firestarter.

But as good as he was at lying to himself–or ignoring the truth, at least–Sirius would never be able to deny his guilt if he’d failed to do something to try to keep Remus safe. So, Sirius only shook his head and with it, brushed away Remus’ concerns.

“Riddle may be nothing, but Macnair isn’t. Only Macnair and some bumbling administrator are senior, and the administrator takes ‘senior’ to extremes. Even if by chance Macnair doesn’t get it, it’ll have gotten him thinking. He’ll have plans that are solid enough to push through.” 

Sirius stepped closer and forced himself to look Remus in the eye.

“I think you should lay low.” It was an understatement. 

What Sirius really wanted was to pack Remus’ bags and drag him to tutoring some muggle kids in a far off countryside where no one would ever have the knowledge base to notice or care that Remus was absent every full moon. For Merlin’s sake, Remus could tell the muggles he was tired from some weird new-age muggle-witchery full moon prayer circle, and the muggles would be more likely to believe that than “Hello. I am a werewolf who may eat your children. But I do lock myself up quite well, and it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“Then I’ll talk to some people and suggest the admin gets replaced. Who knows, maybe it’ll even disrupt MacNair further. I lay low all the the time, and I don’t need your help with this!”

The outburst surprised him, and Remus immediately stepped back, dragging one hand across his face. He was fine with accepting help, sometimes it was nothing but a fact of life, but this kind of giving … But it wasn’t as though Sirius needed the money, or the fact that he could head off -

Remus forced the negative trail of thought of his head, stopping for a moment to breathe in the sweet old smell of the dusty store-room. “I’m sorry.” He took another breath, then looked up at Sirius, before looking at the door to the right of his head. 

Remus backed away and composed himself again as Sirius watched, unmoved and biting back the urge to tell Remus off further. Bar tending in one of the more well-known bars and constantly talking to both well-known and lesser-known people wasn’t exactly lying low. 

“Yes and only two years without me,” Sirius bit out in response to Remus’ defense. Perhaps it hadn’t been Sirius’ place to make it their problem all those years ago, but he had, and he’d be damned if he stopped helping Remus now. 

Got anything good today?

Of course, he was looking for a fix. An unexpected spike of disappointment rose for a moment before her agitation attacked and consumed it. It wasn’t as though she had any room to judge. Given the activities of the past few week her sweat probably had enough intoxicating content to knock someone on their arse if she could distill it. She still scowled as she stalked past him to her door her temper in no way improved by the mention of his past abdication.

“Built you a replacement throne did they?”she muttered sharply as she fumbled with her keys. The lock turned over and she went still weighing the impulses snarling in her mind. Part of her was tempted to slam the door in his face. Where had he been when her world was falling to shit? Where were his ever exalted companions now? A litany of sharp edged queries and harsh dismissals coiled and readied themselves to slither up her throat. And then he was talking again. Quickly like he couldn’t stand the silence and she thought of the stark quiet of her flat that had remained unbroken by anything but shattered glass and her own mad noises for more than a week. She could understand seeking something to break the silence and the same part of her that had been washed with concern was quickly warming to the idea of company. She stepped into her flat leaving her door wide enough for him to follow her.

Her work had been uneventful--at least according to her. Perfect. Sirius was craving the uneventful. Craving the carefulness and passivity of those he’d left behind rather than the seeking searching, always noticing care of those he’d pulled into himself. 

Ironically, he had left them all because they would not let him be as himself, yet now he was here because they would. Because who else but they would let him spiral and fall to his heart’s content?

The moment Alecto asked, Sirius pulled out a pack of Marlboro reds, passed her a cigarette and a lighter, then shrugged in acquiescence to her offer. “Sure.” 

Forced cheer made his anxiety present manically as he stepped around the room, taking everything in as though his pupils were the only black hole he was aware of. He touched and commented on everything he dared to, as though hers was a life he’d never left. 

His hands swiped past empty crystal bottles and decanting materials: “You still have that set Reg--”(this word came out as a choke, more like ‘Rgh”)--”and I gave you.”

Matches, scattered perfumes--”’Midnight Madness’” Sirius read before arching his brows at her in joking suggestion--a few photos which did not include Carrow Sr. and one of which was face down. A broken mirror. Sirius swiped his fingers past this and even as his foot crunched against fallen glass, his finger pricked open. He stuck the cut in his mouth for a moment before wandering back toward Alecto. 

She was smoking the cigarette which prompted Sirius to pull out and light his own. He wanted to flip up the picture and wanted to put the mirror back together like a puzzle, but he had a feeling she wouldn’t appreciate it if he moved anything out of its current place.

Riddle also sounded like a threat, a sleasy character people would love. But the Wizarding World was too abundant right now. There wasn’t enough desire for change. But if the rumours of the Muggle World was true, some of the unease with their politics was sure to spread over.

How could people be so cruel, so callous?! Their bloodlust and desire for supremacy was over whelming, with so little thought for others, for him. The casual dehumanisation and flaunting of money, and yet they called werewolves animal.

Then Sirius announced the casual way of dropping his own dreams and desires for him werewolves, and Remus forced his brain to start thinking. “No, no you don’t have to do that, I can’t let you give up travelling. It’s the only thing that keeps you sane!”

But as good as he was at lying to himself--or ignoring the truth, at least--Sirius would never be able to deny his guilt if he’d failed to do something to try to keep Remus safe. So, Sirius only shook his head and with it, brushed away Remus’ concerns.

“Riddle may be nothing, but Macnair isn’t. Only Macnair and some bumbling administrator are senior, and the administrator takes ‘senior’ to extremes. Even if by chance Macnair doesn’t get it, it’ll have gotten him thinking. He’ll have plans that are solid enough to push through.” 

Sirius stepped closer and forced himself to look Remus in the eye.

“I think you should lay low.” It was an understatement. 

What Sirius really wanted was to pack Remus’ bags and drag him to tutoring some muggle kids in a far off countryside where no one would ever have the knowledge base to notice or care that Remus was absent every full moon. For Merlin’s sake, Remus could tell the muggles he was tired from some weird new-age muggle-witchery full moon prayer circle, and the muggles would be more likely to believe that than “Hello. I am a werewolf who may eat your children. But I do lock myself up quite well, and it shouldn’t be a problem.”

Tom Riddle’s name had begun circling in some circles, with people listening and agreeing with him. But apparently he passed the bar’s front door everyday to get to Bourgin and Burkes? Remus would evidently have to start paying more attention.

Remus waited it out as Sirius paced, watching how expressive he was with every part of his body. The tension was building within him, then carefully (rarely) released. 

It was Remus’ turn to flinch, his mind immediately knocked askew, spinning into a thousand different futures and pasts and fears. MacNair was there the night he had been attacked, checking that no-one had been bitten. Remus had stood in the doorway with his pyjama trousers hiding an open wound on his hip as his father lied. 

“Promotion to what?” His voice came out as a croak, and Remus tried desperately to hide his sudden rise in fear. “Promotion to what?” He would only want to crack down on werewolf registration and restriction, and people were allowing that?

“And Riddle...” Sirius pulled his fingers through his hair, then stopped pacing with a sigh. “He’s saying that politics are too slow. That something more has to be done. People are lapping it up. He wants ‘real action.’ The last time he was around the house, I heard him mentioning werewolves.” 

He could only gesture helplessly to indicate what he was feeling and what he believed. Someone like Riddle would only want one thing with werewolves. A hunt. Werewolves were worse than halfblood or even mudbloods in pureblood, high society. They were mongrels. Flea-bitten monsters that wanted only to kill. That werewolves--other than psychos like Fenrir Greyback--were only as harmful as any other human outside of the full moon didn’t seem to dampen their hatred. 

Carefully, Sirius watched Remus’ face as Remus thought. The only word for what he saw was horror, and Sirius wished he could wipe it away. It wasn’t fair. It was disgusting. Most of these people were far worse people than Remus could ever be, and yet they saw him as less than human. 

Sirius bit down on his lip before tentatively speaking again. 

“I haven’t applied for anything--”announced was more like it as few would reject a Black--”I could say the hell with it to International and go into Magical Creatures. I could try to...” Sirius trailed off. Try to what? Make it slightly less awful? Stop the worst of it but watch Remus worn down by the ‘smaller’ things. Sirius grasped at the only straw he had before he continued. 

“I could make sure even if someone finds you, no one knows.”

But something had been brewing in the air since school had broken up, and Remus was itching to do something than anonymously post articles wherever he could. Something needed to be done.

The lunch rush had dissapeared, with a few remaining couples eating or talking. He had been wiping down the same part of the bar for the past half an hour, trying to formulate the next article on the presence of political disrupt provided by - that was entirely too formal. 

Careful of who you vote i- that was too emotional. Honestly, the title is always the hardest part. Remus was just wondering why the title was hard when the ringing of the door caught his attention. 

Remus looked over and then brightened as he saw Sirius walk through, though it instantly faded with the dark expression on his face. Rems leant a hip on the edge of the bar and smirked at him. “And you being your lazy self.” It had actually been a while since they had seen each other, and seeing him again was very nice.

The storage room was empty and needed to be dusted. Shelves were lined with bottles, kegs, mixers, swizzle sticks, and anything else a person could think of a bar needing as well as  cleaning supplies and necessities for the kitchen and the dining areas. Sirius waited for Remus to close the door and pondered what he would say, how he could put it as kindly as possible. 

Doing so wasn’t his strong suit. 

Before they were even settled into the room, Sirius blurted it out. “Tom Riddle. He’s not a politician, he’s not in the ministry, he’s not rich. He’s a collector for Bourgin and Burkes. But they’re listening to him. He’s at almost every unofficial meeting, wherever anyone important is found.

He’s riling up all the wrong people. People like my mother. People like the Rowles. The Lestranges. The Notts.”

Sirius found himself pacing, tracing his hands past dusty wooden casks, feeling grounded by the oak and the dust that clogged the air.  But his hands were sudden fists, no safehold to grasp but empty space, as he turned and met Remus’ eyes carefully. 

Instead, he went through each of his plants at a time, making sure that their feeding and watering schedules were in order, moving them slightly for the optimal amount of light. Now that it was reaching the end of summer, their colours were fading, but the alpines would stay green throughout the year.

Passenger filtered through the afternoon light, and Remus felt himself relax slightly over time. At the first knock, the sound barely registered through the haze of deliberate concentration, before he suddenly jerked and glanced at the door.

Remus placed the watering can on the window-sill and made his way to the door, taking off his loves and placed them on the kitchen counter. With a strange nervousness, he opened the door, then froze in place.

Merlin’s holy fucking shit. Sirius looked like he had just been dragged through then out of hell, deep lines of exhaustion and hollowed cheeks. His eyes were so blood-shot, unkempt and looking like he hadn’t washed since he went missing. 

Remus was frozen in place for several seconds, until his brain kicked into gear and he moved forwards to wrap an arm around Sirius’ back and slowly help him into the flat. He kicked the door shut behind him, not leaving Sirius’ side for a second.

It was a harsh contrast between Sirius’ state and Remus’ apartment. This was a place he associated with calm, contentment, and sometimes Remus’ pain but never his own. He certainly didn’t associate it with the feeling of dark magic and drugs like black sludge in his veins, the spots still in his vision, nor the small bandages marking each prick of skin by knife needed for blood magic. 

In seconds, he was on the couch, falling into the cushions that smelled like Remus instead of cauldron smoke and dragon’s blood. He lay down and took a deep breath of it, closing his eyes until he felt a hand on his shoulder. 

What did he need?

His mind went blank. For just over a week it had been the same answer: more. But now, he needed nothing that he had been given. He’d lost track of what a body needed to live when it wasn’t living simply out of spite. 

Bruises along her back, cuts on her hands where she’d dug Molly out of the rubble. Places that Lucius tried to touch, to heal, and she’d rejected him with harsh words and cringing skin. The week between the incident and the last mark fading from her body had been one of silence and a snappish attitude. She did not want to remember it. She did not want to confront it. She did not want to question why it had happened or wonder if the woman they blamed had been killed unjustly.

What was just anymore, really? Nothing in her life.

Her friend’s name sounded foreign in Sirius’ voice; Narcissa started and stared at him, suspicion clouding her browline. “Why?” An accusatory tone was the most pleasant she could manage. That she was close to Alecto was well known; that she was fiercely protective of the girl was a close-kept secret. Any threat to Alecto raised Narcissa’s hackles faster than most anything. To the best of her knowledge, Sirius had not retained contact with her closest friend after leaving the family–whatever casual friendship existed then should not have persisted.

Narcissa’s look hardened, and Sirius’ did as well, but he tried a different tactic.

“She hasn’t been texting me back. What if Septima isn’t the only one they’re after?”

Oh how he could lie when he needed to--when pureblood fanaticism could be tasted like metal in the air because the words were weapons that ran like swords. He felt the figurine he’d picked up digging into his hand--cold glass warming beneath the beating of his blood in his palms--and he set it aside quickly, afraid he might break it or throw it. 

He needed to escape. Alecto had escape. Every escape known to man. As he thought about it, the decision became more concrete and more of a need. His veins burned with it, and his vision narrowed. 

Half-drunk, Remus floated it to the table, unwilling to move from the warm space in Sirius’ arms. Then Sirius was the one to move away, but not far, just enough to pull off his hoody and drape it on him like an oversized blanket. A smile tugged the edge of his lips at the gesture, but it slowly slipped away as he rested in the silence. 

Exhaustion slowly wrapped around him, as warm as the hoody, and Remus felt himself drift off in the calm between them. Whatever happened, fights and arguments and close brushes with death or jail, Remus would never be able to hold it against Sirius. His folly, but Remus knew it was the truth. Might as well accept it now. 

Then Remus was doing the completely the unexpected, an apologized to him. Remus blinked, feeling the urge to sit up and look at Sirius incredulously. Then Sirius tried to look at him, and Remus couldn’t find anything within himself to refuse him. With a smile that blurred at the edges, Remus nodded, then fought the incomprehensible urge to kiss him.