There are true fortune tellers, in the wizarding world, even if people think there aren't. They're uncommon, and not often believed, but they can be found, sometimes.

Remus knows a fortune teller. Well, he knows of one. When his parents are searching for the ever-elusive cure to lycanthropy, they take him to one. She lives in a small Scottish village, but her remote location doesn't matter though; people came to her from every part of the world looking for the truth.

He's taken to the highlands, to the small village, to a room full of comfortable armchairs, pretty tea pots and sweet biscuits. The fortune teller is old, so old that he can feel the wrinkles in her fingers as she gently presses them to his forehead.

He'd expected tea leaves or crystal balls or maybe some star gazing, but instead she turns to his tearful mother and tense father and says simply, "Your son will be a werewolf for as long as he lives."

Unsurprisingly, his mother bursts into tears and flees the room. His father takes one glance at his son and follows his wife –whether to comfort her or join her in her grief, Remus will never know.

"And what is your question?" the old woman asks him.

Surprised, he answers without thinking. "I don't have a question."

"You will someday," says she. "And you'll be back. But remember that few people like the answers I give them."

He never means to go back to the village, but somehow it just… happens.

During the summer holidays between sixth and seventh year, Sirius convinces Remus to go on a holiday with him. "Just you and me, Moony," he says, his eyes alight with the excitement of adventure. "We'll catch one of those muggle train things, and go wherever it goes."

And Remus agrees.

The train doesn't lead directly to the village, but it does take them to a bus stop that takes them to the town next to it. When Remus realises, his expression is so stunned that Sirius can't help but notice. He asks what's wrong, and Remus is so shaken by the tiny, tiny likelihood of this happening by chance that it all just spills out.

By Sirius' expression, Remus can tell the story makes the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end as well, but unlike Remus, his sense of adventure is not quelled by such a frightening coincidence.

"We should go see her," Sirius says. "She said you would, and she does see the future. We shouldn't mess with things like this." But his mischievous grin tells Remus that playing with fate isn't the problem.

The sitting room where she does her readings is exactly the same as it had been four years ago, but this time Remus finds it chilling rather than comforting. He takes a seat, but he perches on the edge of his seat as though ready to flee at any moment.

Sirius isn't so reserved, and he flops comfortably into the armchair. "So how does this work?" he asks the witch. "Do you use tea leaves, or what?"

"I see," she answers simply.

"I still don't have a question," Remus tells her.

She smiles. "You have so many questions that you can't see one to ask it," she says. "Clear your mind. Try again."

Remus closes his eyes, and starts as a warm hand engulfs his. He doesn't need to open his eyes to know it's Sirius. Immediately, a question springs to his lips.

"Will we be happy?" he asks. "Sirius and I?"

A light touch falls upon his forehead, and a kindly voice says words in a tone that chills him. "You'll know times of happiness and of suffering. You will be happy – oh, so happy! – until the darkness falls. And then the tides of despair will pull you both apart, and separately you will drown."

Sirius' hand tightens around Remus', but the werewolf barely feels it. It is as though someone has punched him in the stomach.

But the old lady isn't done. "You shall have an answer as well," she says, addressing Sirius. "For the question that is simmering in your heart."

"There is no question," Sirius says harshly.

The old lady merely smiles. "I will give you your answer anyway. He will turn his back on the darkness and embrace the light at the most crucial moment, but you will never be reunited in this life, for he must pay a price for his redemption. That price is his life."

Sirius leapt angrily to his feet. "There is no question!" he yells, and pulls Remus up from where he sits "Come on, we're leaving."

"It's not real," says Sirius, when they've walked far enough from the small house to feel safe. "She was making it up."

"Was she, though?" asks Remus quietly. "That's the thing with prophecies. It's hard to see their meaning after the events have actually happened."

"She was just trying to scare us," Sirius says, but his grip tightens even further, making Remus' hand go numb.

They only mention it once more, when they're safely back in Hogwarts, lying together by the lake, basking in the warmth of the fast-fading summer. "What was your question?" asks Remus.

Sirius immediately knows what he's asking about. "I think… I think it was about Regs," he says. Remus nods. It makes sense; after Remus, his brother is the foremost person on Sirius' thoughts.

"If she was telling the truth," says Remus, "then at least it doesn't look like he'll become a Death Eater. Or if he does, he'll turn his back on them."

"She wasn't telling the truth, though," Sirius says. "She can't have been. Because we will be happy forever."

"Sirius…."

But Sirius cuts him off. "I'm serious, Remmy," he says. "I'll stop time, if I have to. I'll stop the whole fucking world. But we will be together, and we will be happy."

For that second, Remus believes him.