Archive of Our Own

What was his biggest flaw?

It was a question asked, somewhere in the effort of stitching tales and myth into a tapestry that looked whole but was undone by injury and time, by a child who grasped at the past like it could hold him in return.

He asked because he had looked into someone else’s twisted hurt and seen a boy who was cruel and arrogant. Either because the past is coloured by feelings of remembrance or because the person who asked, no one wished to speak ill of the dead. So, they gave half-truth answers. Things they remembered that they looked back on with the ghosts of smiles on their lips.

He was brave to the point of stupidity.

He burned brightly, sometimes overshadowing others.

He loved deeply, to a fault. 

If you asked those who knew him well, they might venture further.

He was thoughtless, at times.

He was immature.

He was reckless.

The dead do not speak; they cannot take up arms in their own defence. James Potter’s body was buried beneath the earth beside his wife whom he loved fully to the end, bones long before his son could think to ask these questions. His spirit, wandering the endless expanse of the world beyond the veil, was no longer invested in old hurt. But, if you asked him, he might say he was a man rended in half by stubbornness.

He did not think, until it was far too late, on the twisted river of life. The forks on his journey, the paths he let himself float by because he had charted his way before he set off. The current pushing one way, the blunt force of the oars on the water pulling against it. It was only after the fork was out of view that he looked back, and allowed himself to be swallowed by what he might have given up. Still, he stayed on his path, rarely doubling back, his wake pushing him on.

James had decided, at the age of eleven with years still to travel, that he loved Lily Evans. Lily burned in his eyes like a fire, both devastating and warm. And though she would never admit it in life, far too stubborn herself, she was just as smitten with him from the beginning. So she waited, for him to be who he was always going to be, to come to his kindness and humility in his own time, before she let it happen. 

Maybe fate drew them together, the right hands of the king of gods weaving stories in twine, gracious in their work to let them know so early because their time was short.

And though her son never asked, if someone did ask Lily Evans about her greatest weakness, she would say it was James.

She went to death gracefully, knowing that she died for the son she loved with her whole heart and with some knowledge that she was likely saving many more. She never regretted her life, the love she felt like the sun on her face from the moment of her birth to the day of her death. Sometimes, though, she looked at her stubborn, stupid husband who loved horribly and with every corner of himself and wondered if being his beacon along the path was something of a curse. She watched him, on days that stretched in fear and pain into the long hours of the night, and wondered how she could tell him that she saw the way he looked behind in grief and wondered how to say to him that no road was lost until the ferry hits the shore and they must pay their dues. She had no words for it, no way of understanding fully how to fold more in or let love go. For him, he had no way of expressing the desire to cut himself in half, to live other lives without giving the people he loved away in the process.

James loved her, never doubting that choice. He did not give passing glances to the streams that cut through other valleys, snaking away from his own path, steadfast. Not until he was sixteen and forced to confront the reality of choice and save an enemy. 

He remembered, in the hazy way memories fade when you run your fingers over them too often, sitting beside a broken boy in a hospital bed and thinking he looked very small. Remus always did, despite his spindly height. He carried himself like he would very much like to fold himself into something smaller, less notable to passersby. James was accosted with the knowledge that, despite never giving it much thought before, Remus was rather odd-looking at the best of times. He was thin and frail, sliced by the moons fall through the heavens and stitched back together. His eyes were always just a shade too luminous to be brown, and he towered on bones made to bend and break and mend. James saw his friend bite down on his lip, newly bisected with an ugly mangled scar that ran the curve of his sharp cheek, and looked away from the pain that twisted it into bleeding. He noticed the premature grey that streaked through Remus’ hair and thought it looked like the moon itself had carded its fingers through, leaving dust behind. In love, in apology, in devotion. The thought, wispy like smoke and striking wrong in the moment, felt foreign to him. His brain was spent, though, adrenaline crashing after hours of baying in his blood, and all his thoughts felt fuzzy. 

When Remus readjusted, his bones creaked and he held the bandage at his middle with a grimace. 

Disembowelled, He had said, at the beginning of this conversation. I woke up with my intestines on the floor beside me. 

James had asked him if he knew what had happened, and Remus replied that he did. Pomphery, in the gentle manner she reserved just for him, had explained. 

“I don’t normally remember anything but snippets of thoughts after waking,” his voice was shot, stone grinding against stone. “I remembered seeing him, though, at the end of the tunnel. The animal screaming out to kill. Then he was gone, and all there was after was burning pain.”

He recounted this in such a matter-of-fact manner like it was both shocking and expected. Something about that, more than anything else about the mangled boy beside him, set James’ blood boiling all over again. 

“Where is he?”

James, whose eyes had drifted to the wall in a scowl without his knowledge, looked back with a frown. 

“Snape? Dumbledore spoke with him and–,”

Remus shook his head, which seemed to cause him some pain. 

“Pomphrey explained. Seems you’re a hero. Maybe Severus will be thankful.”

I did not do it for him.

Another half-truth. In honesty, it was instinct. James thought of a path, had things gone differently, where no one had been there to pull Severus Snape out of the tunnel. Where his body was torn and his bones snapped and swallowed, where his blood watered the lawn and mixed with the morning dew. Where he was bitten and cursed to the same life of cyclical anguish and loneliness that Remus led. James did not appreciate Severus most days, fully hated him some, but he still did not deserve what awaited him at the end of that tunnel. 

“It seems that way,” Remus continued, without much feeling. “From what I understand, he’s agreed to keep quiet. For now, at least. I’ve been granted a stay of execution.”

The weight of the words felt off like he was inflecting a meaning to them that James could not understand. 

I did this for you. 

That was more the truth, really, because down the same path that ended Severus Snape’s life was the end of Remus Lupin.

Unregistered, allowed to integrate into society as a kindness and as an experiment in secret. Sometime after the truth had come out, James spent a decent amount of time in the library, pouring over old legal texts alone. He did not really know why, at the time. The idea that someone like Remus, who was placid like a lake and smaller than himself, could be anything worthy of fear was so laughable to James that it did not slot neatly into his brain. So, he read, to the teasing of Sirius and Peter.  He read every book he could find on lycanthropy and werewolf legislation. After a while, brain laden with new and horrible and fortifying information, he returned, not mentioning what he had learned. His view of Remus was more pain-laced after that, but Remus watched him with a softness behind his eyes like he had just witnessed James do something braver than reading some dusty old tombs. 

One piece of information that had lodged itself into him was that the punishment for passing lycanthropic disease, knowingly or unknowingly, to another human being was always and without exception to be put to death. There was an old myth, from a time long since passed, that care must be taken in slaying a werewolf or the one holding the blade would be cursed by the moon itself with horrible fortune. Wizards did not give much credence to those stories, but to that day the ministry executed werewolves by beheading with a heavy, silver-tipped axe so that the wound would not bleed cursed blood. James thought about his friend, kneeling before the block, making himself ever smaller, and his stomach rolled, sour. 

Sirius Black knew these traditions because his family had a gallery of stuffed heads above the mantel of their fireplace from illegal Full Moon Hunts, men and women stuck forever in a state of transformation in agony with their bodies defiled. 

“Dumbledore is wrong.”

James, drawn from his internal musings, glanced over. Remus, by and large, did not share his thoughts freely or often. He had a penetrating kind of gaze like he knew something about how you worked that no one else did. James did not know if others were unsettled by it, but he was not. It was nice, in a way, to have someone know you like that. James did think it was unfair, though, that Remus saw so much from behind his masks.

James did not need clarification on what he meant. 

“You don’t deserve to be punished for how other people treat you, Remus.”

It was a bloody history, the hands that touched Remus. A vengeful stranger, a father too wracked with shame and pride to stay, a mother who smiled around her fear of her son she thought a monster from another world, a friend who used him as a weapon without thought. Himself, who stacked these weights like stones on his soul. 

Remus frowned, looking down at his hand that rested on his gut like it might impart some wisdom. James noticed, with another roll of nausea, that his ring finger was now missing to the second knuckle. 

“To answer your question, though, I don’t know where Sirius is. Hopefully, nursing his broken nose and thinking about his stupid choices.”

There was a bitterness that leeched, unguarded, into his voice. James loved Sirius, his brother in all but blood, in all his manic and cruel carelessness. He did not think he had ever hated anyone more at that moment.

“What happened to his nose?”

“It collided rather forcefully with my fist.”

Remus was silent for a moment, then his shoulders began to shake and James froze, worried that he had started to cry. He had never seen Remus cry; he rarely ever saw Remus smile. Not fully, anyway; not like he meant it. However, there was an airy kind of spasming sound behind it, and James realised he was laughing. Remus grimaced, the act clearly causing him pain as it shook the mended flesh at his middle and scraped his raw throat. He laughed, though, all the same.

Remus’ laughs, usually, were subdued. A wry grin and soft exhales through his nose. He was not a person prone to boisterous displays or movement. This shook his whole body, though, splitting his face in a way he never showed anyone. 

Joy, even in malice, looked good on Remus, James thought. He thought Remus might fill a whole room with it if he let himself. 

There was a cold ache, somewhere near James’ sternum, and he rubbed at it absently. 

“I feel bad for laughing,” Remus said through dying chuckles, trying to resettle himself. 

And that was just it, wasn’t it? Someone he cared for had done him an unimaginable unkindness, and he felt guilty for simply laughing at a small karmic repayment. Sirius may, one day, look back and understand the weight of his actions that night. He may turn back to look at the path he forged in his hate on lonely nights in the future and feel the crushing pain of his losses. He may not. Tonight, he nursed a broken nose and broken pride. 

And Remus was granted another morning, one he was owned but did not feel he deserved, and James was overwhelmingly grateful for it. 

People were wary of Remus, as a rule. He was oddly constructed, smelled of something more rooted in ancient magic than his peers, and came across as cold. He was expressionless, most of the time. Impersonal and distant and sharp. 

There was a light behind his facade, though. James saw it spill out of him in his kindness and his humility, in his care for his friends and fear of losing them. He was soft in unforeseen ways and witty and so, so much better than James thought he would ever know. The best of them.

“Thank you,” Remus said, once he had finally shaken the last of his laughter off, the wake of warm feelings on his face. “For sitting with me.”

Two feelings, born of opposite sides of him, rose up into his throat.

“I am glad to do it, Remus, but it shouldn’t be me sitting here talking with you.”

James knew, that was the issue. He was not, despite what people may think of his antics, an idiot. Nor was he blind. He saw the looks, the brushing of fingertips that lingers for longer than expected, the whispers in ears at night. James had no issue with it, and if it lasted into something they would tell him. Perhaps naively, he had imagined that friendships like theirs could outlast heartbreak if it did not. Now, however, with a growing seed of resentment in his chest, he realised he had just told a lie without realising it.

Because a hateful voice deep inside him said No. No, it should be me at his bedside. Because I thought to come here. Because I didn’t do this. Because Sirius doesn’t deserve him.

James, startled at himself, was reminded of a moment not long ago that felt far in the past. When they had told Remus about the Animagus Project, his first response had been anger. Accusations that his friends were treating the worst part of his life like a game, the next grand adventure. James was offended, then, only because that was so far from his intention. After hours of scouring through books, it was all he could come up with to help his friend who was suffering. He assumed the same of his friends, of Sirius. Now, he was not sure. 

James remembered when the truth finally came out, when they confronted him about his condition, and the look of resignation on Remus’ face. Like he was grieving something he had only just gained. James, privately, made a vow to himself that night to never prove Remus’ worst fears right. Protecting him did not feel correct, then. He was powerful and smart, but James had realised over the years that he lacked confidence in himself. In his value. That vow morphed into a promise to keep the odd, kind boy close to his heart so he would have a home there no matter what else came to pass. 

Outsiders, when asked about their friend group, would confidently say that it was James-and-Sirius and the two stragglers. It was true enough that James and Sirius appreciated things in one another that no one else did. James was the brother Sirius was slowly losing, and Sirius was the brother James always craved. Peter was his eldest friend, a bond formed over nesting blocks and backyard adventures. Remus, however, was someone so consistently steady, so surprisingly dear, that that place where he was kept in James’ chest started to ache in sympathetic pain. It started to, with all the agony of having someone dig their fingers beneath his skin, burrow into him in a deeply unexpected way. 

James thought of the future, after this moment. Of Sirius being careless with their twin hearts, of the fallout and mend. Of who, in his absence, would treat him kindly. The path was hazy, a diverging jetty seen on the bank through the mist. 

Lily Evans was a blaze, burning through the pages of the story still being written. James realised, in all of an instant, that he felt the pull of another light, warm and growing, calling him forward. 

At the time, he and Lily were tentative friends. He had no confirmation of anything else. It would have been easy, maybe the easiest thing he had ever done, to reach out and take Remus’ newly mangled hand in his. To let the growing something inside him be known. 

But the night had been long, and his mind was filled with betrayal and hurt and confusion at a longing he did not know he felt. So, he let the path disappear into the distance and smiled at his friend.

“Sirius is my brother,” he said, voicing his worry and his inner thoughts the only way he could. “But I’ll always be here, if you need me, to sit with you.”

When Remus smiled in return, it was with that same softness he had looked at James with all those years ago, like he had been given some unimaginable gift, and unknowingly latched his teeth further into James’ chest.

Years passed. The course remained steady, with only passing glances behind. Hurt feelings were mended, secrets were revealed, and new loves flourished. The threat of war loomed and rebellions formed. 

It only hurt a bit, like pressing on a wound, when Sirius came to him and told him that he planned to buy a flat in SoHo and he was taking Remus with him. His face was so terrified like he was telling some horrible secret. It made James a bit angry. Not only that he imagined James would mind, after everything, but that he treated it like something he would rather not mention. Like he did not hold something precious in his hands. 

Lily, bright in many ways, was astounded at James when she finally let him in. For all he appeared, likely by choice, as a preening buffoon, he had a sweet streak. He was a gentle man, hands feather-light, and he glowed in ways that surprised her. Early on, she would stop and watch him when he thought no one else was looking, and saw him change at the shifting of the light. Sometimes he was looking at her, in unnoticed moments, like she hung the stars. She had not realised he could be so tender.

However, every once in a great while, he went somewhere else. Looking off into the middle distance like it could offer him something he was searching desperately for. There was a sense of loss about him. Not great, like the collapse of some structural pillar in his life, but a pinprick wanting for something more. Not something different, just more. Those thoughts, fleeting though they were, were a great source of shame for him. 

It was not until much later, sometime after they joined the order in earnest and Lily was well acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of James and his friends, that it finally came into clearer view. She felt like an idiot, seeing the same blossoming of tenderness usually directed at her on her husband's face, pointed straight at the last person she would have imagined. Then, he turned his gaze to her with an expression that spoke to the joy he felt just having the two of them in the same room.

She felt stupid not because she felt any jealousy, but because it was so apparent. James spoke his truth in all manner of ways, an open book through and through. He looked at Remus like that always, and she had assumed before that it was a manifestation of some brotherly protective feelings. It was not until she learned to read what James did not say out loud that it became obvious. 

What shocked her the most was that she did not feel the hot iron of jealousy in the pit of her stomach. Maybe she would have, were the world not so at ends. If she did not love and know James better than she knew herself. Her first boyfriend, a boy so far in the past it did not seem worth remembering his name, had broken up with her on Valentine's Day and, more out of humiliation than any genuine feeling, paid his dormmate to cut holes in all his underpants. She was hot-headed, she knew, but this felt different. Maybe because there was genuine feeling, now. 

She did not know how to say any of this, though. Had no context for what that meant, what it looked like. Maybe it did not matter, because where James wore his heart in his sleeve, Remus was unreadable in a lot of ways. Maybe it was unreciprocated. He did live with Sirius, after all. 

No, she thought, watching James say something inaudible to her but likely endearingly stupid to Remus across the room. The returning smile was a small thing, barely anything of note to someone who was not watching closely. She, however, was watching closely, and there was no doubt in her mind. No. I don’t think that’s quite right, is it?

James was certain of his heading, those who joined him on his journey and those who passed him by in their own vessels, sailing on or lagging behind. At some point he noticed Peter fall back into the fog, unreachable, but he could not find him again. He felt Sirius, desperate to hitch himself with frayed and burnt rope to anyone who would let him, fearful of rough waters only he felt. Lily at the rudder, only looking ahead. Above, a full moon glowed and reflected off the water, distant, so large and present it felt like James could just reach out and touch its face, feel the imperfections left by celestial bodies drawn to it at the violent beginnings of the world. It was so far out of reach, yet still so close.

Remus looked smaller, somehow, years after that day in the small private room of the hospital wing. James, back then, could not imagine him taking up less room than he had at his lowest, physically and emotionally beaten. He had lost weight, if such a thing were possible, with fresh and angry scars lining the hollows of his cheeks. Even beneath his shabby and ill-fitted shirt, James could see the parts of him that had thinned and worn away. He did not attempt to smile anymore, not really. If he did, they were compulsory. Void of any warmth. His face more lined and hair more grey than ever in the flashing light. 

James had not noticed, too caught up in his own life to see Remus wither and move farther away. Too trusting of Sirius, maybe, that he would notice. Sirius had picked this place, some loud more-club-than-pub. James, who was loud down to his soul, found himself gritting his teeth. He never needed or appreciated noise from other places. Sirius, he had noticed with increasing frequency, seemed drawn to it to drown something else out. He grinned though, as he clasped his hands on James’ shoulder and yelled something in congratulations. 

It was his stag party, which he gratefully let Sirius have sole control of. James did not feel he needed one; he did not appreciate the sentiment. The idea that he was giving up some freedom felt wrong. Tomorrow, on the grounds of his childhood home that was now filled with ghosts, he gained something great and consuming. The excitement and joy at it filled him more than he had ever imagined. The grief, inching long and scared fingers deeper into the cavities of his chest, was something he had come to understand in more clarity and had held close. It was a companion, something he would miss if it ever left him. 

Sirius, hair shining ashen like a burn in the light, turned to wander off. 

“I’ve gotta make sure Wormy doesn’t get his arse kicked,” he laughed, full of the vibrant malice James loved about Sirius. Peter, who had gained some confidence in the years that had passed since his coat-tail youth, was off in a corner chatting with a group of girls. All the better, James thought with a pang of pride, that he grew away from this mess. Sirius glided off, leaving a void of noise. 

Remus, sickly though he looked, lost none of the glass-cut clarity in his gaze. He watched James, the room, Sirius and Peter with his silent, empty expression. Something odd and nameless peeked through, however, as James watched him back. The room was terribly loud, but all of a sudden something deep in James’ mind was silent of the insect-legged tapping on his skull. 

“Are you alright, James?” Was the first thing Remus said, eyes clinical. 

And the fingers splayed, warm and broken from their home somewhere in his atria, snapping the thin membranes that stitched him together in a glorious burn.

James smiled. He could not help it. 

“Fancy a fag?”

Remus quirked an eyebrow. James had never picked up the habit, despite nearly all his friends partaking. He was reminded of Remus and Sirius, sixteen and mending, sitting with their legs over the sill of the window in their dorm and passing a cigarette between the two of them. The way the smoke curled in the dim light while Sirius exhaled forced jokes and Remus grinned, the joy never showing in his eyes. 

James, privately, loved the smell of the smoke. He confided this to Lily, once. He had not said it was because the scent clung to all of Remus’ clothes, to his hair, but something in him thought she understood. It was a lovesick thing, overly fond, but James thought that might be everything he was sometimes. Lovesick and overly fond.

Remus said nothing of it, though, as they made their way to the side alley. He leaned against the filthy wall by the door and pulled out a cigarette he had rolled earlier, putting it between his lax lips and bringing his hands around the flame to light it against the wind. In the nearly moonless night, the fire cast his face in a wash of warm orange and red. His eyes seemed to catch alight, soaking in the glow, as he looked up from beneath his brow at James who just watched him. 

He handed it to James, who had not really wanted it but took it anyway. James placed it between his lips and felt an unconscious kind of thrill at the transient physical affection. It felt a bit like he had stolen something, secretly relishing in the press of lips on paper. 

Remus lit his own, and James expected he might say something. He did not. He just leaned and smoked and watched. James imagined this might unsettle anyone else, but he was relaxed under it. He felt a heat, cooled by the chill of the night, rise in him at the prospect of having his friends' undivided attention. He took a drag of the cigarette, never having really smoked before, only a little heavy smoke getting to his lungs. It burned, hitting his chest at a discordant angle, and he began to hack. Another loiterer in the alley, who was several paces away with a joint between acrylic-tipped fingers, scowled at him before grinding the roach out on the stone and walking back inside. 

“Didn’t realise you’d taken up the habit,” Remus commented, offhandedly. 

“I haven’t, really,” James replied. “I just wanted some air.”

Remus nodded but said nothing else. He glanced back at the door to the club, his face not betraying anything he was thinking. James took another drag, more braced for the sensation, and watched the stretch of Remus’ neck as his head turned. He was ungainly, with length in every part of him. A scar, healed less cleanly than most of his other ones, ran along the length of the left side of his Adam’s apple. James recalled the morning after he got it. It was one of the last moons before they graduated, and Pomphrey refused to let them into the ward for hours after she had collected Remus. James had prefect rounds that night, and Sirius had Peter had been the only ones with him. 

Sirius looked terribly pale as he recounted what he could of the events of the night in the hallway outside the Hospital Wing. That the wolf was more agitated than normal, that it seemed disinterested in anything aside from imbedding its teeth as far as it could into its own body, clawing mercilessly at its own face like it was trying to gouge its eyes out. He and Peter left after a while, worried at the lack of control they had, and stood guard at the mouth of the tunnel. 

“The howling was horrible,” Sirius had said, voice void of any of its usual good nature. “I’ve never heard a living thing sound so pained.”

Pomphrey explained, once she finally let them in, that Remus had very nearly ripped his throat out. His windpipe had been damaged and he almost severed his carotid, but she had been able to stitch him back together. He had been pale and delusional from blood loss, rambling about how he heard the stars screeching in his mind, and his voice never really recovered. It was hoarse constantly, and talking for extended periods seemed to cause it to fade and taper out. 

James did not want to think about the cause, too wrapped in assumption. Still, guilt tapped at his sternum from within, and he tried to push it down.

He thought about it now, though. He had missed the last several moons, too involved in his own life. He never forgot them, always positioning himself beside a window if he could to watch the moons march across the sky, listening for a phantom howl. The shame felt like a punch to his solar plexus. Like he had broken his promises.

“Let’s walk.”

James refocused, watching Remus stretch out and walk toward the mouth of the alley. 

“Walk?”

Remus shrugged. “Nice night.”

James glanced back at the club door and Remus, just barely, frowned. “In all honesty, Prongs, I doubt he’ll notice.”

A needling simmer rolled. Remus felt that way for a reason, and it might have been justified. Sirius may not have sought him out if he had been gone for too long. He would, however, seek James out. That was all he really needed to follow Remus out of the alley. 

He had been right; it was a nice night. The moon was a sliver of light in the sky, newly born and surrounded by wispy clouds that bore the promise of far-off rain. The musky smell of petrichor hung in the air. The night was dying in favour of early morning and the lights of the city were being snuffed out, leaving it dark and quiet.

They walked in companionable silence for a few blocks, only interrupted by a night owl stumbling by in the other direction. James assumed that was all this was. A reprieve from the noise.

“I like taking walks at this time,” Remus said, voice stretched. “It feels more like home.”

James glanced over at him and noted that something seemed to lift off of his friend's shoulders the further they walked. “London doesn’t feel like home?”

The silence that followed was heavy as Remus weighed his response. “When I was a kid, I hated the quiet. You could run for miles across our property line and never see another person. It was lonely. I wanted to be in a place like this so badly, where you didn’t have to walk two steps without running into another person. I think it’s worse feeling lonely surrounded by people than it ever was being lonely alone.”

The fingers twisted.

“I didn’t know you felt that way, Moony.”

“It’s not your responsibility, James. You have your own life.”

And yanked.

“You are a part of my life.”

Remus did not stop walking. He did not look over. He did not acknowledge that James had spoken. He had heard, however. There was a shift in his shoulders like he was trying to secretly roll out some discomfort. His face tensed, just so, around his mouth. 

“You look awful,” James continued, suddenly desperate to break something.

“I always look awful.”

“Worse. How have you been managing the moons with just Sirius?”

Remus flicked the butt of his cigarette into the street and kept walking without a word, which was answer enough.

“He hasn’t been there, has he?”

“I managed fine, before. We haven’t seen very much of each other recently, besides.”

James had the sudden urge to punch someone. Sirius, Remus. He was right there, walking along through the dark like he belonged to it. All six foot three of self-deprecating moron, eating pain like without it he would starve. It passed quickly, however. 

We haven’t seen very much of each other.

James' anger was not just at Sirius. None of it was really at Remus if he was being honest. He was livid with himself. He wanted with everything he was to be there, to ease the pain his friend felt, to wipe the shame from his heart and mend his hurt and treat him gently. He wanted to be with his soon-to-be wife, to do his duty to the order, to build the legacy his parents had wished for him. 

James had assumed, somewhere along the way, that this was how things were meant to be. That no matter how much he wanted everything, no one was half so lucky. Somewhere, in the hands that strung the stars of our history, we were all meant to sacrifice something for something in return. He and Lily had chosen each other and Remus and Sirius had chosen each other. Every other urge was a selfish wanting because they were both happy apart. 

His parents had been married for decades and only saw each other, loving with no room for anything else. The thought that there was something malignant in him for feeling he had room for more burned like a rot. The aching in him bubbled up through his throat, and he could not stay quiet anymore.

“Are you happy, Remus?”

Because that was all there was. That was all that sat at the centre of this orbit. His own complacency rested on leaving well enough alone for the better, but if no one had what they needed what was it all for?

The laugh Remus let out was a short, humourless bark that echoed off the dead city's walls. “Are any of us? We just get on with what we have.”

Remus stopped, and though his face did not change James got the sense that he had just realised something important. There they stood, in the middle of the deserted street at midnight, looking at the other like they might provide some kind of guidance. But even for someone like James, who had his life planned from the moment he learned to want, life did not come with a map. It bent in ways no one can plan for, twisting and turning until you ended up somewhere you never imagined.

“Are you?”

James was startled by the question. He considered it, often. He was, in a way. When he was younger, his mother used to tuck him into bed at night and look down at him with love-struck eyes while he fought sleep. 

“How could I ever ask for more?” She would say.

“You just seem sad, is all.”

He was, it was true. It was infectious, these days. He had friends, people he cared for, who were gone forever. He had buried his parents, who loved him but would not understand how he felt about himself and his life. His loved ones grieved for the dead or for those who might as well have been. They all walked a razor's edge, not sure if that day would be the day they paid the price for doing what they felt was right. James wanted, more than anything else, to hold everyone who mattered close to him and pray they weathered the storm.

Life seemed so fleeting in the face of what they stood up against. Too short not to take life in hand and fan the flame of love and hope. 

“I want things I can’t have,” he said, instead of voicing that. “And I don’t know what kind of person that makes me.”

He was met with softness again, bearing down on him like he had just hit the core of this roundabout dance. 

Remus was a man who guarded what he had for fear of starvation. He only allowed himself to want so much, having gone so long without. He knew, in the deeper places of his mind he did not like to visit, that he hooked himself to the wrong things. Love that hurt without recourse, digging in until he was pushed away because that was what was bound to happen. He placed his heart with a man who was destined to break it because putting it anywhere else was too uncertain. He felt the pulse, though. The lingering glances were so full of care instead of something base. 

He pulled away from it, pushed it to the corners of his mind, and hid his heart away. 

James was getting married in the morning. That was always his path and Remus understood. He would have to be much more prone to denial than he was to not see it for what it was. An unspoken, unobtainable truth in their gravity. 

“The same kind of person as me, I think,” he said, considering the dull glow from overhead as it cast James into an almost grim light .

He was surprised to find James at his doorstep three weeks later. 

Sirius was out. Remus did not ask where he went anymore. It was only fair, seeing as Sirius never knew where Remus went either. 

They were never strangers. Remus thought they could go decades without speaking and still know one another just as closely as they did at fifteen. They were over-familiar with one another, and the silence was self-imposed. 

He had a small bag slung over his shoulder as he regarded James with curiosity. James thought that was odd, but did not comment as Remus descended the last few steps and pulled a cigarette out of his breast pocket. He held the case out to James, who shook his head. Lily had refused to kiss him up until the last moment after his stag party, saying he tasted like an ashtray. 

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” 

Remus did not stop, just turned onto the street and started walking without looking back. James rushed to catch up and was grateful that Remus slowed his pace to accommodate him. He did not seem put out, but he had a nervously agitated energy about him. 

“It’s the 30th,” James replied.

Remus hummed in acknowledgement, tilting his head to regard him with confusion.

“So it is?”

“So, I’m here. I haven’t heard from Sirius and Peter is up north for a family affair. So… I’m here.”

“Oh…,” he picked at a loose string on his jacket, frowning. He had had it since he was fourteen and had grown ridiculously out of it, the sleeves only hitting a little more than halfway down his forearms. “James, you’ve only just come back from your honeymoon. I’m sure you’d rather—,”

“As it happens,” James cut him off. “I am here because I want to be.”

There was a shutter. A pause somewhere in the well-trained movement of Remus’ limbs as he walked toward the underground station.

It was a bizarre quirk, in James’ opinion. Remus disliked most forms of magical transport. When asked, he said the pressing pull of apparition felt too much like his body was being disassembled and he was too uncoordinated a flyer for it to be much of an improvement over other means. James had not been raised just shy of fully muggle like Remus had been, though, so kept his opinions on the ineffectiveness of tubes to himself. 

“Hogsmeade is a long way by train in a day.”

Remus refused to look over at him now. “I never wrote to ask if it was still an opinion.”

James frowned. “Moony…”

He shook his head like he was trying to dislodge an errant thought. “There’s no point. It was always an only resort proposition, being that close to the school.”

“Then where have you been going?”

They were at the Piccadilly station, and Remus bounded down the stairs without saying anything, fast enough that James had to trot to keep up. 

“Don’t tell me you’ve actually gone and put your name on that blasted registry.”

“Of course not. I’m not that stupid.”

“Remus, where—,”

Remus turned on his heels, fixing James with a look that betrayed an irritated desperation. People were walking around them, fixing them with quizzical and annoyed looks for blocking the way.

“Just the Backboards,” he said, voice almost silent at the end. 

Ah. Well then.

James knew very little about the so-called Backboards outside of whispers. Whispers were enough. 

They existed as a kind of intermediate network of people with enclosed land that rented out space to those in need of it. It was a last resort, usually, for werewolves in need of a place for the full moon before having to register and use the ministry-sanctioned facilities, as well as for a greater variety of people with magical conditions or maledictions. The major issue was that these were private landowners and it was not regulated. Remus’ case was relatively uncommon in that most of the werewolves in the British Isles were isolated from wizarding or muggle society and ran with larger packs in unpopulated areas. As a result, the people who rented their land felt justified in charging an astronomical amount of money for their land and discretion. As a whole, the reputation of these was unsavoury at best. Run by individuals with no healing training or interest in the well-being of their clients, people tended to get hurt, hence the nickname. Additionally, James had personally heard of at least one case of someone using this system to facilitate illegal hunts. 

“No.”

Remus blinked, taken aback, as James grabbed his arm as gently as he could and steered him toward the wall.

“No?”

“You would have to I’m stupid if you think I’m going to drop you off at some random farm in nowhere with a stranger. Have you gone insane?”

“I haven’t much choice, James.”

James scoffed, causing Remus to scowl. “You haven’t? I just inherited ten acres of useless land. Why didn’t you tell me?”

“You have other things to worry about.”

James fought the rising urge to smack him upside the head. It was not his fault, not really. It was years of going without and an entire society doubling down on their disregard for his humanity. James had hoped that he had done enough to at least start to combat it, but it was becoming clear that he had failed. He was just as much at fault as anyone, if he was honest with himself, for pulling back. Every month for the last few months, he assured himself that next time he would make the time. That Sirius was there and had everything in hand. 

He was not going to let himself fall into complacency again. 

“Enough,” he said, trying to keep his rising anger under control. “I’m sorry I let you think you were not a priority to me. I’m fixing that. You’re coming home and you’re going to spend a lovely evening frolicking in the fucking woods and you’re not going to argue with me, dammit.”

Remus looked at him like he had just grown a second head, but the warmth underneath betrayed him. James could see the smile that threatened to break through. A woman rushing passed to catch her train gave them an odd look, but James could not care.

“What about Lily?”

“ Lily would castrate me if she found out I let you do something so blitheringly idiotic.”

Any fight left in Remus fizzled. Taking the opportunity, James grabbed him by the arm and dragged him into the men’s room around the corner. He let out a startled yelp as James pushed him, perhaps not as gently as he could have, into an empty stall. He nearly fell into the toilet, limbs flailing.

“James, what are you—!” 

“I know you don’t like it, but there is no way to get to the manor without apparating.”

James fumbled with the latch as Remus sputtered, indignant. 

“You can’t just—,”

He reached for Remus’ hands, making a half-hearted attempt to soothe his guffawing by smoothing a thumb over the top.

“Deep breath.”

“What?”

SNAP

Lily returned, off the heels of a twelve-hour clinical at St. Mungo’s, to a gangly werewolf sitting in her kitchen. It, perhaps, would not have been much of a shock if this were not the first time seeing him in this particular kitchen in this particular house. She felt a bubble of something hopeful and warm at the sight of him.

Remus was, before he was anything else, her friend. She was brought back to late nights in the library, stooped over revisions. The occasional Hogsmeade weekend where he would disentangle himself from his little gang and spend an afternoon browsing potions ingredients or stationary with her. He was always a kind presence in her life, even before he unknowingly became something undefinable. It hurt her, on a personal level but also on James’ behalf, the more of a stranger he became. She could not bite back the flight of fancy that he looked very much like he belonged there, folded legs on her dining room chair.

She was also struck by the fact that he looked a bit like he had been dragged through a bramble.

He looked at her as she walked in, a displeased look on his face.

“Lily, I’m sorry.”

She quirked an eyebrow at him, unravelling her scarf from around her neck.

“As you should, sitting there bold as brass. The very nerve, sitting. In my chair. Perish the thought.”

Remus, for all he was a very clever man, bit his lip anxiously and made to stand.

“Christ, I’m obviously teasing. It’s good to see you, Remus. What’s happened to your face?”

She motioned to a set of shallow scrapes on his cheek. Any nervousness in his face vanished in favour of a scowl.

“I landed him in a bush.”

She turned just as James walked in, two cups of tea in his hands. He had no reason to assume she would be in but handed her one as he walked by and planted a kiss to the top of her head. The other, which was much more milky, went to Remus. He nodded in thanks before placing his hands around the cup but did not drink. 

James plopped down the chair opposite, a contented if strained grin on his face.

“Apparition mishap.”

“I’m not compact enough for it to be a painless process,” Remus added, shooting James a withering but fond look.

Later, after vague pleasantries were exchanged, James pulled her aside while Remus nibbled on some biscuits. She watched him through the serving window in the dining room, noting how frail he looked. He had always been slight, too tall to get very wide, but he was almost skeletal now. His skin was translucent and tinged a bit yellow, which gave her pause. 

“He looks sick, James,” she whispered. She knew Remus could likely hear them, but she also knew he was disinclined to eavesdropping. “Not just sickly. Sick.”

Her husband sighed, any good cheer in his demeanour deflating. He pushed his glasses up to rub the bridge of his nose.

“I know. I don’t think he’s eating much or getting any proper care. He’s been burning through his money renting out those dodgy lodgings people run out of their derelict barns.”

A spike of something cold ran through her. Early in her medi-witch training, she had done a rotation on the ambulatory round. During the whole six months she was there, they had taken a call at a backboard lodging only once. Someone had dropped off a six-year-old girl, this being her first moon, and never came to get her. Terrified, she hid on the property for three weeks before the woman who owned the land said someone needed to come get her before she sent her son out with the bolt gun they used on the cattle. Lily remembered the woman viscerally, as she told her that the girl was lucky she was one of the kind ones. 

“Someone else wouldn’t have waited to put that thing down,” the woman had said, sneering.

The little girl, thankfully, was only scared and cold when they found her. Lily was not allowed to know where she was taken.

“Why would he…?”

“If it’s alright with you, I’m going to secure the property line and have him spend the moon here.”

“Of course,” she said, mind spinning a bit. 

The Manor was a bit of a tongue-in-cheek name for the Potter’s property. She has heard talk in school of the expansive and lavish ancestral homes of some of the old pure-blood families. To her understanding, Sirius’ cousin Narcissa bred pedigree peacocks of all things. The relief she felt, visiting the home her husband had grown up in for the first time and seeing it was a modest four-bedroom house plopped in the middle of acres of unused woodland, was immense. She walked the property, from time to time, and was all the more glad. The land was beautiful, full of secret groves and magical fauna. It was perfect for Remus— secluded and private and connected to the same kind of old magic that rolled off of him in waves. Lily was, again, unable to shake the thought that he belonged here.

“I’ll stay with my sister for the night. Next month we can see if we can ward the house for some added protection, but I’m not excessively worried.”

The look of gratitude on James’ face was blinding. Lily, for her part, was not particularly keen to stay with her sister. She loved Petunia and could accept the fits of jealousy she was prone to. Lily could not imagine what it must have been like for her, watching her only sister leave every year for a place more fantastical than Petunia would ever know. Recently, though, she had started acting more cruel. Lily blamed her new husband, a gruff muggle man who ‘did not hold with any foolishness’, as Petunia had proudly put it. The snide remarks about James and his ‘bizarre’ nature were grating, but Lily was sure it would blow over. Still, she was more than willing to put up with it for a night.

Lily, too caught up in the logistics to consider it before, frowned. “Where is Sirius?”

James shrugged, grunting in frustration. “I’m not certain. He mentioned a while back that he had a lead on Regulus. He was sighted before he disappeared on the southern coast near Truro. I spoke a bit with Remus about it. He’s gone more than he’s not, apparently. Anyway, I haven’t been able to get a hold of him, but he hasn’t been there for a full in about six months.”

“Hmmm.”

Lily felt for Sirius, she did. Disappeared these days was a polite way to say dead, however. As much as she wished the man peace, she also shuttered at the idea that Remus was draining his already meagre savings and putting himself in danger alone. She knew why Remus had not said anything, though she did not agree with it. He had always been too terrified of putting people out for his own good and she suspected he worried about implanting himself too much into their lives, specifically. She saw, clear as she saw the sunrise every morning, that he loved James just as desperately as James loved him. He loved her, too, if in a different way. She knew he worried about stepping over a line and hurting her.

Lily also knew she was likely the only one who saw the full picture of this. Men, she realised, were cursed with a brand of stupidity in love that nothing could really fix.

Still, there was not a single reason Sirius could have as to why he did not mention Remus had been facing off the full moon alone. He was grief-stricken and paranoid, but he was also Remus’ friend and partner. 

“Well, this is his home, too. We’ve got him.”

James was silent for a moment. Lily could not fully unravel the look he had on his face but was not surprised when he wrapped his arms around her middle and buried his face in her hair. 

One thing James appreciated more than anything else, growing up in the place he did, was flying over and looking down at the rolling expanse of wilderness that stretched in all directions. The house was positioned at the mouth of a forest that stretched for miles, but it was not isolated from the town nestled down the hill. The wards his father had placed to keep dangerous animals out of the boundary were still intact; all James had to do was alter it to keep one werewolf in. The land outside his childhood home felt like a place untouched by time and human hands, carved by myth and monsters from a time forgotten, beautiful and mysterious. 

The sun dipped below the horizon, sending offshoots of scarlet and gold across the evening sky. It was tranquil, steeped in something irremovable from the forces that turned the earth. Or it would have been tranquil, save for the man screaming obscenities in his ear as he clung on for dear life.

Remus appreciated having his feet on the ground and was not shy about making his distaste for flying known. It had devolved from threats to James’ life to just screeching at some point, which he had to admit was ruining his appreciation of having his arms wrapped around his middle and his face buried in the crook of his neck. 

Thankfully, it was not a long flight to the deepest part of the property. As soon as they hit the ground, Remus was off the broom and on the ground with his head between his knees.

“If humans were meant to fly,” he said, sounding nauseated. “We would have been born with wings.”

James laughed, earning him a scowl. “There go my dreams of coaching the first lycanthrope-only Quidditch team.”

“Go gargle piss, Potter.”

“So tetchy when you're on your monthlies, Lupin,” James joked, leaning the broom against a nearby rock.

“I’m telling your wife you said that.”

“Oh, Lords, please don’t.”

Remus grinned, but instead of standing he laid back on the grass of the clearing and spread out his arms and legs like he was trying to embrace the sky. James sat back on the rock, watching him. The sunset kissed his face, casting the imperfections in his skin in greater detail. James did not know every scar, but he knew enough of them to list them in his mind. His favourite was the one on his chin, small and unassuming, that Remus had gotten bashing his face into a small stone while rolling down a hill by the Black Lake. It was so simple, not counted among the numerous cursed scars with horrible stories that disfigured his skin. He had earned it doing something silly and stupid, for the fun of it, drunk on impending summer. Intermixed with his scars were freckles, sparse but noticeable, that ran along his cheeks and over his nose. He had more on his shoulders, and James remembered a moment sometime in their sixth year when Sirius tried to connect the constellations he knew out of them with a muggle pen. It was a memory in which James felt assured he was doing the right thing; that Sirius and Remus could build something full of love between them. It devolved quickly into Sirius writing crude things on Remus’ back to see how long it took him to notice, but the sentiment was still there.

He wondered, watching the dying day set the red in Remus’ hair alight, if they ever stood a chance. If the world were not so full of uncertainty and vitriol, if paranoia and grief were not setting them adrift in opposite directions. Maybe it would have been something good and freeing. Or maybe this was how things were always going to be. All of them, stuck in a web of love and hurt, lonely in different ways.

At that moment, though, it seemed distant. Remus, for all his cool exterior and link with the night, looked lovely in the dusk. Like he revelled in the sun, mourning its death. 

When he opened his eyes, however, James realised that he looked very hazy. 

His pupils were blown, the irises almost glowing in the last light, eyes unfocused. As he made to stand, his face twisted in pain and his movements were both slow and imprecise. It struck James that he had never seen Remus in the moments before the sun set on a full moon. He was always whisked away by Pomphrey to make it to the shack in time, and by the time they got there, he was already transformed. He had never seen the shift, only read about the process in biased books and the few first-hand accounts he could dig up. 

“It’s getting late,” Remus mumbled. He looked a bit uncomfortable outside of the general pains he felt in his body, stretching his arms and shoulders out. “I have to… I don’t own very much clothing, so I don’t particularly want to ruin what I have on.”

James nodded, planning to turn away to give his friend some privacy. Before he could, however, Remus began stripping out of his clothing, having clearly decided being abashed was a silly reaction. Not wanting to feed into any shame, James tried to keep his eyes casually averted. 

They had shared a dorm for seven years, and casual nudity was not something James was uncomfortable with. Still, the circumstances in his own mind were not so simple and James struggled not to ogle.

Remus was not, by most standards, conventionally attractive. Almost every inch of his skin was marred in some way, and he was so slender and tall that he looked a bit uncanny. At a passing glance, James noticed the unnatural protrusion of his rib cage and the point of his sternum. His stomach caved in and his hip bones jutted out. It was like he was just skin stretched over bones, some of them sitting at unusual angles after being broken and set so often. It was horrible to see the splay of his ribs as he bent to kick off his trousers, the point in his knees. It was frightening, enrapturing in an unsettling way. It reminded him of an old painting, the way his deep hollows cast shadows in the light. Triptychs of men ravaged by spiritual disease. 

As strange as he looked, James had to admit he had always been a thing of frightening beauty. More so, when he was healthier. James thought, on the occasion he allowed himself to consider such things, that he was lovely because of and in spite of the ways his body stretched with the movements of the heavens. 

Remus handed James his clothing, and the look on his face clued James into the fact that he was not being as subtle as he thought with his gaze. There was a hint of smugness to it, a prelude to a grin that also told James, perhaps just as wishful thinking, that it was not entirely unwelcome.

“String these up high, will you? Best to do the same with your broom.”

He did as he was told, placing them in the crook of a set of branches high in a tree. When he turned back around, he noticed Remus had wandered a bit away through the trees. James followed, knowing that Remus would have moved faster if he did not want to be followed. 

It did not take long to find him again. James, inadvertently, had dropped them just shy of one of his favourite places on the property. It was a small clearing, invisible from the sky as it was tucked in between dense trees and covered by an outcropping of rock. Beneath was a very small pond, unassuming. James would come here at night, sneaking from his bedroom window after his parents had fallen asleep, and sit on the rocks with only his thoughts. In the pond was a colony of water sprites, which were generally disinterested in passersby, that spun some kind of magic under the water after the sun set and cast the whole pond in a blue light. Remus sat on the bank, seemingly entranced in whatever he could see of their work. The sun was just shy of set, the sky a darkened bruised purple.

This was the first place he had ever seen a deer up close. They frequented the land, sometimes visible from his kitchen window as they grazed. When he was younger, he was never particularly interested in them. They were by no means the most interesting things that visited his yard, and his mother would always moan about them eating her squashes. It had been a full moon, that night he snuck out here to watch the light from the pool bounce off the trees. He was ten, maybe, and worried over something so small it was lost to memory. He remembered freezing, totally enraptured, as a stag broke the treeline and walked with measured steps towards the pool. James had never seen an animal so graceful yet massive, with huge antlers that seemed to dig into the night sky like tree roots. The deer that came by his house were skittish, but this one only looked at him with silent curiosity as it made its way closer. It could have trampled him, easily. Ran his through with its antlers if threatened. It did not, though. Just acknowledged him like he was another traveller and walked up to the pond and lowered its head to drink. James had never been so silent, so still. He saw the tiny, wispy, almost-there hands of the sprites reach out of the water to graze its snout. Then, it left, just as silently as it came. Nowhere in James’ life had ever been quite so peaceful, quite so silent. 

He never forgot that night, and held this place in his heart as somewhere sacred, either in reality or just in his own history. It felt right, being here. Bringing Remus to this place of serenity.

“It’s not pleasant,” Remus said quietly, arms on his knees and ankles crossed. “If you want to leave and come find me after I’ve changed, I’d understand.”

“Would it help you, my being here?”

Remus was silent for a moment, frowning in a way that told James he was not prepared for that answer. He sat with it for a while, watching the fire in the hearth of the world flicker out.

“Yes,” he replied, finally, whispered like a confession of some horrible crime. 

“Then I’ll stay.”

He moved to sit on the bank next to his friend, watching him skim his fingers along the water. The sprites had scattered the first and only time James had done the same, years ago. For Remus, they lifted their little heads out of the water and peered at him with curious eyes. One or two placed a palm on his passing fingers, leaving a glowing mark for a second or two on his skin.

“It’s stupid,” Remus said. “It never gets any easier. Not in all the years I’ve been like this. The anticipation of the pain, the fear that it will kill me or somehow I’ll be stuck like that. Half changed, or lose my mind entirely.”

Unsure of what else to do, James lifted a hand to rest on Remus’ back. He flinched, almost as if the touch hurt him, but relaxed into it. James felt the shift of his shoulder blades as he breathed, just a little laboured. He was warm to the touch.

“It’s easier, I think, knowing you’ll be there.”

“I said I’d always be here to sit with you.”

Remus chuckled, a soft exhale of air. “Yeah, you did, didn’t you?”

It was not long before the moon was over the horizon. The laboured breathing turned to grunts of pain, then to screams as Remus was struck with tremors that seemed to jolt through his entire body. He doubled over, fingers clawing into the soft dirt of the pond's shore. James stayed, as long as he could, a hand on Remus’ back as an anchor. It was horrifying, feeling the shift of his bones beneath his hand, the way his vertebrae popped and reaffixed. James watched as his fingers elongated, digging deeper into the earth and reforming as something entirely new. Every agonised shriek was something unlike James had ever heard, coming from a level of pain he knew he would never experience. After a while, Remus pushed him away, telling him around lengthened teeth to get some distance and shift as soon as possible. It was more difficult than James imagined it would be, removing their point of contact. He thought he would crumble, himself.

He did as he was told, though, stepping back to the edge of the clearing and transforming, seamlessly, into Prongs. He had a vague notion of how unfair it was, but things were simpler as a stag. The complexity of guilt and fairness compressed down until all he felt was sympathy for his friend. He stepped a bit closer and folded his legs underneath him, waiting for the transformation to run its course. From his current vantage point, the feelings of nauseated disgust gave way to a kind of wonderment at the process. It was painful, obviously, but that was the nature of some things. You cannot escape it. Remus spoke often of himself and the wolf being separate entities, two beings in one body. James did not think this was based in truth, but born out of shame. The wolf was not wholly evil, just like Remus was not wholly good. It was two forms one body took, forced into lives in restraint. One soul, plagued by frustrated anger, cast in a different light by the shadows of the moon. Though it was a transition steeped in agony, it was also a becoming, and James thought that it was beautiful for that alone.

Slowly, the twisting and snapping of bone died and left on the shore was a massive wolf. It raised its head, belaboured by the change, and set its eyes on James. There was no fear; there never had been. Then, it tilted its head back and howled up at its creator in a hymn no one bothered to understand.

Later, once the moon had set and Remus had returned to his human body, they sat at the shore of the same pond. James, also mostly human again, had shrugged off his coat to wrap Remus against the chill of the morning. He was delirious, which James gathered was a normal side effect of such a dramatic cognitive shift, babbling about things that might have made sense to someone else. James had placed his head in his lap, carding his fingers through his hair in an attempt to soothe him. 

“It sings, James. It’s so beautiful. I wish you could hear it.”

All he could do was hum in affirmation, listening to his friend talk about the language spoken by celestial beings. It was not that James did not believe him, but he suspected he would never hear the things Remus did. He heard the sprites, sometimes on very quiet nights, speak in a soft, almost silent language he had never heard anywhere else. It was not made for his ears, and that was likely for the best. 

Eventually, Remus quieted down, but James could tell he was still hazy by the far-off look in his eyes. He titled his head, nestling his nose into the fabric of James’ shirt. It felt nice, the soft puffs of warm breath on his stomach, and his shame flared but he did not move. 

“I’m grateful,” Remus murmured. 

“It’s not a burden.”

“Not just for this,” his speech was slurred, barely coherent as he fought off sleep. “You haunt my dreams, and I’m worried if you stop I’ll never find you again.”

James tried not to let the words halt his movements, but a jolt of something terrible ran through every inch of him. He thought of stories he had heard, vague in his mind, of people spirited away to other lands and cast into dreams that tempted them to while away eternity. He thought, for a terrifying moment, that he would never walk away from this. Soon, though, Remus would regain his mind and likely forget all he said. They would return from where they came from and live their separate lives, and the ache that eased as he ran a hand along Remus’ brow would once again become his constant companion. 

It was a good life, but pain had a way of seeping through anyway.

Remus felt a pull, somewhere just to the side of his awareness. He felt a bit like he was suspended in an endless, lightless pool of water. Cool, uncomplicated, and featureless. The urge to just say and float, drift alone with the current until he landed in less complex times, was immense. He had felt this way before and had to fight the calling of something beyond his hearing, waking to horrible news about the state of his body and life. He always surfaced though, either by choice or because something sent him back.

The pulling sensation, localised in what he realised was his side, started to sting in an unusual way. It grounded him, and the water evaporated as he grimaced.

“Sorry, love,” a gentle voice said, somewhere to his left. “James, grab me more of the salve, please.”

There was a shuffling, followed by silence. A cool, numb feeling spread through his skin and the burn subsided. Remus, free of pain for a wonderful moment, wanted to lay back and let the water overtake him. It was gone, however, returned to a place he would have to take great measures to find again. Unable to do much but crack his eyes, he turned his head and glanced at the owner of the voice. 

Lily leaned over him, looking ill-defined but present. When he looked down to see what she was doing, he saw her carefully but quickly threading a needle through the ragged edges of a gaping wound just below his ribs. 

His first thought, though he knew everyone in the room would skin him for it, was ’ Oh, I’ve ruined their bedsheets’.

There was a substantial amount of blood pooled and seeping into their guest room mattress. It was a shame, as Remus thought it had been quite comfortable when he stayed with them after the full.

The second was that he had no recollection of how he got to be here. 

James was seated, looking very pale, at the end of the bed. His hand was flexing, agitated, on his knee like he would very much like to be doing something aside from sitting there. Remus, though he could not say why, tapped James’ lower back with his bare foot. James smiled, strained and threadbare, placing a hand on Remus’ ankle. His hand was warm, which was odd as Remus tended to run considerably hotter than most people. 

“Back with us, Moons?” His voice was quiet, full of some kind of emotion Remus was too hazy to recognize.

“Hmmmm… I didn’t realise I’d gone anywhere.”

Lily, still working on stitching him back together, chuckled lightly. Remus’ focus shifted back to her. Sutures were uncommon in healing practices, as most injuries were fixable with wandwork. Really, they were only used on cursed wounds, which Remus was unfortunately very familiar with. Most of his larger injuries required the same technique and he had seen Poppy do it quite a bit. He always thought the material used for it was quite beautiful. He never got around to asking about it, but whatever the thread was made out of shined a pearlescent silver in the light. 

Her work was expert, quick and efficient. He watched her tie off the end and snip the needle free, but the wound still bled sluggishly. He opened his mouth to apologise for bleeding over everything, but the words would not quite come. She dressed the wound as he watched, fading hazily back into some unintelligible half-thoughts. 

He had not realised he had dozed off until he opened his eyes again and noticed the light shift into night. The sheets beneath him had been changed, now starched stiff and free of blood. The only light in the room was a small lamp on the bedside table. Sat in a chair in front of it was James. He looked tired, dark circles around his eyes, but much less terrified than he had in his previous half-awareness. In his lap was an old leather-bound book, which he flipped through with one hand. His other was on Remus’ knee, rubbing absent-minded circles with his thumb through the top sheet. James was a man of causal contact; he seemed to need the physical reassurance of presence. It was something Remus appreciated, but his enjoyment of it was terrifying. It was no small part of the reason he ran after the full. It would lead to nothing but trouble.

He watched, though. Watched the soft light of the lamp cast James’ face in warm gold. The movement in his jaw as he read in his mind. The flutter of his eyes as they scanned the page. He was beautiful, Remus thought, in his rare moments of silence. 

Remus felt the itch of the sutures in his side and he had to shift. James turned his head to look at him and moved his hand, face morphing into guarded worry.

“Alright, Remus?”

Unsure of how to answer, Remus assessed himself. He ached and his side hurt quite a bit, but he seemed no worse off than he usually was. 

“Think so,” his own voice was shot, barely audible. 

James visibly relaxed, all the tension stored in his shoulders releasing. “Good. That’s… I’m glad.”

He seemed unsure of what else to say, so he just watched Remus settle back.

“What happened?”

“I was hoping you could tell me,” James replied, frowning. “I woke up to you bleeding to death on my front porch.”

Ah. Remus scoured his mind for some kind of recollection of events, but all he came up with were scattered images that made little sense. His mind still felt hazy, like everything was out of focus.

“I’m sorry,” was all he could think to say.

James looked like he might shout or cry as he bit down on his lip and looked away. “Fuck, Remus, don’t apologize. You’d be dead if you didn’t come here and you have never been nor will you ever be a burden. I just don’t understand what happened.”

He took a breath, trying to fortify himself.

“For months, you were fine coming here for the full. Then, three days out we get a cryptic letter saying you made other arrangements. No one could find you. And the day after I open my door to you unconscious on my welcome mat.”

The pieces started coming into clearer focus, the thread weaving into something recognizable. Remus cringed around the sensation, the recollection painful.

“I thought you were dead. You would be, if not for Lily, and I’ve just been sitting here, watching you breathe like it’s a fucking thing to do. Remus, what happened?”

Three days before the full, Dumbledore had come to him with information about the northern pack's movements. Had asked Remus to head them off and try to gather any information he could. It had been months since they were last spotted, and Dumbledore had urged him that this could be their only chance. It seemed to be going well, at first. Remus was not sure what happened during the moon, but he awoke in a glade, alone, and badly wounded. He recalled the moment of horror as he realised how much blood he had lost, and without thinking he apparated to the one place that meant safety for him. He never made it to the door.

He could not say any of this to James, who was not supposed to know. Who would be livid, knowing what Dumbledore had asked him to do. Remus had not even seen Greyback, but that did not matter.

“Did you go back to the Backboards?”

“James, no.”

“Then what happened? 

Remus bit his tongue, wanting to override the cognitive block that prevented him from just biting it off and never speaking again. 

“I can’t say.”

There was a beat of horrible silence in which James just watched him, and Remus was left holding the knowledge that all he did was hurt. Himself, strangers, the few people who offered him unconditional love. He thought that was the curse of him, not some disease that turned him into a beast. He was a monster, all on his own. The shattered look on James’ face was enough to prove that to him. It passed, though, and James reached to place his hand over his. James sat there for a moment, looking at that point of contact like it held some profound question. Like all he had to do was answer it and nothing would hurt anymore. He ran a thumb over the knuckle that ended abruptly.

“I understand. I can’t hold it against you to keep your secrets, I’m sure you have your reasons. I just… want you to do one thing for me.”

Remus opened his mouth to reply, unsure of what he was going to say, but was saved by the door to the guest room opening suddenly. Lily stood in the doorway, looking a little sour before turning her head and smiling weakly at him. She had a roll of bandages in her hand along with a cup of what smelled like camomile tea cut with something bitter. Lily was already showing her pregnancy two months prior when Remus had last seen her, but she looked uncomfortable on her feet now. He felt a pang of guilt, having stressed her out and forced her to lean over to patch him up. James immediately stood and offered her the chair, and the guilt grew into something that wrapped around his insides. She rolled her eyes at him but took the seat anyway.

“Glad to see you back with us, Remus,” she said to him, voice light and sweet. She turned to her husband, her face dropping just a touch. “There is a visitor for you at the door. Talk to him, but don’t let him upstairs, please.”

James frowned but nodded. He hesitated for a second before leaving, glancing between the two of them. 

“Lily,” Remus started. “I’m—,”

“I’m banning the phrase ‘I’m sorry’ from this house. Actually, just your vocabulary. James has plenty to apologise for these days, making my feet swell like bloody dirigibles.” 

She lifted her bare feet for a moment, and they were indeed very swollen in the mid-July heat. She hands him the cup of tea, the fragrant steam wafting into his face.

“Drink it all, please.”

Lily watched him as he did what she asked, passively. As he suspected, it was quite bitter.

“Who’s downstairs?” He asked, swallowing the last dregs of the stuff.

A conflicted expression crossed her face but only lingered for an instant before it returned to a careful neutrality. 

“Sirius. He’s raving like a madman about something or other. It was all a bit jumbled, but he demanded to see James.”

“Ah.”

He had hoped to make it sound uninterested, but Lily watched him a little more intently. “Any idea why he’s here?”

Remus was acutely aware that keeping secrets from Lily Potter was a futile thing. She was too smart to miss much and too nosey not to find out the rest. 

“I moved out.”

“When was this?”

“About two days ago.”

Lily frowned. “I hadn’t realised it was that bad.”

Remus sighed, feeling very tired all of a sudden. “It’s just… complex. He asked where I was going for the full.”

“I would quite like to know that myself.”

A jolt of fear ran up Remus’ spine as he recalled the screaming from several days ago. The accusations of treachery. It was difficult, being spoken to that way with no means of defence. From someone you love. Remus thought he could survive losing Sirius. He did not think he could survive losing everyone else, as well.

“I… I can’t tell you for the same reasons I can’t tell Sirius. It’s not because I don’t want to—,”

There was a hint of panic in his voice that he could not keep from bleeding. Lily softened instantly, connecting some information in her brain into a clearer picture.

“I only ask because I care about your well-being. No other reason, I promise.”

She seemed to consider her next words carefully, face uncertain. It was not an expression Remus was used to seeing from her.

“He loves you, you know.”

“Sirius?”

She let out a small, amused breath. “No. Well, yes, I suppose he does. In his own way. That’s not what I meant, though.” She inhales, looking up for some guidance. “I mean James. I do, too, of course. We all do. I think he looks for you, though, when you’re not here. The same way he looked for me.”

Remus watched her, understanding but unsure of what she was trying to say. Her face was not angry or hurt. There was not any sadness. She looked a bit joyful, even, speaking about it. It was a cautious, small joy, like trying to nurture a new flame. 

“Where do you plan to go, now that you’ve moved out?” She asked, looking back at him.

“I haven’t… I don’t have any options, really. Likely back in with Hope.”

“Nonsense. I think you know where you’re meant to be, Remus. You’re not a stupid man,” She took the roll of bandages in her hands and began unravelling it. “You should come home.”

Trees, evergreen and covered in snow, sped past. James cracked the widow, letting fresh, cold air fill the car and tousle his hair. He had never been in a muggle car before, but it was not dissimilar to the Hogwarts Express in practice, if a bit claustrophobic. 

The countryside rolled by, and there was something uniquely tranquil about the hum of the machine's inner workings and the hypnotic mundanity of it. In the backseat was Harry, newly five months old and lulled to sleep, strapped into some type of safety seat. Remus glanced over at James, fixing him with a bemused look. 

“You’ll freeze him out,” he commented. There was a tension in his shoulders James noticed had dissipated somewhat in the last few months, but it was back in full force now. 

Harry, for his part, snuggled a little further in his obnoxiously puffy jacket but did not rouse. James relented anyway, the car now filled with the smell of pine. 

“It’s nice out here.”

Remus shrugged, his fingers tapping on the wheel. 

James did not say anything else as they drove further north. He had offered to come, having half expected Remus to refuse. He had not, in the end, though it took him a while to come to that conclusion. Lily was in Surrey, visiting Petunia and her new baby boy. From what James understood, he was fussy and Vernon was useless for it. Secretly, James suspected Remus appreciated Harry’s company more than his own. He was a calm and sweet child, and there was something about the two of them that made James suspect they were kindred souls. James and Lily were old news at this point, and Harry thought Sirius was the funniest being on Earth, judging by the giggles. He just took to Remus, though, watching him like he was the most fascinating thing he had ever seen. Remus, though James knew it was not the case, acted very much like he had never been around a baby before. He was not besotted in a traditional way, cooing and demanding. He treated him a bit like he would anyone else, speaking to him as though he might respond right back. 

Harry, though he was so small and new, was a much-needed calm in a storm that refused to stop raging. 

Tyres hit gravel, making James jump. James had been here only once when he was fourteen. He spent a weekend here, exploring the nearby port town and trying to push Sirius and Peter into the grey, swirling sea. Hope lived in the very north of Wales, in a very small two-bedroom home on unincorporated land. Her home smelled of soil and basil and hearth fire, encroached by whatever wild vines tried to dig their way into the foundations. James recalled that weekend fondly, feeling like he understood Remus and his placid nature a little better. 

Now, Hope stood by her chipped green front door and waved. She was a slight woman, cheerful and unassuming, with grey hair she wore in a braid down her back. 

“ Helo, Cariad ,” she said as Remus approached, stretching up to kiss his cheek. She glanced over at James warily. 

“Mam, you remember James, my friend from school?” Remus said. James nodded in greeting. “This is his son, Harry.”

Hope relaxed just a bit and James hoped she remembered him well. He could not articulate why at the time, but he wanted her approval desperately. James did not care to moderate himself in front of most adults, but he was polite and gracious around her. She had the air of someone who was meant for softness but had hardened in defence of a difficult life. Something about her made him feel guilty in a way he could not explain.

“Hello, James. Yes, of course, I remember. You and your brother broke my kitchen window,” she said with a smile like she was not happy but fond anyway. 

“I’m sorry about that, Ma’am.”

She waved him off. “Boys throw rocks and break things; it’s your nature. Congratulations on your little one.”

“Thank you.”

Hope took a step forward and stooped a bit to greet Harry, who grabbed for her braid with a perplexed look. Hope let him play with the tie at the end for a moment, face softer. “He’s a doll. It makes me feel like a crone, you kids having babies.”

James was unsure what to say to that, but she straightened up and beaconed them inside. “Come on in, you’ll catch your death in this cold.”

The inside of the house was much more run down than James remembered. The floors were weathered, warped and shrunken, the furniture threadbare. He could see the patches in the ceiling that were discoloured from leaks and the mildew that had accumulated on the baseboards and along the walls. A tarp covered a broken window frame. James glanced over at Remus, whose face betrayed his worry as he glanced around his childhood living room. 

Hope offered them tea and they sat in front of the fire, letting it melt the winter chill. Harry watched the flames dance, bemused.

“How have you been, dear?” Hope asked Remus. The words came out casual, but there was a strain just underneath.

“I’m doing well.”

“Any work?”

“Not much.”

Hope frowned, but let it pass and took a sip of her tea. James was familiar with Hope and many of her opinions. She loved Remus and was sympathetic to his struggles, but felt he could make a living much easier in the muggle world. This was not the case, as it was an avenue Remus had tried in the past. It was bred out of a distrust of the wizarding world, but neither muggle nor wizard employers appreciated an employee who was unable to work for days in a row every month. 

“Are you still flatmates with that young man from school?” 

Remus bit his lip, looking pointedly towards the fire. “No. I moved out a few months back.” 

Hope nodded, watching her son for a moment. “I’m… sorry. Perhaps that is for the best, though.”

There was a beat of silence that made James’ ears ring. Remus gave no outward indication that he had heard her for a while, staring into the fire as it consumed the logs within. James did not have a lot of clarity on the situation outside of what Sirius had told him. The night Remus had appeared on their doorstep, Sirius had followed. He was burning with wild paranoia, warning James of his suspicions about Remus. There was a spy in their midst, that much was obvious. Sirius pinned the blame on Remus, throwing accusations about his frequent disappearances and odd behaviour. 

“The worst part is I wouldn’t blame him,” Sirius had said, hands shaking horribly. “Out of all of us, he has the most reason. Why would he throw his life away in defence of a people who don’t see him as human?”

That did not do anything to placate the fear and hurt. There was nothing James could do to heal anything because there was no part of his that would suspect any of them. He trusted Sirius, Remus, and Peter with every part of himself. To him, there was no other option. Maybe that made him the worst kind of fool, but it was too much of who he was. Remus had no answers, simply saying that he could not tell them where he went or why. That he understood if they did not trust him, but that it was not what it looked like and that he would never do anything to hurt them.

James believed him. Lily believed him. They would hold that trust to their graves if need be.

As for what the breaking point for Remus and Sirius had been, James could only make an educated guess. All Remus would say was “Sometimes love isn’t enough.”

“Perhaps,” Remus finally responded, dully. 

There was a sadness in Hope’s expression, but she did not comment further. 

Just then, Harry began to fuss, kicking his feet out from where he sat on James’ lap. He made an odd tea-kettle-esque cry James had never heard come out of his mouth before. Privately, James was glad for it. He offered to come out of support for his friend, and he was glad to do it, but he suspected he was intruding on a private conversation.

“Sorry, I’m just going to–,” James pointed towards the kitchen door, standing and propping a squirming Harry on his hip. Remus watched him go, looking like he had lost some kind of anchor. Hope looked grateful, though.

As soon as the kitchen door swung closed, Harry settled. Maybe he was too warm, maybe he had innately wonderful timing. Either way, James sat at the tiny table by the window and placed Harry back on his lap, bouncing his leg a bit. He looked outside, watching tiny puffs of white drift down. James disliked winter. It was too cold, too dead. He was always incredulous at Sirius’ love for the season, but it was a bit infectious. Even now, he had shown up to the manor house on the first of the month to string his front porch with tinsel and berate him for his lack of a tree. He had noticed Remus there, nursing a cup of coffee on the living room sofa, and had a moment of awkward confusion before moving on to charm snow to fall above Harry’s bassinet.

As he watched the world march on, he noted a fissure in the glass of the kitchen window, like someone had inexpertly spelled it back into one piece. It looked like a vein of melted and cooled glass in the pane. James smiled, thinking about a young Remus trying to mend it while smoothing things over with Hope. It was not dissimilar to many conversations he had with his own mother, who scolded him for his thoughtless actions while hiding a smile. 

Remus spoke about Hope occasionally when they were younger. He would tell them all stories about how they got on without magic and James thought it was whimsical in its absurdity. He would talk about her job as a midwife and cathode ray tubes and how she would read him science fiction novels at night after he got bored with the more traditional bedtime stories. It sounded to James like magic, like love. 

He heard the raising of voices now and impulsively dropped a kiss to Harry’s unruly baby hair. Without really meaning to, he strained to make out what was being said.

“… would have more sense. Especially after what Lyall—,”

“Whatever you think I’m doing, you’re wrong.”

“What am I to think? I could overlook a lot, Remus, but he’s a married man with a child—,”

James' body moved without his input, and he jolted to his feet and made for the back door. He did not want to intrude further, did not want to hear Hope’s assumptions. He was struck with the horrible fear he was wrong for coming. 

She was wrong, of course. They had opened their home to Remus and he had integrated so fully into their lives it seemed odd to imagine him not sleeping in what used to be their guest room. He kept it spartan, not injecting too much of himself into the space. It left James with a needling sadness because he knew it was out of fear of the moment he would have to leave again. James wanted him to leave his impression whenever he walked, though. Wanted his old Victrola and Le Guin novels and his ashtray on the dresser. Still, his imprint on their lives was there. Him, helping Lily with her healing mastery revisions or burning eggs in the morning. Sitting on the sofa typing out freelance articles on magical pest control for a knut a word on his typewriter. Asking Harry about his day like he could answer, then acting enthralled when Harry babbled back.

He was family, in every way it mattered. But the ache, a smaller but very real part of it, persisted. 

James wandered around the house, scaring the chickens Hope had roaming in a side yard. Even from the outside, the place looked considerably more run-down than he remembered it, with a sagging roof and walls that bulged out. Everything was filtered in the grey colour of winter, replacing the sepia summer of his memory. The warmth was gone, time come to eat away at the structures of the past. He came around to the front and sat on the porch, cuddling Harry a little closer to him against the cold. He seemed fine, less worried about the weather and more interested in pulling one of James’ curls. 

The feeling of displacement in space grew, a wash of shame from an undefinable part of him rising. He felt as though he was grasping at parts of someone he had no claim over. Over the years, he had floundered between indignation at the unfairness of it all and a deep sense of brokenness. He thought of his one conversation with Lily about all of this, several months ago now. Remus was still recuperating from his injury, coming in and out of lucidity periodically over a number of days. James did not know how to watch this, the panic over Remus and his inability to do anything mixed with his fear over what Sirius had told him of his suspicions. 

He was sat in his father’s office. He had not changed anything, despite using the office regularly after moving in. It felt like a memorial, in a way. His father’s life work, growing a business and a fortune from the ground up, mixed with his own things. Court documents from Mr. Patel, the barrister to whom James was apprenticed, mixed in with old correspondences his father had penned but never sent. Original product mock-ups hung on the walls like a badge of honour. He came in here, sometimes, when he felt guidance was needed. When he missed his father and his kindly, no-nonsense advice. Fleamont saw the world in stark contrast. As much as James craved that, grey bled into his mind more often than he would have liked. 

On one side of the office was a small sitting area, which had a chaise lounge and a set of over plush chairs. The one to the right smelled of his father’s cologne, the other like nothing in particular. He sat in his father’s old chair, picking at a hole in his shirtsleeve and thought of a flash of silver in the evening light. He felt like a young child again, sitting in his father’s shadow. 

There came a knock at the door, and Lily pushed it open. She leaned in the doorway for a moment, quietly watching. The light in the hall cast her hair in a halo around her head, and James thought that was apt. He did not know much about the nature of angels, but he thought she looked more ethereal every day he knew her. Kind, rude, and sharp in a way people usually were not. She had the look of someone who was considering a great many things, calm in the face of choice and fate. 

“Can I come in?” she had asked. James waved her in, grateful for her company and terrified of it. She sat in the other chair, and he wondered if it would start to smell of her perfume over time. “Penny for your thoughts?”

James considered his next words. There was nothing he would not tell her if he had the words, but he found that he did not. How could he explain the boundary of where he was lacking and where he had taken too much? “I’m just tired.”

She nodded, rubbing her stomach. James thought she was beautiful, but she took to being pregnant horribly. Her misery at it was infectious, unfortunately. It was a marvellous, awful sort of thing. “I am, too.”

Lily reached over, taking his hand in hers and placing them on the arm of her chair. They sat like that for a while, her looking down at their linked hands. 

“I’m a deeply selfish person,” she said, suddenly. James frowned at her, confused and shocked at the proclamation.

“You are not—,”

“Hush, I have a whole speech,” she interrupted him, chuckling thickly. James remained silent and let her continue. “I love you, but not enough to hurt either of us. I love being with you more. If I didn’t, maybe I would have seen everything clearer, sooner. I’m not going anywhere, and I know you don’t want me to.”

James listened, trying to make sense of what she was trying to tell him.

“But I’ve thought a lot about… well, quite a few things, really, in the last few years. I never imagined life would feel so fleeting so soon. Love is a resource in such short supply these days. Happiness is so difficult to find, to keep.” She glanced back at the door, silent for a beat. “Remus is a dear friend to me. I struggle seeing him in pain. I struggle seeing you in pain. You deny such a large part of yourself. So I’ll be selfish for a moment, to save myself the grief of watching you both spiral.”

She stood, closing the space between them and cupping his cheek. Her hands were soothingly warm, sourced from the core of everything she was. 

“Give him time to recover, but don’t let him pass you by, James. No matter what you do, you have both my blessing and support, but I am also not going anywhere. I’ve come to realise that more love in this life is never a bad thing.” 

She kissed him, softly. James wanted to grab her hands, to hold her still so he could examine her words and her heart. Nothing she had said had fully sunk in, though, as she pulled back and smiled, turning towards the door. 

“I love you, dear. Come to bed soon.”

In spite of what she had said, James found he was paralysed in the months that followed. Lily did not bring it up again. Things began falling where they lay now and it felt so kind and warm when every second outside their home was uncertain and cold. It felt like a losing proposition to rock the boat. He did not want Remus to feel like his home was contingent on reciprocation. He did not want to lose anything, to disrupt the balance they had found. 

James sat there, looking down at Harry and his unbothered expression as he examined the lock of hair. His world was so small, and James had the capacity to hurt without intent or mercy. Nothing felt like a certain path, every step a potential for a misstep. Some time passed before Remus walked out the front door, clearly startled to see James on the stoop. 

“I wasn’t sure where you’d gone.”

“Didn’t want to pry.”

Remus looked a bit embarrassed but nodded as James went to stand. Hope stood behind him on the threshold, looking wane and sour. 

“Drive safely,” she said, voice strained. “It was good seeing you again, James.”

Her tone made him suspect that was not the case, but he smiled at her all the same.

“It was good to see you again, too, Ms. Howell.”

She gave him a once over with her eyes before shutting the door firmly behind her. Remus did not look back as he made his way to the car, the tension in every muscle poised to snap. James followed, unsure of what to say. He did not think he could ask what they had spoken about. Instead of saying anything, he placed a hand on his friend's shoulder. His shoulders dropped just a bit. Harry grabbed his hands out, cooing. The smile Remus gave him was tired and small, but genuine. James handed him over. They stood there silently by the car, the snow continuing to fall and consolidate into a slush on the ground. 

“I take it that it did not go well,” James said.

Remus laughed a little, shaking his head. “We weren’t very quiet. How much did you hear?”

“Not that much. You don’t have to–,”

James stopped as he watched Remus open the rear door and begin to strap Harry in, seemingly ignoring what he was about to say. That was fair, James supposed. It was not really his business. Remus walked to the driver's side and climbed in, leaving James to watch after him, his feeling of disquiet growing. 

They were about an hour into their return trip, the car silent except for the shake of the frame, before Remus said anything.

“She’s moving back to Cardiff,” he said, voice void of any feeling. It did not make much sense to James. Her letter to Remus asking him to come up so they could talk had sounded urgent, especially in light of how little the two spoke these days. 

“Oh.”

“She’s moving in with my aunt. For hospice care.”

“ Oh.”

“Cancer,” he said, as though this were something distinctly causal. “It’s everywhere now, evidentially. They gave her a few months, give or take.”

James just looked at him and his impassive, drawn expression for a moment. “Are you headed to Cardiff to sit with her, then?”

Remus shook his head, laughing a little humorlessly. “No. She said my being there would just upset my aunt. She’s leaving me the house.”

It was not something James could imagine, really. His parents were older than Hope, so it was not out of the realm of possibility that his time with them was short. It did not help, knowing that. Nothing prepared him for losing both of the people who created him, who nurtured and raised him. Still, he was able to sit with them at the end. He did not fully know how to walk the earth he had buried his parents under, even though he did it. Watching them grow weaker and more ill was awful, saying goodbye was worse. Seeing it happen provided him clarity and closure, though, and not having that would have broken him beyond repair. 

So, he did the only thing he could think to do. He laid his hand over Remus’ where it rested on the gearstick. He had done the same thing, if in a different way, for Sirius in the days after he ran away from home. Sirius did not appreciate being touched, generally. In those early days he spent at the manor house, James or Euphemia or sometimes Fleamont would sit at his bedside while he curled further into himself and stared at the wall. It was hard for James, at sixteen, to imagine how Sirius was feeling. He had two loving and attentive parents, and he knew Sirius did not. It took him a long time to understand that grief was infinitely more complicated than just love and loss. Sirius had loved his family but hated their ideals, and did not understand why their care was conditional. The hope he held was killing him, and losing the last vestige of it was like removing a limb. He imagined it might be similar, if not the same, for Remus. 

Hope loved Remus, that much was obvious. She did not approve of him, though. After Remus was bitten and Lyall had left them, she grew distrustful of the magical world. She saw, from her vantage point as an outsider, the way people treated her child and that distrust grew. She had wanted him to finish his education, which she allowed at Dumbledore’s request because she did not have the resources to manage a growing werewolf, and leave the world her husband had left for them behind. The rift continued to grow, though Remus did not speak of it often, after he moved in with Sirius instead of coming home. She took exception to the idea that he had chosen this life over anything else, that Sirius was raised of the same ilk that felt the right to label her son a monster, that he was a man. 

It was complex. Remus, though his life was burdened by hardship, did not feel a lack of love from his mother as a child like Sirius had. She nurtured him, raised him to be a better man than his father. The pain rested in her belief that she had failed. James could not help but feel a spark of anger at her for that. He saw all Remus was, how he walked in kindness and bore a burden of shame. His intellect that he never got the chance to show because of things he had no say in. The strength in his soul. James glanced at the back seat, where his own child watched the world pass with new eyes, and could not imagine a life in which he would not be filled with pride at whoever he became. He imagined, however, that when Hope held her son for the first time she thought the same thing. Lyall as well. Maybe even Walburga and Orion. It made James worry over all of the ways he could fail to be everything his son needed him to be. It was so easy to hurt, to hold the people you care about to a standard they would always fail to meet. 

It was fortifying, though, as Remus intertwined their fingers and held tighter to stop the tremor in his hand. Life was full of hurt and fear and failure, but you move through anyway for the moments that reward toil with beauty.

Harry giggled as Sirius, transformed into Padfoot, ran around him in circles and huffed playfully. It was a reassuring sound. James had not been sure how this evening would go, having them all in the same room outside of Order meetings. It was always tense these days when Sirius would come around, never outwardly questioning Remus’ presence but always seemingly perplexed by it. The silence between the two of them felt like a vacuum, sucking up any good feeling in the room, and Sirius usually ended his visits with vague warnings about trust.

James made his opinions on Sirius’ theories known, but he did not play sides and Remus did not ask him to. However, Sirius seemed in the holiday spirit and willing to put his suspicions aside. Lily and Peter chatted about James and his ‘senseless’ gift-giving skills on the sofa while Remus watched from the doorway, nursing a glass of spiced wine. He seemed to be in an odd mood, but not unhappy. He and Sirius had been civil all night, even joking like they used to. The persistent sense of dread that followed them all like smog lifted for a bit, and James felt like he could breathe again. 

Peter, on the other hand, had a sombre air about him. It was well hidden, just peeking around the corner. He was a very self-sufficient person, these days. It was wonderful to see, really, after years of watching him struggle to assert himself. He seemed to have found a niche in a lower-level ministry position and was keeping busy. However, James worried that no one could see the toll this war was taking on him. He was better at hiding his emotions than any of them, even Remus whose feelings were like the flick of fishtails in a calm sea. Peter’s feelings were always masked behind a perpetual storm of nervousness, and it made it hard to differentiate between normal nerves and what was actually bothering him. He had lost a considerable amount of weight in the last few months. People complimented him on losing his childhood roundness, but worried James. He was his oldest friend, one he felt the least adept at reading, but that did not mean James was not willing to try.

James walked over, trying to catch him while his wife and two friends tried and failed to assemble some complex muggle toy that had come in the post from Petunia. Just Petunia, interestingly. 

He sat on the armrest next to Peter, who looked over and smiled faintly. 

“Fancy a walk?”

He seemed confused, frowning a bit, but got up and followed James to the backdoor. 

“No, part A goes with part C. It just snaps together, look!” Sirius was saying, frustrated, as they walked by.

“Why are the instructions in Finnish?” Said Remus.

“Sirius, if you break this thing I’ll break you,” Lily replied.

“Oh, ye of so little faith! I’m not going to… oh… ow!”

Their voices faded as James and Peter stepped out into the cold night and closed the door. The backyard was blanketed in a fresh layer of snow, reflecting the light of the half-full moon in brilliant white. He and Peter stayed on the porch, looking out at the treeline. 

“I remember when my parents finally let me get a racing broom,” James said, quietly, like if he spoke too loud he would scare away the night. “Your mum wouldn’t let you ride it, so you chucked a quaffle at me from the ground. We were, what? About nine-years-old?”

Peter chuckled, but it sounded forced, “Yeah. You fell off and landed on me. Broke my arm in two places!”

“Sorry about that, mate.”

James chuckled and Peter followed, but it felt out of sync in a way it never did before. Peter’s face was uncanny in the low light, changed in a way James had not realised he had not noticed. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” 

Peter looked away, smiling in an odd way. It did not reach his eyes and spoke of some discomfort. “I’m alright. Why?”

“You just seem… somewhere else. Like you have something weighing on you. Lords, we all do. I just wanted to check how you’ve been. I feel like it’s been ages.”

His smile fell just a bit. The nervous aura that rolled off of him abated, leaving him looking like a sad marionette someone had abandoned in a corner. “The world is just… a nightmare, is all. I never thought things would be like this. All this fear.”

James nodded, putting a hand on Peter’s shoulder. His muscles tensed, but only for a second. “I understand. You’re strong, though, Peter. One day, this will be the past. We just have to get to tomorrow.”

Peter swallowed and looked down at his feet. “Do you ever wonder if all you’re doing is making mistakes?”

“All the time,” James replied, honestly. “All we can do is keep going and hope we did the right thing. You just have to move and find what you need along the way.”

A cloud passed over the moon and James lost sight of Peter’s face for a moment. “You don’t know what it’s like, though. Things seem to just… fall into place for you.”

James opened his mouth to respond, but he was not sure how. Maybe he had left something he did not understand to sit for too long, because he had not realised that was what Peter saw in him. He did not know what Peter saw in himself and that scared him.

“You’re right, though,” he cut off whatever James had planned to say. “We do just have to keep moving.”

He turned to look at James then, the affable smile he usually wore back and pristine. He looked almost pained. “It’s cold. I’m headed inside. Thank you for checking on me, James.”

He left, leaving James with a horrible sense of unease that he could not really place in the dead cold quiet.

James spent the rest of the evening with an odd feeling like he had forgotten something vital, but could not remember what. By midnight, Peter had left and Harry and Lily were in bed. Sirius had over-imbibed and passed out on the sofa after half an hour of regaling all of them with his offkey renditions of Christmas carols. James sat on the floor across from him, watching the pieces of his life shift in ways he could not see clearly. Remus worked around them, watching James with a quizzical look as he picked up discarded wrapping paper. 

“I’ll do that in the morning, Moony. Don’t trouble yourself.”

“And interrupt your brooding? How could I? It’s no trouble, honestly.” He smiled. It was broad and warm, flushed at the edges. Wine looked good on him, bringing some colour to his usually pale face. It occurred to James that everything looked good on Remus. Joy and hardship, laughter and rage. It livened him, animated him into beautiful motion. Like he existed in the perpetual moment of the sun hitting the sky and turning the night to fire. 

Sirius snored, then, rather loudly. James did not miss having him as a dorm mate for that alone. He used to worry Sirius had stuck something up his nose as a small child and forgotten it there. He still was not sure if he was honest.

“I’m not brooding,” he replied. “I’m contemplating the greater nature of the universe. I could be the next Aristotle and you're poking fun.”

“I’m surprised you know who Aristotle even is. What great philosophical conclusions have you come to?”

“Life’s a bit shit.”

Remus laughed, putting his bag of rubbish down and coming to it down on the hearth next to him. “No kidding.”

Sirius let out a louder, longer snore. Remus grimaced. “It’s a wonder I ever got any sleep.”

“I don’t envy you. Listening to it from across the dorm was bad enough.” 

It felt odd, listening to Remus talk about that very near past so casually. He avoided the topic, usually, preferring to behave as though their nearly five-year relationship had never happened. That it did not cause him pain. It showed on his face, then. The hurt, mixed with the reminisces of love as he watched Sirius drool over their throw pillow. 

“I loved him,” he said, almost to himself in answer to what James was thinking but did not say. “It was awful.”

“I love him, too,” James replied. “It’s always been awful.”

Remus laughed and it sounded wet. James had still never seen Remus cry, and tonight was not that night. Instead, he reached out his hand and interlaced their fingers. “It was the wrong time. Maybe we just… weren’t the right people.”

They just sat for a while, watching the shadows flicker around the room and listening to the crackle of the fire behind their backs.

James thought about his conversation with Peter. The truths and the things unsaid. Nothing about it sat right with him, but one thing about it struck clear. He was right; all they could do was move toward and try to find the beauty in life as they came across it. He saw the web that connected them all in a twisted knot of friendship and family and love that came at the wrong time or in the wrong light. He was done being pulled by it. He wanted to take it in hand and tug and watch it collapse into something great and horrible. He wanted to let the thing that had taken up residence under his ribs claw its way out of his chest. It had been long enough. 

“What has you contemplating life so intently, Prongs?” Remus said after a moment, breaking the silence. 

James looked down at their hands. They had walked this path together, every step from the moment they met. Not just him and Remus, but all of them. They all carried too much of each other to ever really figure out where one of them ended and the other began. James did not want to; they were too much of him to know what was borrowed and what was his own.  

“I don’t want to carry my regrets around.”

Remus looked at him, watching him for a moment like he wanted to prod him for more. He did not, and after a moment he grinned warmly and bumped their shoulders together. “Then don’t.”

James grinned, a warm feel separate from the fire spreading through his chest. It was easy to say, infinitely harder to do. But that was what love was, he thought, in all its forms. Laying your burdens down, knowing they are too heavy even in light of the comforting weight they provide. 

So, he gestured up. Remus followed his gaze, eyes landing on a sprig of mistletoe hung on the mantelpiece above their heads. He did not seem overly surprised; he had likely noticed it before sitting down and chosen to ignore it. Sirius had hung them around the house when he had arrived, and people had taken to carrying Harry through the dining room archway and kissing him on the cheek, causing him to giggle loudly. 

Remus grinned back and chuckled, leaning toward to kiss James on the cheek. It was not a peck, not really. It was a lingering brush of skin, his lips flushed from the wine and the fire. He hung in James’ space long enough for James to turn his head so their noses bumped. There they sat for a while, sharing the same breath. James could count Remus’ eyelashes as they fanned down, taking in his features like they were something finely made.

James felt the sensation of his stomach dropping like he was on the edge of a great expanse. The feeling of vertigo he got when staring up at the unending stretch of the sky, knowing just out of his sight the wheel of the heavens strung the stars in order. It was beyond his control, beyond his comprehension. The power of it was terrifying. There was nothing else he could ever do, no path he could have passed or current he could have fought against that would have led him anywhere else.

“You’ve spoken with Lily?” Remus asked, voice barely a whisper. James could taste his words, sweet and quiet.

“I’ve spoken with Lily.”

Remus nodded, just enough to be noticeable. “Okay. I… alright.”

That was all James needed for him to tilt his head and leap. It was just a light press of lips, tentative. Even still, he felt that same electric-charged thrill where they made contact as he did when he was seventeen and Lily kissed him for the first time. Nerves alight in confused magnetism. He felt Remus go tense for a fraction of a second before he leaned further in, deepening the kiss. 

Suddenly, it was quiet. That clawing set of fingers that dug its nails into his chest walls abated. He still felt its heat, wrapped around his heart, but it no longer burned with a hurt he could not ignore. Remus brought his hands up to cup James’ face, holding him lightly and running a thumb along his jaw.

It was a unique experience. Kissing Lily had always felt like a shared blaze, even in its softness. This felt more gentle in some ways. The draw of a lantern in the dark, pulling him further. Nothing about it felt soft , though. Not in the way Lily was soft. Angles and teeth, the scrape of stubble along his chin. Remus’ presence was demanding and leading. He smelled of wine and tobacco, like mint toothpaste and pine aftershave. It was the same feeling of something deep inside him locking into place, but it felt so different. Some part of him that was intrinsic; that demanded his attention but he had felt to fester. 

Remus pulled back, and James fought the urge to follow him. He did not go far, resting their foreheads together. The look he wore was one of contentment mixed with a healthy dose of grief like he had just let someone steal another piece of him. James hoped he knew that he had held onto it for years, that he carried part of Remus with him always.

Across the room, Sirius murmured nonsensically in his sleep. It was obvious he was still dead to the world, as all James could make out of it was ‘ hippogriffs’ and ‘underpants’ . Still, Remus disentangled from him and stood, reaching a hand back down to pull James off the floor.

“Let’s go upstairs and talk, then.”

James took his hand, feeling his fingers slide across the delicate bones in his wrist, and felt for the first time in years totally weightless.

The new year came, the past withering with the winter cold and laying the groundwork for something new. 

The midmorning light streamed in through the window. James had been awake for a while, lying and watching. He had not realised, despite sharing a room with him for years, how peaceful of a sleeper Remus was. It was as though he just shut off wherever he happened to land, not making a noise or tossing much. It was something James noticed somewhere in the back of his mind when he would sit with Remus in the hospital ward as children. In an unconscious way, he assumed it was just his body in an energy deceit. It was amusing to have the freedom to observe him and know that it was just a trait of Remus’. He was still, the only indication that he was not a very oddly made statue the rise and fall of his chest. James’ hand rested there now, and he felt the rhythmic flutter of his heart under his palm. His face was truly unburdened, turned away from the window. 

Not much had changed in the months since Christmas in reality, but things felt different. Some invisible weight seemed to have been lifted, and though it did nothing to change the state of the world, it felt right. It was not without its challenges, but it was much less painful than James had imagined it would be at sixteen, terrified of himself and the future. There was adjustment, but much of it was settled beforehand. He split his nights between the two rooms of his home, and there was the added element of security and intimacy, but aside from that, Remus, James, Lily and Harry had already established a dynamic that felt natural. They all moved together as a unit, built on love and friendship and the shared goal of keeping Harry alive and well-loved. Remus had finally settled in, giving into the need to lay down his roots, and his touch not only filled the room but spilled into other parts of the house. He had books on the shelf and his records in the living room. In the early morning, just as often as James and Lily did, he would soothe Harry when he woke and cried for comfort. It was everything James had wanted but denied himself for so long. It felt like finally coming home.

Things were far from simple, though. A war still raged outside their front door, and James and Lily were forced to step back for fear of what plots lay just under the surface. Occasionally, Remus would disappear and return days later with nothing but the same explanations he had always provided. He looked like he had slept in a barn upon his return, usually, dirty and exhausted. James and Lily came to their own conclusions about what he was up to, and while they were not happy with what they assumed, they came to a very different reality than Sirius had.

That morning, sometime in early March, Remus woke slowly like an automaton whirring to life and cracked his eyes against the light. He grumbled, shaking off sleep, and grinned. He reached over to push James’ bedraggled hair from his face and kissed his forehead, gently.

“Good morning,” he said, voice barely audible.

James could not help but agree.

Peace was a fragile thing, however. Remus had run into town an hour or so before, likely just as an excuse to have some privacy and stretch his legs. He and Lily were idling the morning away, alternating between various cleaning tasks and bothering Harry, who was content with his task of figuring out which nesting block tasted the best, when Albus Dumbledore stepped out of their fireplace. A jolt of anxiety coursed through James and based on Lily’s expression, she felt the same. 

Dumbledore, the maestro of their little discordant opposition, was not a common sight even for them. An appearance from him usually brought dark tidings and bad news, and his somewhat grim expression spoke to that. James longed for the days of his childhood when all Dumbledore was to him was an eccentric headmaster. When he did not understand even a fraction of all the worries and plans the man had running through his head at all times. 

“My apologies for barging in,” He said, voice light. “I was hoping we could have a conversation over some tea.”

James and Lily looked at one another for a second, the silence between them deafening. James put down the block he was trying to hand to Harry and picked up his son, holding him close to his chest as Lily stood, headed to the kitchen to put the kettle on. 

The next half hour of their lives was devastating. Dumbledore was unusually downtrodden as he sat on the ugly, floral sofa and told them that the threat to their lives had gone from a possibility to a certainty. He elaborated on what he had learned from Sybill Trelawney, her vision and the prophecy she had made. How he had intel that suggested what the dark lord knew, and that he had pointed to them– to Harry– as the key to everything. As an obstacle to be removed. The air was thick as he concluded his story, the only sound the ever-present tick of the clock on the mantelpiece. 

He left shortly after he arrived, his instructions clear, with a promise to return at sundown to help them relocate. In his wake, he left a void. They stood in the centre of the living room, Harry now in Lily’s arms, and looked at the dying fire. It was a while before either of them spoke. It was Lily, in the end, who collapsed onto the sofa behind her. James had rarely seen Lily defeated, but as soon as she let herself, her entire frame caved in. 

“I need to…,” she said, weakly. “I have to write Petunia. I have to get everything in order.”

James could see in her, because he felt it too, the bone-deep exhaustion fighting the panic. He walked over to her as her eyes scanned the room, looking at the furniture and the heirlooms and everything they had filled their lives with. He placed a hand on her shoulder to ground her, and her focus snapped to him. She relaxed a bit, but her eyes threatened to run over with tears. 

“Fuck, James. What are we going to do? Harry, he’s just… he’s just a baby.”

He sat down next to her, feeling almost empty. Harry grabbed him, tiny fists flexing in the air, and James placed him on his lap. Harry made a contented little noise, oblivious to the fact that his life was marked by something terrible. 

“I don’t know what to do,” James replied. “Other than listening to what Dumbledore is asking of us. You go to your sisters. It’s safer to not use the post. Faster. Leave Harry here with me.”

She made a hiccuping sound and covered her mouth. “What about Remus—?”

“I’ll… I’ll figure it out. You go warn Petunia.”

Lily nodded, schooling her face and wiping away the tears that had fallen. She kissed him on the cheek, then bent and did the same to Harry, holding his cheek to her face while her hands shook. Then, she was gone with a cracking noise. Off to Surrey, to say goodbye to her complicated only sibling. All she had left of her parents, her first friend. James sat with Harry on his lap and watched the second hand of the old clock tick around. It had never seemed so ominous before like it was not just turning in an endless circle but counting down to something. He knew that, one day, the cogs would wind down and the clock would stop. Someone else would come by and rewind it, maybe. Maybe it would sit on that mantlepiece and rot into dust and rust. Each tick sounded like a name. One he knew, or could have known. A name with a story and a family and lovers and friends and children. 

Marleen McKinnon

Tick

Dorcus Meadows

Tick

Fabian Prewett

Tick

Gideon Prewett

Tick

Benji Fenwick

Tick

Regulus Arcturus Black

Tick

James Potter

Tick

Lily Evans Potter

Tick

Harry James Potter

TICK

James blinked, pulling himself out of the spiral he found himself in. He looked down at Harry, who had fallen asleep at some point. His face was peaceful, unburdened. He had not asked for any of this, and James came back to the fear that he touched in his mind frequently. That the worst thing they could have possibly done was bring a child into this conflict. He had no stake in this outside of the mistakes of his father and his father’s-father. Harry was a gift, something he did not think he deserved. James thought about all the things he had done that led to this moment, all the unknown mistakes he had made and all the missteps he had taken in ignorance. All the unforeseen ways he had hurt Harry and all the ways he will continue to. There was no point in dwelling on it, he told himself. The only way out now was through and he would protect everyone he could, no matter what he had to sacrifice in the process. 

Sometime later, the front door he had walked through thousands of times in his life opened and closed, and Remus appeared in the living room. He must have sensed something odd in the air because he immediately frowned and sat down next to James. All he had brought back was a tin of some of Lily’s favourite biscuits, but it was a long trek down the hill and an even longer one back. It was a nice day, though. One of the first warm ones of the year, and the world was beginning to thaw. A good day for a walk. 

“Dumbledore visited while you were out,” James said in response to the look of concern on Remus’ face. He nodded, offering him the tin. James chuckled in spite of himself, shaking his head. “Lily went to Petunia’s for a bit.”

“I imagine he only had pleasant things to say, as always.”

“He…,” James tried to steel himself to say whatever it was he intended to say. “Dumbledore believes that we aren’t safe where we are anymore... That Harry is the primary target. He wants us to go further into hiding. Under the Fidelius Charm.”

Remus’ face betrayed nothing, but his eyes did go from James’ face to Harry’s. James took his hand, holding it tightly like an anchor. 

“He thinks it's best if…,” He trailed off, unsure of how to say what he wanted and convey what he needed to.

“I did not assume I was invited, James,” Remus said, saving him the trouble. There was no bite in his words, like this was the obvious choice.

“I tried—,”

“I understand. I’m not the one in immediate danger, and your first concern should be to your son. Your wife. I doubt Dumbledore thinks I could be the leak but he has to be diligent.”

His voice was so light and reassuring; James wanted to scream. He was right and it was awful because he had just arrived, why did he have to leave? 

“We’re coming home,” James said, his sadness and grief peaking into hysterics. “It’s just for a while. You can stay here, and when this is all over things will be fine. I promise I’ll come home again.”

He was not sure when his composure broke, but it did and he just then noticed the tears running down his face. Unlike Remus, James cried fairly often. He always had, not ever having the disposition to keep it in. Not as much as Lily, not nearly as much as Sirius did. It was not uncommon, but it still made a hot wash of shame run through him. He held Harry a little closer to him and tightened his grip on Remus’ hand, letting his head fall onto Remus’ shoulder. He hid his face in the crook of his neck, trying not to sob. Hands came to rest on the nape of his neck, providing comfort.

“You’re my family,” James said, quietly. “I don’t want to leave you behind.”

“You’re not,” Remus reassured. “Like you said. You’ll… you’ll be back.”

He felt Remus shake a bit, but he did not raise his head to see. James had never seen Remus cry, and that was not going to change today. 

“No one told me how terrifying all of this would be.”

Remus did not respond, just held onto him a little tighter. 

“I love you, you know?” 

“I love you, too.”

“I need you to understand. I mean—,”

“I know.”

They sat there like that for some time, while James wept and Remus held him and Harry. At some point, Lily came back, her cheeks tear-stained from whatever her talk with her sister had held. She saw them and said nothing, just folded herself against Remus’ back and reached her arm around to card her hand through the hair at the nape of James’ head. 

Hours passed. They spoke a bit about the plan, how Sirius would meet them at whatever safe house Dumbledore had arranged to bear their secret. James did not say it was because Sirius was insane enough to take that information to his grave, that it was because he suspected Dumbledore had Remus infiltrating enemy ranks regularly. That the idea of Fenrir Greyback having half a reason to lay a finger on Remus turned James' stomach. That he could not ask him to bear another burden. That he was selfish in his need to keep his promise of coming home to Remus, alive and in one piece. Remus did not ask. They packed up what they could, the essentials of their lives. Photographs of James and Euphemia and Fleamont, of Lily and Petunia and her parents. Of The Marauders in their school years, of Lily and Severus as children, of them and all the people they had lost along the way. They packed away some of the advertisements on Fleamont’s office walls and Lily’s mother’s hand mirror and a cookbook Petunia had loaned Lily that she never got to return. A copy of a book Remus read to Harry sometimes about a young wizard and his shadow.

Their lives, the things they deemed the most necessary, amounted to two trunks worth. 

The sun set, and Dumbledore returned. He looked surprised to see Remus there but did not question it. All he did was inform them that the safe house was waiting and that he would take them to it when they were ready. 

They each kissed Remus on the cheek, holding onto him for as long as the moment would allow. He said his goodbyes to Harry, who gripped onto his shirt and looked up at him in the fascinated way he always did. James and Lily both hugged him, gripping just as tightly, promising that they would see him again soon. None of them wanted to admit that it was just as likely that this would be the last they saw of one another. That it was goodbye. 

They each took one of Dumbledore’s weathered hands, and in an instant, they were gone. They reappeared in the front garden of a small house in a village neither of them had ever seen before, with Sirius Black leaning on the iron fence post, waiting for them.

On the other side, back at the home of the Potter family, the house Fleamont and Euphemia had built and raised their son in, Remus watched them go with a feeling of horrible fear. He watched where they had stood, replayed the moment they vanished in his mind, and listened to the ticking of the clock on the mantelpiece. 

Then, just as he had done when he had watched his father walk out of their home when he was six-years-old, like he had done when he himself had left the home he had built and destroyed alongside Sirius, like he had done when his mother had told him she was dying and this was how she wanted to say goodbye, he put it away. He placed the feeling of abandonment and grief and heartbreak somewhere he could not try and claw at it, and went upstairs to pack whatever he could carry. He could not bear to sit in the ruins of the life that had made him the happiest, because he did not come here for a bed and a roof over his head. Remus Lupin, for what was not the first time nor would it be the last, packed his life into the boot of his car and drove off into the night.

Looking back, Remus remembered feeling it somewhere in his chest. Maybe it was psychosomatic, maybe it was wishful thinking. That morning in early November as the frost began to take hold, he remembered seeing the trees begin to wither in his front yard and thinking with certainty that the last bit of warmth in the world was gone. The flame he kept buried in his heart had sputtered out. The sun had died, and it would never be warm again.

It should not have filled him with so much dread, hearing the knock at his front door as he bent under his furnace to relight the pilot light. He should have been more prepared when he opened the door and saw Albus Dumbledore looming in the threshold like a harbinger of ill tidings asking for tea. His hands should not have shaken when his old headmaster spoke the words he expected to hear, the last thing he ever wanted to hear.

James and Lily Potter are dead.

Dumbledore explained the course of events, each detail adding some newly horrifying element of pain. 

He died trying to protect them. She died trying to protect Harry. 

They had chosen Sirius Black to be their Secret-Keeper. He was the spy. 

Peter tried to stop him, and was killed for his efforts along with a street full of bystanders.

The ministry has decided, in light of the insurmountable evidence, to send Black to Azkaban without trial. 

Everything Dumbledore said was like a long nail hammered into the coffin of what his life had been. 

But Harry Potter lives, and the Dark Lord is vanquished.

It is over.

“Where is he?”

Remus, without his consent, recalled his time with James and Lily. He had moved into their guest room only a few weeks before Harry was born. He had been just outside the door when he let out his first cry, announcing himself. He had been the first, outside of Lily and James, to hold him. He had read him stories, spoken to him kindly, sat with him in the early hours when all he wanted was to be held because the night was long and lonely. They had chosen Sirius, for a fair few reasons, but it was with the understanding that Remus would be there, too. 

But Remus had been reminded of the punishment for wanting too much, and Harry was never his. 

“He is with what family he has remaining, and that is where he will stay,” Dumbledore responded. His demeanour shifted, somewhat. It looked like the idea gave him some pause, but he was nothing if not steadfast in his choices. “There are elements at work beyond our control. There is little we can do but make peace with it.”

“Can I at least see him?” Remus said, trying to maintain some composure. 

I’m his family, too. 

It was a horrible thought, born out of the cracks in all the things he had laid in the back of his mind and tried to forget. How could Harry ever understand who he was?

“I do not think that would be wise.”

Dumbledore stood, looking down at Remus from a great height. 

“I understand what it means to lose so much,” he said. “We must learn to live, in spite of it.”

And then he left, leaving Remus broken and decaying in the ruins of his childhood home, and it was the last he saw of Albus Dumbledore for a very long time.

In the months that followed, Remus learned very little else about the events that had transpired. From what he understood, Petunia had been left in charge of the funeral arrangements, but he never heard anything else about it. Wizards and witches celebrated, loudly and boisterously, at the end of the war. Cheered at the death of three good people, the orphaning of a child they hailed as a martyr. His aunt in Cardiff contacted him, informing him that in November his mother had finally passed. She left him everything, which aside from the house and its contents amounted to about seven hundred pounds. 

Peter Pettigrew was awarded the Order of Merlin, posthumously, for his heroism. Sirius Black was now in solitary confinement in Azkaban. Remus considered writing to him, to ask for his side of the story. To ask him what could have possibly led him to do what he had done. He did not think he could handle the answer, if he even received one. A memorial was erected in Godric’s Hollow on the ashes of James and Lily’s lives, and he visited it not on the anniversary of their deaths, but on the first Christmas without them. 

Standing there, before what might as well have been their graves, he thought of Lyall.

He had not seen his father since he was six years old. His mother, though her distrust of the wizarding world had been evident, never spoke ill of him. He had left in the night and never returned. He left behind his books, his work. His mother explained, and whatever way she could, that he had been an expert in apparitions. Remus, who felt no other connection to his father, had wanted to learn all about the subject that sparked his passions. Later, he had wanted to follow in those footsteps, but no research projects would keep him on staff once they learned about what he was. Still, he remembered being a young boy and reading about what his father studied for the Ministry— Dementors.

He related to those odd, horrible creatures. Misunderstood, misplaced, wielded in fear as a weapon. Things that fed on happiness, the swallowed souls. Remus wondered what it would be like to live without a soul, to be free of the feelings that made him human. He could not stand the raw edges around the space of what had been torn from him. It hurt worse than anything he had ever felt in his life punctuated with pain.

In the graveyard, watching from a distance, was an elderly woman. Remus did not care who she was, or what she wanted, but she hobbled up to him anyway and offered him a mug she had carried with her. He took it, wary as she smiled at him. It smelled like hot chocolate and something strong.

“Horrible thing, that,” she motioned to the memorial. “They lived just there.”

She motioned to the burned ruins of the place they had called home in the months leading up to their deaths. 

“Sweetest things, all of them,” the woman continued. “Most well-behaved baby I’ve ever met, that’s for certain.”

Remus nodded, not sure what to say to her. He took a drink from the mug and tasted the generous amount of whisky she had spiked it with. 

“I knew them,” he replied, not entirely sure why. His voice was ragged from disuse. He had not spoken in a while. “They were good people.”

She patted him on the shoulder, firmly. “People come by, leave all sorts of things on the memorial. I used to think it was silly when I was younger. What could the dead use all this nonsense for anyway? I’ve been around for a while now, though. I think it’s more for us, really. Letting them know, wherever they are, that we are grateful for how they touched our lives.”

She gave him a kind look, removing her hand from his shoulder. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Then, she turned and began making her way back to her home, leaving him alone. Remus felt like someone had come by and shaken him from a deep sleep. No one had said that to him. No one was even there to acknowledge what he had lost, and he could not do it himself. Not yet.

He turned back to the memorial and looked at the pillars that stood as a testament to the burning of all the great loves of his life. His knees hit the earth, and he let himself collapse. For the first time in a very long time, he wept, letting the entirety of his grief and loss shake his body.