says in a low voice. “I care that he didn’t tell me.”

“He didn’t want you distracted during the last task,” Sirius says. “I didn’t agree with him at the time, but now--we came so close to losing you as it was, Harry. He made the right call.”

Harry mumbles something that Remus can’t hear, and there’s silence for a moment.

“You call him Moony.” Remus had been about to turn away and creep quietly down the stairs, but Sirius’s words give him pause.

“Yeah.” Harry’s fidgeting with something; Remus can’t tell what it is. “He didn’t like me calling him dad.”

“And you were--” Sirius’s hesitation is palpable. “You were happy, Harry?”

“Yes,” Harry says emphatically. “‘Course. He’s the best dad. I didn’t even want to go to Hogwarts, that first year. I didn’t want to leave him. He had to force me on the train.”

“Is that so?” Sirius sounds amused. “And, um. On the full moons, what did you--”

“Sent me to Ron’s,” Harry says. “Or Aunt Dromeda’s. Or Grandpa’s, when I was really little, but then he--”

Harry breaks off, and Remus feels a lump grow in his throat. Lyall Lupin had been close with his grandson, even before Hope Lupin’s death and especially after it. He was the first family member to die that Harry could actually remember losing. It’d been a difficult year, after.

There’s so much Sirius doesn’t know about Harry, about this child who is at once his godson and a near-stranger. The same goes for Harry. Remus finally compels himself to move, and leaves them be.

***

It’s Harry’s turn to clean up after dinner. Sirius retreats to his bedroom with Buckbeak, as he’s been doing whenever he is at loose ends. Remus sits at the table with the Prophet ’s crossword before him, tackling the more difficult clues that his groggy morning brain hadn’t been able to handle earlier.

“Did you know,” Harry says excitedly, “that Sirius once charmed all the suits of armor to follow the Slytherins around the castle for a whole week ?”

“Well, yes.” Remus bites back a grin. “I was there.”

“And that he restored his motorbike himself? And then made it fly?”

“I was there for that, too,” Remus says, and struggles to keep the smile on his face. Sirius had gotten his hands on the bike when he was sixteen, not long after he’d taken refuge with the Potters, but he’d done the bulk of the restoration after moving in with Remus. The number of times Sirius had kissed him while smelling of oil, of sweat; tasting of metal...

“And that he and my dad charmed the Sorting Hat to sing drinking songs during the Welcome Feast?”

“Mm,” Remus says, pulling himself from his memories. “I helped them create that charm, sprout.”

“And how he and my dad managed to get into the girls’ dorms by climbing along the outside of the tower?”

“Of course. I even remember the Howler your grandmother sent them after.”

“Wicked,” Harry whispers, and Remus snorts.

“Don’t be getting any ideas from him,” he says, but since he knows that’s impossible, he adds, “Or at least keep in mind that whatever trouble you get into at school, I’m not bailing you out of. You’re on your own.”

“Yeah, Moony, alright,” Harry says in that tone that indicates that he feels Remus is being ridiculous. “Can I go now?”

Remus casts an eye over the clean dishes. “What are you in such a hurry for? Got a hot date tonight, Potter?”

“Just want to go hang out with Sirius,” Harry says with a shrug.

Something twinges in his chest, and Merlin, Remus is jealous of his own child. Of both of them, really. Sirius, because Harry looks at him like he hung the moon. Harry, because Sirius wants to be around him. This is ridiculous. He is a grown man. He has no business being jealous of either of them.

“Sure, pup, off you go,” he says lightly. “Just tell Padfoot not to burn down the library, yeah? Still some books in there I haven’t had a chance to read yet.”

It’s impossible for Harry to do anything quietly. He takes after James like that--and Sirius, too, come to think of it. He pounds up the stairs, and down the stairs, and even if he can’t make out the words, Remus can hear his voice no matter where he is in the house. Sirius, who spends as much time as Padfoot these days as he does in human form, is just as bad. He chases Harry around the house, great paws pounding on the wood floors, or tussles with him noisily in the study.

There’s roughly an hour of chaos after Harry goes upstairs, and then the house quiets down again. Remus settles himself in the library, taking with him the stack of essays he’s meant to be marking up before owl-ing them back to their writers. It’s hardly exciting work, but it’s decent money, and no one ever notices the day or two he takes off every month for the full moon.

“Remus!”

Sirius’s voice is high and panicky. Remus throws himself out of his chair and hurtles up the stairs.

“Sirius?” he bellows.

“In here!”

Here turns out to be a bathroom on the third floor, where Harry is currently emptying the contents of his stomach into the toilet.

“Oh, pup.” Remus squeezes by Sirius and drops to his knees next to Harry. One hand starts automatically rubbing soothing circles into Harry’s back; the other feels his forehead. He’s burning up. “It’s okay. You’ve got a fever. Probably just a ‘flu, that’s all.”

“What do we do?” Sirius demands. Remus shoots him a look.

“Kids get sick, Padfoot,” he says, keeping his voice as even and calm as possible. He doesn’t like seeing Harry ill, of course not, but there’s no call for panic. “It’s alright. Can you get us some water and toast?”

By the time Sirius returns, Remus has Harry in his pajamas and tucked in bed. Harry looks miserable and annoyed all at once.

“M’sorry,” he mutters.

“What on Earth are you sorry for?” Remus helps him sit up, and he nibbles half-heartedly at the toast. Sirius lingers by his bed, seemingly unsure of what to do.

“We had plans,” Harry says morosely. Remus feels his lips twitch.

“You have the entire rest of the summer. I’m sure Padfoot will put those plans on hold until you’re feeling better.”

Sirius finally gives up on being human. He transforms into Padfoot and hops up on the bed, displacing Remus. Harry seems happy to have him there, though, and scratches Padfoot behind the ears as he lays down again. Padfoot snuggles up to him.

“I don’t suppose we can trust any of the potions your mother left in her pharmacy,” Remus says to the dog, and Padfoot gives a derisive snort. “That’s what I thought. I’ll contact Severus. Harry, get some sleep.”

He has a fraught conversation with the potions master via Floo that eventually ends with Snape agreeing to give him the necessary potions for fever and nausea, if only to get Remus out of his fireplace. When he returns, Sirius is fast asleep, snuffling in his sleep the way that Remus remembers from years ago. Harry is still awake, glassy-eyed and uncomfortable, but loath to push his godfather away.

“You won’t wake him,” Remus assures, and he pushes Padfoot to the far side of the bed. Sirius doesn’t even stir. “See?”

“Thanks, Da,” Harry whispers, and he must be feeling terrible, because he only calls Remus that in times of great stress.

“Here, drink up,” Remus says, handing him the two vials of potions. Harry drinks them both, makes a face at the taste, and then settles against the pillows once more. Remus strokes a lock of sweat-damp hair off his forehead. “You’ll start to feel better in the next six hours or so. It’ll work faster if you just rest.”

Harry doesn’t look like he’s going to put up too much of a protest. His eyelids are already drooping. Remus runs his fingers through Harry’s hair, which has always been a surefire way to put him to sleep. Once he’s certain Harry is fast asleep, he kisses the boy’s forehead and takes his leave.

***

Remus and Sirius are breaking curses in one of the bedrooms on the third floor when Harry resurfaces the next morning. There’s only so much Sirius can do without a wand, admittedly, but it helps to have an extra pair of hands to wrestle the more difficult objects into submission long enough for Remus to break the curse on them. When Harry enters the bedroom, a book drops from the shelf and skitters across the floor, sharp teeth protruding from the pages and intent on taking a chunk out of his leg. Sirius throws himself on top of it, slamming it closed before it can reach Harry, and Remus swiftly breaks the curse.

“Oh,” Harry says, looking a little rattled. Sirius gets up and dusts himself off, kicking the book aside. “Thanks.”

“No problem, Sprog.” Sirius ruffles his hair. “Feeling better?”

Remus turns his attention to the bed, where he’s spread out the contents of a jewelry box, all of which have some variety of curse on them. There’s a pearl necklace that will slowly strangle its wearer, a bracelet that slowly drains the blood without the wearer noticing, earrings that have a tendency to detach themselves from earlobes and fly across the room to poke out someone’s eyes...it’s all rather nasty.

“What’s all this?” he hears Harry ask Sirius, likely referring to the mess Sirius has made on the floor.

“Stuff from my old flat,” Sirius says. “After I was sent to Azkaban and the Aurors had collected everything they wanted from my flat for the investigation, the rest was packed up and sent off to…”

Sirius trails off, and Remus turns to find Sirius looking at him.

“To Grimmauld Place,” Remus supplies, neatly side-stepping the unspoken next of kin. He’s not ready for that conversation yet, with either Harry or Sirius.

“No idea why my mother didn’t burn it all,” Sirius mutters. “Maybe she was delighted to hear that I’d joined the Death Eaters after all. Not delighted enough to put me back on the tapestry, but…”

He trails off again. Harry sits down next to the pile of items Sirius has pulled from the box. It took them over an hour to break the curse on it, but everything inside seems to have come through unscathed. It’s mostly paraphernalia from their school days--a couple sets of robes, a few random textbooks, some notes that Sirius and James had passed each other in class, a random sprig of mistletoe, and--

“Pictures,” Harry breathes.

Their Hogwarts years had been sparsely documented, but all of that had changed when James and Lily moved in together after graduation. Lily had a Muggle camera, and had set about documenting every facet of their lives. She had given copies of her favorites to Sirius and Remus; the collection on the floor is probably only a fraction of what Lily had at Godric’s Hollow, all of which had burned that Halloween night.

“I was just starting to sort them,” Sirius says, sitting next to Harry on the floor. “You can help me.”

Remus listens with half an ear as Sirius tells Harry the story behind each picture. Most are from Harry’s infancy. There’s a lot from the wedding, too, and Lily’s pregnancy. Remus knows that as the years go by, Peter appears in the pictures less and less. They had commented on it even back then, about how sporadic his visits were, but no one so much as thought the word traitor .

“Moony,” Harry says suddenly, “where are our things? From the cottage?”

“Third floor, second bedroom on the right,” Remus says. Harry runs off, returning mere moments later. His arms are laden with photo albums.

Harry leans against Sirius and flips through the pictures, narrating for him a childhood that he never witnessed. Sirius wraps an arm around him, tucking Harry into his side. Harry leans against him easily, like he’s known Sirius all his life, and Remus tells himself that the sharp stab he feels in his chest is ridiculous. Harry has always been a tactile child, and he’s really only ever had Remus for affection, and now he has a long-lost godfather who came back into his life like a whirlwind. Sirius is someone new to talk to about his parents, especially James. And, well, he’s Sirius. How can anyone help but love him?

***

Remus is preparing dinner in the kitchen one night not long after that while Sirius nurses a glass of Firewhiskey and Harry drafts letters to Ron and Hermione. Sirius’s rare good mood has quickly turned foul--Kreacher had slunk through the room earlier, muttering about how disappointed his mistress would be that her blood traitor son was living in her house, and it had soured the atmosphere.

“You don’t have any pictures of Harry as a baby,” Sirius says abruptly.

Remus hesitates for a moment, then resumes chopping the vegetables. He glances at the table to catch Harry’s eye, briefly, and the boy gives him a tiny nod.

“That’s because he didn’t live with me as a baby,” Remus says, and feels Sirius go very still.

“What?”

“Harry,” Remus says, and Harry takes over for him. Remus grabs a towel, wiping his hands. He turns to look at Sirius. “Hagrid took him from you and went straight to his only remaining blood relatives, on Dumbledore’s orders. After you were arrested, they wouldn’t give me custody. I stole him when he was five.”

“It was bloody brilliant,” Harry offers.

“Language, Harry.”

Sirius stares at him, dumbfounded. “You stole him? How?”

“Climbed a tree in the middle of the night, got in through the open window of the spare bedroom, retrieved Harry, let myself out through the front door.” Remus shrugs. “Left a few hexes in my wake for the Dursleys to wake up to.”

“Wait a minute,” Sirius says, sitting up straighter in the chair, suddenly alert. “Blood relatives. Dursley. You don’t mean--”

“I do. Lily’s sister, and that vile husband of hers.”

“You don’t mean--she didn’t marry that man.”

“You knew them?” Harry asks, abandoning his task. Remus flicks his wand, and the rest of the meal starts making itself. “Aunt Petunia and Uncle Vernon?”

Sirius’s lip curls. “Had the unfortunate pleasure of meeting them at your parents’ wedding. Had the honor of punching Vernon, though.”

Harry’s entire face lights up. “Really? Why?”

“Because he--” Sirius’s expression turns alarmed as his memories catch up to his mouth, and he shoots Remus a panicked look.

“Because he saw me kiss a man and had some choice words about that,” Remus steps in smoothly. Never mind that the man in question had been Sirius--that’s a conversation for another time. “Sirius...defended my honor.”

He feels his lips twitch in amusement. Harry laughs. Sirius does not.

“And why,” Sirius says, “did you feel the need to hex the Dursleys on your way out? You’re a lot of things, Remus, but cruel isn’t one of them. You must have had a reason.”

It’s a trap, one he knows better than to spring, but he has to do it anyway. Better to get it out of the way like this than let Sirius figure it out on his own.

“Well, they had him sleeping in a cupboard, for one,” Remus says. “He had no bedroom of his own. No toys. No clothes that fit him--they were all cast-offs from his cousin.”

Harry edges close to him, as he often did in those first few years after coming to live with Remus, wanting comfort but unwilling or unable to ask for it. Hoping it would be given freely. Remus wraps an arm around his shoulders and pulls him close. He says, softly, “Pup, it’s not my story to tell.”

“Uncle Vernon hit me,” Harry says matter-of-factly, and Sirius’s face goes bone-white. “I burned Dudley’s breakfast. He hit me, and then he locked me out of the house. I sat on the step all day. I wasn’t allowed back in until that night, and then they locked me in the cupboard.”

“Arabella Figg owled me,” Remus says. “It was the day after a full moon. I didn’t get the message until late that night, and then I Apparated to Little Whinging. I got Harry out of there as soon as I could. Dumbledore wasn’t pleased, but...well, possession is nine-tenths of the law.”

He’s half-expecting a wall-shaking row to follow--Merlin knows Sirius’s temper is legendary--but Sirius absorbs all this with abnormal silence. He sips his Firewhiskey and says nothing. Remus returns to making dinner, and Harry goes back to his letters. The tension is palpable, though, and Remus knows that this isn’t the last time the subject will come up.

***

Remus’s bedroom is next to Sirius’s, and down the hall from Harry’s. It’s only by chance that it worked out this way--Sirius’s childhood bedroom and the one next to it had been the easiest to clear out, so the two of them had naturally taken those rooms while cleaning out a third for when Harry joined them. Remus only regretted it later, when he laid in this bed on that first night and realized that Sirius was sleeping mere feet away from him, separated only by a wall.

He’s thought about that every night since, and it makes it difficult to fall asleep. Sometimes he hears Sirius shuffling around in his room, and he’s stabbed through the gut with such longing . Even for the mundane things, like Sirius skirting around Remus in the bathroom, brushing his teeth while Remus washed his face. Folding laundry together. Laying in bed with a book while Sirius worked on the crossword. Talking about the house they would get when the war was over, when Remus was back on his feet again and Sirius wasn’t supporting two of them on his salary alone. More than anything, those are the moments he misses.

Eventually, as he does every night, Remus manages to fall into an uneasy sleep. Nightmares of the war rarely haunt him anymore. These days, he mostly dreams of Sirius, of the life they’d had together, which makes it all the more painful when he wakes to an empty bed and a man who can barely stand to look at him.

Tonight, though, Remus startles awake with his heart in his throat. He has his wand drawn before he realizes where he is and who is standing in his bedroom.

“Harry.” He lets out a slow breath and lowers his wand, but panic still grips him. Harry hasn’t come into his room in the middle of the night since he was, what, seven? Eight? “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

Harry comes over to the bed. Remus automatically slides over, making room for him. Harry climbs onto the bed, tucks his head into Remus’s shoulder, and whispers, “Moony, I watched him die.”

And then he dissolves into tears.

He tries to be quiet, at first, but the crush of grief is too much. Sobs wrack him. Remus does what he hasn’t in years, and pulls Harry into his lap. He holds Harry tightly while Harry sobs into his shirt. Old muscle memory kicks in, and he gently rocks the boy, back and forth while he murmurs a litany of useless platitudes.

His door creaks open wider, and Remus glances over. Padfoot is standing there, black fur melting into the shadows, eyes glittering in the faint light from the streetlamps. Remus shakes his head minutely. Padfoot turns and walks away, nails clicking against the floor.

“Shh, Harry.” Remus cups the back of his head. “Harry, pup, I know. I know. I’m so sorry.”

“I didn’t--I couldn’t--”

“There was nothing you could do,” Remus says firmly. “There was nothing you could have done to stop it. He died, Harry, and it wasn’t your fault at all.”

“I told him to take the Cup with me.”

“Because you have your mother’s heart,” Remus says. “How could you have known, Harry?”

“You told me not to do the Tournament,” Harry says bitterly. “You tried to pull me out of school, and I said no, and now he’s dead.”

“Darling,” Remus whispers as Harry’s sobs begin anew, and then stops. There’s nothing he can say that will make this better. Nothing that Harry will believe, anyway.

He wishes he could hold Harry in this moment forever. As though if he just held on to Harry and never let him go, Voldemort couldn’t get to him. Here, in the circle of Remus’s arms--here, Harry is safe.

But that’s not the way the world works. Eventually, Remus will have to let him go.

After a while, Harry quiets and the tears stop. He lets Remus continue to hold him without complaint, though, and even starts to drift off. Remus can tell. Harry grows heavier against him as sleep sinks in, and his breathing evens out. Remus feels a sudden pang for the child he used to be. Eventually, when he thinks Harry is mostly asleep, Remus gingerly moves him to the bed and tucks the blankets around him. He sits there for a while, carding his fingers through Harry’s hair. When Harry finally falls fully asleep, Remus grabs an extra pillow and blanket, and kips on the floor.

Harry looks a little worse for wear the next morning. He stumbles downstairs in his pajamas not long before noon. Remus is making sandwiches in the kitchen, and Harry gives him a quick hug before grabbing one.

“Alright, sprout?” Remus asks, nudging Harry with his shoulder.

“Yeah, Da.” Harry leans into him. “I’m alright.”

Remus finds him in the library later, sprawled on the rug with Padfoot, his head resting on the black dog’s belly. He’s eaten half the sandwich, and is now feeding bits of ham to Padfoot, who alternates between eating the morsels and licking Harry’s face. Something twists painfully behind Remus's sternum. He watches them, sees their easy affection and genuine bond, and tells himself that it doesn’t hurt.

Remus brings a stack of essays he’s meant to be marking up into the library and settles into what he’s started to think of as his chair. Harry finds a book to immerse himself in. Padfoot morphs into Sirius, who naps on the sofa for a while. Later, he wanders off to feed Buckbeak, and returns with another bottle of Firewhiskey and a glass. Remus should probably talk to him about the drinking, but he doesn’t know what to say.

“You know, Remus,” Sirius says at length, in a deceptively-mild tone that Remus knows all too well. It’s the tone that says Sirius is spoiling for a fight, and by Merlin, he’s going to get one. “You never did tell me how you actually managed to get custody of Harry after that...incident with the Dursleys.”

Remus isn’t going to rise to the bait, whatever it is. “You were there the night we signed the papers. I’m as much his godfather as you are.”

“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t explain why Dumbledore or the Ministry let a werewolf keep him over the Dursleys,” Sirius says conversationally. Harry is still pretending to read his book, but Remus can tell that he’s listening intently now to their conversation. “Harry’s blood relatives should have taken precedence over you.”

Remus feels a muscle pulse in his jaw. He forces himself to read the next clue, fill in the next word of the crossword, before answering. “They were mistreating him.”

“You think Dumbledore didn’t know about that? You think he cared?”

“I was the best choice.”

“Why?”

Harry has given up all pretense of reading. He’s openly watching them now.

“Because Dumbledore determined that--”

“Yes, but why ?”

“Because I never divorced you!”

The silence that follows is swift and absolute. Sirius gapes at him, blood draining rapidly from his face.

“Divorce?” Harry squeaks, and they both look at him. “You’re married?”

Oh, shit. This was not how Remus wanted to have this conversation.

“James and Sirius are blood brothers by magic,” Remus says tonelessly. He’s back to staring at Sirius, who is still dangerously pale. “They found an ancient spell sometime after Sirius ran away from home--it was stupid, really, magic like that could have gone horribly wrong and maimed or killed both of them--”

“Moony!”

“Right,” Remus says, dragging himself back on track. “We married in secret, and when that happened, I became James’s family, too. Your family. The blood protection you have because of Lily--it extends to me, too. That’s why you’re safe in my care. That’s why it didn’t matter that Sirius was gone for thirteen years, or--or that we’d separated, right before your parents were killed.”

The fire crackles behind him. Harry looks stunned.

“Separated,” he repeats weakly.

Remus nods. “We were still married, technically, so the protection held. I had to tell Dumbledore, though, so that I could gain custody of you after I...kidnapped you.”

“And at any point,” Sirius asks, “were you going to tell me that we’re still married? A year, Remus! It’s been a year since Azkaban, you didn’t think it worth mentioning--”

“I was waiting for the right--”

“We were in this house together for over a month before the school year ended! If that wasn’t the right time, what is?”

“We’re not having this conversation,” Remus says sharply. “Not in front of Harry.”

Sirius abruptly gets up and stalks out of the room. Upstairs, they hear his bedroom door slam shut.

***

Remus hasn’t put Harry to bed in years, but tonight he trails up the stairs after him. Harry brushes his teeth, changes into his pajamas, and then opens his bedroom door to admit Remus. He sits on the bed, arms around his knees which are drawn up to his chest, and fixes Remus with an unyielding look. The kind of look that tells Remus that he’s not leaving this room, not without giving Harry some answers.

“You’re married,” Harry prompts.

“Yes.”

“You never told me,” Harry says, and he sounds so wounded. Remus starts to reach for him, then stops. He drops his hand.

“I didn’t know what good it would do,” he says. “For most of your life, I thought my husband killed your parents.”

“You didn’t tell me last year.”

That awful summer, hot and endless, with Sirius on the run and Peter in the wind. All because of Remus. “I couldn’t.”

“How’d it happen, then?”

“Well...in secret.” Remus sits gingerly on Harry’s bed, a couple of feet between them. He doesn’t know what Harry will allow, right now. “It’s legal in the wizarding world, has been for centuries. We did it as soon as we turned eighteen. About a year before your parents got married. We thought it best not to tell too many people--very few even knew we were together, and we were both doing work for the Order. We could have been used against each other, if the Death Eaters knew about our relationship.”

“But you separated?”

Remus sighs, dragging a hand down his face.

“Yeah,” he says finally. “About six months before your parents died, I moved out. Things had been strained for a year or so, but we tried to make a go of it. Bit stupid of us to try, really. A relationship is pointless if each of you thinks the other is a spy for the Dark Lord.”

“Don’t think it’s stupid if you loved him.”

Remus feels a small smile tug at his lips. How simple it must seem to Harry. “Sometimes love makes us fools. And love alone certainly isn’t enough to hold two people together.”

Harry scowls like he doesn’t believe Remus--how could love not be enough?--but thankfully doesn’t comment further on it. “And then he went to Azkaban.”

Remus nods. “He went to Azkaban, I got custody of you, and here we are.”

Harry gives him a look like he knows it’s not the whole story, and of course it isn’t, but there’s only so much Remus is willing to share. He doesn’t want to talk about the countless sleepless nights where he wondered if he was sharing his bed with a traitor while Sirius snored softly next to him, barely a hand’s breadth away; about the cavernous silence that settled between them, even though they were practically living out of each other’s pockets in that tiny flat. He doesn’t want to talk about the day when he couldn’t take it anymore, and moved out of the flat while Sirius was off on Order business. How he lay weeping for two days in the guest bedroom of his parents’ house before he pulled himself together and just...got on with it.

“You could try again, if you wanted,” Harry says. The hope is so plain in his voice, it makes Remus’s heart ache. “I don’t mind.”

Remus snorts. “Thanks for your stamp of approval.”

“I mean it.”

“I know you do, pup.” Remus leans forward and kisses him on the forehead. “I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

***

Remus’s physical exhaustion isn’t enough to overcome his swirling mind, and he gives up on sleep around three. A cup of tea and a quiet morning in the library wouldn’t go amiss, so he throws on a dressing gown and pads down to the kitchen.

Sirius is already there, and Remus curses under his breath. They stare at each other for a beat, then two, before Sirius finally says a grudging, “Morning.”

Remus nods at him and moves over to the kettle. The house has taken on that peculiar silence that it does at a certain hour of night, and the air is chilled. The cold from the floorboards seeps into his bare feet. He lifts one foot from the floor and rubs it against his warm calf, working feeling back into it. Sirius, seemingly unperturbed by the quiet or the cold, is poring over a Muggle newspaper, and there’s a small stack of them next to his elbow. “Where did you get those?”

Stupid, stupid. Why is he engaging Sirius in conversation? He should have just made his cup of tea and left before things got awkward. Well. More awkward.

“Thought it would be good to keep up with the Muggle news,” Sirius says, ignoring the question. “See if there are any strange happenings. Harry’s been anxious about it, too.”

“Has he?” Remus says blankly. He didn’t know something besides the tournament had been causing Harry distress.

“If there was a telly-vision in this blasted house, he’d be glued to it night and day,” Sirius says. He turns a page of the paper.

“Television,” Remus corrects absently.

“Mm. Anyway, the Muggle newspapers will have to do, and they seem to help a little.”

Remus finishes making his tea while Sirius skims the next paper. It’s nice. For a moment, the weird tension between them eases, and it’s almost like Before.

“Does Harry know?” Sirius asks abruptly.

“Does he know what?”

“About you.”

“What, that I’m gay? ‘Course he does, it’s not like I was a monk.”

Sirius scowls. “Paraded a whole slew of boyfriends past him, did you? Don’t suppose you ever told any of them you were still married?”

“Fuck off,” Remus snaps. “Not that it’s any of your business, but yeah, I dated. I had sex. And I was only ever serious enough with one of those men to introduce him to Harry, and even then he didn’t last more than two years.”

Sirius grows sober. “Would you have married him?”

“No,” Remus says coolly. “Because that would have meant divorcing you, and that is my strongest hold on Harry. I won’t do anything to put that in jeopardy.”

There’s hurt in Sirius’s eyes, and Remus hates it, but he clings to the lie. It’s the same lie he’s been telling himself for fifteen years, that he no longer loves Sirius, that he couldn’t care less about the man. And Sirius can’t even snap at him for it, because of course he wants Harry safe as well. If that means keeping their sham of a marriage while Remus sees other men, then it’s worth it.

“I assumed you divorced me.” Sirius’s eyes are on the table. He rubs his fingertips over a groove in the dark wood. “Thought you’d have done it as soon as I was shipped off to Azkaban.”

“I thought about it,” Remus admits. He’d actually gotten as far as drafting a letter to the registry office at the Ministry, but hadn’t been able to bring himself to send it. It was only later that he realized the advantage remaining married would give him in the custody battle for Harry. If Harry hadn’t been in the picture, though, Remus still isn’t sure he would have gone through with it. “But then…”

He trails off and waves a hand, as though to indicate that life had happened and he simply hadn’t gotten around to it. But Sirius’s scowl deepens.

“Right, yeah, you were too busy doing whatever the hell it was you were doing while Harry spent four years being abused by his relatives. Didn’t have enough time to get around to divorcing me, certainly didn’t have enough time to check up on your godson.”

“Damn it, Sirius!” Remus slams his hands on the counter. “They dragged me in front of the Wizengamot six times after you went to Azkaban! Six! They turned up every month to search my flat, my parents’ house, overturning everything. What was the nature of your relationship with Sirius Black? That’s all I heard for months! Years! They couldn’t believe I had lived with a spy and not known about it. I was interrogated. I lost every job I tried to hold down not because of the moon, but because I had Aurors turning up all the time, chasing away business, intimidating my bosses. Reporters followed me everywhere. What kind of life would that have been for a child? I thought he was happy. I thought he had everything I couldn’t provide for him--a stable home, toys, books, two parents who loved him. I thought it was better that way.”

“You were wrong, Remus!”

“And there’s not a day that goes by where I don’t hate myself for that!” Remus shouts at him.

“He’s James’s son!” Sirius roars. “James and Lily’s! And you left him--”

“He’s my son, Sirius!” Remus snaps, breath quick and chest tight. “Yes, he’s James and Lily’s child and I would never dream of erasing that, but he’s also mine. I raised him. Not you, not James, not Lily. So don’t you dare stand there and tell me he’s not my son!”

Sirius stares at him in shock. Remus sags back against the countertop, all of the fight abruptly leaving him.

“I don’t understand,” he says quietly, hollowly, “what we’re even fighting about, Sirius. I don’t know what it is I’ve done.”

“That’s the point, Moony. Nothing. You did nothing. Twelve years in Azkaban,” Sirius says, his voice just as empty. “I thought--every day, I thought, this will be the day Moony comes. But you never did. You never came for me. You never told them I was innocent. You never even visited. After everything we’d been through, everything we’d shared, you thought I was the traitor. You thought I would betray my brother.”

“You thought I was the spy, too,” Remus says wearily. “You married me, and then you decided you couldn’t trust me. Because I was a werewolf? Because, at the end of the day, I was a dark creature and no amount of love could change that? I’ve wondered that for fourteen years, you know. No, I didn’t visit you in Azkaban. I loved you and hated myself for it, because I was raising the most wonderful boy in the world and somehow I still loved the man who killed his parents. The last thing I wanted to do was see you.”

He doesn’t mention the number of times he showed up at the Ministry, practically begging for a day pass to Azkaban, nor the times he went directly to the docks, six months’ wages in his pockets, hoping to bribe someone for passage to the island.

Please, I have to see him.

“So that’s how it is, then,” Sirius says finally.

“Yes,” Remus says, turning to busy himself with something on the counter so he doesn’t have to look at Sirius. “That’s how it is.”

***

The first full moon after Harry arrives at Grimmauld Place, Remus locks himself in a cage in the cellar.

This was the first part of the house he and Sirius had tackled after arriving, even before they started work on the bedrooms. It took them two full days to make the space habitable by a werewolf’s low standards, and then they had to outfit it for Remus’s use. The cage was brought in for this express purpose, warded so that even in werewolf form Remus wouldn’t be able to break out of it, no matter how many times he threw himself at the bars.

“I can stay with you.” Sirius has brought him a draught for the pain. Remus has found that if he drinks it right before his transformation, his recovery the next day is a little easier. Not by much, but enough. Sirius kneels and passes the goblet through the bars. Remus drinks it in one swallow. “Padfoot, I mean. Padfoot can stay with you. It will make things easier. You don’t have Wolfsbane anymore, and--”

“You need to stay with Harry.” Remus passes the goblet back through the bars.

“The boy’s almost fifteen, he’ll be fine without us hovering over him for a night.”

“What if something happens?” Remus asks. “What if we’re found out?”

“A teenager and a wandless escaped convict, yeah, we’ll definitely give the Death Eaters a run for their money if they find us tonight,” Sirius mutters, but it’s half-hearted. Remus has invoked Harry, which is unfair, because there’s nothing Sirius wouldn’t do for that boy.

“Put a silencing spell over the door when you leave.” Remus settles on the ground, cross-legged, and leans back against the bars, making himself as comfortable as possible. He shuts his eyes. “Harry doesn’t need to hear this.”

Prior to the end of Harry’s third year, he had never transformed in front of the boy before. He’d always shipped Harry off on the full moon--Merlin knew there were no shortages of babysitters willing to watch the savior of the wizarding world--and transformed in a special room in their cottage designated for it. Harry would come home two days later, when Remus was mostly healed and himself again, and they would resume their lives. The Wolfsbane provided to him at Hogwarts made his transformations easier, yes, but he still had never allowed Harry to be near him when he changed. Especially not after last year’s incident.

Remus doesn’t think much after that. At least, not any coherent thoughts. There is only pain, the bite of the metal bars, tearing at his own flesh. When he has his next conscious thought, he’s in his bed buried under three different quilts and there’s sunlight streaming through the window. He smells coffee and bacon, and desperately wants both. He’s normally a tea-drinker and a vegetarian, but in the days surrounding the full moon, he finds himself craving meat and coffee.

The thought has barely manifested in his mind before his bedroom door creaks open and Harry comes in, carrying a tray. He’s so grown up, and Remus blinks back sudden tears at the realization that he’ll be of age in only two years.

Stupid bloody werewolf hormones. He is not going to burst into tears over a tray of food.

“Hi, Moony,” Harry whispers, and Remus loves this boy so much. “Sirius made coffee. I’m supposed to tell you that he made the bacon, too, but he almost burned down the kitchen on the first try so I cooked it instead. But don’t tell him that you know. He really wants to impress you.”

“Pup, he’s been trying to impress me for twenty years and it hasn’t worked yet.”

“Are you sure?” Harry asks cheekily, and Remus swipes at his head but misses.

“Rude, you are,” Remus mutters as Harry sets the tray on his bedside table. “I think I’ll ground you.”

“You would never.”

“I will.” Remus gets an arm around Harry’s neck and pulls him close, planting a sloppy, obnoxious kiss on the boy’s cheek. “Love you.”

“Love you, too, Moons.” Harry draws back. “Sirius said he’ll come check on you later.”

Remus doesn’t have the energy to argue with that. Already he’s spiraling back down into sleep. He wakes a few more times throughout the day, and at one point can prop himself up on an elbow for long enough to drain the painkiller draught Sirius must have left by his bed earlier. His bones creak and ache the day before a transformation, and he hurts everywhere for a full day after. There’s nothing he can really do but wait it out. It’s the same with the injuries he inflicts on himself. They can’t be healed by magic, so the most he can hope for is to bandage them and hope they don’t scar too badly.

He doesn’t drag himself out of bed until the next afternoon. He steps into the bathroom, and for the first time is able to take stock of himself. He’s covered in new scratches and wounds, which isn’t surprising. What is surprising is that it looks like someone tended to the worst ones already, smearing them with ointment and bandaging them. There’s no question as to who--Remus reeks of Sirius, whose scent floods his heightened senses. He traces the edges of a bandage on his ribs, imagining Sirius’s fingers there instead. Thankfully--or should that be unfortunately --it’s not a stretch of the imagination. He remembers how Sirius used to lay his fingers in the valleys between Remus’s ribs, or dug those fingers into his hips, or gently grazed them along Remus’s jaw. He remembers, and oh , how he wants.

Remus runs the tap ice-cold, splashes water on his face. His blood is always up around the full moon. What he needs is a distraction. Tackling whatever infestation is in the third-floor bathroom would be perfect, but he knows he doesn’t have the strength for that, and the last thing he needs is for Sirius to find him passed out on the bathroom floor. While having Sirius carry him back to his room is an appealing mental image, Sirius is more likely to berate him for an hour and then go off and have a good sulk for a couple of days.

So he finds himself in the library. He’s left piles of books around the chair he has unofficially claimed as his own. He settles in, drawing the blankets around his legs, and picks up the nearest book.

That’s where Sirius finds him hours later, engrossed in his reading. He hears Sirius enter the room, had smelled him coming from down the corridor, but he doesn’t look up until Sirius covers the page he’s reading with one hand. Remus stares at that hand for a moment, transfixed. Stares at the skin pulled tight around the bones, at the prominent veins, at the hair that sprouts from his wrist and up his forearm.

“Remus--” Sirius says, and gets no further than that, because at that moment Remus surges up to kiss him. The book falls to the ground, its spine cracking as it hits the floorboards. Remus doesn’t give it a second thought, because Sirius’s arms are tight around his waist and Sirius’s tongue is in his mouth and oh, this is glorious.

The wolf is close to the surface tonight. He’s instantly hard, pressing into the groove of Sirius’s hip, rutting against him like they’re sixteen again and in a dark corner of the Hogwarts library--

Except Sirius pulls away. His hands grip Remus’s biceps, holding him almost at arm’s length.

“We shouldn’t--” he says, his voice ragged. “We can’t.”

“Why not?” Remus breaks out of his grip easily, pulls Sirius close again. He feels his blood thrumming through his veins, feels it pounding just under his skin.

“Oh, hell, Remus,” Sirius mutters, and kisses him again.

It’s embarrassingly quick after that. Sirius shoves him back into his chair and then goes to his knees. His hands are quick and sure. In a matter of seconds he has Remus’s trousers open and his dick in his mouth. Remus has enough presence of mind to direct a quick Silencing Charm at the door, and then he is lost to the heat of Sirius’s mouth and his tight throat. He stifles his cry against his hand as he comes, and Sirius has barely had time to pull off before Remus is kissing him again. He slides off the armchair, and they end up in a heap together on the floor.

Eventually, minutes or hours later, Remus has to pull away to breathe. He rests his forehead against Sirius’s, and says quietly, “We should probably talk about that.”

“Nothing to talk about,” Sirius says gruffly. “I know how you get around the full moon.”

“That’s all that was, then?”

“Yeah,” Sirius says. He gets to his feet and offers a hand to Remus, pulling him up. “That’s all it was.”

***

By the end of July, the one area of the house they haven’t tackled yet is the attic. Sirius flat-out refuses to go up there, and Remus can only imagine what might be lurking up there if it’s bad enough that Sirius doesn’t even want to deal with it. But deal with it they must, because the rest of the Order will be arriving in a matter of days and they have enough problems on their hands right now without a safe house that may or may not be trying to kill them.

Remus climbs the four flights of stairs to the house’s top floor. He’s embarrassingly out of breath at the end of it, and muses that back in his Hogwarts days, he had climbed and descended flights of stairs all day long without even noticing it.

He’s getting old.

There’s a string hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the hallway. Remus pulls on it, hard, and a ladder descends. He climbs it gingerly, wand in hand, and waits for something to jump out at him.

“Lumos,” he whispers as he pokes his head inside the attic. Light flares from the tip of his wand. “Harry?”

Harry gives him a sheepish smile. “Hey, Moony.”

“What are you doing up here?” Remus climbs fully into the attic. Harry’s sitting near a small window. Remus has to stoop as he crosses the attic to him, else he’d brain himself on the sloping beams. “You know you’re not supposed to be up here.”

Harry gives him an exasperated look, which Remus probably deserves. He’s the child of a Marauder--of course he’s going to go poking around where he shouldn’t be.

“There’s nothing dangerous up here,” Harry says. “Anyway, if there was, all I’d have to do is shout for you guys. Look at this.”

He points to the sloping ceiling in front of him. Remus settles on his knees beside Harry and directs his wandlight at the wood beams. In a child’s shaky handwriting, someone has written Sirius and Regulus Black were here, 1-12-1967.

“Do you think they came up here a lot?” Harry asks softly, and Remus can picture it all too easily: Sirius and Regulus, creating a hideaway for themselves in the attic among the boxes and trinkets, away from their parents.

“They were close, when they were small,” Remus says. Sirius had told him that much, years ago, though after Regulus’s death he never spoke of his brother again. “I suppose they must have.”

“Sirius says he wasn’t important enough for Voldemort to kill.”

“That’s probably true,” Remus admits. “Regulus defected. He probably only lasted a few days, maybe a week, before Voldemort’s followers caught up to him and killed him. We never found out for certain.”

Harry reaches out, traces the words gently with one finger.

“Do you think Sirius misses them?” he asks. “He’s the only one left.”

“I think he’s lonely,” Remus says carefully, because he’s never been able to lie to Harry. “I think he’s sad. I think it must be a very difficult thing, to know that your parents’ love was conditional. He wasn’t much older than you when they disowned him.”

“He has us now,” Harry says. He looks at Remus, his expression earnest. “We’re his family.”

Oh, Lily, Remus thinks. He’s just like you.

“Yeah, Haz.” Remus knocks their shoulders gently together. “We’re his family.”

***

Sirius is in his bedroom, feeding Buckbeak. The door is closed, as it so often is, and Remus raps lightly on it with his knuckles.

“It’s me,” he says, leaning close to the wood. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah,” Sirius says after a moment, so Remus turns the door handle and lets himself in. He bows to Buckbeak, who considers him for a moment before doing the same.

“How’s the attic?” Sirius asks lightly. “Not full of bodies, I hope, though I suppose I wouldn’t put that past my mother.”

“Harry got there before I did.” Remus sits on the desk chair. It’s either that, or sit next to Sirius on his bed, and he can’t cope with that right now. “He found your hiding spot.”

Sirius’s expression gives nothing away. “Of course he did.”

“James always did have a knack for finding out all our secrets,” Remus agrees, and Sirius snorts softly. “Did you and Regulus--did you go up there often?”

“No,” Sirius says shortly, and doesn’t elaborate.

“It doesn’t look like there’s anything to be concerned about up there,” Remus says after a pause. “Just boxes of junk. I don’t suppose you want to sort through any of it.”

“Merlin, no. We should just burn the whole lot of it.” Sirius scowls. “Should burn this whole house to the ground, really.”

“The Order needs it,” Remus says gently, but Sirius only scowls further.

“That’s all I’m good for, really. I’m useful to the Order. To Dumbledore. He wouldn’t give a shit otherwise, and you know it.”

It’s probably true, but Remus says, “That’s not all you’re good for.”

Sirius snorts. “Name one other thing that’s worth keeping me around for.”

“Harry,” Remus says, and Sirius doesn’t school his expression in time. He looks startled. “He adores you. You must know that by now.”

“He has you.”

“Can’t he have us both?” Remus swallows. “Can’t you have us both?”

Now Sirius looks at him in confusion, and no small amount of cautious hope. “Remus…”

“Pads.” Remus slides off the chair, going to his knees at Sirius’s feet. He puts a hand on Sirius’s leg. After a moment, Sirius gently covers it with his own. “We made a lot of mistakes in the first war. The biggest was not trusting each other. We have to do better this time.”

“I trust you,” Sirius says firmly.

Remus tangles their fingers together, drawing a deep breath. “I trust you, too.”

Sirius searches his face for a moment, and then huffs. “That’s it, then? It’s that simple?”

“I’ve loved you for more than half my life, Pads,” Remus says, and Sirius sobers. “Yes. I think it is that simple.”

***

The day before Harry’s birthday is also the last day they have before the Order descends upon them. There’s still work to be done on the house, so much work that Remus doesn’t believe it will ever be truly habitable, but at least he isn’t afraid now that their houseguests will be killed or maimed by random objects in the house.

Well, not as afraid.

Of the two of them, Sirius has always been far better in the kitchen, so Remus buys him the necessary ingredients for the cake and leaves him to it. He wraps Harry’s presents, and signs the card from both Sirius and him. Harry’s feeding Buckbeak, so Remus is able to sneak the presents downstairs without him noticing.

Sirius looks up when he comes into the kitchen. Somehow, he’s managed to get flour all over his dark Muggle jeans and t-shirt. It’s even in his hair, and Remus has a sudden vision of what Sirius will look like in ten, fifteen years--gray and impossibly handsome. He grins at the sight of the presents in Remus’s arms. “What’d we get him, then?”

“Who says I put your name on them?” Remus retorts, and Sirius laughs. He puts the presents on the table and then goes over to inspect Sirius’s progress. Really, it’s only an excuse to swipe some of the leftover chocolate batter in the bowl, but Sirius bats his hand away.

“Nope,” he says, moving the bowl away. “That’s for the birthday boy.”

“Cruel, that is,” Remus says. “Depriving me of chocolate.”

Sirius kisses him instead, and, well, that’s an acceptable substitute.

Someone clears their throat, and they both spring apart. Harry gives Remus a look that manages to be both amused and exasperated, and Remus feels his face heat. But then Harry’s eyes fall on the presents, and his face lights up.

“For me?” he asks, impossibly hopeful, as though they could be for anyone else. He only had to spend three birthdays and Christmases with the Dursleys, but it left a lasting impression. Even now, he’s always surprised and delighted to find that someone has gotten him a gift.

“Yes, but they’ll have to wait until after dinner,” Remus says.

“Here, Sprog.” Sirius holds out the bowl to him. “All yours.”

Harry sets upon the leftover batter with glee. Sirius whips them all up a quick dinner, and once they’ve eaten their fill, it’s time for the cake. Sirius has charmed the candles to sing Happy Birthday , and he delights in the celebration almost as much as Harry does.

“I got you a toy broomstick for your first birthday,” he tells Harry at one point, once the cake is nothing more than crumbs and all the presents have been opened. “Prongs and I spent hours in the garden with you that summer, teaching you to fly.”

“They had to pry you off of that thing every night,” Remus adds. “One time, you wanted to go flying so badly, you got out of your cot in the middle of the night, found your broomstick, and went out to the garden with it. It was charmed so it couldn’t go more than a few feet off the ground and wouldn’t leave the property, but you still gave your parents a heart attack. It was lucky James got up for a glass of water when he did. You might have been out there all night otherwise.”

Harry’s laughing, but then he stops for a moment, thinking. “Wait a minute--I did the same thing to you!”

“You did,” Remus says ruefully. “You think I would have learned my lesson after hearing James recount the story, but I’d completely forgotten about the incident when you moved in with me.” To Sirius, he says, “I kept my broomstick out in the shed. This one went outside in the middle of the night, found my old broom, and took it for a joyride. Which was not a toy broom and had no safety features on it.”

Sirius is laughing so hard, moisture is gathering at the corners of his eyes. He wipes it away. “How’d you find him?”

“I didn’t,” Remus says, and now his lips are twitching as well. “He was out all night with it, roaming the countryside. I heard stories for the next week down in the village about some strange new flying animal that had spooked all the sheep. Needless to say, we laid down some ground rules after that.”

Sirius nearly slides out of his chair, overcome by mirth. Harry’s laughing, too, and Remus watches them both fondly. He’s not ready for this to end, he realizes. All summer, the prospect of the Order descending upon them has been in the back of his mind. He knew all along that this was coming, it’s just that he’s not ready for it. He loves what they’ve built here in this house of horrors. This is what should have been: the two of them, together, making a home, making a life. Raising Harry. Falling more in love each day. He wants to freeze this moment, hold it close and never let it go. It doesn’t make up for all the years they lost, all the time they should have had together, but it is a balm.

Harry wants to dig into the defense books right away, and Remus has papers to mark for his freelance work. Sirius goes upstairs to check on Buckbeak while the two of them settle in the library, as is their habit. Harry leans against Remus as he reads, book open on propped-up knees, his hair tickling Remus’s cheek whenever Remus moves his head.

“Moony?”

“Hm?” Remus finishes correcting an essay and sets it aside before reaching for the next one.

“I heard you and Sirius in the kitchen that night,” Harry says. “When you were fighting.”

Remus pulls off his reading glasses and rubs his eyes. “I’m sorry you had to hear that, Harry. I didn't mean to be so loud.”

“Sirius shouldn’t have been so mad at you.”

“He had reason to be,” Remus says. “We spent years hurting each other, Harry. The blame lies with both of us. But we can acknowledge all that pain now. It’s the only way to move on.”

“So he’s not mad at you anymore?”

“I think we have a lot to work through still,” Remus says cautiously. “But we’ll get there.”

They had to. Remus can’t lose Sirius again.

“When you find a house for us, will Sirius live there, too?”

“I don’t know, Harry,” Remus says, mouth suddenly dry. It feels like too much to hope for, so he hasn't permitted himself to think about the possibility. “It’ll be up to him, I suppose.”

They settle back into their tasks.

“Moony?”

“Yes, Harry?”

“I’m glad you’re my dad.”

Remus’s throat is abruptly too tight for speech, so he brushes his lips against Harry’s hair and hopes that says it all.

***

And then, all too soon, it’s the end of the summer. Remus escorts Harry to Kings Cross with a contingent of other Order members. Sirius accompanies them as Padfoot, and Remus doesn’t have the heart to protest. It’s the first time he’s been outside in months. How can he begrudge Sirius that?

He hugs Harry tightly on the platform and drops a kiss on top of his head.

“Be good,” he says. “Write to me.”

“At least once a week,” Harry agrees. “Love you.”

“Love you, too.” Remus releases him. Harry drops to his knees to give Padfoot a quick hug, too, and the dog licks his face. With one final “Bye, Da!” he hurries to the train with the rest of his friends.

Once again, he’s off on his own. Once again, Remus has to let him go.

The journey back to Grimmauld Place is silent. Once they arrive, everyone disperses. Remus has a mission he’s supposed to leave for in the morning. He should be packing. Instead, he finds himself in Sirius’s father’s study, staring out the grimy window at the empty park below.

The door behind him eases open, and then shuts again.

“It’s dinnertime,” Sirius says, and Remus is surprised that it’s already that late. Has he truly been brooding in here all afternoon?

“You all can eat without me,” Remus says. “I’m not hungry. I’ll eat later.”

But Sirius doesn’t leave. “Look, if you’re mad about me going to Kings Cross--”

“I’m not,” Remus says. He huffs. “Not everything is about you, Sirius.”

He feels Sirius bristle, but the other man doesn’t leave. “Then what--”

“Harry’s first year at Hogwarts, he faced down Voldemort,” Remus says in a rush. “His second year, a Basilisk. The next year, Dementors, an escaped convict, and then the man responsible for his parents’ deaths. Three months ago, he watched someone die in front of him. A friend. A child. Each year is more horrible than the last, and I keep sending him back. Why?”

“You can’t hold on to him forever, Remus,” Sirius says.

“There is a difference,” Remus says through gritted teeth, “between sending a child off to school, and sending him to a place where he repeatedly witnesses horrors that most adults never experience. I am tired of everyone telling me that this is a normal part of growing up. It isn’t. Our years at Hogwarts were happy ones. Some of the best of my life. And I keep sending Harry back to a place where he is regularly traumatized!”

“He wants to go,” Sirius says quietly, and Remus abruptly deflates. “You get that, yeah? He loves Hogwarts. He loves being with his friends. He loves being in the same place where his parents spent their formative years. You’re not sending him against his will.”

“I know,” Remus whispers. “I wouldn’t send him if he didn’t love it.”

“There you are, then.” Sirius finally crosses the room to him. He puts a hand on Remus’s shoulder, and Remus automatically leans into the touch. “Listen. Harry’s going to write to you every week, like he always does. And the moment he sounds unhappy, the moment it seems like he’s miserable, we’ll pull him from Hogwarts. He’ll come stay with us. We can teach him anything he needs to know.”

“Dumbledore would love that,” Remus mutters.

“I don’t give a flying fuck what Dumbledore thinks, and neither do you,” Sirius says fiercely. “Harry is ours. It’s our job to look after him, because no one else does. Sure, they all say that they care about him and his well-being, but he’s just a part of a prophecy to them. But he’s our boy. We do what’s best for him, not what’s best for wizard kind.”

Sirius abruptly drops his hand and steps away. Remus misses his touch immediately. “Sirius--”

“I mean.” Sirius coughs. “Sorry, I didn’t mean--obviously, Harry is yours, is what I meant to say.”

“No,” Remus says firmly. “He’s ours. It’s what James and Lily wanted. And he loves you so much, Sirius.”

Sirius’s eyes are shining. “I love him, too. You did a good job with him, Rem.”

“I wish we could have done it together.”

“We can do it together now.” Sirius cups his cheek, his wedding band warm against Remus’s skin. Their rings were the only items he’d kept as Sirius’s next of kin, while the rest of his belongings went to his mother and Grimmauld Place. Remus had pulled them out of storage last week, after receiving his latest mission from Dumbledore. “Understood, husband of mine? You’re not getting rid of me that easily.”

“I just can’t help but think.” Remus stops, rubs his forehead. “Voldemort returned, last year. I can’t help but think, what’s worse than that? What’s in store for him this year that’s even worse than the Dark Lord returning?”

“You can’t think like that, Rem.” Sirius clasps his hands, and Remus holds on tight. “You don’t know it will be worse. Maybe it’ll be his best year yet. Maybe it’ll be the best year for all of us. Merlin knows we’re owed it.”

Remus rests his forehead against Sirius’s and closes his eyes. “Yeah, Pads. Maybe you’re right. Maybe this will be our best year yet.”