Funeral Songs

Remus Lupin jumped as a newspaper landed in his bowl of cereal. Looking up, he saw Sirius Black standing over him, positively beaming. "What d'you do that for?" Remus mumbled, removing the rolled up Daily Prophet, now going soggy at one end, and placing it neatly by his bowl.

"Read it!" Sirius urged, picking the paper off the table and shoving it back into the other man's hands.

"I'm trying to eat, Paddy!" Remus moaned, this time removing the paper to the opposite side of Number 12, Grimmauld Place's kitchen table, far out of his persistent friend's reach. Not put off, Sirius merely walked around the table, leaned over Ron Weasley whom was eating his breakfast opposite Remus, took the paper from the table, and walked calmly back, pushing the newspaper into Remus's hands yet again.

"Read. It."

"Fine!" Remus let out an exasperated sigh and unrolled the paper in his hands.

NUMEROUS SIGHTINGS OF DEATH EATERS ALONG THE CORNISH COAST

screamed the headline. Remus looked up at Sirius, raising his eyebrows as if to say "so what?"

"No, not that." Sirius shook his hand dismissively at the front page. "Page 10." Remus looked at his friend long and hard, trying to read his expression, but could find nothing but suppressed excitement. Uncomfortably aware of all the pairs of eyes now focused on him from around the table, he turned to the aforementioned page.

On page 10 was a large black and white picture of a wizard with a short, scraggly beard, and equally unkempt hair. Text under the moving portrait informed the reader that this was "Professor G. Carsoff, the Russian wizard famed for his research into magical illnesses and other adverse conditions." The title stated,

CARSOFF'S LATEST AND GREATEST BREAKTHROUGH

Sirius rested his hands on the Remus's shoulders as the seated man read the article, his facial expressions changing from confusion, to apprehension, to downright shock, and finally to complete despair. "Sirius... I don't have anything like that kind of money..."

"What does it say?" Harry Potter's curiosity broke the uncomfortable silence. Sirius gently removed the paper from Remus's hands, and began to read allowed to his silent audience. "Professor G. Carsoff, renowned for his life-changing discoveries, the most recent of which has been his remedy to the fatal poison of the basilisk, has released information of his latest and greatest success.

"After his help in creating the wolfsbane potion, a concoction which has given werewolves worldwide new hope and success by countering the violence awoken in them each full moon, he now claims to have created a potion that will cure werewolves completely. This potion has been tried and tested throughout Eastern Europe, and has had a 100% success rate. The wolf has been completely removed from over one hundred previous sufferers, who are now leading completely healthy and normal lives.

"Carsoff is now bringing this amazing treatment over to the United Kingdom, to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, and will be treating lycanthropy sufferers from the 1^st to the 31^st August this summer. No one will be turned away, though the treatment will cost three thousand galleons."

"As I said," Remus spoke in barely more than a whisper in the following silence, "There's absolutely no way possible I could ever afford that."

"But I can, Moony." Sirius said softly, summoning a chair from across the room with a flick of his wand and sitting himself down next to Remus, taking his hands and rubbing them gently. "I'm a Black... the family's loaded!"

"Siri... I can't ask you for this... it's too much."

In one quick movement, Sirius had Remus on his lap, holding him around the waist. Harry blushed furiously and looked away; he had known about his godfather's more-than-friendly relationship with his old Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher since the end of his fifth year at Hogwarts, but he was still having trouble adjusting to it.

"Then let me give it to you as a gift... an engagement gift." There was silence.

Absolute.

Silence.

"Sirius... what are you saying? What do you mean? What..." Another swift movement placed Remus on the chair Sirius was previously sitting on, with Sirius on one knee on the floor. A quick incantation from Sirius lowered all the lights around the kitchen, so the room was plunged into darkness. Another spell ignited the candles around the room, giving out a romantic glow.

"Remus..." Sirius started, staying poised on one knee in front of the werewolf. "I love you. I've loved you since I met you, though I didn't realise it for years. You are everything to me... you kept me sane when I was in Azkaban, and now you're keeping me sane while I'm stuck in this hellhole. And I know that I need you with me for the rest of my life... I can't live without you, Remy. I want you to be mine."

"I am yours..."

Sirius hushed him. "Let me finish. I want you to be mine forever." He paused for effect. "Remus John Lupin, you are the kindest, funniest, most handsome, most beautiful person in the world to me. I love you so, so much, and... Remus, will you marry me?"

Even though he had guessed what was coming, Remus was speechless for a long while. Again he was aware of all the stares from around the room fixed intently on him. "Siri... Sirius... I... I... yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, I will marry you, Sirius Black. I would be honoured to." Both men grinned madly as Sirius jumped into Remus's lap, kissing him madly as the light returned to the kitchen.

"Bloody hell!" Ron exclaimed as he, Harry, Hermione Granger, Mrs Weasley, Mad Eye Moody, Tonks and Ginny Weasley burst into applause. After what seemed like an eternity, Sirius pulled himself away from his new fiancé, retreating to is own chair. Both he and Remus were blushing madly as they looked around at everybody else, and then they were buried in a pile of hugs and congratulations.

Over an hour later the engaged couple were finally allowed some privacy, and they ascended to their bedroom, several storeys up. "What brought that on, then?" Remus asked, curling up into his lover's embrace on the bed. "We've been together since forever. I thought we'd decided we were happy as we were."

"Oh, Moony, I didn't mean to upset you! I was trying to make you happy..." Sirius sounded suddenly crushed.

"Paddy, no! You have made me happy! This could be one of the best days of my life! I was just wondering what made you change your mind."

"That chamber at the Ministry," Sirius explained, his voice conveying how much those memories aggrieved him. "I could have died that day, I so nearly did. Bellatrix nearly had me behind that veil, and you don't have to be a Supreme Mugwump to realise that once you go through there, you're not coming back. But you saved me... you saw that I'd been stunned and you pulled me away just in time. I owe my life to you... and that means that I now live for you and you alone. So I thought I might as well make 'us' slightly more official." He finished.

Remus curled up closer. "I still have nightmares about that day... if I hadn't seen you fall, you wouldn't be here now..."

"Well, I am... and I'm not going anywhere. We're going to stay together, you and me. Forever. So stop worrying your pretty little head over the past." Sirius scolded.

Remus sighed, lying back and resting his head on Sirius's chest. Sirius wrapped his lover up in his arms, planting a gentle kiss on the top of his head. "Let's be happy now?" He pleaded. Remus rolled over in Sirius's arms, grinning now, and let their lips meet in a passionate, breath-taking kiss. Sirius reached up to cradle Remus's head in his hands and pull him closer. Eventually Sirius broke the kiss, rolled Remus off him, and got up off the bed, straightening his robes. Remus blinked up at him from where he laid spread-eagled on the bed. "Come on, get up. There'll be time enough for that later. We're going out."

"Oooh, where?" Remus's eyes brightened as he got up off the bed, wrapping his arms teasingly around Sirius's neck.

"Diagon Alley. Need to get you something..."

"Sirius, your Gringotts account has been frozen until your trial next week, and until you're proven innocent there aren't going to be any shops that'll serve you..."

"Details, dear Moony, details."

"Sirius." Remus sounded deadly serious now. "You're not under a death sentence any more, you haven't got a price on your head, but you're still not proven innocent. We don't know whether you're going to get off free... So you can walk as a free man until the trial, but we don't know what the outcome will be... You seem to think you're certainly going to set free, but how can you possibly know that?" He hadn't meant to, but Remus now found tears fighting to the surface as he spilled out all his hidden worries to his fiancé. With tears streaming down his cheeks, he continued to berate Sirius. "You could be back in Azkaban this time next week! I don't want to lose you, Sirius! I don't want you to be taken away from me again! I can't lose you again! I can't... I just can't cope with losing you all over again... I can't do it..." He trailed off as his body began to convulse with huge, violent sobs. Sirius pulled him close, bringing a hand up behind Remus's head and gently resting it on his shoulder.

Sirius rubbed Remus's back gently as the shorter man continued to sob hopelessly against him, making gentle hushing noises. "Shh... calm down. Come on, calm down baby. It's all going to be alright. We're going to be okay." Remus continued to wail into Sirius's shoulder. Sirius moved his fiancé gently back over to the bed, sitting him down before pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, and charming it to wipe away Remus's tears as he continued to hold him. "They're going to chuck a load of Veritaserum down my throat, Remy. I'll have no choice but to tell the truth, and the truth is I'm innocent." He held Remus's hands, stroking them gently.

"I know..." Remus's voice was cracked and barely more than a whisper when he spoke. "I know... I'm just so scared of losing you."

"You're not going to." Sirius fixed Remus's eyes with his. "The truth is going to come out, and then everything'll be okay. I'll be able to get back into my bank account and get you that werewolf cure. Things are going to get better, Remy, I promise you."

Remus's tears began to subside, and a faint smile graced his face. "I'm sorry, Siri. I trust you; I know we're going to get though this. The rest of today is going to be worry free." He gave Sirius a more reassuring grin, his eyes flashing happily in the light. "So... what are you getting me?"