Chapter Text
Tuesday 20th October
Sirius keeps talking but Remus doesn’t hear a thing past Lily’s pregnant.
“Is she really?” he cuts in.
Sirius sits down across from him, pulling his cigarettes out of his jacket with a tired air, as if he's the one that got her there.
“I know,” he says.
“Christ.. .”
Sirius shrugs. “It’s due in June, apparently.”
June of this year they had graduated university. Four months later it’s dawning on the both of them that adulthood is, in fact, permanent.
“Is she really?” he says again.
Sirius just takes a drag on his cigarette and coughs it back out. A car alarm goes off somewhere nearby and Remus feels it like a big beeping get up and go that has him reaching to take Sirius’ fag off him.
“We'll probably have to babysit,” Sirius says. "Do you know how to babysit?"
Remus makes a face, Sirius laughs.
“We should probably stop smoking so much,” Remus says as Sirius starts lighting another. They look at each other, then away. Remus remembers the nail protruding from the two thinly carpeted steps that lead to their hallway. He takes a drag on his cigarette and it makes him feel a little better. Maybe they shouldn't, now that he's thought about it.
“She’s keeping it, is she?” he asks.
“Of course, she is.”
“Well, I don’t know.”
He watches acutely as Sirius pulls on his cigarette; the hollowing of his cheeks, the way he holds it between his thumb and forefinger. They’re getting stained, a jaundiced tint to them. Remus has considered pointing it out a few times, if not only because who holds their cigarette like that anyway. But he doesn’t want Sirius to suspect the lengths at which he looks at his fingers. Doesn’t want him to know that he noticed.
“We should get Lily some flowers,” he says then. “She’ll like that.”
Sirius slumps further into his chair. “And what about James? A card that says ‘congrats on knocking Evans up, she’s bound to you for life’?”
“Oh, don’t.”
Sirius grins and Remus looks down at his unfinished crossword, chin in his hand. He has one eight letter word left to fill in: 21 down - festering.
***
Dinner that evening is Chinese takeaway. There’s a shop two doors down, which Remus knows will be very bad for them in the long run. Sat toe to toe on the sofa, beer bottles and yellow lamplight, he’s not sure he minds.
“What we need,” Sirius says, pointing at him, “is a microwave.”
“Microwave?” Remus says warily. “What do we need a microwave for?”
“Well, look, leftovers. I know you don’t like eating them cold, if we had a microwave you could heat them up.”
Remus frowns at him and shakes his head. “I don’t trust those things.”
Sirius rolls his eyes and his head with it; all put-on exasperation. “You wouldn’t trust a washing machine if you knew how to do it by hand.”
“Washing machines are just water and soap,” Remus says. “I'll give you a pound if you can actually tell me what a 'micro wave' is.”
Sirius reaches out a foot to kick him then and Remus has to make a close-mouthed noise of irritation, having just taken a mouthful of beef chow mein.
“Get off.”
Sirius laughs and says: “I do love you.”
It’s an affectionate thing that Sirius tosses out in the same way James does (it had been in his house that Sirius had learned how to love people). Remus stores his own down the back of his throat along with every other thing he wishes he could say out loud. I love you. I love you. It scares him a little, how much he feels it. Sirius doesn't mean it the way he does. Remus is convinced that the difference will be tangible in his voice, that Sirius will hear it and will know.
“I just don’t see what’s wrong with cooking things in the oven.”
“Square.”
Remus shakes his head. “I try new things.”
“Like what?” Sirius says incredulously.
Remus casts back over the past few months, grappling for an example. Work - eat - go to bed seems to be the only thing he can remember doing. Reading books. Pissing. He presses his mouth together and Sirius laughs into his beer.
“Come on, Remus, let’s get a microwave. Please,” he says.
“You can get one. I’m not using it.”
“Look, if it does give you radiation poisoning I’ll nurse you back to health.”
“You’ll have to, to assuage your guilty conscience.”
Remus looks up to frown at Sirius, but finds him looking back so sweetly that instead he’s repressing a smile and has to look away.
“I’ll bring you round to it, don’t worry,” Sirius says. “Have you finished?” he nods at the carton of Chinese in Remus’ lap. Remus nods and Sirius takes it from him, collects up their empty beer bottles too and moves them to the floor. Then he pushes Remus' arm up and out of the way so that he can settle against his side.
Remus doesn’t quite know why this started. He doesn’t want to think of it as cuddling, but that’s what it is - sprawled on their faded sofa, his arm around Sirius, Sirius’ head half on his chest. Does he know that the days they don’t do this - this domestic little thing that makes his heart ache - the days they don’t do this Remus finds it harder to get to sleep? It's the sort of thing he had half let himself imagine, in those few months before they moved in together. Still living in that old basement apartment full of things that weren't his. Almost asleep, what if. He thinks he should say something, warn Sirius off. This means something else entirely to you. Sirius needs physical affection; Remus needs Sirius. Either way, here they are.
***
Sunday 25th October
He’s taken Remus’ long woollen coat. The weather turned with the end of October; a stinging kind of cold and Sirius still hasn’t ventured to buy any sort of jacket past his leather one. Which is warm. But not as warm as Remus’ is. It smells good too; the way he does. Something soft and dark. Like brown sugar.
He stands and stares a little dazedly at the stand full of flowers. They look tired, he thinks. Like they’d rather be anywhere than in the dim third aisle of a co-op. Lilies would be too on the nose, would they? Or maybe that would be what’s funny about it. Then, no, flowers aren’t supposed to be funny, they’re supposed to be nice.
“‘S’cuse me, miss,” a woman says behind him.
He turns and realises she’d been talking to him when she says “Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry, I thought...” She laughs and he smiles back, oddly amused.
“Don’t worry about it,” he says.
“You’ve got beautiful hair for a man,” she says; gives his arm a little squeeze before moving past him for a wilted bouquet of daffodils.
Sirius sucks at his teeth and stares. He's been staunchly trying to ignore the eventuality of his developing hay fever; in the summer his eyes had started watering every time he got close to a public park. These desperate little flowers, artificially bright and drying out under the air conditioning, are making his nose itch.
Miss.
He feels like laughing and doesn’t know why. Indignance? (Some sort of strange delight.)
He drops his change when he’s at the till; is told sorry, we’ve run out of bags. So he stands in the telephone box outside, flowers in one arm, bottle of cream soda between his knees til he can tuck the receiver between ear and shoulder.
“Hallo?” Remus’ voice says. It’s one of the words he can never seem to get the welsh out of.
“Hey, it’s Sirius.” He huffs, hoisting the drink up into the crook of his elbow. “Do you know this never gets easier, it takes such a long time to actually get through to anyone. Put your coins in, dial the number, sorry can you put the coins in again but slightly differently because it didn’t work that time. And you wouldn’t be able to fit a cat in here, let alone swing it.”
“You’ll have to suffer the coin ordeal all over again if you don’t get to the point.” He can hear the smile in Remus’ voice and feels like rambling for a little bit longer.
“It’s your cash, by the way. I couldn’t find my wallet and it was next to the door keys.”
“Well, I’ll forgive you any debt seeing as you were lovely and went to get the flowers.”
Sirius smiles. He can hear the television crowding noise in the back of Remus’ line and pictures him curled up at the end of the sofa with his feet tucked under his legs, head tilted to one side to listen to Sirius’ voice through the receiver.
“What are you watching?” he asks.
“I’m not watching, really. Just put it on for some noise. It's uh- oh I can’t remember. They’re boxing.”
“You’re not telling me you’ve put Rocky on as background noise.”
He listens as Remus shifts, and when he speaks again his voice is slightly louder, closer to the mouthpiece.
“Well, it’s quite violent.”
Sirius laughs. “Obviously.” Then, before he can stop himself: “You’re missing the eye candy.”
“What?” Remus says quickly.
“You know, that brunette girl. What’s she called?”
Things Sirius Black knows about Remus Lupin are: almost everything. Remus likes his tea too hot, and his baths; he has a tooth missing on the left side of his mouth (cricket bat); his hair grows too fast and he gets hangnails too often and sometimes he looks at Sirius like he’s the only thing he can see. The list is long and perhaps obsessive but these pockets of information Sirius has earned. Things Sirius Black does not know about Remus Lupin are: this. Who it is that interests him, what gets him off. He’s never dated, has hardly professed to being attracted to anyone past vaguely agreeing when prompted to.
Remus doesn’t answer, just huffs. “Have you got something to tell me or not?”
“Not your type?”
“Sirius.”
“Okay. I thought I’d go to James’ early, that’s all. Seeing as I’m nearby.”
“Alright.” He listens to Remus exhale; the sound of shifting fabric as he moves. “I’ll see you this evening, then?”
“Yeah. I’ll make sure to tell Lily the flowers were your- oh.” The receiver starts to beep, and Sirius presses his lips together before putting it down.
***
“Cream soda for the lady.” He leans in to kiss Lily on the cheek. “I was going to get you some baby-cham for a laugh but James said you can’t have any alcohol. Not even if it’s got the word baby in it.”
“Well, I appreciate the thought,” she laughs. “Oh and flowers? This is very grown up.”
“Remus’ suggestion,” Sirius says.
“Oh, of course.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m surprised you’ve even remembered I’m pregnant.”
“You’re pregnant?” Sirius says feigning a sarcastic shock and Lily shoves him. “I’m very offended by that. I’ll have you know I went and bought these myself.”
“Well, they’re lovely,” she says, turning them round in her hands, smiling. “Thanks, Sirius.”
“You’re welcome,” he says pointedly and waits until Lily is in the kitchen to grin to himself. How domesticated, he thinks. How horribly delightful.
He makes himself comfortable on the sofa, gazes at their new wallpaper. He’d offered to help James put it up, but Lily had shut that operation down very quickly. It’s yellow and green, very seventies Sirius thinks, horrid, really, but it makes him feel fond; of the era, of James and Lily.
“James is just down at the corner shop, he should be back in.. a few minutes, actually,” Lily says, reentering the room with a simple vase full of water. “Here, get those out of the plastic will you?”
Sirius pulls the wrapping away from the flower stems, revealing them damp and slightly sticky. He looks at them, at his hands, and for a moment feels odd. Does this happen to you, he wants to ask. Do you ever feel like there’s something wrong when there isn’t.
“These are perfect,” Lily says, jostling the flowers into their vase. “I always feel very put together when I’ve got a vase of flowers up.” She joins him on the sofa, pulling her feet under herself. “We want to get a house, you know. The flat’s been fine, it’s, well, it’s been lovely. Just with a baby… you want somewhere that’s really yours, don’t you? Somewhere they can grow up." She laughs and shakes her head. “God, it’s still so odd talking about it. I feel like I’ve only just left home and suddenly I’ve got to think about... making my own.”
“I guarantee you,” Sirius says, “you could live in a tent and that baby will be happy as anything with you and James for parents.”
Lily smiles. “Oh, don’t,” she says. It reminds him of Remus; he wonders where it started.
Lily's parents are incredibly normal as far as Sirius knows, and James' the best a child could hope for. And Sirius had; hoped that there might be someone else who could love him in a way his own parents hadn't. Until the age of eleven it had been private tutors and three hour music lessons and no dinner if you didn't get it right the first time, a sharp slap for making the wrong facial expression or acting like a child. At the age of eleven, he met James; James, who was loud and seemed to say everything he was thinking, whose parents sent him to school with a lunch big enough for three along with a note saying love you! x. All Sirius got were summons to the headmaster's office, but he was happy for the first time in his life. Away from them, for the first time in his life. If only for a few hours a day. It was a place where he could look upset if he felt it and laugh as loud as he liked. When Euphemia and Fleamont had taken him in as a second son, Sirius had cried every night for a week with pure exhausted relief. You'll be perfect. He wants to shake it into her. You'll be the best a child could hope for.
Just then there’s the sound of keys in the door and James emerges, brazenly singing the chorus to let me take you home tonight by Boston. Sirius grins delightedly at the way Lily flushes and calls quickly: “Sirius is already here.”
“What’s that, his mating call?” Sirius says, and Lily tells him to shut up.
***
The phone’s ringing again and Remus can’t find his coat. It’s cold, horribly cold and the phone’s still ringing.
“Hello?”
“Remus!” Sirius. “Could you grab something for me?”
“Yeah, what is it?”
“Sixer, under the sink.”
“Sure.”
Remus sweeps the room again. He always hangs it up, Sirius is the one who likes to throw his clothes all over the flat. Case in point: the boxer shorts currently half down the back cushion. Remus presses his lips together.
“You don’t know where my coat is?” he asks.
“Oh, I’ve got it,” Sirius says.
“Why’ve you got my coat?”
“Cuz I was wearing it.” There’s another voice on Sirius’ end, Sirius laughs. Remus hears “Yeah, one second,” before Sirius’ mouth is back at the receiver and he says, “You’ll be here soon, yeah?”
Remus is feeling a little warmer now, thinking about Sirius wearing his things. He sighs down the phone, anyway.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m just leaving now.”
“Okay, see you soon.”
He puts the receiver down and rubs at his eyes. He’ll just have to put an extra jumper on.
***
He finds Lily first; curled into an armchair, grinning at something Marlene's just said.
"Hello, you," she says, turning her smile on him.
"I believe congratulations are in order," Remus says, smiling back. She reaches up to squeeze his hand in thanks. "How are you feeling?"
Lily looks up at him; her face is bright and warm. "Happy," she says.
***
“What about you, Remus?” Mary says around her straw.
The room is warm and noisy and Remus feels slightly looser after three beers.
“What about me?”
“Love life. Come on.”
Remus knows that, were it possible outside cartoons, his face would be turning green. He seems to be a perfect liar in everything but this; being put upon to say something he doesn't mean clashes with sudden, nervous thoughts of Sirius (and the things he'd like to do to him). Sirius is always trying to wheedle it out of him; which actresses he’s attracted to, whether he thinks the cashier is pretty or not. She’s a looker, isn’t she? Would you?
He just shakes his head and sips at his drink.
“Come on, when’s the last time you got it on? I’ve got friends, you know, girls at the office that’d take you for a spin.”
“No, I- that’s… no, thank you.”
Everyone's preoccupation with romance - with sex - has always been dangerous for Remus and the way he feels about Sirius Black. It's been much harder to manage, much more difficult to bury, now that they're living together; just the two of them eating dinner, bickering about the shopping list and leaning against each other on the sofa before bed. He’s had his own flings, few and far between, never much good, but he’s had them. He had hoped, at the time, that they would make him forget about Sirius, but all they really did was add vividity to his imagination.
“Let yourself have fun once in a while, won’t you?” Mary says and Remus wants to reply that taking his clothes off in front of someone he doesn’t know isn’t exactly what he’d consider a good time. Instead he shrugs.
“Who’s your fun at the moment, then?” he asks her.
She smiles and puts her empty glass down on the coffee table.
“At the moment? I'm flying free,” she says. Then she turns, checking the others are occupied before saying, with a tilt of her head: “What about Sirius? Is he seeing anyone?”
Oh. “Not that I know of,” Remus says.
Mary makes a little humming noise.
***
James has pulled him into the kitchen, opened the door of the fridge to block them from view of the doorway. It’s obstructed only by a beaded curtain, something Lily had strung together over the summer when that sort of thing seemed poetic instead of mildly irritating. Having to fight your way through it whenever you want a glass of water. It doesn’t do much for keeping out secret conversations, anyhow, even if you whisper them. Sirius doesn’t know exactly what the fridge door is doing for privacy, but he’s too impatient to start an argument about it.
“So, Lily’s pregnant,” James says, moving his mouth as little as possible, as if they’re being watched. Everyone else is in the living room.
“As we know,” Sirius replies, looking at him intently. He thinks he knows what’s coming. James looks nervous but terribly, terribly excited; gleaming a little in his face.
“Right. And well, I was thinking, I’ve been thinking, even before all the baby stuff, but now especially,” he glances behind him, pushes his glasses up his nose. “It would be, you know, the proper thing to do. I’m-” his face falls into a grin “I’m going to ask Lily to marry me.”
***
Back in the living room Sirius sits, stoically quiet on one end of the sofa, guarding James’ news against his own loud mouth. The marrying seems bigger than the baby; the baby wasn't on purpose. It was always coming though, wasn't it. It just happened a little backwards.
Then Remus is beside him, handing him another cool beer.
“You alright?” Remus asks him.
“I’m…” he shakes his head then lifts his hand. “Don't talk to me, I’m sitting on something. A very important secret.”
Remus smiles, his nose crinkles a little. “A secret?”
“I’ll tell you later,” Sirius whispers and pats him heavily on his thigh. He hears Remus exhale quickly and he shifts as if he might get up again, but Sirius grabs onto the wool of his sleeve and he stays.
“Whatever you want to do, just wait a minute,” he says. “I’ll go mad, otherwise. Don't let anyone else talk to me.”
Remus sinks back into the sofa again. "I think I've already gone mad," he says.
"How much have you had to drink?"
Remus shrugs and smiles and don't, Sirius thinks. Don’t go mad, I need you for something. Doesn’t say it, though. It doesn’t seem the sort of thing you’re allowed to. He just looks at Remus. And Remus blinks and then frowns a little, eyebrows pushing a little line above the bridge of his nose. Completely lovely.
Then someone is turning the television on and they both turn their heads, dog-like, attracted to the noise. Sirius folds his arms over his chest.
There’s a kerfuffle winding the tape back (“You should do this when you finish watching it,” from Mary) and Sirius realises, with dawning horror, that it’s a performance James had made him tape from that year's Eurovision song contest.
“Oh god, not this,” he groans, as Remus says “Is that bucks fizz?”
James is pulling Lily up out of her chair and they both start singing along: "You gotta speed it up, and then you gotta slow it down!"
They’re swinging each other round, Mary and Marlene have each other by the arms too, grinning. Sirius supposes it’s sweet. He would join in if James wouldn’t insist on such god-awful music. He glances at Remus and finds a fond smile on his face.
"Don’t let your indecision t ake you from behind, t rust your inner vision..."
“Don’t let your indecision do what?” Remus says, and Sirius laughs.
“Careful, if you don’t make your mind up it’ll bugger you,” he says.
“Charming.”
Then, said quietly, conspiratorially: “Let’s go out for a smoke.”
“Please.”
Outside, the air’s like cold water. Sirius puffs smoke into the light-pollution-yellow sky and listens to the hum of cars a few streets over. After a few minutes of quiet, Remus nudges him with his elbow.
“What’s this secret, then?” he asks.
Sometimes I think about kissing you.
“Oh. God, I've been bursting with it.” Sirius grins. “Drumroll, if you please."
Remus raps his knuckles against the metal railing, faster and faster until Sirius says: "James is going to propose."
Remus grins and puts an unlit cigarette into his mouth.
“When?”
Sirius shrugs. “I’m not sure he’s got that far into the plan.”
Remus laughs, a little huff through his nose. “Of course not." He spends a moment searching the pockets of his jeans; Sirius watches the imprint of his knuckles through the soft denim. Then he says, "I've not got my lighter."
Sirius wraps his fingers around his own and leans in to touch the end of his cigarette to Remus’, end glowing yellow as he inhales and it lights. Glancing up at Remus, he finds furrowed eyebrows and his soft gaze fixed on his mouth.
“Thanks,” Remus says quietly. He steps back to lean against the wall and wipes his hands on his jeans. Then he says: “I still can’t wrap my head around it.”
Sirius settles opposite him, elbows back on the metal railing.
“I suppose it was going to happen at some point.”
Remus inclines his head. “Might as well get to it.” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t do it.”
“Have kids? Or get married?”
“I don’t know. Either.”
“You might change your mind if you met someone. Everyone's always saying that."
Remus inhales through his cigarette, doesn’t look at Sirius when he says: “I don't think so.”
“Why not?”
Remus just shakes his head and Sirius frowns at him.
“Come on.”
“Well, what about you, then?”
He’s still so curled into himself, even after ten years of knowing him.
“All I want,” Sirius says, relenting, “is a job that doesn’t make me wish I were dead and someone to come home to at the end of it.”
He turns to look out into the street, it’s fruit-bowl pungency dampened in the quiet and the dark. No need to go looking for something like that, he thinks. It’s where he is now. But how long it will be until Remus gets tired? He thinks about the kitchen sink life they’ve got and wonders when one thing or another will take it away.
Remus joins him at the railing, taps his cigarette against the metal and they both watch as the ash drops.
“That sounds nice,” Remus says. He sighs and scrubs at his forehead with the back of his hand, cigarette too close to his hair. “Not much to ask for.”
Things are always more complicated than they need to be, Sirius thinks.
When they’re back in the warm, the others are still dancing to the same tape (Sirius can’t imagine how many times they must have rewound it). This time, they’re copying the moves on the television; Mary can’t seem to stop giggling and James keeps pretending to elbow her to take it seriously. Sirius claps and cheers, cries “Oh, fabulous, look at those hips,” and Remus really does elbow him, for which he gets a shove in return. They settle back onto the sofa; Sirius sits sideways against the armrest, draping his legs over Remus’ lap.
“Pete couldn’t make it?” he says, as Lily staunchly refuses James trying to lift her up (“I’m pregnant.”)
“I suppose not. It’s a hell of a drive.”
“He could get the tube.”
“Yeah, well, you know what he’s like.”
Sirius feels vindictive about how little they’ve seen Peter since the summer ended. James and Lily are having a baby and yet he couldn’t drag his arse down to see them. It matters, Sirius thinks. Maybe Peter’s happier without them. Better off.
The dancers seem to have finally given it up, and Mary falls onto the sofa beside them, out of breath and laughing. Sirius wonders if he’ll ever feel as satiated as she looks.
“Wonderful performance,” he says.
“You’re a scrooge for not joining in,” she replies.
“Anything but that song, Mary.”
She rights herself, tucking her curly hair behind her ears.
“I know we won’t get Remus dancing, no matter what," she says.
Remus smiles and shakes his head, taking a sip of beer, and Sirius feels so awfully fond of him. He thinks if Remus were to be something abstract, if he existed in some place other than James and Lily’s living room, he would be too big for Sirius to see.
“We need to get some hot coals under your feet,” Marlene says; she sits on the coffee table in front of them, legs crossed.
“I have a wonderful time watching you all have fun,” Remus says, “that’s enough for me.”
“Voyeur,” Marlene says.
“Pervert,” he replies.
Marlene grins. “You got me.”
Movement draws Sirius’ eyes to the kitchen; Through the beaded curtain, he can see James and Lily stood nose to nose; James says something quiet and Lily smiles and kisses him. He supposes the curtain is quite romantic, now that he’s thought about it. Kaleidoscope, with them pressed between the colours of it. Pretty. He looks away and feels acutely all the places he and Remus are pressed against each other.
“How’s work this week, Marls, I haven’t asked you,” Mary says.
“Good,” Marlene says, scratching at her cheek. Sirius notices her nails are painted in glitter. “Tricky getting used to the late nights but I'm getting there.” She shrugs. “Yeah, it’s alright.”
“And?” Mary says, kicking at Marlene’s leg.
“And what?” Marlene replies, but her cheeks are dusting red.
“You know what I’m going to ask.”
“No I don’t.”
Mary turns to Remus and Sirius and stage whispers: “Marlene’s got a crush. Won't tell me anything about him."
Marlene rolls her eyes but looks distinctly bashful, an expression Sirius had never even imagined he’d see on her. She's not a stone cold bitch but she certainly never comes across as nervous. He sits up.
“Oh, you have to tell us.”
“I don’t have to do anything. Oh, fuck you Mary.”
Mary grins and kicks at her again. “Come on.”
“It’s not anything, okay? Nothing’s going to happen so it’s not anything.”
“He must be quite the charmer,” Sirius says, and Marlene throws him a thoroughly unimpressed look.
“You can’t know he's not interested,” Mary carries on. “He gets you this worked up, there’s got to be some tension, hasn't there?”
Lily and James re-enter the room; they sit together in the arm chair (that does not accommodate for two people) and Lily says “What’s this?” as James starts up a plait in her hair.
“Marlene’s being stubborn,” Mary says.
“No surprises there.”
“I’m being tormented, actually.” Marlene runs a hand through her hair. “Look, it really isn’t anything alright? Could we talk about something else?”
Mary nudges at her with her foot again. “I’m only teasing, yeah?” she says, apology in her voice.
Marlene smiles at her. “I know.”
“We should come down to the bar and visit you,” James says, and Lily slaps his thigh.
“That is an excellent idea,” she says.
"See you in action," Sirius adds.
Marlene puts her face in her hands, but when she re-emerges she’s smiling.
***
“I was looking for that all afternoon.”
Sirius turns, one arm into Remus’ coat. He grins, shrugging it on.
“I was cold.”
“I was cold.”
“You could’ve worn my jacket,” he says, pulling his hair from the back of the neckline. Remus watches as it falls about his face.
“You could’ve worn your jacket.”
He’s arguing for the sake of it, because seeing Sirius in it, in his clothes, moves something deep and lovely in his abdomen.
“I like your coat,” Sirius says, simple as that.