The Marauders: Year Four

This. Is. It.

This. Is. It.

Remus was sitting on the floor in the common room, his back leaning against the couch by the fire, his History of Magic textbook open across his knees, a bit of parchment by his side, where he was using his left hand to scribble quick notes about what he was reading. He'd been right about the common room being delightfully empty, and his barefeet were being warmed by the scorching hot fire that sizzled and cracked in the floo before him.

The portrait hole opened and Sirius came in, shrugging off his leather jacket as he walked over toward the stairs. Remus looked up. "You're back early," he commented.

Sirius stopped at the bottom of the steps, realizing Rey was there, and tossed his jacket down over the banister, turning back to the common room. "Yeah, it was boring down there, just a lot of duffers mingling about. Turns out Prongs knows how to dance. Imagine that!"

Remus laughed, "I don't know that I can imagine it."

Sirius stepped over Remus's stretched-out legs and sat down on the couch, his legs nearly touching Remus's shoulder. Remus tilted his head back to look up at Sirius. "Sorry it was boring," he said.

Sirius shook his head, "Nah, no worries. Just a lesson learned, I reckon, in the future, bring a date along... Someone besides Peter Pettigrew."

"I'll get some velvet ropes to mark out the queue to be formed for you," Remus remarked with a murmur.

Sirius chuckled.

The fire flickered orange and gold, a few smoldering bits of ash fell from the log with a crackle and a pop.

Remus was staring down at his textbook, his brow furrowed as he read.

Sirius watched him...

The conversation with Dumbledore was still bouncing about on the inside of his brain, like an itch he wanted to scratch. "Time ought not be wasted that would've been better spent in love." That's what Dumbledore had said. Sirius felt a lump rise up in his throat... his heart rate pick up just a bit...

And he watched Remus Lupin...

Rey sniffed, rubbed his nose with the back of his wrist, and turned the page on his book, the front of his hair falling over his forehead so that the horrible scar that stretched across his nose showed from the angle Sirius was looking from. The fire's glow made the scars stand in high contrast, and Sirius couldn't draw his eye away from that scar on his nose - the way it stood out against Remus's skin, all silvery-pink and jagged... It represented everything terrible about Remus's life in one stroke across his otherwise gentle features. That scar was a constant, painful reminder of the creature that lived deep within the boy, the suffering that Remus Lupin endured every single day of his life...

But it was more than just a scar, Sirius thought. More than a reminder that he was a werewolf...

Remus was more than that. He was more than a boy who turned into a wolf once a month, he was more than everything everyone always made him out to be. He was everything Sirius often wished he could be - the sort of boy who looked first at the soul of every person he met. Nothing was ever black and white to him, everything had shades of grey, and Sirius wished he had the patience to see things like that, wished he ran at a lukewarm temperature instead of intensely hot or frozen solid cold. There was no middle ground for Sirius Black. For Remus Lupin, the middle stretched on and on in either direction.

Remus was the bravest person that Sirius had ever known. The most forgiving. He took the hits that life gave him and he held his chin solid and high, he stayed strong. He kept moving on. Remus still knew how to smile, despite everything that he'd been through, every storm that life had cast his way. An orphan, a werewolf, a boy - soon to be a man - with a heart of gold that could not be tarnished no matter what... Sirius admired him. Sirius adored him. Sirius loved him.