Excerpt from the WIP chapter for WTTU
The rest of the fic is here, and thereâs a chapter thatâs finished and just awaiting beta-ing before I post it. Background if youâre just joining us: Sirius is in the afterlife and this is directly after the battle at the Department of Mysteries in OOTP.
Remus exhaled loudly, as if he had been holding his breath. âThank you, Poppy.â
âAre you alright, Remus?â she asked, approaching him, her eyes narrowing with concern.
âIâm fine,â he assured her, smiling and taking her hand between both of his. This time, although he was looking, Sirius saw none of the things that told him Remus was lying. No tightness in his jaw, no flicker in his eyes, no pulling-in of his body as if to protect himself. His honesty was like a blow to Siriusâs gut. Does it really not matter? Was it the kids Remus was worried about this entire time?
âGet some rest,â Poppy said firmly.
Remus chuckled. âSo you always tell me.â
âAnd so you never do!â
âIâll try, Poppy. Thank you. For everything.â
Her eyes lingered on Remus for a moment before she snapped back into her normal business-like motions, clearing empty potion bottles with a charm and closing curtains around her new patients. He left quietly and slipped into the dark corridors.
Remus went on foot across the grounds again and through the Willow. Sirius followed him automatically. He tried to shift to Padfoot but found he could not. He let his head pass into the dirt of the tunnel instead, too distracted to dwell on the strangeness. None of this made sense. Hell, Sirius was the one who had died, and he felt his grief was about to overtake him. The incongruity between Remus now and Remus as he had expected was large, but also somehow familiar. Hadnât he felt this way before? Before, when Peter hadâ Â
Sirius felt like someone had pulled bandages off of his eyes, or that heâd gotten his color vision back after heâd been Padfoot for a long time. Every interaction he and Remus had had since Harryâs encounter in the Triwizard maze was reeling through him like a high-speed film, to be re-examined and picked apart. He was a chaperone, Sirius thought, stunned. He was only doing the things he did to keep an eye on me, unstable fugitive, risk to the Orderâ
The truth was obviously that Remus had only been kind to him to spare his diminished sanity after leaving Azkaban. He stayed in Grimmauld Place to keep an eye on Sirius, to keep him from running off. Heâd not been a friend, but a guard dog, sicced by Dumbledore. He was a spy, the way Peter had been, only for a different master. It was the same thing, and this time Sirius couldnât even do anything about it.
They had made it to the Shrieking Shack now, which Remus illuminated with his wand. Sirius, so entangled in his newfound certainty that he had been lied to, barely thought about this abnormality. Of course, Remus should have been able to navigate the Shack without light; and if he was Disapparating, he could do so from the southeast corner of the sitting room, they had tested itâ
But Remus did none of those things. In fact, he had gone still in the middle of the mostly-empty space, watching dust pass in front of his wandlight. âGoddamn you,â he whispered.
âWhat?â Sirius said, called out of his thoughts suddenly and forgetting he could not be heard.
âGoddamn you,â Remus repeated hoarsely, and it sounded so much like a response that Sirius, for a moment, let himself hope. He reached out a hand to touch his loverâs back. Perhaps Remus could sense him here, perhaps he couldâ
Siriusâs hand passed through nothing. His hand was nothing.
There was a cry and a clatter, and the light spun wildly across the room. Remus had flung his wand aside, but whyâ?
âGODDAMN YOU, SIRIUS!â His wand had disturbed more dust, and it floated through the stale air and crooked light, casting mad patterns on his face. Remusâs hands were knotted in his own hair and his knees trembled, shook, and gave way. He landed knees-first on the boards of the Shack with a thunk and no effort to brace himself.
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