Date: 17th July 2001 (backdated) Time: Night Location: Camping in Wales Characters: Remus Lupin and Sirius Black Rating: pg
Remus sat next to the fire, stretched out comfortably leaning against a fallen log. He was content... there was something right about being in the woods with no one but Sirius. He loved the silence, the lack of city traffic. It reminded him of his childhood home... the sounds, the smells, the green surrounding them. It was perfect.
Sirius idly watched the fat brown spider edging towards his hair. He yawned and turned to look at Remus. He seemed to he happier out here, away from London. Sirius himself found it a little disconcerting; Hogwarts had always been noisy even for its remote location, and even Godric's Hollow had rarely been quiet except for when it's occupants were sleeping. He hadn't slept too well the first night here, even though the tent was almost exactly like being inside Grimmauld Place. He found that woods were much more interesting as a dog. But he was glad to spend the time alone with Remus, and that was the important thing really. Sirius shifted his head away from the curious spider and rested it against Remus' chest. "Remus, do you think James is right, that people are coming back from the dead because of me?" He hadn't meant to ask about something so heavy, but somehow it seemed the right time to talk about it out here.
Remus quirked an eyebrow, lacing his hand into Sirius's. He thought about it for a moment, as he often did before speaking about such a deep subject, particularly one he wasn't certain about. "No, I don't think so, Siri." he said, kissing the other man's forehead tenderly. "Just because we haven't run into anyone not connected to you doesn't mean they don't exist. Perhaps when we get home, we should ask around, contact some old Order members and see if there's anything interesting happening with them?"
His eyes closed briefly as Remus kissed his forehead, then opened again so that he could look up at him. "Yeah, I was thinking about it. It makes sense for most people. But...it's not that I didn't /like/ Dora, but if it's supposed to be people I have some sort of unfinished business with, or something like that..." Sirius bit his lower lip for a moment, "it's not as though I'd drag her out of her coffin to slap her over marrying you. Well, maybe I would" he grinned "you're right, there might be others. Maybe we could speak to Harry's friend Hermione, she works for the Ministry and everyone seems to think the sun shines out of her backside, so she might be helpful."
Remus laughed loudly. "Sun shines out of her backside? That's brilliant, Sirius. Hermione is a very nice person actually. She reminded me a good deal of Lily... the brightest young witch I'd ever met. Maybe Hermione has heard something. It might be a smart idea to speak with her about it. And..." he paused at the thought of Sirius wanting to throttle Tonks. They hadn't talked much about it, really. "You know... I'm glad you're alright with all this... I mean, Teddy is a lovely child." he smiled a bit proudly.
Sirius raised an eyebrow, "Not much you could do about it if I wasn't alright with it," he said with a smile "and yeah he's brilliant, we should take him camping some time." He nodded as Remus talked about Hermione, even he thought she was clever, so she was surely something special. Sirius vaguely remembered what she looked like from trying to score a drink off her in the Leaky Cauldron. "Yeah?" he said, still looking up "what was it like teaching at Hogwarts? Are all the old entrances still there? McGonagal didn't let me look around much when I was there. Did you give detentions?" Sirius realised he'd never asked Remus much about his time teaching at Hogwarts. "I miss the place."
He chuckled. "Oh, well, I did give a few detentions, but I was one of the more lenient professors. After all, I seem to remember a couple of young men who could have used a lenient professor in the detentions department. And as for the entrances... yes, things are exactly as they were... or at least they were when I was teaching. Though, I've since heard that the school was mostly destroyed in the last days of the war... in fact, I understand that's where I died."
"Of course you were, Professor," Sirius said teasingly "fortunately you didn't have James and I to contend with." He nodded and frowned slightly as Remus continued. The idea of Hogwarts destroyed was as terrible as his memory of the blasted out side of James and Lily's house. "Do you know how?" he asked, trying to keep his tone light.
He chuckled. "No, you and James weren't there, but Harry was just as bad. I had to save him from detention several times. Including once from Snape when he was wandering the halls in the middle of the night. That was a feat, trying to convince Severus that the map was just a piece of joke parchment." His smile faded just a bit. "As far as I know, I was fighting against Death Eaters in the castle. I almost wish I could remember..."
"You got Harry off a detention from Snape?" Sirius said incredulously, "what did you do, wipe his memory?" He sat up and reached for his wand, summoning a beer from the tent. "I bet Snape loved giving detentions, especially to Harry," he grimaced in disgust at Snape becoming a professor. He hoped the kids gave him all kinds of trouble. Sirius nodded then began to shake his head, "No, I don't think that would be-" if Remus were able to remember up to his death, he'd remember Sirius dying, and he'd remember liking Dora. "At least you'd know which Death Eater to hunt down and hex the crap out of though." He opened his beer and took a swig. He was quite pleased he couldn't remember his own death, he knew the look on Bella's face when she killed him would have caused renewed anger at every memory of it.
Remus nodded. "Yes, well... Harry was chasing Peter. He'd seen him on the map, and Snape found him. Severus hated Harry... he took particular delight in tormenting him, though I'm not entirely sure why. Then again, Harry is every bit James's son... he gave as good as he got." he chuckled softly, summoning a beer for himself as well. He seldom drank, but it smelled rather nice in the warmth.
"You're not sure why? He's a git, he hated James and probably hated Harry because of that," Sirius did smile somewhat proudly at the idea of Harry giving Snape as good as he got. He was pleased by the idea of Harry keeping Snape on his toes. "Why was Harry chasing Peter? I thought I was chasing him."
"It's a bit complicated. Yes, you were chasing Peter, but Harry didn't know you were. Harry was told you were bad, that you were after him rather than Peter. But... well, Peter, being the resourceful little rat he was, had taken up residence as a pet with the Weasleys to be close to Harry. He was Ron's rat, Scabbers. Well... somehow, Harry had aquired the map and seen Peter on it, roaming about the castle. That was the night I realised you were innocent." he smiled, opening his beer.
"If I'd wanted to kill Harry, why exactly wouldn't I have done it when Hagrid was standing with him in Godric's Hollow?" Sirius said irrtiably, his comments not really directed at Remus "Dumbledore must have bloody well realised that." Sirius thought perhaps Dumbledore had been thinking a little too big to worry about a small point like that, or maybe it was just convieniant to blame him for it. It made so much sense to everyone, after all. He swallowed some more of his beer and stared into the fire, "I wish I had killed him Remus, I really do."
Remus shook his head. "No... no, because then you'd be a murderer in reality, not just in rumor. And I'm not sure I could stomach that. In fact, the night we finally came back together, once you'd escaped Azkaban, Harry said something that has rung very true. We were set to kill Peter, together. He stopped us and said that he knew his Father wouldn't have wanted his two best friends to become murderers." he smiled a bit wistfully. "Very smart boy."
"Yeah," Sirius said, deciding this wasn't the ideal time to discuss what he had been doing during the first war before James and Lily had died. Or that he didn't really think Peter should die either, but instead should have any amount of pain inflicted upon him. He would happily forsake his so-called 'good name' for the revenge of their deaths, even if it was something that Lily and James hadn't wanted. "Still, if <i>he</i> comes back to life, he won't have long to live it."
"Well, no." he said quickly. "Though, I think that he's not likely to come back." he said with a bit of a shrug. "I don't know why, but I have a feeling he won't be. Though, if he does and he's younger than he was when he betrayed James and Lily... what if he doesn't remember? What about that, Siri?" he asked solumly, really thinking it through.
Sirius looked over at him, "What about it? If Voldemort appeared here aged fifteen, you're saying you'd pity him or something?" He shook his head, "It doesn't matter if he can remember it. What he did is unforgiveable. Completely unforgiveable. And I hate that every fucking memory of school seems to include him..." He shook his head and drank the rest of his beer in one, "You really think it'd make a difference?"
"Well... yes, I do. Maybe if we had done something different during the war... kept in closer contact with him. You know how he needed attention, and we all were so busy with our missions for the Order. Maybe if we'd given him more attention, he wouldn't have turned." he said quietly. "And as for Voldemort, I suppose I'd have to see if there was anything redeemable in him." he said, feeling far less logical than he sounded.
"So because we weren't watching him every five minutes he had to go and chum up to Voldemort? I don't think so. He decided we weren't the safe side, the right side, so he went and joined what he thought were the winners," he said, flipping the can over in his hand "I didn't have anyone checking on <i>me</i> constantly, and I didn't go and sell out my best friends, did I?" Sirius shot Remus a look as he commented on Voldemort, "Redeemable..." he said disbelievingly, "and I'm the Minister of Magic."
Remus sighed. This was not the first time that his 12 years of maturity on Sirius had coloured their conversations. Remus could see what he felt were the errors in how they'd dealt with things, where as Sirius was still so young and impulsive. "I know, Siri... just...maybe we shouldn't discuss this anymore." he bit his lip, hating the fact that he couldn't talk with Sirius about anything and everything.
His features softened as he turned to look at Remus again. Sirius shrugged and slid back against the log, "You see the best in people. I'm not going to complain about that," he smiled "I don't think we'd have become friends if you didn't. I just don't want to be done over again...for trusting people, the wrong people." He let his head rest againt Remus' shoulder, smiling a little more now "you think I'm a git, don't you?"
He chuckled softly and sipped his beer. "Yes, you're a giant git. But a lovable one. I know you don't want to feel like you've been stitched up again... and honestly, we're just discussing something that may or may not ever happen. So really, I'm not sure we should be concerning ourselves with it, yeah?" he asked, smiling gently.
Though he felt there were potential flaws in this idea Sirius gave a definite nod. He looked over at the tent and grinned, "I remembered something last night in bed. Regulus used to have nightmares about the house-elf heads on the walls at home. He'd get in bed with me. One night we were camping out in the tent, he climbed into bed with me - but there was a storm and mum had decided we should come back into the house. Kreacher suddenly popped his head up over the bed and Regulus flailed so hard to get away he gave me a black eye and fell off the other side of the bed," Sirius laughed at this memory. He was pleased Kreacher wasn't here now, watching his every move with such an intensity that Sirius just knew his mother had asked him to specifically. He wondered if it were possible to free Kreacher from Grimmauld Place.
Remus laughed loudly. "That's brilliant. So you had a black eye? Did your Mum say anything about it?" he drank another sip of his beer, realising he'd finished the entire thing. He was such a light weight that he was feeling the familiar swimming feeling in his head, but he didn't dare let Sirius know that one beer had affected him, or he'd never live it down. So he sat, trying to clear his head before he had to stand.
Sirius laughed, "Yeah she said I couldn't go into the town with them until it was gone, and refused to heal it magically to 'teach us a lesson'." There was probably parental logic in there somewhere, though even then Sirius had thought if they'd only take down the heads then Regulus wouldn't need to dash over to his room at night. "That was in France, but I hated the town anyway. It just meant being dragged around boring places in French rather than boring places in English."
He shook his head and chuckled. As normal as he attempted to keep his speech, it betrayed just abit of his drunken state. Likely anyone who didn't know him well wouldn't notice that his words were a bit less crisp than they usually were. "Well, I don't see any parental logic in scolding a terrified child. I swear, your parents simply didn't understand simple parenting techniques."
The slight slur was caught and Sirius laughed, "Only just realised that one Moony?" Beyond the act of procreation, Sirius didn't think his parents had considered things such as techniques. Not in the way the rest of the world viewed them, "What else do you think they'd have done?" He grinned and prodded Remus' leg, "Someone's a bit pissed." He leaned back against Remus and yawned, "let's sleep out here, who needs a tent..." </div>