Sirius is always the strong one. He is the one who, in our school days, never had doubts about us, questioning whether it was right, or, more importantly to me, socially acceptable. As a werewolf, my friendships are few and far between, and gaining the trust and approval of my fellows has always been of the highest importance to me. For years at Hogwarts I retreated from anything that would label me as an oddity and it ended up taking every last dram of my resolve to let myself love him. He is also the one who never wondered almost eagerly when it would all fall apart—I don't deny that I often hoped wistfully that I would be able to choose a girl to fancy, the way James did with such small effort. And I admit that this is not because I am attracted to the female species but because it is the way they say it should be.
I am the one who would stay up at night, staring out the window at the mercifully waning moon, thinking about him dreamily or moodily or in total frustration, unable to sleep for the constant worrying, until he would come out to the common room and find me. Each night Sirius would come out yawning, his grey eyes sleepy but smiling and his hair a wreck… though an elegant, beautiful wreck always. And each night he would sit up with me and talk to me and hold me against him, all night long if I needed it.
I am the one who dodged away from it, danced around the very idea like a kitten, until it couldn't be ignored any longer. The day came when I couldn't stand to be around him because I knew I needed him so badly but I couldn't let myself have him. That day thathe confronted me in the Forbidden Forest and made it work, that is the strongest memory of my life at school.
And, of course, I am the one who, when it became common knowledge that Padfoot loved Moony, quietly avoided the stares and whispers while he stared straight into their eyes and dared them to tell us that it is wrong. And now, nearly twenty years later, it still hurts me to know that a part of me believed them when I knew there was nothing more right.
I have always thought that it is almost comically backwards—I had the loving, supportive family that accepted every decision I made. Sirius had a family that despised him for being a Gryffindor, for being a "blood-traitor," for running away, for being such a close friend of the Potters, and especially for being in love with another man. Why should I be so doubtful and afraid when he can stand up, square his shoulders and shake his shiny black hair out of his eyes, and laugh openly at the world?
Oh, don't misunderstand me—I haven't been completely useless. When we were alone, or alone except for James and Peter, I was like him. When we were alone, I never shied away from his kisses, never shrugged out from under his arm, never ignored his outstretched hands. On those rare occasions, I would often be the one to reach out first. He has always liked that.
Even as we have left Hogwarts, grown up immeasurably from the children we had been, Sirius has been infinitely more daring than I. He announced our relationship to the Order of the Phoenix when the time came and stuck fiercely by his opinions when they were questioned. Every time I transformed, Sirius the dog was by my side to help me and to keep me from hurting myself and my friends. Yes, Sirius has always been the strong one.
But now as I stand with him in this shack, this miserable reminder of the agony of transformation before Wolfsbane was even the vaguest of ideas in Damocles Belby's mind, I see a man who is as different as he is the same. For a long moment, it is as if Harry and his young friends do not exist. It is as if we are alone in the Shrieking Shack again as we were so many years before tonight, but Sirius is different now. And the changes hurt.
His hair that was once so shiny and sleek is now dull, dirty, and ragged. His skin, always pale, is sallow tonight and he looks ill. Though he was always slender, now he is skeletally thin. I can see his bones as though his skin were thin paper. There is still the overpowering beauty that made the girls at Hogwarts sigh longingly two decades ago, but it is under a veil now, under the shadows of the dementors and the fog of wrongful incarceration, the sorrow of grieving a friend's death but not experiencing healing as I have been able to, and the darkness of knowing a truth that will never be acknowledged. All of these shrouds are impossibly painful for me to see on him and I wish I could reach out and pull them away to reveal the man I once knew, but the most excruciating sight is that of the haunted look in his cool, grey eyes.
For once I am angry. I am not angry with him; I was never able to be properly angry with him the way I was with James or Peter or even Lily on occasion. I am furious with the government that has been to shortsighted to see that locking up an innocent man to quell the outrage of the masses at the deaths of the Potters will do nothing but allow the true problems to grow until they are unstoppable. I am angry with Peter who has been too cowardly to turn himself in even in order to save a friend from an unthinkable fate. And I am most infuriated with myself for allowing myself to quietly believe that Sirius is not the man I had thought he was; that he had committed the atrocities for which he has been imprisoned.
But my fury fades as he steps forward and says my name. His voice is hoarse and it hurts my throat to hear it. I can see how numb he is right now from the shock of seeing me again so suddenly, but it doesn't matter. I feel enough for both of us.
Sirius throws his arms around me, but this embrace is not how I remember it. He clings to me, his thin arms hungry and his talon-like hands scraping my shoulders and back as if to confirm my actual existence. I realize he does not believe I am here, that he thinks I am a vision brought on by proximity to dementors, and I have to wonder how many times he thought he saw me, wished he saw me, in Azkaban. Well, I have to admit, my thoughts of him over the past thirteen years have not been pleasant either.
So I wrap my arms around his thin frame and hold him up. I whisper to him, "I am here, Sirius. It's me, Remus." And I hold him the way he held me when I was uncertain. I will be the strong one tonight.
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