scenario | prince sirius x knight remus | 1294 words
in the black family, every prince is assigned a personal knight upon turning eighteen, a young man around his own age who is sworn to follow him wherever he goes and protect him with his life. sirius, naturally, is furious when he learns that james, his childhood best friend and the son of a farmer from the village, has been assigned to regulus instead of him.
instead, sirius is given remus lupin, another boy from the village whom he has never met. and sirius decides within approximately five minutes that he hates him.
for the first few months, he makes remus’ duty as difficult as he possibly can. he is rude, impatient and constantly complaining about having a knight following him everywhere. he sneaks out of his chambers at night, tries to slip past the castle gates and wanders off into the grounds, only for remus to silently appear behind him every single time. and it drives sirius absolutely mad.
until one night, after remus has once again followed him out into the grounds, sirius finally loses his temper.
“why must you follow me everywhere? you are nothing but a market boy. do you have nothing better to do? go help your mother, if you are so desperate for work.”
and remus, who has been swallowing his anger for months, finally snaps.
“you think i take pleasure in following you everywhere? i have no wish to spend my days at the heels of a spoiled prince who speaks to me as though i were beneath him. this is my duty. it is how i earn my keep. it is how i help my mother. so forgive me if i cannot simply walk away because you find my presence inconvenient.”
sirius goes completely silent. because remus is right. and the worst part is that sirius knows it.
sirius hates being a prince. he hates the endless expectations, the rules, the ceremonies and the fact that every part of his life seems to belong to someone else. of course he loves the comforts that come with being born into royalty, the fine clothes, the endless food, the warm bed, the fact that he has never had to wonder whether there would be enough to eat.
but he hates what comes with it just as much. he hates that he cannot simply leave. he hates that he cannot choose his own life.
and suddenly he realises that, in his anger, he has treated remus exactly as the people sirius despises treat those beneath them.
for once, sirius gets exactly what he asked for. remus leaves him alone. and sirius feels absolutely miserable.
yet the next morning, when sirius steps out of his chambers, remus is standing there again. because whatever sirius thinks of him, remus still has a duty to fulfil.
and from that moment on, sirius swears to do better and make sure remus feels comfortable in his presence. he starts speaking to him properly. he tells remus about james and the years they spent together as children, about how james showed him what life in the village was really like, and how much sirius hates the way the nobility speaks about people who have less than them. he tells him that he does not agree with the way the kingdom is run. that he does not think being born into a castle makes him better than anyone else. and, perhaps most importantly, he tells remus that he is sorry.
remus listens. and slowly, sirius starts asking about remus too. about his mother, about the village, about what life was like before he became a knight. about the things he misses now that he spends his days inside the castle.
and eventually, remus starts bringing pieces of the village to sirius. a little wooden carving made by one of the village craftsmen, fresh berries from the market, a warm loaf of bread his mother had baked that morning.
sirius, in return, starts sneaking little things out of the castle for remus, usually things remus would never have had reason to try before, like little honey cakes, sugared almonds or some ridiculous dessert from the royal kitchens.
and then the nightly walks begin. they wander through the fields beneath the moonlight, walk between the trees at the edge of the forest and sit in the grass far enough from the castle that sirius can almost pretend he is simply another boy. and sirius slowly realises that he actually looks forward to having remus beside him.
“i believe i am glad they gave me you instead of james.”
and from there, their relationship only becomes softer. sirius starts deliberately seeking remus out during the day, even when he has nowhere to go. sometimes he simply sits nearby while remus keeps watch, talking just to hear him answer.
remus begins allowing sirius little freedoms he knows he should probably forbid, because by now he knows that sirius will sneak out regardless, and if he must follow him, he might as well enjoy the walk.
sirius makes him laugh. remus makes sirius feel listened to. and somewhere along the way, the prince stops thinking of remus as the knight who was assigned to him. he starts thinking of him simply as remus.
and then comes one warm summer night when sirius decides, with absolutely no warning, that he wants to swim in the lake. remus immediately refuses.
“your highness, absolutely not. there may be sharks.”
“there are no sharks in a lake.”
sirius only laughs as he begins to undress, far too amused by remus’ growing concern to pay any attention to his protests. remus turns away at once, refusing to look, though sirius only finds this even more entertaining.
sirius slips into the lake anyway, leaving the knight standing at the shore in his full armour, watching him swim beneath the summer night sky and wondering how this prince has managed to shorten his life by at least ten years in only a few months.
it does not take long for sirius to notice how uncomfortable remus looks beneath all that heavy armour. the summer heat, combined with the weight of the metal, has left him visibly warm, and sirius begins teasing him about how he will surely melt before the night is over. he eventually swims closer to the shore and urges remus to at least remove his helmet, though the knight hesitates. he is not meant to show his face to the prince. not until he has completed his first year of service, as tradition demands.
but sirius only watches him with that familiar, infuriating smile, making it increasingly difficult for remus to refuse him. after all these months spent side by side, sirius cannot understand how he is expected to remain curious forever about the face belonging to the voice he has grown so accustomed to hearing.
and eventually, remus gives in. he slowly removes his helmet, and sirius simply stares. because somehow, after months of imagining the face belonging to that quiet voice, he had never imagined this.
brown eyes, messy curls and a soft, almost shy expression that sirius has never seen before. for once, sirius has absolutely nothing clever to say. and remus looks just as stunned by the way sirius is staring at him.
and from that moment on, sirius develops a new little mission of his own: to make remus forget the helmet is even there. to convince him that he does not have to hide himself from him. and, perhaps most importantly, to find a way to get remus into that lake with him one day. because sirius has a feeling he would quite like to see what his knight looks like without the armour too
