He hated being back in that place.

Everything there reminded him of what it was before – reminded him of her, and just how much her shadow was still hanging over his life. Once upon a time, he had thought the end of his time at Hogwarts also meant the end of the time that he was forced to know her, even in purely social situations.

He should have known better. He had never been that lucky.

It all started innocently. Tonks couldn't have known what she was doing when she changed her appearance to look like an eerily accurate copy of her – Andy would have made sure that there were no memories of the Blacks in her home, and Tonks had probably just chosen to look like that because she thought that it would make the multitude of teens around the dinner table laugh.

And he wasn't so stupid as to pretend that for someone without his memories, she did look rather funny. But for him – for him, those looks were not only a memory of the worst possible aesthetic mixture the Black genes had produced, but also of the worst years of his life.

Other people would say that their relationships with their parents were full of friction. For him? A fractious relationship with her would have been like heaven compared to what he actually had.

Honestly, he didn't even know why it was affecting his that much. It wasn't like he was seeing his mother after years – her portrait never let a day go by without reminding him of her presence. She refused to fade away from his life, no matter how much he wished that she just would do exactly that.

And he had thought he had gotten over that fact a long time ago. Her daily screeches didn't even serve to inspire hatred as much as they did tiredness – and then, Tonks had decided to look like that out of the blue.

It was like every bad memory of his childhood had come rushing back to him, every reason he had ever had to resent his mother. Once upon a time, he would have been angry at remembering all of that. Now, all he could feel was exhaustion, and – if he was being honest with himself – sadness. He would have given anything to have another childhood. For all that Remus had suffered as a child, even he had had parents who loved him. And that was one wish that hadn't faded despite the decades that had passed since he had finally left his family for good.

So there he was, standing in the middle of his childhood room – the only room in the house that he didn't hate – and wallowing in his feelings.

"Sirius?"

The sound of Remus' voice seemed to come out of nowhere, and he jerked his head up in surprise so fast that he was almost certain that he had sprained something.

"Hey Moony," he said in reply, smiling weakly.

Of course, Remus was never one to be fooled by any façade he tried to present. He'd known him too long and too well to fall for his well-crafted masks, and besides that, he was the only other person on the table who would have realised just who Tonks had looked like and the effect it would have had on Sirius.

"Don't," he said simply, giving him a sad smile and taking a seat next to him. "Don't try that on me, Padfoot."

There were a million things he could have said in reply, but the point of it all was that he didn't have to. Even if all he had wanted was to sit there for the next few hours, Remus would have understood – and he would have been there right besides him.

"I shouldn't," he started to say, before finding that he had no words left. He had no clue how to convey exactly what he was feeling at that moment – how did anyone convey the memories of more than a decade and a half of hatred from the person who was supposed to love them unconditionally?

"I shouldn't care," he finally managed to force out. "I was sure I turned my back on her the day I left this godforsaken place at the end of sixth year. Even seeing her on the walls when I returned didn't shake me – I just don't-" he struggled to say, before finally giving up once again.

Remus didn't say anything – there really wasn't anything he could have said anyway – but instead, he tugged Sirius towards him until he was cradled in the other man's arms. He would never say it, but he couldn't help be reminded of all the times at Hogwarts when their positions had been reversed, and it had been Sirius comforting Remus before or after a full moon.

"I'll always be there for you, Siri," Remus muttered into his hair as he curled into him deeper, trying his best to forget everything that had happened within the past few hours. "I love you, and I always will."

He wasn't anywhere near recovering from the utter shock that seeing Tonks transform had been to him, but Remus' words helped. Remus helped – but then, he always had.

"I love you too," he murmured in reply, allowing the comfort of Remus' arms to draw him into sleep. There was so much more that he needed to address – that he needed to face in himself – but that was a fight for another day. Today, he was willing to take whatever rest he could get.

AN: I hope you guys liked this! As always, please don't forget to review on your way out :)

This fic was written using the prompts: Shall I Compare Thee To A Summer's Day, by William Shakespeare, in particular using the lines "Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, / And often is his golf complexion dimmed'; friction; and Bring Me Down, by Miranda Lambert, in particular the lines "You cant appreciate the time it takes / To kick a love I always knew was kind of wrong / And as I'm putting out the flame / Somebody brings up you name"