1981 » The Marauders Era

six ; room seven

The pain was unbearable for Sirius. Like a dark cloud which followed him everywhere, or a friend visiting from out of town. When Regulus had passed away, Mr and Mrs Potter, Mary and now Marlene, the friend kept coming back with no warning. It seemed, for the Order, it was a dangerous game of Russian Roulette and deep down Sirius wondered who would be the next to go.

In no way did this mean he had learnt to cope with grief yet. He tried many things to make the pain go away. He started drinking (more than usual), and eventually the bartenders at the Leaky Cauldron stopped serving him, after Remus had begged them.

He isolated himself, which he'd never done before. Spending most of his days locked inside his room. The only company he really had was James and Remus. They visited as much as they could, but with James needing to be with Lily and Harry, Remus was the one who spent the most time with Sirius.

Being one of the unfortunate ones who was also present at the time of the attack, Remus was understandably still struggling with the shock of everything. Even though he wasn't as close to Marlene as Sirius and Lily, he hated seeing his friends in pain- that was his weakness.

↠—↞

Three knocks at the door woke Sirius one Thursday evening. Looking at the clock beside his creaky, wooden bed, he realised he been sleeping for the past fourteen hours. He sighed and closed his eyes again. Knock, knock, knock.

He groaned in reply but that didn't satisfy whoever was at his door. The knocks got louder as Sirius attempted to pull himself out of bed. Soon, Sirius realised who was at the door. Definitely not James, as he would be calling out something like 'Merlin Padfoot, hurry up before I break down this door'. And Sirius could definitely recognise that this wasn't the same as Lily's gentle and weary knock. Peter had already visited once that week, meaning he wouldn't be back for a while. So the only person it could be was Remus.

Sirius unlocked the door and sure enough, there stood Remus. Sirius smiled faintly to himself, he was correct.
"Nice to see you smiling," Remus said, "Is it because of the state of me?" he looked down at himself and saw his dirty, wrinkled clothes. He also had a bald head, from a treatment he recently had at St Mungo's Hospital related to his transformations.
"What happened?" Sirius replied, in a monotone voice.
"Don't worry." Remus insisted.

Remus looked around Sirius' temporary home, in room 7 of the Leaky Cauldron, as Sirius got dressed. He saw photographs of the Order scattered on the wooden floorboards. Ones of a grinning Lily and James which Sirius had taken from when they were at Hogwarts and of the Marauders out on the streets of London doing something stupid in the middle of the night. On top of them all was a picture of Marlene. Her dark eyes were shining but her smile was much brighter.

Noticing Sirius was watching him, Remus said, "I know how much she meant to you," turning to him. "And I'm sorry about that." Sirius, sat on his bed, nodded to him as a thank you.

Remus walked to the door to leave, feeling that he had nothing else to say, or that Sirius would want to hear at least. "Stay," Sirius said to him, "Here, with me..." he looked at the back of his head, desperate. Remus turned around, nodded and stayed.

He went to sit down next to Sirius when he realised a parchment lying on the desk. The Marauders Map. Remus chuckled, "Didn't think we still had that." he said, pointing at it.
"The best thing we did was creating that map, I recon it'll make us legends," Sirius smiled as he replied, certain of it.

If there was one thing that Remus was able to do to ease Sirius' pain, it was to make him laugh. "I can't help but smile when you do, especially since I'm seeing less of it these days." he said. Sirius looked at the floor, then back at Remus.
"Well, they say I'm charming."
Remus laughed at his reply, saying "Yeah, I know."

The tension was undeniable, both of them felt it. They had for years, but neither understood it enough to find out what it was or try to pursue it.
"We shouldn't be afraid of what we feel." Sirius found himself saying, after silence.
"What do you mean?" Remus replied, knowing all too well what Sirius meant, but he wanted to hear it out loud.
"You wanna go get a drink with me?" Sirius offered. Remus stared back, into Sirius' dark eyes.

Maybe it was because they had waited so long. Or maybe it was because of the timing of Marlene's unfortunate death. Whatever it was, it revealed something they had been hiding for years and so just this night, Remus accepted and they went downstairs into the Leaky Cauldron and drank together.