Chapter Three: Promise
Remus and Sirius agreed that they were definitely going to keep their relationship at low profile. Though Sirius was of the “I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of us” opinion, Remus was quick to point out that there were several ways Snape could make their lives miserable if he knew. Add to this that their nemesis was already out for revenge, and Sirius agreed.
Therefore they maintained simple friendship when outside their own room. Peter and James both knew, as they shared a room with them. Both of them, however, could be trusted to not say anything.
James and Lily’s wedding was scheduled for a year after school ended.
“Aren’t you rushing it?” Sirius had asked when they announced it.
James had never really answered, but it was clear that Voldemort’s quite rise to power was frightening everyone. Sirius had never asked again after the first time.
“Well, we’ve graduated,” he said, once the five of them were safely on the Hogwarts Express home. “Should we feel different?”
“I do,” James said.
Sirius gave him a skeptical look.
“Loads,” James continued brightly. “I feel old and responsible.”
The other four of them stared at him for a minute, then burst into laughter.
“At least you’ve got a job lined up,” Peter said gloomily. “Mum’s still trying to get me into a job at the Ministry.”
Remus nodded. “Your Mum’s trying that too, hm?”
“I still say you could’ve come to stay with me,” Sirius grumbled. “Don’t know why you’re being so intent on going home, Moony.”
Remus sighed. In truth, he was still a little worried about his relationship with Sirius. He knew his parents wouldn’t approve, and that bothered him immensely. Once he had admitted his feelings for his friend, they had grown exponentially, to the point that he felt like he couldn’t get through a day without seeing him. Such a relationship, he felt, couldn’t really be healthy. Moving in with Sirius didn’t seem like the best of ideas under these circumstances.
They chatted amiably for a while until they reached the train station and got off, retrieving their luggage.
Allister came over to say hello to Remus, and the three of them stood talking while they waited for Remus’ parents.
“They are coming, right?” Sirius asked, when fifteen minutes had gone by and they still hadn’t showed up.
“Oh, I’m sure they’ll be here,” Remus said casually. “You know them; they’re not much on punctuality.”
Sirius wrinkled his nose, making Remus snicker. “Still can’t believe you’re going home.”
“Yes, yes, we’ve heard it all before,” Remus said. “My parents aren’t that bad, honestly. They’ve gotten a lot better recently. They just had a hard time dealing with it when they realized there was no cure for the fact that I was a werewolf. I mean, they honestly tried everything. They got frustrated.”
Sirius sighed. “I just don’t want you to go anywhere that I’m not, Moony.”
Remus allowed himself a smile. “Don’t get sappy on me, Padfoot. Between Floo Powder and our lately passed Apparition test, I’m sure we’ll be seeing plenty of each other.”
“I know,” Sirius said. “But I still think you’re being extremely silly.”
“Oh, there they are,” Remus said, waving at his parents and effectively avoiding refuting or agreeing to Sirius’ statement. “I’ll see you soon, all right, Sirius?”
Sirius nodded, and knew better than to attempt to give Remus a goodbye kiss while his parents were in sight. “You’d better.”
***
Despite Sirius’ fears, Remus did not have any trouble with his parents. For months, in fact, everything went smoothly. Sirius visited in the afternoons and occasionally spent the night. Remus used every excuse he could to visit Sirius. He had found that, unfortunately, not living with Sirius didn’t make his affection for his friend decrease. If anything, it strengthened it.
That was proven about six months after the end of school, when Remus’ mother walked in on them kissing. Remus reflected later that her reaction was really quite unfair; they’d just been kissing. It wasn’t like they were doing anything more interesting. In truth, they had done fairly little of anything of the sort. It had been nearly impossible while at school. Remus had always been slightly nervous of intimate contact, and being slightly frightened of his feelings for Sirius, had never allowed the physical aspect of their relationship to get very far.
However, Remus’ mother hadn’t known any of this, and she responded to what she saw with rather alarming force. Remus had thought for a minute that she was going to throw him out, but he had no such luck. Instead, it was Sirius that she threw out, practically shoving him headlong into the fireplace before throwing the Floo Powder in.
Remus, for his part, was locked into his room. This wouldn’t have been such a problem, if it weren’t for the fact that he couldn’t get out. His room was where they kept him while in werewolf form, and as such, there were bars on the window and the door was heavy wood that he couldn’t break. Given the fact that his mother snatched his wand before tossing him in, there was little magic he could do to free himself.
Figuring that his mother would blow off some steam and then let him out, he settled down to wait.
Unfortunately, it didn’t happen. His mother opened the door long enough to slide his dinner inside, then retreated quickly.
He ate and tried to sleep, knowing there was nothing he could do.
He was woken in the middle of the night by a soft hooting, and looked up to see Polaris hovering outside his window. He walked over and smiled as the owl extended his leg through the bars so he could get the message.
It read, simply, “Are you okay?”
He got his quill and scribbled a message back. “I’m fine. Don’t attempt to contact me for a few days. Give my parents time to blow off steam.”
He tied the message to Polaris’ leg and watched in silence as the snowy owl took off into the night sky.
Unfortunately, a few days later, his parents had definitely not lost steam. His father was coming in to lecture him every day, pointing a wand in his direction as if he were afraid Remus would try to escape. Remus made no attempt of any sort, not wanting to alienate his parents any further.
Polaris arrived at the end of the week with another brief message. “Remus, what’s going on? I miss you.”
Remus couldn’t help but glow a little at that, then wrote a letter explaining the situation and sent it back with Polaris. A reply came almost immediately, simply asking “Do you want me to come and get you?”
It took Remus a long time to decide how to answer that. Eventually, he just wrote “No. I don’t want to make my parents any more angry than they already are. I’ll meet you at James and Lily’s wedding.”
Sirius’ reply was prompt and horrified. “The wedding? But that’s nearly six months away!”
Remus had pondered every angle of this while waiting for Sirius’ response. The fact was that he could not escape from his house without help, and getting help would completely alienate his parents. He wasn’t quite sure why he still cared what they thought about him, but he did. So finally he replied with “If they let me out of my room before then, I promise I’ll reconsider,” and sent Polaris back.
It was almost a week before Sirius’ next letter came; he obviously thought long and hard about what was in it. After such a wait, the content was almost disappointing. The letter was only two sentences long.
“Remus, did I do something wrong? Are you mad at me for some reason?”
Remus nearly fell over in his haste to get to his quill and paper to reassure Sirius that this was not the case. For the next few weeks, he was still not allowed out of his room. It was a month after the incident before they let him. Even then, he was not allowed to have his wand or his broomstick and there was no Floo Powder in the house. He was allowed out of the house only under supervision, and was locked into his room at night.
On the whole, not really an improvement.
He missed Sirius so much that it felt like something had died inside him. The back of his mind kept yammering at him that he was overdependent on his friend, but most of him didn’t care. Most of him was too preoccupied with actually missing Sirius to worry about the fact that he missed Sirius.
He managed for about another two months until he got sick of it. “Mum?” he asked quietly at dinner. “Why is what I was doing wrong?”
She stared at him. “I should think it was perfectly obvious, Remus, and I don’t want to have a discussion about it.”
“It wasn’t wrong,” Remus whispered, looking at the table. “Sirius loves me.”
Dead silence sat at the table. His five siblings simply looked on in horror as his father cleared his throat.
“It’s not right for two men to have that sort of feeling for one another,” he said clearly. “You aren’t to see him anymore, and you aren’t to speak about him in this house.”
“You can’t stop me,” Remus said icily.
His father rolled his eyes. “We most certainly can. We have, for the past three months.”
“Because I haven’t been trying to escape,” Remus replied. Though in a way, he knew his parents were right. He had no wand, no broomstick, no Floo Powder. He didn’t even know where his wand was. There was no way to get to Sirius’ unless he walked there, and geographically speaking, he had no idea where to go.
His mother put down her fork. “Remus, go to your room.”
Remus knew there was no point in arguing, but did so regardless. “You can’t stop me from being this. I’ve loved Sirius for three years now. More. There’s nothing you can do to change that. I’m tired of being alone; I won’t go back to being alone. Not now, not ever. Let me go. You have no right to hold me here.”
“We’re your parents!” his father thundered. “We’ve done more for you than you could possibly imagine! Any other self-respecting couple would have tossed you onto the street when you became a werewolf!”
“And so it comes back to that,” Remus said softly. “Somehow it always does.”
“We did everything we could for you, young man!” his mother snapped. “Show some proper gratitude!”
“It wasn’t my fault that I got bitten,” Remus replied. “I’m grateful for everything you did for me, but I have my own life to live.”
“You obviously aren’t grateful if this is what you’re choosing to do with your life!” his mother yelled.
“That’s exactly it, mother,” Remus said. “I choose. For the first time in my life, I’m making some decisions. And that’s something you can’t stop me from doing.” He pushed back from the table. “I’m going to my room. Feel free to lock me in.”
He stomped off into his room and slammed the door. He was due for a letter from Sirius any day now, so he wasn’t surprised to find Polaris waiting outside his window. He took the letter from him and, without even reading it, scribbled a note that said “Sirius, please come get me as soon as you can. I miss you and I’m sick of this.”
Knowing that Sirius would rise to the challenge in true Maurauders style, he gave the note to Polaris and sent him winging back into the night sky. Then he sat down and read Sirius’ letter, which as usual was filled with things that made him feel disgustingly warm and fuzzy inside. He put the letter under his pillow and went to sleep.
Polaris must have made good time, because Sirius was knocking on his window six hours later. Remus sat up in bed, startled, then walked over. “I wasn’t expecting you until tomorrow,” he said.
“You said as soon as possible, I came as soon as possible,” Sirius said, his eyes brightening a little at the sight of his friend. “Now how do we get you out of here?”
“I don’t know,” Remus said. “And I need my wand and my broomstick. My parents have hidden them and I don’t know where they are.”
“All right, hang on half a sec,” Sirius said, and disappeared from the window.
Remus gathered his things into his suitcase while he waited. A few minutes later, he heard a low murmuring outside his door and it opened. He surprised both of them by practically flinging himself into Sirius’ arms when his friend came through the door.
“How are we going to find my wand and my broomstick?” he whispered after a few hasty kisses.
Sirius made a helpless gesture with his hands. “Look?”
Remus considered it. “It’s hard to hide something as big as a broomstick, and my wand is probably with it . . . follow me.”
The two of them conducted a hasty and silent search of the house, and Remus finally managed to unearth his broomstick and his wand. He stuck the latter into his belt and followed Sirius outside.
“How did you get here so fast?” he asked.
“You’ll see,” Sirius said with a devilish grin. Remus followed him about a block away, where there was a large black motorcycle parked. “My parents were as good as their word, they were. Isn’t it a beauty?”
Remus admired it. “Since I’m not on it, yes. But there’s no sidecar.”
Sirius laughed and climbed on. “C’mon. Sit behind me and hold on.”
Remus took a deep breath. “We couldn’t just Apparate?”
“I thought you might not be up to it, having not done any magic for months,” Sirius said, giving him a concerned look. “Best not to chance it. Didn’t want to do anything nasty to ourselves.”
“True.” Remus winced and climbed up on the bike, locking his arms around Sirius’ waist. “But all the same, I think I won’t look.”
“It’s not as far from here as it is from London,” Sirius said reassuringly, kicking the motorcycle into the air. “I’d take it on the ground, but I think I’d get lost. I’ve never done it that way before.”
“I’ll be all right,” Remus said, clinging to his things with one arm and Sirius with the other. “Just don’t go so fast . . .”
The two of them made it safely to Sirius’ house and let themselves in. It was nearly dawn, but Remus didn’t feel tired at all.
Sirius got them both a mug of tea. “So what made you change your mind?” he asked curiously.
“There are a few reasons, I guess,” Remus said, sipping at his tea. “Because I got tired of them making all my decisions for me. Because I was angry that they said that . . . that what we have . . . is wrong. But mostly because I just missed you so much that I felt like I would die if I didn’t get to see you soon.”
Sirius smiled slowly at him. “You should have asked me to come earlier,” he said. “Getting into your room was easy; you would’ve been able to do it yourself if you’d had a wand.”
“I know, but . . . until today, I don’t think I realized that my parents would truly never accept it.” Remus stared into his mug of tea, for a long minute, then looked up and said shyly, “And I don’t think I realized how much more you mean to me than they do.”
Sirius looked at him thoughtfully for a long minute. “You didn’t want to accept it,” he said slowly. “Why not?”
Remus flinched away a little. “Because . . . it scared me,” he finally said. “To love someone this much . . . it’s a little frightening. It implies . . . responsibility . . . it implies a sort of . . . of oneness. With the person you love.” He looked away. “I’ve just been alone for so long . . . I had trouble coming to grips with the fact that I’ll never need to be alone again.”
Sirius smiled again and leaned forward, brushing his lips over Remus’. “You won’t be, Remus. I promise.” He put his arms around Remus’ shoulders and pulled him in for a more serious kiss. They were still sitting there, kissing, when Sirius’ parents came in a few minutes later.
“Good morning, Sirius, hello, Remus,” Mrs. Black said warmly. “I’m glad you got here all right.”
“Mmph,” Remus replied. It was about the best he could do, seeing as Sirius saw absolutely no reason to stop kisses for conversation.
“Would you two like some breakfast?” Mrs. Black asked brightly.
“Yes, please,” Sirius pulled away long enough to say, before kissing Remus again.
Within a few minutes, she had plates of food in front of them, and they were forced to stop kissing long enough to eat. Mr. Black sat down at the table and ate with them, then left for work.
“Well, boys, I’m off to run some errands,” Mrs. Black said cheerfully. “You behave yourselves, now!”
The two of them blinked at each other.
“Come on, then,” Sirius said, standing up and tugging Remus into his bedroom. “You must be tired. We were up most of the night.”
“I don’t think I’m tired at all,” Remus said in a low voice, sitting on the bed and smiling at Sirius.
Sirius sat on the bed next to him and tapped him on the nose. “Most unsubtle, Moony. But I can take a hint.” He cupped Remus’ face in his hands and kissed him gently. “That is, if this is all right?”
“It’s all right,” Remus whispered, kissing back. “It’s very all right.”
“Changed your mind about this too, I see,” Sirius said, sounding rather amused.
“You complaining?” Remus asked.
“Of course not,” Sirius said, running his fingers down the side of Remus’ face. “Not one little bit.”
“I finally accepted how much I love you,” Remus said with a smile. “And that, my dear Padfoot, opens up a whole new world of possibilities for us.”
****
Remus had never been to a wedding before, and despite the fact that James and Lily could barely keep their eyes off each other for two consecutive seconds, he found it a most enjoyable experience. Sirius was obviously having a great time, despite all his moping about losing James to the clutches of matrimonial bliss.
Sirius was the best man and Remus a groomsman, which fortunately kept Sirius from making any comments during the wedding itself. Remus kept glancing sidelong at Sirius throughout the ceremony. He was feeling distinctly romantic, thinking about ‘death do us part’ and such things.
Afterwards, most of them got at least semi-drunk at the reception. Lily and James departed for their honeymoon and everyone else was left to toddle home.
“I’ve got something to show you,” Sirius said with a devilish grin that made Remus slightly apprehensive. “Come on.”
Remus gave him one of those ‘why do I put up with you’ looks and climbed on the motorcycle behind Sirius. He’d learned quickly that Sirius favored the motorcycle over all other modes of transportation, even instantaneous Apparition. Remus was slowly getting used to heights, though he still disliked flying on his own broomstick.
He settled comfortably, wrapping his arms around Sirius’ waist and focusing on Sirius’ back so he didn’t have to look to his right or left. The trip was fairly short; they touched down on a narrow forest lane about a half an hour later.
“Where are we?” Remus asked as Sirius parked the bike outside a small cottage and got off.
“Wait and see,” Sirius said with a wink. He strode up to the door and opened it.
“Hadn’t you better knock?” Remus asked nervously.
“Why?” Sirius asked with an innocent smile. “It’s ours.”
Remus gaped at him. “Ours?”
“Ours. Yours and mine,” Sirius clarified.
Remus still stared. “Really truly?”
“Swear,” Sirius said. “Mum and Dad moved all our stuff while we were at the wedding. I’ve been planning this for weeks. I thought it would be appropriate to do it on the same day as Lily and James got married for some reason.”
Remus walked in slowly and looked around. Mrs. Black had decorated the house for them; there were throw rugs and paintings and a fire already burning in the fireplace. “It looks so cozy,” he said wonderingly. He peered into the bedroom and found that, indeed, all their belongings had been moved.
“Isn’t it nice?” Sirius asked appreciatively. “Just the right size for the two of us.”
Remus nodded and smiled. “I like it, Sirius. No, I more than like it. It’s wonderful.” He put his arms around Sirius and hugged him tightly. “Thank you.”
“Thank me?” Sirius asked, sounding both amused and surprised. “For what?”
“I don’t know,” Remus said. “Just . . . thank you.”
Sirius grinned. “Now, I know that two men can never legally be married, so don’t tell me I’m an idiot. But . . . will you stay here with me, Remus? Forever?”
Absurdly enough, Remus felt tears stinging at his eyes. He blinked them back quickly. “You really mean it?”
“Of course I mean it,” Sirius said.
“All through James and Lily’s wedding, that was all I could think about,” Remus said. “How much I wanted that to be us.”
Sirius gave him a gentle kiss on the forehead. “I don’t have rings or flowers or anything special. We can’t really have a ceremony of any sort. But I still want you to stay with me.” He took Remus’ hand and kissed it. “Will you?”
“Of course I will,” Remus said, smiling through the tears that still stung at his eyes. “Did you ever really doubt my answer?”
“Not for a second,” Sirius said. “But I thought I’d better check, anyway.” He leaned in and kissed Remus gently on the lips. “I know things aren’t going to be easy,” he whispered. “But I believe we can make it, if we stay together.”
He kissed Remus again.
And Remus believed.
****
Part Four
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