Turning Tides||Sirius & Remus||Summer 1978
A small, selfish part of Sirius was relieved when Remus insisted he not give up his chosen path. He could pretend now that he had continued on to International Relations because Remus wanted him to; that he had done all he could just by offering and having his offer rejected.
But as good as he was at lying to himself–or ignoring the truth, at least–Sirius would never be able to deny his guilt if he’d failed to do something to try to keep Remus safe. So, Sirius only shook his head and with it, brushed away Remus’ concerns.
“Riddle may be nothing, but Macnair isn’t. Only Macnair and some bumbling administrator are senior, and the administrator takes ‘senior’ to extremes. Even if by chance Macnair doesn’t get it, it’ll have gotten him thinking. He’ll have plans that are solid enough to push through.”
Sirius stepped closer and forced himself to look Remus in the eye.
“I think you should lay low.” It was an understatement.
What Sirius really wanted was to pack Remus’ bags and drag him to tutoring some muggle kids in a far off countryside where no one would ever have the knowledge base to notice or care that Remus was absent every full moon. For Merlin’s sake, Remus could tell the muggles he was tired from some weird new-age muggle-witchery full moon prayer circle, and the muggles would be more likely to believe that than “Hello. I am a werewolf who may eat your children. But I do lock myself up quite well, and it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Unfortunately, Sirius knew that stubborn people knew exactly where they belonged and refused to leave. Remus was about as stubborn as ten stubborn people and about as moveable as a mountain once he’d settled into something. Sirius wasn’t expecting the conversation to go well.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuckfuckfuc-. Sirius was a fucking ocean when he wanted to be, all happy waves and golden shores, but there was zero chance of you being able to move him. Maybe he would retreat for a while, but he would always come back. There wasn’t a way that he would back, but like hell would Remus let him sacrifice so much.
“Then I’ll talk to some people and suggest the admin gets replaced. Who knows, maybe it’ll even disrupt MacNair further. I lay low all the the time, and I don’t need your help with this!”
The outburst surprised him, and Remus immediately stepped back, dragging one hand across his face. He was fine with accepting help, sometimes it was nothing but a fact of life, but this kind of giving … But it wasn’t as though Sirius needed the money, or the fact that he could head off -
Remus forced the negative trail of thought of his head, stopping for a moment to breathe in the sweet old smell of the dusty store-room. “I’m sorry.” He took another breath, then looked up at Sirius, before looking at the door to the right of his head.
“Thank you for your advice. It is unnecessary. I have been dealing with it for my whole life. Thank you for warning me. You can keep working towards your job, and worry about Riddle if you want to. I will worry about MacNair.”
Sirius’ eyes narrowed as Remus’ words quickened and voice rose just enough to show his irritation. Needing help was never part of the equation in Sirius’ mind, or else he would rarely help anyone. No one needed help, but some people just happened to deserve it.
Remus backed away and composed himself again as Sirius watched, unmoved and biting back the urge to tell Remus off further. Bar tending in one of the more well-known bars and constantly talking to both well-known and lesser-known people wasn’t exactly lying low.
“Yes and only two years without me,” Sirius bit out in response to Remus’ defense. Perhaps it hadn’t been Sirius’ place to make it their problem all those years ago, but he had, and he’d be damned if he stopped helping Remus now.
“I’m not leaving England and wondering every time if I’ll come back to you... in trouble. Besides, he and Riddle know each other, and well, going by how they talk to each other. Right now, they’re one and the same.”
