#tbwkg

Hoping all is well and keep up the terrific work!!

Thank you so much for reaching out. I’m not on tumblr much but I appreciate the message.

I don’t have an update schedule. I work full time and am earning my masters, so I pretty much write when I’m free. It’s kinda whenever honestly. Sorry about that.

The next chapter is in progress and will be up shortly.

✨unique features

💌 criticism

❤️ love

1. The Shoebox Project by @jaidajones and Dorkorific @sashayed (?) 571 pages, unfinished?

✨ intelligent and creative. collection of drawings, letters and handwritten notes

❤️ spectacular emotional payoff. belly laughs, SOBBING, screenshotting prose.

💌 I felt like there was a disconnect between themes (romantic) and tone (witty, yet acerbic)

2. All The Young Dudes by MsKingBean89, 500k + words. YouTube audiobooks by Fleur’s Uploads

✨ Remus grows up in muggle children’s home, angst and slow burn

❤️ simple, patient and seductive storytelling. Delightful and memorable character beats, like Remus secretly pedalling cigarettes at school

💌 Was immersed in the world and attached to the characters. Felt frustrated with the pacing. I wanted Remus’ walls to come down SO BAD, and hoped his romantic relationship with Sirius would enable this. While their relationship has vulnerable moments, the romantic climax hits without resolving Remus’ emotional needs.

I stopped reading because I didn’t experience the catharsis I wanted, and wasn’t sure if the story would ever deliver on this expectation.

3. All The Young Dudes- Sirius’ Perspective by Rollercoasterwords

✨ retelling of ATYD, same storyline with some extra scenes

❤️ A glimpse into Sirius’ psychology that filled in narrative blanks, silences and the hole in my heart.

4. The Boy Who Killed God by SeraMGrigori @sirius-black-killed-god , in progress

✨ Sirius’ wand is dying. His family branded him with a cursed tattoo. It wouldn’t be a problem if he wasn’t in Gryffindor. If he wasn’t in love with his best friend (spoiler, Not James)

❤️ Sirius’ characterisation is thorough and likeable. I felt his charisma, without needing persuasion from outside character perspectives. His journey from Hell Childhood to Gay Disaster, Gryffindor Hero is told through a sensitive, vulnerable and hopeful lens.

Hi there! Thanks for reading and thanks for reaching out!

Yeah, why not. Here’s part of the first scene. My goal is to have the whole chapter up in the next two weeks. :)

The Boy Who Killed God: A Certain Number of Regrets

JANUARY 3, 1972

Remus looked slightly less green when he helped Madam Pomfrey change Sirius’s bandages the next morning. 

It was funny, really. Sirius had seen Remus nearly torn to ribbons himself, but Remus seemed incredibly squeamish around Sirius’s injuries; so much so, in fact, that Sirius would have teased him relentlessly for it, had he not been gritting his teeth and cursing his way through the various Aguamenti’s and levitation spells.  

Merlin, he thought, when Remus finally let out a relieved sigh and Madam Pomfrey finally retreated to her office. Malfoy really did a number on me.

Really, it wasn’t the equal-and-opposite sort of retribution that was generally expected of these sort of pure-blood grudge matches. Sirius had aimed his curse at Malfoy’s face. It had been severe enough to scar, yes, but the scar was no longer than the palm of Sirius’s hand. And he’d struck Malfoy on the side of his face, eyebrow to chin, an area that could easily be covered by Malfoy’s stupid white-blonde hair. 

Malfoy had…

Well, Malfoy had nearly carved Sirius in two, hadn’t he? There was an X etched into Sirius’s chest, from collarbone to hip. 

No one could reasonably say that that had been a proportional response. 

No one had decried this grave injustice and breach of pureblood traditions, either.

Sirius hadn’t been lying, when he’d told Remus he remembered almost nothing after Christmas day. He knew he must have woken up at some point, because when his father had barged into his room yesterday morning—furious at what he’d deigned to perceive as laziness on the part of his eldest son and heir—Sirius had reached for the inkwells Alphard had given him. 

They’d been empty. 

All of them. 

Which either meant Sirius had, in his delirious fever-dream, somehow managed to choke them down in the days he’d lost, or…

Or, someone had dumped them out. 

Utilising his impeccable deductive reasoning skills, Sirius figured it was the latter. His chest certainly didn’t look like anyone had applied dittany before Madam Pomfrey got her hands on him. 

At half past eight, a house-elf popped in, bearing two steaming trays of food. Sirius’s mouth watered on sight, and, with a little strategic manoeuvring so as to avoid re-opening his scars, Sirius managed to sit up. Remus muttered a, “Thanks, Speckles,” as the house-elf set the trays on the pillow-wall between them, then disapparated. 

They ate in relative silence. Sirius studiously sipped on his piping hot broth—this time containing small bits of beef—as Remus devoured his bacon and eggs. As he finished his soup, and sparing a glance to make sure Madam Pomfrey wasn’t watching, Sirius snatched the last piece of bacon from Remus’s fingers and more or less swallowed it whole. 

Remus glared at him, but then sighed. He stood, slid out of bed, and placed the empty trays on the cabinet, before stretching his arms over his head. His neck and shoulders popped, and Sirius tried not to cringe at the sound.

“How are you feeling?” Remus asked, through a mostly-stifled yawn, and really, Remus looked terrible. His curly hair stuck out in every direction imaginable. His eyes were red-rimmed and opened way too wide in an apparent attempt to fight off exhaustion. His uniform was rumpled and untucked, but that wasn’t all surprising given he’d slept in it. The scar across the bridge of his nose was a darker shade of pink, starkly contrasted against Remus’s pale skin and freckles, almost as if—

As if…

Sirius counted the scars. Then, he counted them again. 

No. No. 

There was no way those were new. 

Remus had stayed at Hogwarts over the holidays. He couldn’t possibly—

“Sirius?”

“Hm? Yeah, sorry. I’m fine.”

Remus frowned and raised a disbelieving eyebrow at him.

Sirius huffed. “Fine. I feel like shit, but considerably less shitty than yesterday. Not going to pass out any time soon, anyway. Hopefully. Most likely.”

Remus didn’t look particularly convinced. 

Sirius pushed his luck anyway. “What are the chances of you helping me break out of here before Madam Pomfrey comes to check on me?”

“Not fucking likely.”

“But—“

“Sirius, you almost fucking died.”

“I did not!” 

Piercing, half-golden eyes tracked down to Sirius’s chest, over the bandages, then back up to the tattoo, and—

“Fine! Fine!” Sirius crossed his arms over his chest, trying to block it from view. Slightly mortified, he felt himself flush red. He wasn’t used to anyone looking at his chest, his fucking tattoo, least of all Remus Lupin. It… It was unnerving. “Can you at least get me a shirt?”

He wasn’t exactly sure when he’d taken off his own shirt—the exact events of yesterday were more than a little hazy in his mind—but he was certainly tired of not wearing one. It brought unnecessary attention to things he’d rather keep secret. 

Remus nodded, then gave him a small reassuring smile. “Yeah, I think I can do that.”

Remus made his way to the opposite end of the hospital wing, crouched by a small, bedside cupboard, rooted a round for a minute, then made a vaguely triumphant noise as he pulled out not just a shirt, but a pair of soft, Muggle trousers as well.

“Here,” Remus said, handing over the clothes. “These should do.”

Sirius eyed the clothes, subconsciously wiggling a little in his own, now-ruined designer trousers. The waistband and front part of his trousers were crusted with quite a bit of dried blood, Dittany, and other unmentionable, yet equally disgusting bodily fluids he’d rather not think too hard about. The trousers were about as far from salvageable as humanly possible. 

“Thanks.” Sirius took the proffered clothes and ever-so-slowly swung his legs over the side of the bed. He took a long moment just to breathe. 

“Do… Do you need help?”

“No.” Sirius tried not to snap, but he still managed to answer far too quickly and with far too much conviction. 

Remus clearly didn’t share any of his false bravado, but he turned his back all the same to allow Sirius the dignity of changing on his own. 

Sirius shucked his trousers in one go—they were so caked with filth that they kept their shape, much to his disgust—but kept his pants. His silk pants were equally ruined, but Sirius Black had just enough pureblood formality beaten into him that he wasn’t about to go pantsless in borrowed trousers.

Said borrowed trousers were rather large on him—so much so that Sirius muttered a quick spell to cinch them at his waist. The trousers hung well past his feet, the knees were rather worn, and never had such pedestrian fabric been used to clothe a member of the Noble and Most Pretentious House of Black, but they were incredibly comfortable. Absently, Sirius found himself wondering as to where one might acquire a pair and just what the consequences might be if his mother found out he’d gone to a Muggle tailor. 

Sirius shook his head and reached for the shirt. It was an equally worn button-up, with a patch on one elbow and ridiculously long sleeves, but it was made of thick, pliable material that smelled of… starlight and piping hot tea. Right beneath the collar—

No. That couldn’t be right. 

Right beneath the collar, stitched ever so carefully, were the initials R.J.L.

“Remus, are these yours?” Sirius asked, before he could think too much of it.

Because if Remus had a spare set of clothes in the hospital wing, that might lead one to believe that not only had Remus been a recent resident of said hospital wing, but the injuries he’d hypothetically sustained had also been grave enough to either warrant a change of clothes or an extended stay in the hospital wing that would consequently necessitate a change of clothes, eventually. Which, really, could not be possible because Remus hadn’t gone home for the holidays, so there was no logical reason for Remus to have been in the hospital wing at all.

Right?

Except the back of Remus’s neck flushed red and Sirius felt his heart stop. 

Because Remus had a new scar on his face that Sirius was now fairly certain hadn’t been there when Sirius left. 

Oh, how he’d wanted to believe that it was nothing.

Nothing, as it turned out, hardly ever worked in his favour.

“Where’d you get that scar on your face, Remus?”

“Siri—“

“No!” Sirius had half a mind to throw the shirt at the back of Remus’s head.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Remus turned to face him, and Merlin, how had Sirius missed it? The scar across the bridge of Remus’s nose was a pale pink, not faded silver. New. Raw. Fresh. 

The fight drained out of Sirius, as though he’d been punched in the throat.

“You were supposed to be safe, Re,” Sirius croaked. 

“So were you.” Remus’s jaw tightened, but this time, he didn’t turn away. “Our monsters will always find us, Sirius.”

For a moment, Remus looked as though he wanted to say more, wanted to explain, anything. He opened and closed his mouth, his fingers fidgeting all over the place. Sirius waited.

And waited.

Then, suddenly, Remus froze. Every muscle in his body went rigid. Sirius watched, confused and mildly alarmed, as Remus tilted his head up and turned towards the—

The giant door to the hospital wing was open, just a crack. When and how that had happened without them noticing, Sirius couldn’t be sure. 

Remus frowned and… sniffed? Whatever he was doing, it was beyond strange. Sirius watched Remus’s eyes dart around the room, seemingly unable to settle on anything in particular, always on the move, always searching for… something.

“Remus, what—“

Sirius heard the faint shuffle, the soft whisper of fabric, the slightly too-loud breathing. 

Except there was no one there.

Readying himself for a fight with whatever ghost or shadowy figure that may or may not have infiltrated Hogwarts, Sirius tugged on Remus’s shirt as quickly as he dared without risking reopening his wounds. He shoved the ridiculously long sleeves up past his elbows, called his magic to the tips of his fingers, and took a defensive stance next to Remus.

Someone—something?—hissed out a faint curse. Then:

“Ow!”

“That’s my foot!”

“Potter, if that’s your fucking hand on my arse, so help me God, I will—“

Sirius and Remus exchanged a startled glance.

“Evans?” Sirius called, to the otherwise empty hospital wing.

“Shit.” That certainly sounded like James.

“Weren’t they s’posed to see us eventually?” Peter, maybe?

“Yes, but not until after we scared the shit out of them.”

“That doesn’t seem very nice.”

“It’s supposed to cheer them up. All they need is a good bit of mischief and—“

“Oh, for Christ’s sake!”

With a sudden whoosh of fabric, James, Lily, and Peter materialised out of nowhere, not five feet from them.