Faeliks

Now that the works for @old-dogs-fest has been revealed, I can share what I have been working on.

Sirius watching Remus gardening

And

after PoA when Sirius keeps sending Harry those letters using tropical birds, it's because he and Remus are taking a vacation somewhere warm for the first time in their lives, enjoying the sun and the beach

Hello, Wolfstar lovers! 🐺 ⭐

The creators behind all 75 works posted for Old Dogs Fest 2026 have now been revealed! You can head over to the AO3 Collection or our Masterlist Spreadsheet to see the authors and artists responsible for your favourite pieces this year.

We’d like to thank everyone who took part, whether by writing, creating art, or by reading, commenting, and supporting our wonderful creators.

In a few days, we’ll be sharing a wrap-up post with some statistics about the fest, as well as opening a sub-collection for any late works inspired by the fest. In the meantime, keep enjoying the ODF works, and if you fancy it, do check out @moonyfest as well -- claiming will be opening soon!

"Wolfstar doesn't make any sense because Sirius thought Remus was the spy"

It's true enough that, for those with only a limited imagination and little understanding of the nuance and complexity that makes up both human emotions and relationships, this could be an absolute zinger of an argument.

But wolfstar exists in the subtext and is shipped by those who pick up on little things like nuance and complexity (and forty line stares) and so, to them, this argument falls flat and just makes it look as if those putting it forward are arguing in bad faith.

You don't have to like wolfstar, you don't have to ship it, you don't have to interpret the text in a romantic way - but you can't seriously claim that Sirius thinking Remus was the spy actually somehow makes any prior romance (or romantic feeling) impossible.

The fact is we know Sirius loves Remus - even if you only interpret that as platonic love - we know that to be true. Remus describes Sirius as his "great friend" , Sirius becomes an illegal animagus just to help Remus out and spend more time with him. Yes, the same is true of both James and Peter, but the point is Remus is a loved and valued member of the group. That is beyond dispute. And yet Sirius still suspected him of being the spy.

Ergo loving Remus and thinking he would betray them are canonically not mutually exclusive feelings for one person to hold. All that is left, then, is how we choose to interpret the nature of that love.

Naturally you can choose to reject a romantic interpretation, that is your prerogative, but you cannot categorically state that a romantic interpretation makes no sense.

Because the truth is we know very little about the first wizarding war, and the only thing we know about Sirius suspecting Remus is the bare fact that he did. There remain many things about this period of time that we do not know and for which we are given no indication of in canon.

Canon leaves us with the following gaps in our knowledge:

Why Sirius thought Remus was the spy

How he came to this conclusion and if he had any evidence to back it up.

How long he believed Remus was the spy before James died.

How he felt about it and

What (if anything) he intended to do about it and who (if anybody) he intended to tell.

That's a lot of known unknowns, and if you cannot conceive of a way these questions can be answered so that wolfstar is still viable then that is - genuinely - a problem with your imagination and not a problem with the ship. You don't have to like these answers, you can reject them out of hand and choose your own preferred answers - that is fine - but to say such answers are not possible is patently false.

And, while we don't have a definitive answer to these questions one way or the other, we do have something of Sirius's view of the war through his own words and, through his own words, he makes the complexity of relationships (of any type) during a war clear.

"Imagine that Voldemort is powerful now. You don't know who his supporters are, you don't know who's working for him and who isn't; you know he can control people so that they can do terrible things without being able to stop themselves. You're scared for yourself, and your family and your friends."

Mistrust and fear are the driving factors of the war (they are weapons that Voldemort wields on purpose). The Wizarding World is existing under terrible pressure and people and relationships are fracturing beneath it. Living life always looking over your shoulder, never feeling safe - even in your own home, being afraid to return home in case you find the Dark Mark waiting for you, hearing news every week of more death and disappearance and torture and never knowing if that wizard you were just talking to, who seemed so nice, was involved ... It would be enough to break anyone.

Remus himself later states that James

"would have regarded it as the height of dishonour to mistrust his friends"

And he is not saying that to extol James' virtues; he is calling James a trusting fool.

It was normal to regard everyone - even people you loved - with suspicion. It was sensible to do so. Suspicion was what would keep you alive, keep you safe.

And Sirius, who is bold and brave and loyal to a fault but who has a dark side to him, is not James - and is capable of the "dishonour" of suspecting friends. If he wants to keep himself and the Potters safe he has to do it.

Blind trust - in anyone - is a luxury none can afford, as James finds out to his cost.

For Sirius to be suspicious of Remus is natural and normal and sensible in the situation they are in.

Though, if any wolfstar shipper was so inclined, I believe they could make rather a lot of this line:

"you know he can control people so that they can do terrible things without being able to stop themselves"

when it comes to creating headcanons for how Sirius could bring himself to suspect Remus.

But enough of potential headcanon and back to actual canon. Because while it was natural, under the circumstances, for Sirius to be wary of any of his friends, the fact is he chose to believe it was Remus who was the spy and that needs addressing.

"He was sure that somebody close to the Potters had been keeping You Know Who informed of their movements... Indeed, he had suspected for some time that someone on our side had turned traitor and was passing a lot of information to You Know Who."

Sirius doesn't just wake up one day and start distrusting Remus for the heck of it. They are informed there is a spy in their midst, keeping track of the Potters and informing Voldemort of their movements. And - as Dumbledore thinks the spy is someone close to the Potters - reasonably (especially in a time of civil war where everyone is wary and given Sirius's words in GOF) this narrows down the list of suspects to their core group.

So Sirius's list of suspects are:

himself,

James and Lily,

Peter,

And Remus,

Now, he knows it is not himself. Of everyone on the list he is the one person he can actually, genuinely be 100% certain is not the spy.

James and/or Lily are the ones in danger, along with Harry. If one or both of them is the spy there's not much Sirius can do to protect them from themselves and - while it's reasonable to consider if a friend would endanger and betray you - James and Lily would be endangering and betraying their own helpless child, and that's a very different proposition. I think it was fair that Sirius discounted the Potters as suspects with little to no consideration of the matter.

So - why not suspect Peter? Again, we have his view on this in his own words:

"I thought it was the perfect plan... a bluff... Voldemort would be sure to come after me, would never dream they'd use a weak, talentless thing like you."

I know there are people who like to pretend that Sirius chose Peter to be the secret keeper because he was so close to him, trusted him second after James etc etc but that is simply not true according to the book. And the books never go back and address this again, no more information on this is ever given. This is the only canonical explanation we ever receive and therefore it is the truth; canon whether you like it or not.

Sirius thinks Peter is weak and talentless, he thinks he is the last person Voldemort would suspect of being made secret keeper. He chooses Peter for his negative attributes, not his positive ones, and it is those very negative attributes that cause him to think Peter cannot be the spy. How could anyone so weak and cowardly double cross his friends and lie to them, or stand in front of Lord Voldemort? What use could Lord Voldemort have for a servant so talentless?

Later Sirius wonders:

"I'll never understand why I didn't see you were the spy from the start"

But the truth is, Sirius doesn't see Peter full stop. He constantly and consistently underestimates him, is bested by him again and again, and yet still only sees the "weak, talentless thing" he has decided Peter is.

Peter's always being overlooked, ignored and underestimated is both the source of all his grievances and the reason for all his successes. It is his superpower. And, no matter how many times he falls foul of it, Sirius does not learn.

He has a low opinion of Peter. Peter is useless. Peter is a coward. Therefore Peter cannot be the spy.

And that leaves only Remus left on his list. And he is not able to discount Remus out of hand because 1) unlike with himself, he is not inside Remus's head so cannot know for certain he is not the spy 2) Remus is not Harry's parent and he is not the one in danger or being spied upon, so he doesn't have the cast iron alibi James and Lily enjoy but it is 3) the ways he is unlike Peter that are the most interesting for what it tells us about how Sirius views Remus.

Remember, Peter is chosen and trusted for his negative traits. It is his very uselessness that allows Sirius to disregard him as a suspect and therefore we can extrapolate that Sirius does not view Remus as having these same negative traits if he is not willing to trust him in the same way. For everything Peter cannot do, which makes him safe, Remus can do and that makes him dangerous. If Peter is too weak and talentless to be of use to Voldemort, then Remus is strong and talented. Peter is useless, Remus is useful. If Peter is a coward, then Remus is brave.

Sirius can see the power and talent that Remus has, he can believe he would be brave enough to go to Voldemort, clever enough to lie to his friends and useful enough that Voldemort will accept him in his ranks.

If Sirius rejects the idea of Peter being the spy because he believes he is too worthless to be one, then he accepts the idea of Remus being the spy because he respects Remus's abilities. This is a mistake which costs James and Lily their lives but it is a mistake rooted in disdain for Peter and recognition of Remus and what he is worth to the war effort.

Sirius shows his respect for Remus, his thoughts and his abilities many times throughout the books, but it is easily overlooked that his distrust in Remus is also rooted in his respect for him. It might be twisted and complex, but that is the nature of the war and the effect it is having on their friendship and their thinking.

If Sirius is insulting Peter by thinking he is incapable of being the spy then he is complimenting Remus with his very distrust.

Weird but true. They were crazy times.

So that's what we know from the canon, and there is nothing there that has to be detrimental to a wolfstar interpretation of their relationship and plenty of ways to use the canon to explain how wolfstar is still possible among the mistrust and betrayals, but I want to finish off by circling back to my list of known unknowns. Specifically number 5) We don't know what he intended to do about Remus being the spy or who he intended to tell.

Now, obviously, the point of that list is there are no definitive answers but as far as we can tell from the information we are given in the books, Sirius doesn't seem to tell anyone that he suspects Remus is the spy.

In the Shrieking Shack Peter asks Remus

"Wouldn't Sirius have told you they'd changed the plan?"

It's Remus who comes up with the answer as to why he wouldn't have done that, Peter doesn't seem to think of it. If Peter knew Sirius suspected Remus then he's playing with fire bringing up that line of reasoning, because Sirius suspecting someone else is further proof he is innocent, not that he is guilty.

A far safer way to frame Sirius's guilt would be to say "He's now telling you it was me, but back then he was telling me it was you, he's blamed us both for his crimes" thus making it seem not that Sirius is lying now but that he has been lying all along and will happily change his story to cover his tracks. If Peter is trying to drive a wedge between Sirius and Remus, telling Remus that Sirius once tried to frame him as the spy, like he is now framing Peter, would be just as effective (if not more so) than asking why Remus was not privy to the change of plan.

Peter doesn't do this, he tunnels straight into Remus being able to clarify Sirius's innocence for himself by understanding that Sirius once thought him guilty. And Peter is cunning; he wouldn't make a blunder like that.

It seems likely that Sirius never told Peter he suspected Remus.

Did he tell James? We don't know, though it seems unlikely James would have been willing to consider it even if he had (it would have been "the height of dishonour"). Maybe Sirius told James, but got nowhere with it. Maybe he didn't bother because he knew it would lead to an argument.

Certainly he doesn't seem to have told Dumbledore. After all, not only does Dumbledore accept that Sirius was the spy without a qualm (when he might have at least been troubled if Sirius had come to him with one name only to turn out to be the spy himself) but Sirius doesn't consider going to Dumbledore after James has died. If he was in the habit of speaking to him about who the spy was, if he had already done it, it would have been a simple matter to go to Dumbledore and explain he had trusted the wrong friend. His resignation that everyone will "know" he was guilty probably stems from the fact that he never told anyone he suspected someone else.

And why is it important if he never told anyone he thought Remus was the spy?

Because James' life was in danger.

The spy is endangering James' safety and, as every James stan will tell you, Sirius's priority is James - keeping him safe, protecting him. Nothing matters more to him...

So why did Sirius not protect him by speaking to Dumbledore about his concerns about Remus?

In not telling anyone who the spy is, he becomes complicit in their crimes. Why, when James' life is on the line, would Sirius not speak out? Why would he cover for Remus like that?

(This behaviour is then mirrored by Remus himself in canon, I will look that at when I write the accompanying "wolfstar makes no sense because Remus believed Sirius was the spy" piece).

Sirius not telling anyone, and his reasons for doing that are conjecture, not canon, but they are conjectures based on the wide open spaces that canon leaves us with - the unasked and unanswered questions. It is conjecture to say the reason that Sirius does not report Remus is love, but it is reasonable conjecture based on what we know.

I'm not pointing this out as canon based evidence for wolfstar - because it is not, I'm pointing it out because what canon does is leave massive gaps which we need to fill for ourselves with our own headcanons and which can easily be filled with headcanons wherein wolfstar still makes perfect sense.

My argument here is not that wolfstar is canon because Sirius never told anyone Remus was the spy, or because he trusted Peter because he was weak, or because the war was so complicated mistrust was inevitable. My argument is not (and never is) that wolfstar is literally canon. My argument is against the claim that the ship makes "no sense", in this case because Sirius thought Remus was the spy.

It is up to every individual reader to answer all the questions canon raises however they choose, and you can hate wolfstar as much as you like, but it is a nonsense to say that - with the canon knowledge we have along with the gaps in knowledge that we have - wolfstar cannot coexist with Sirius believing Remus was the spy.

I’ve noticed that every time I post about All the Young Dudes on tiktok I invariably get a number of comments complaining that ATYD is problematic and therefore a ‘bad’ fic.

Now I don’t pretend to be an arbiter of taste. People are more than welcome to dislike atyd because the story just didn’t gel with them, or they didn’t like the writing style, or any other number of reasons. That’s all valid and I have no issue with it.

However, what I push back on is labeling it as a ‘bad’ or ‘problematic’ fic. 

Landscape in Moonlight - Owe Zerge

Swedish , b. 1894-1983