Fan Fiction ❯ phases ❯ One-Shot

Disclaimer: Since when has Rowling written about two boys, together? She only implies >.<;; Random Oscar Wilde (some Muggle author, as he's referred to) quotes aren't mine either, they belong to Oscar Wilde (The Importance of Being Earnest, Act I).
Pairings: sbxrl, mentions of jpxlp and also future hpxrw. If you understand that you like yaoi and are therefore cool.
Summary: Sometime after PoA and GoF but before Sirius goes to 'lay low with Lupin', Remus muses his life, past and future.
Note: Yeah, so, i was talking to Andrew the other day and decided that i was going to write this. It's in first person, and i haven't the foggiest why, i suck at first person, whatever. It's not like i don't know this, it's just i never learn... and i just kind of wrote this one night. The random Oscar Wilde has something to do with Velvet Goldmine, The Importance of Being Earnest and The Picture of Dorian Gray, i'm not sure which, but it doesn't really matter, does it? i would, however, suggest watching Velvet Goldmine and reading Oscar Wilde.

audi
thegoddess@goddess.com

-----------
Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live. - Oscar Wilde

-----------

Phases

I've always been the gentle, studious one, from my childhood unto adulthood. Well, insofar as people have thought. They've always thought I'm so much purer and more perfect than I really am. They've always thought it a shame that I ended up in a House with boys that they thought would give me a bad influence. Whenever we all got in trouble, it was always me that was pitied.

I'm not really like that, though. I might have once been the kind and sweet person they think of, but I'm not anymore and haven't been in a long time. The truth is, I was glad to be placed in the House I was, I couldn't dream of it any other way. The House I was in contained the people with whom I would befriend in those seven years. The Maraudering Years, as we later called them. Later, maybe, but it wasn't that much later, we didn't really have that much of a 'later'. It was maybe two years after Hogworts and then what ever essence of the Marauders was left was suddenly ripped away, by one of our own.

One of our own, but who? It wasn't James, why would he have killed himself? And I knew I didn't do it. When people learn of what I truly am, they no longer think me kind and studious but, rather, a murderous monster. I'm not that either. James was a good bloke, one of the best friends I've ever had. Unfortunately, process of elimination left Peter and Sirius. Sirius had killed Peter. He killed James and Lily and then he went and did Peter, in as well. It was in that frame of mind that I lived the next twelve and a half years. I knew that Sirius must have done it, there was no other logical explanation. Why then, I asked myself, did it feel so utterly wrong? My heart cried out at my decision. My heart kept telling me that Sirius couldn't and wouldn't have ever even thought of doing anything to harm them, any of them. Despite whatever impression people have gotten over the years of Sirius Black, he's not a murderer. He's not capable of deeds so vile.

My heart kept telling me this, my mind, however, wouldn't listen.

For seven years at Hogworts, the Marauders were my family, more so than my own family had been, and eventually Lily entered in to our little group (sometime in fifth year, James finally got the guts to tell her he liked her). Until James became a prefect, we quite openly waged war on the Slytherins. I'll never understand why we did, only that all Gryffindors hated all Slytherins and we were engaged in a war to see how many detentions we could give them. All-in-all, it was brilliant, and we won the House Cup more than them in those couple of years. After a year or so, James' and Sirius' plans were getting weak and risky. I think that's when I stepped in and told them that they were going to get caught, so I helped them design the little plots. Often, I'd design and James and Sirius and Peter would execute, I wasn't completely idle, though. I loved the trill of it, the idea that we might have gotten caught if one of us stepped too loudly, or whatever. I'm of the belief that boys are the same everywhere, just because we were four boys in Hogworts didn't mean we couldn't have reeked havoc elsewhere, we just happened to be conveniently located in a wizarding school.

I was in a state of utter denial. Voldemort was gone, Harry had destroyed him. James and Lily were gone, Sirius had given them in. Peter was gone, Sirius had killed him. I tried, as soon as I could think somewhat reasonably, to get custody of Harry. This was denied, by the wizard and Muggle worlds alike. To the Muggles, I didn't have any ties to the boy, they were his aunt and uncle and I was some nobody. I tried to tell them that I was his parents' friend, best friend, and that his mother had often warned us about her sister - I didn't say, here, that her sister hated all things remotely related to magick. To the wizards my problem was that I'm a werewolf. That has got to be the single most hated expression; 'You're a werewolf.' They brand me for something I have no control over. It's not my fault I got bitten! The Marauders were the only ones, save maybe Dumbledore, that ever believed that. Merlin, they became Animagi for me! No one else had done that. Those types of friends wouldn't do other friends in.

And Sirius was so much more than a friend.

When I think of Sirius I feel… I can't really put words to the feeling. Happy? Comforted? Complete? James and Peter were my friends, and I loved them as such, but Sirius was something so much more complex. I knew that straight off. He was always goofing off with James, from the moment I met him, but there was something beyond that. I wanted to be in the same House, and I was. I think it might have been obsessiveness, he was so unlike anyone that I had ever met in my secluded childhood. There was just something about him. Sometime later, after they knew my secret but before they became Animagi (that is to say, sometime between our second and fifth years), others started to obsess over the being that is Sirius Black. These mainly consisted of silly girls in younger years, as well as a few of the boys. Indeed, Sirius has always had his fair number admirers. And I was always jealous of them. How could I not be? Sirius was perfect, and not a one of them deserved him. I'm not saying that I thought I did, mind, only that I wanted my own piece of him, so to speak.

Some people are just made for each other and can't really be themselves without one another. Kind of like James was with Lily, it quickly became 'James and Lily'. They're like a unit, you know? As for Sirius? He's my other half. In essence, he always has been. We were the Marauders, best friends, but it was always something more. I may have been uncertain in the earlier years, but there was no doubt in my mind when Padfoot was introduced during our fifth year. The wizard doesn't chose their Animagus, it chooses them. Sirius' alter form was a dog, a canine. The wolf is a canine. To me, that spelled everything out. Eventually I told Peter, he was pestering me about why I was upset (Sirius had another date) and then he looked at me sadly, and that was that. It was sixth year when I learned about his feelings for me. The wait was worth it. Sirius Black was mine, and always would be. Werewolves mate for life.

The wolf didn't understand why his Padfoot had been taken away, why his Padfoot wasn't there at the full moons anymore. Human occurrences mean so little to a wolf and he grew violent. His mate was taken away from him and he wanted to know why. He grew violent and I grew secluded. I didn't wish to see anyone. Insofar as I knew, all of my friends were dead or in prison. I had no reason to live, save the small chance that Sirius might one day come back to me. But even that I wasn't sure of. Would I be able to forgive him for what he had done?

SIRIUS BLACK ESCAPES AZKABAN, MINISTRY FINALLY RELEASES KNOWLEDGE.

After twelve years of being locked away, Sirius Black, one of the most well-known Death Eaters, has escaped Azkaban. The Ministers in charge of the Wizard Prison claim, and have claimed since the prison's founding, that it is impossible to escape from, and then there are the Dementors to worry about. However, Black still managed to escape in to the daylight.
Black escaped on a rainy day last week, according to the records, but the Ministry has kept it classified knowledge until now. Minister of Magick, Cornelius Fudge, stated that they didn't think it necessary to inform the public. 'He's a madman, and people still remember his actions twelve years prior. We want people to continue living, but not in fear. As soon as people know that a mad Death Eater is out and about, they're going to go crazy themselves, and we don't want that.'
When asked why Black chose this time to escape, Fudge replied, 'why not? All's calm and he may feel that a bit of excitement is in hand. It's also plausible that he's after Harry Potter, since he managed to live that fateful night.'
…

The Third of August, 1999. Sirius Black, forgotten by almost everyone for over a decade, was revived. People were afraid for their children, and I actually considered what the article said. I still have that copy of the Prophet, it's in a box with my photos and the like, a keepsake box. The main reason I left my seclusion was that article, and for two reasons. Firstly, the wolf. Padfoot had escaped, but he wouldn't be able to find us where we were. We had to come out of hiding and show him that we were willing to be found. The second reason was Harry. My mind told me that Sirius wanted to kill Harry but my heart said he didn't. So I went to Hogworts for my mind (to protect him) and my heart (to tell him the truth). Not the truth about Sirius' innocence, because I couldn't offer that, but the truth about who his parents were, and what we were in school. I wanted to tell him the story of our past, one that he hadn't heard of before and one that I hadn't spoken of out loud in over twelve years. I hated myself for not seeing Harry before his third year, but nothing could be done to change the past.

I knew right well that they needed a good Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, and Dumbledore had been begging me for years, even when Quirrell was still there. Don't even get me started on Lockheart. I knew I was qualified for the position, but I had to actually go back to Hogworts to take it, and that was hard. Part of the agreement of being a professor was taking the wolfsbane. I liked Snape more than any of the other Marauders, but that wasn't saying much. Still, I endured it. I endured everything. I used that year to ponder. Harry was so much like James, and he had his own friends, whom I hoped he wouldn't be separated from, and his own enemies, in Slytherin, James would have been proud.

I'd spent twelve years telling myself that Sirius Black was a traitor and a murderer and that I hated him. I spent twelve years convincing myself of the fact. Whatever progress I'd made in those twelve years was demolished in the thirteenth. I couldn't help but remember the Maraudering Years when I looked at Harry, Ron and Hermione. I couldn't help but think of the past when I walked through the halls and the classes that I had frequented so long before. Familiar faces haunted me and foreign faces became familiar. My transformations became harder. Not psychically, the wolfsbane protected me, but mentally. Each moment I was without Sirius was making my existence harder. For some reason, I got offended when he attacked Gryffindor Tower and didn't come to see me. Was I hopeless? Yes. Could I help it? No. I wanted him with me again.

When the Marauder's Map told me that Sirius was nearby, my heart leaped in joy. When the Marauder's Map told me that Peter was nearby, I did a double take. If Peter was on the Map, then he obviously wasn't dead. Sirius didn't kill him. It was ironic I saw him again, for the first time in over twelve years, in the Shack. The Shack had held so many memories for us all, both good and bad. This memory was both. I found that Peter had been the Secret-Keeper. It was Peter who gave the Potters to Voldemort. This should have hurt me more than it did. Peter's guild meant Sirius' innocence.

The last few months Sirius and I had spent together had been strenuous, what with the war rising, and neither of us knew who to trust. Sirius obviously trusted James, they were best mates, but he didn't trust me, his mate, his lover… Looking back, I didn't really trust him, either. I forgive him for not trusting me as he forgives me for the same. He said so and I believe it. And Harry knows the truth about his godfather, well, the partial truth. He knows about his godfather and he knows my dreadful secret, but he doesn't know about us. And maybe he never will.

I left Hogworts. My excuse was that I wasn't safe, funny how I used the excuse I've hated since I was a child. It was easier than saying the truth, the pure and simple truth. Some Muggle author once said 'the truth is rarely pure and never simple' and I believe him. Sirius hugged me in the Shack. It wasn't a hug of lovers nor that of friendship; it was a hug of devotion and desire. It was a hug that said 'I'm all you have left'. To me, it meant everything. That's why I couldn't stay at Hogworts any longer. Werewolves mate for life, he is my mate and I need him to continue living. I haven't lived, I've all but forgotten what it's like to live. So I re-entered my seclusion, not in the same place, but in much the same fashion.

Harry began his forth year several months ago, Harry's growing up and his parents would be proud. I know I'm proud. When ever I think about Harry I can't help but idly wonder when it'll become 'Harry and Ron' like 'James and Lily' or 'Sirius and Remus'. I have to wonder how Hermione will take it, but I don't think there'll be any issues. I have to allow myself these idle thoughts, without them my mind focuses completely on Sirius.

I can't help but wonder what he's doing now or how he's doing now. He wasn't too well off when I last saw him. I hope he's okay, if not for my own sake, then for Harry's. So, I sit and wait for him to come back to me, he needs to come back to my on his own. I know that I still love him, as to the inverse? Time can only tell. I only hope that he comes back to me soon, I might breakaway into nothing if he leaves me alone much longer, and Merlin only knows what the wolf will do.