Remus kept Sirius hidden away as much as he could, even after Sirius had gained enough strength back to shuffle around the house. Piece by piece, Remus had figured out the extent of Sirius's ordeal in the forest, and it turned out that Sirius had survived out there for two weeks with very little food and shelter.
"Why didn't you turn back?" Remus had asked, but even as he said it, he knew what the answer would be. Of course Sirius couldn't turn back, that wasn't his style. He wanted to find Remus, and apparently he had been willing to die rather than give up. Was that supposed to make Remus feel good about himself? If anything, it just made him even more scared for his friend.
That was the other thing... could he consider them to be friends yet? He couldn't be sure, because at the moment, it felt as if they were starting over from scratch. They didn't talk much, and the silences were more awkward than anything, but Remus had become the sole caretaker of Sirius ever since he had arrived, and there was no denying a sense of intimacy that came with that. Remus was the one to feed him, help him walk, even help him to get dressed sometimes. The experience of surviving out in the forest had taken an extreme mental and physical toll on Sirius, and their friendship was being rebuilt along with Sirius's own strength.
Remus sat down in front of him on their bed one day, cross-legged and silent for a moment.
"Hello," he greeted suddenly, prompting Sirius to frown at him in confusion.
"Hi?"
"I'm Remus." Sirius's confusion deepened even further.
"I know you're Remus."
"No, you don't. We've just met."
"What—?"
"What's your name?" Sirius stuttered for a moment before tentatively going along with whatever Remus was doing, just in case Remus had, in fact, lost his mind.
"I'm... Sirius." Remus nodded, as if the answer was satisfactory.
"Hi, Sirius." Remus held his hand out to shake, and Sirius took it. "What kind of things are you into? I like music and books and Doctor Who, and right now it seems I've undertaken a job as a shepherd."
"I, uh... I like music, too... but, what are you—"
"My grandparents are shepherds, they live up in the northern valley, on a farm. I'm Welsh, if you couldn't tell... well, half English, but I haven't really been to England since I was a kid. I prefer Wales." Sirius didn't know what Remus was trying to do, but he seemed to quickly accept what his role in the conversation was, because he stopped trying to ask what the hell was going on. Instead, he played off Remus's own responses, if only to grasp the point of this whole conversation.
"My family lives in England," he replied. "They have done my whole life, but my parents are French. I speak it." Remus raised his eyebrows... he hadn't known that. How had he never known that before?
"Really? Can you say something in French?" Sirius snorted lightly.
"Like what?"
"Anything."
"Alright... que fais-tu?" Remus rolled his eyes at him.
"That's too short."
"Oh, c'est trop court! Alors, tu dis quelque chose en gallois." He sucked the air through his teeth to emphasise his point and Remus laughed at the angry sounding French that he had never heard before from Sirius in the five years he'd known him.
"Do you speak French often?" Remus asked, in replacement of the question 'why have you never spoken French before?'
"Not really," replied Sirius, fidgeting lightly with the hem of the duvet. "Once you've heard it screamed at you your whole life you kinda lose a taste for it."
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Boys Will Be Bugs
Fanfiction[REUPLOAD] Remus Lupin has more than one secret, and there's no way of knowing who he can trust. All he has are his parents, but they can't protect him when he goes off to Hogwarts. But then Remus meets a boy and his two other friends, and soon real...
