The Cost Of Loving

The Cost of Loving

Part II

Interest: life after Hogwarts.

The flat, the famous flat, was in a wizarding block near Diagon Alley, a fantasy of Gothic turrets and stained glass, high Victorian ceilings, nooks and crannies, wooden curlicues and arches round the mantel, and tiled fireplaces that could be quite painful to Floo to.

Sirius was eighteen, Remus seventeen, and they therefore went for a naturalist look: that is, they acquired furniture and kitchen gadgets on an as and when basis, with little thought as to aesthetics. The most important item was the bed, which used up more than their budget for furnishing the whole flat. But it was a large and comfortable bed, not a four-poster - they'd done four-posters - but carved with strange garlands and astral symbols.

The bed was worth all the money, because they spent an awful lot of time in it, honing the skills they had practised at every possible opportunity at school. It was good to be able to lie so close, so wanting, to kiss for hours until desire blurred everything else, needing each other so desperately that in spite of the orgasms that left them breathless and shattered, they were never quite satiated, and would reach for each again and again through the night.

For the first few months out of school they were both permanently exhausted, with dark circles under their eyes, and would sleep at any opportunity during the day.

After Hogwarts, they continued to keep their secret; though Remus didn't like to admit it, secrecy gave the affair added piquancy. It was fun, on the very rare occasions when James, with or without Lily, visited their flat, to keep up the pretence that they used both bedrooms, and hint at the hordes of women they entertained in their spare time.

Not that there was much spare time for very long. Sirius was soon occupied with the intricacies of machinery: as part of his ongoing rebellion against the House of Black, he took a job in the purely Muggle world of mechanics, working at a local garage that specialised in motorbikes. He learned to spot a bargain, and picked up his own motorbike there at a special discount. He smelled of oil and petrol, scents that Remus grew to love and seek out compulsively.

Remus was unable to get a job anywhere in the wizarding world, because every application form asked the blunt question: Are you a werewolf? Not much room for manoeuvre there, Remus decided. His occasional Muggle jobs used to end abruptly after one full moon, sometimes even before, because he was often so edgy that he simply couldn't concentrate. At Waterstones, the Muggle bookshop, he was fired after one morning when he sold a complete set of Dickens novels for 50p. Well, Muggle money was quite complicated. Sirius actually understood it far better than he did.

As a result, Remus spent long periods working at home, eking out his existence with freelance proofreading of obscure wizarding texts with titles like The Hidden Power of Salamanders, destined for a limited if discerning audience. He bought an old school desk with a cracked top and a hole for an inkwell, a Muggle item perfect for a wizard.

Generally, they lived on Sirius's inheritance. Though Remus had trouble with Muggle money, he was brilliant with wizarding finance; he had a knack for predicting market fluctuations, and advised Sirius so well on investments that they were both able to live easily on the interest. Sirius worked because he enjoyed his job, not because he needed his wages. If they had been together ten years in the future, Remus could have found a niche as a wizard stockbroker in the eighties boom and made a fortune.

Interest: a short period of teenage rebellion.

Remus did punk for a while, though as a werewolf he was reluctant to go in for body-piercing: he pierced his own body quite enough every month, thank you. But he liked the spiky hair, and the torn t-shirts, and allowed his ear to be pierced to accommodate two gold ring earrings. He had been the good boy at Hogwarts, but of course he was also the wolf, who ran wild with his Animagus friends and giggled afterwards, in human form, about the wolf's many near misses. And he had been sleeping with Sirius for nearly the whole of the two final years at school, knowing full well that both of them would probably be expelled if they were caught out of line one more time. Punk was perfect for Remus, the quiet anarchist who hid behind his mask of innocence.

But punk was dying out, so he abandoned the look quite early on for the New Romantic look, which also suited him, though he kept the earrings, and even added a third. He dyed his hair black, wore kohl, eyeshadow and sometimes dark lipstick; he could have been mistaken for one of the current breed of rock-stars, so he was considered very cool by any girls with whom he worked during his brief forays into outside employment. He left the makeup off for interviews, of course, but that, coupled with his occasionally erratic behaviour, didn't help him hold down a job.

He liked the girls looking at him. When Sirius wasn't around, his attractiveness instantly rose by a notch or two. He didn't really mind when older men also looked at him, because he quite enjoyed being a pretty boy, as Sirius, obviously, appreciated that. He could never understand why Sirius found him beautiful, but he wasn't going to argue about it.

With his black hair, he felt they were like soul twins, closer than close. Sirius was very turned on by New Romantic Remus. They'd go out for a drink or to a party with friends, mainly other members of the Order, and after a couple of firewhiskys, Sirius would find it impossible to keep his eyes or hands off Remus; he would sneak glances at him from the other side of the room, and then come over and grab his arm and pull him into an empty bedroom; or, if they were in a pub, the men's lavatory. Then, their lovemaking would be rough and rapacious; and if he was wearing make-up, Remus's eyeshadow would smudge. Sirius would lick his finger and try to rub the smeared make-up off Remus's face, and as often as not that would lead to another bout of sex; less frenetic, but as they were usually in a semi-public place when this occurred, they were constrained to be as fast and quiet as possible. It wasn't always a good idea to cast warning or silencing spells in a public loo.

'Ah, you're such a sweet, androgynous wolf!' Sirius teased once, rubbing his forehead against Remus's after they'd made love with some abandon in someone's boxroom at one of the parties.

'Not androgynous,' Remus protested, shoving Sirius hard in the ribs; hard enough that Sirius yelped. 'Got everything there.'

Sirius laughed. 'Yes, and how! But you do look so, so... Gorgeous. Lush. Mmmm...'

Remus knew that his time for rebellion would be short: after all, he was a member of the Order of Phoenix now; he would have to wash the dye out of his hair soon, conform to what was expected of him. He would have to lose the earrings. Even Sirius was starting to treat life as not such a lark any more. The darkness was closing in.

Price: betrayal. James, a month before his wedding.

Remus was early, as usual. He hated being early. He really strove to be late, really tried to live up to his unconventional persona at that point in time, but underneath his façade, the qualities of punctuality, reliability, and yes, dammit, some vestiges of responsibility, still blossomed fiercely.

Late afternoon sunlight slanted through the open door, illuminating a charmed path between the rough wooden tables, the horse-brasses above the bar, the bottles of enchanted and enchanting liqueurs winking their bright colours behind the counter.

He debated starting on the firewhisky straight away, but then remembered that he had, this month, a job to go to, stacking shelves in a Muggle supermarket, so he settled for cranberry juice, and nursed his glass in his seat by the window in the Leaky Cauldron.

He was really looking forward to seeing Sirius. He told himself that was why his heart sank a bit when James walked into the pub, looking round expectantly. After all, Prongs was one of his oldest, dearest friends. He loved Prongs dearly. Okay, in his most honest moments Remus admitted that since Christmas of Sixth Year, he had felt a bit guilty, because he had in effect stolen James's best friend. Which wasn't really the case, anyway, because Sirius still liked James best. He loved James best. It was just that he loved Remus in a completely different way. Remus didn't want to feel screwed up about it.

And, he reminded himself, James didn't even know.

The two friends greeted each other cordially, and James went to the bar to get a beer. Of course, Remus thought, James would start off with beer.

They sat on opposite sides of the table, nursing their drinks. For some reason, James seemed as ill-at-ease as Remus, who felt it incumbent on himself to make conversation.

'So how're the wedding plans going?' That was always good for a few minutes. And since when had he felt constrained talking to James, of all people? He'd find Sirius difficult next.

'Oh, fine. I must say, Remus, you look a lot like Sirius with your hair that colour.'

'Right. Not really. I mean, Sirius has grey eyes, and he's an inch taller, and he wouldn't wear earrings, though he has got that tattoo, and - '

'Oh, well, you'd know,' said James. 'I suppose it's some sort of deliberate bonding thing?'

Remus choked on his juice. 'What d'you mean?'

'Oh, come on, Remus. Padfoot doesn't keep secrets from me.'

'He should keep my secrets from you!' Remus spluttered out, slamming his glass down on the table, stalking out of the pub, bumping into bloody Sirius of all people just outside the door. 'Moony, hi! Hey, aren't you coming in?' Remus found himself enveloped in a big hug. He shoved Sirius away. 'Moony, what's wrong?'

'You are wrong. Stupid fucker! Don't you ever learn? Well, I'm not forgiving you this time. This is it.'

'Oh. You've been talking to Prongs.'

'Damn right I have. So have you, obviously. How could you?'

'Moony, he's my best mate.'

'How did I just know you'd say that? Well, go and fuck him if you love him so much!' Remus snarled. 'I'm out of it.'

He stayed away for a week. During that time, he let an older man, who must have been all of thirty, take him home and screw him. It was good, but not as good as it was with Sirius. Besides, the older man was a Muggle - though a very handsome Muggle - and wouldn't have understood how somebody could be a werewolf. He was one of the men who shopped at the supermarket and said 'Hello' to Remus as he stacked shelves. He lived in a big detached white house in Notting Hill Gate, a house so large that Remus got lost a couple of times between the bathroom and the bedroom. Remus stayed with him for three days and nights, then wandered off again, wishing he could go home and have a bath in his own bathtub and sleep in his own bed. He also wished, not for the first time, that he'd been in on the Animagus work. It would have been good voluntarily to become an animal for a while. He hated the wolf in many ways, but it was refreshingly simple. Being human was sometimes almost too much to bear.

Price: not quite enough information about James.

'Why, Sirius? I thought we'd agreed to keep it secret.'

'C'mon, Moony! James isn't an idiot. He does notice if we keep disappearing at parties and things. And he knows we're sharing the flat. And, yes, I did think he was far too wrapped up in Lily to take in anything else, but obviously not. It was really because he keeps trying to fix me up with girls, and I finally had to let him know I wasn't interested. That's when he actually twigged about you and me. But I did have to spell it out. A bit. Well, a lot. Because he doesn't quite understand how we could be together.'

'Then why didn't you just leave him to his ignorance? Honestly, Padfoot - '

'You're gonna love this, Moony. James set us up with a double date with two friends of Lily's. Yours was hand-picked, cos she's mad about that singer all the girls are raving about, and you're supposed to look just like him, with the hair and all. Prongs took a lot of time and trouble over it. Or rather, Lily did, I suppose. I couldn't sit back and allow you to be molested by some groupie, could I?'

'I could handle it. So how did James react when you told him?'

'Better than you'd think. I mean, I always suspected he was a bit homophobic. It must feel weird, finding your two best mates are having it off. If you'd found out that James and I were having it off, you'd be freaked out, wouldn't you? Well, of course you would. That was a stupid question. But actually, he did a double take, then he said that Lily had asked him about us, and since then he'd been wondering... I think that Lily probably said a lot more, because he didn't seem really surprised. Like he'd had time to rant and rave to her, and get over it. Because I would have expected him to go into shock, then be disgusted, then pretend he didn't really mind. You know, the full gamut.'

'So from now on am I 'Remus' to James, or even 'Lupin'?'

'Nah, he'll come round. Just wait, he'll start calling you 'Moony' again in no time. Just call him Prongs, and it'll be fine. Honestly. Anyway, I call you 'Remus'. But that's because nobody else does, and it seems more personal. So now I'll have to call you Moony all the time, won't I? Depends what Peter's calling you. Are you still with me here, Moony?'

'That was just a manner of speech, Pads. What I mean is does James hate me? Dislike me, rather.'

'Of course he doesn't. You're his friend. Don't look at me like that. If you really want me to be honest, I have to say I don't know. I think he may be a bit jealous of you. But once he and Lily are actually hitched, he'll be fine. Really. And don't get it into your head that you'll be sulking and refuse to go to the wedding. I need you there. A best man needs his best man. Okay, I thought that was quite funny. You're not running off again, either. I've got you back and you're staying right where you are. Stop scowling. Come here, and give me a big smile. There, that's better...'

Price: guilt. Paid, with interest.

His hair was back to its usual tawny colour. His makeup was in the bin. He was plain Remus Lupin again; though the earrings stayed. Not plain, perhaps, but not fancy either. Not any more.

He lay awake beside Sirius, running through the details of his infidelity in his mind. Now, when Sirius touched him, he could feel, like a ghost, the other man touching him, in the same places, in almost the same way, only without the depths of feeling, the heat that Sirius generated. It was strange, like being with two people at the same time.

Sirius telling James had been nothing, really, not compared to sleeping with someone else, and actually quite enjoying it, though Remus didn't admit that to himself. But just occasionally, on the edge of an orgasm, he would remember vividly some sensation the handsome stranger had evoked, and come more violently than usual, shaking and crying out Sirius's name. He suspected that he had also cried out Sirius's name in the white house in Notting Hill, but he tried not to think about it.

He knew he would never tell Sirius; in this relationship, Sirius was to be the one who erred, Remus the one who forgave. Above all, he didn't ever want to give Sirius any reason to leave him. He could give his body to anyone, but only Sirius had power over his soul.

He shuffled over, laid his head on Sirius's shoulder. Sirius sighed in his sleep, relaxed, put an arm reflexively round Remus, snuggled closer, and they lay there, Remus still wide awake, until the alarm went, and Sirius knocked it off the bedside table trying to find the switch.

Price: an uncomfortable conversation.

'I know there was someone else, Remus,' Sirius whispered late in the night, soon after Remus's return. 'But it's okay.'

Remus, agitated, fumbled for his wand under the pillow, mumbled 'Lumos', checked Sirius's face to see if he were joking.

'Why would you think that, Pads?' he asked carefully.

'Oh, come on, Wolfboy. I'm a dog, remember. Sometimes. I've been smelling someone else on you since you came back.'

'I was angry. It didn't mean anything.'

'I know you were. I shouldn't have told James about us. Not without asking you first.'

'Sirius. Why are you being so reasonable?'

'Why're you so suspicious? I just don't want to make a big deal about it. Don't want to lose you.' Sirius's eyes were brighter than usual in the wand-light.

Remus sighed. 'Now I've hurt you, haven't I?'

'Well, I hurt you. Don't tell me again how reasonable I'm being. I know.'

Remus sat bolt upright. 'Lily. You've been talking to Lily, right?'

'Maybe. Sometimes a woman's advice is good, you know.'

'Sometimes. Can we not discuss it?'

'Why not? Was it that bad?'

'No, Padfoot. It was okay.'

'I s'pose you always need a secret, Moony, don't you?'

'No, I don't. What's that all about?'

'Dunno. Just, you like secrets, don't you? There's the werewolf thing -'

'Yeah, Sirius, I really love that one! For God's sake.'

'I didn't mean you love being a werewolf. I meant that you were used to having a secret. Then there was us. Well, McGonagall knew a bit, but she didn't know the half of it.'

'I think the whole bloody school probably knew, now I think of it.'

'Aww, Moony, nobody had the faintest. James was amazed when I told him. But that was your last secret, wasn't it? As far as I know. So you needed to have a new secret.'

'Dr. Freud, that is total rubbish. I was pissed off. Some guy fancied me. That's about it. Nothing as deep as creating new secrets. If I ever do have a secret, you always seem to give it away, anyway.'

'Did he make you feel like I do?' Sirius ran his tongue over Remus's lips, barely touching them, moved his fingers slowly down Remus's spine, making Remus shiver and press against him.

'No,' Remus choked, when he was able to speak again. 'It was a thing, Padfoot. It was completely meaningless.'

Remus didn't know why he felt so sad and empty, in that case. He felt as if a precious piece of china had broken, and it was his fault. He wished he knew how to fix it. But he was a nineteen year-old boy, and he didn't have a clue what to do to make everything right again. He did tell Sirius he loved him, and Sirius seemed to understand what he was trying to say.

Interest: a wedding.

Many contradictory accounts existed of Lily and James Potter's wedding. Sometimes, it was a big, lavish Muggle production; sometimes, it was a wizarding wedding, with fantastic displays of magic, and real fairies flitting among the Japanese lanterns as evening fell. Sometimes, it was a stringent, wartime wedding in front of a registrar, just James, Lily and their best man, Sirius.

Lily variously wore a white wedding dress, wizarding dress-robes or a severe suit. On her head, she had a veil, a tiara, a small hat, nothing, and even a scarf: that was the countryside wedding in the depths of rural Sussex.

In fact, Lily and James were married quietly in a registry office. After all, Lily was a witch of Muggle descent marrying a pureblood wizard. Given the times she was living in, it was deemed cautious to keep the ceremony simple. Sirius was there, as best man. The few guests included the two immediate families, Remus and Peter.

Lily was wearing a simple cream coloured dress, and her hair was piled up on her head. She carried a bouquet of freesias, but she was nervous, fiddling with it, so some of the flowers came loose and dropped on the floor.

The wedding party had to wait in the reception room of the town hall, because the ceremonies were running a bit late. There was still one wedding to go before the Potter one: the Muggle bride was about six months pregnant, wearing a small tent, and arguing with an older woman, probably her mother, about whether or not she wanted to go through with it.

It was a sombre day, shades of grey and rain, not a ray of sunshine. Sirius was beaming, but the guests and the bride and bridegroom were as solemn as the weather, though Lily's red hair formed a vivid splash of colour across the dull morning. She and Sirius would make the best couple, Remus decided. None of the others stood out in any way.

But once the brief ceremony was over, the dark mood broke: the bride and groom were suddenly smiling, were radiant and in love, and certain that they would be happy forever; through the war against Voldemort, and beyond.

Price: exhaustion. Paid, first war against Voldemort.

While he was still working at the supermarket, Remus saw the other man a few times; even after Remus reverted to his normal colouring, the man still smiled at him and sometimes tried to engage him in conversation, but Remus would turn away and examine price labels closely until he was sure the man had gone on down the next aisle. He left that job quite soon, as he left all his jobs, and didn't get another one, because the Order needed him full time.

After a while, a smattering of guilt, a smidgen of infidelity didn't matter any more, because they were all going to die, and Voldemort or his minions were going to kill them. Remus sometimes wondered why he had worried about his brief fling in the first place.

When Regulus was killed, Sirius became more driven, throwing himself into Order business like there was no tomorrow: and possibly there wasn't.

Remus thought Sirius was a spy for the Order, but he wasn't quite sure, because none of the members was allowed to let any of the others know what they were doing. Remus himself was liasing with vampires and fellow werewolves, with dark creatures who responded best to another of their kind. He hated his long periods away from home and from Sirius. He was tired, and he was sick a lot of the time, because there was no chance to sleep off transformations.

He and Sirius still occasionally had time to make love, and it was still love then, no matter what else they might call it to stave off inconvenient feelings. Because this wasn't a war that would be won by feelings: it was a war of nerve and nerves, of intuition and guerrilla cunning.

Sex was as good as ever - better, often, because so much less frequent - but it was different. Like school again, when they were always on the verge of being found out, always had to keep track of meals, of the next lesson, when there was never enough time. They had come full circle.

Interest: a day off. August 1980.

The tube station was crowded with Muggles that Saturday morning, and they kept a tight hold of each other's hands so they wouldn't get lost. Neither of them cared, if they noticed, that many of the people waiting for the southbound Jubilee Line train were giving them looks that ranged from curious to hostile.

They fought their way on to the train, managing just to squeeze in, and stood close to the double doors as the tube clanked through the darkness.

'Remind me why we're doing this,' Remus groaned, as they were disgorged on to the platform at Oxford Circus.

'Hang on to me, Moony. We're getting a present for the baby.'

'Right.' Remus's mouth curved into a smile. 'What should we get the baby that has everything?'

'Except a name. He's probably going to be Simon, after James's father. But Lily's holding out for Harry.'

'Lily'll win,' Remus predicted. 'She always does.'

Sirius put his arm round Remus's shoulder, which, he reasoned, was within the bounds of acceptable behaviour. Remus didn't object. They made their way up Oxford Street, looking in the shop windows. It was too hot for shopping, though the crowds thronging the pavements didn't seem to think so. It was too hot to do anything but nip down to Diagon Alley for an ice-cream soda at Florean Fortescue's.

'I want to get him one of those Muggle rattles. He's got about six magic ones, but they don't make quite the right noise,' Sirius said.

'Can't James or Lily put a suitable spell on them?' Remus asked.

'No. They're all spell-locked so that babies won't get hurt. Ministry safety regulations.'

Since the baby's birth at the end of July, Sirius had become a walking encyclopaedia about things like laws on toys, child development, even breast-feeding. Lily had nearly hexed his ears off when he offered to show her how to get the baby to latch on. Remus thought his poor Padfoot might feel a bit sad that he'd never have a child himself. Well, not in his current relationship, anyway. So Sirius was in effect sharing the new baby with James. He was going to be its godfather as well. It seemed a very solemn role for Sirius, but Remus was certain he could live up to it.

They went into the big branch of Mothercare near Bond Street. To Muggles, they undoubtedly looked like students, Remus supposed: they were the right age, and they were both scruffy enough in their old jeans. It was probably quite unusual for two students, one with his arm flung over the other one's shoulder, to be browsing in a baby shop among the pastel babygros and fluffy bunnies.

The manageress seemed to think so, because she approached them as soon as they appeared in the doorway. 'Are you young men looking for something?' she asked in a forbidding voice.

Sirius gave his killer smile. 'Yes, we are. We need a rattle for my godson.'

The woman melted, especially when Sirius removed his arm from Remus's shoulder in order to show her exactly what he wanted. 'One of these blue ones. But with the polka dots.'

'I don't think we have any blue ones left with the dots. We have some with very sweet kittens.'

Sirius shook his head. 'No kittens,' he said firmly. 'How about puppies?'

'Yes, we have puppies. I'll just go and check in the stockroom.'

Remus breathed in the strange, sweet scent of babies and talc and milk; a less concentrated essence of the smell in the Potters' house in Godric's Hollow. It seemed very odd to think that Prongs and Lily were settled, married and had a baby. It felt as if time was unravelling far too fast, that they all really should be living in this parallel Muggle world of universities and freedom, enjoying their youth before it was completely spent. But perhaps he and Sirius were as settled as Lily and James, in their own way. If one of them were a woman they could be shopping for their own baby, or even two of them. Remus, who liked Muggle arithmetic, started doing mental calculations about how many children he and Sirius could have had by now. Probably about three. He wondered if they would take it in turns to have them, because he sure as hell wouldn't volunteer every time.

Sirius pounced on him, grinning like a maniac. 'Look, Moony, isn't that just perfect?' He held aloft a rattle shaped like a dog's head, with blue puppies scattered all over it. 'Listen.' He shook it enthusiastically, and Remus imagined he could hear, far in the distance, the faint suspirations of the sea.

Sirius paid, dazzled the manageress with one more beautiful smile, took Remus's hand again, without thinking, and they walked back along Oxford Street like that, not caring who saw, or who knew.

Price: a private life. Paid, 1980-81.

The next day, Sirius was sent to spy on a nest of suspected Death Eaters, most of them closely related to the Blacks. Remus had negotiations with a group of goblins in the Outer Hebrides. The baby didn't get his rattle until the following week, when Sirius had a free evening. Remus wasn't there, because his negotiations had run into problems. The two of them finally got together a month later, but by then the wizarding world was running downhill so fast that neither of them could keep up with it any more.

People were dying, a lot of people were dying, and it seemed as if someone in the Order was leaking information about them. Remus wondered if it might be Mundungus Fletcher, because he seemed the type who'd do anything for a knut or two. But he didn't feel strongly enough about it to mention his suspicions to anyone.

Price: failure of trust. Paid, autumn 1981.

Remus was certain that Sirius thought he was the traitor. This meant that his lover, his friend, his partner of nearly five years, who had virtually grown up with him, now found him unworthy of trust.

He tried to understand. He was a werewolf, and he had lied about that. He lied quite easily, but only for self-preservation.

Sirius had elevated him from the rank of dark creature into human being, had imbued him with light, had called him beautiful, extolled his fair skin and light brown eyes and tawny hair, had ignored the core of evil that spiralled out every month; had even defused that evil, by becoming a big, shaggy dog and calling the wolf out to play, rendering the beast not only harmless but almost tame.

Sirius had elevated him, and was now letting him fall back again; no, dropping him, seeing evil that didn't even exist, imagining cowardice and wickedness and a disdain for ties of friendship that Remus couldn't begin to be capable of. Hadn't his friends made his constrained existence worth living? Hadn't they brought him pleasure and happiness beyond anything he would ever admit to them? And how on earth could Sirius believe for one second that he would betray the whole foundation of his life to serve an abomination like Voldemort?

Sometimes, Remus desperately needed Padfoot: he felt that he would be able to tell the dog all the things he could no longer tell the human, and then maybe the human would love and trust him again. He wanted to cuddle Padfoot, and ruffle his coat, and hold him close and breathe, 'Oh, Pads, I love you, love you so much,' and perhaps Padfoot would whine a bit and wag his tail and lick Remus's nose, and Remus would hug his warm body close and hide his face in the black fur.

Sirius was spending a lot of time with Peter these days, enough time that Remus might have been jealous, if Peter hadn't been living with that rather ugly Slytherin girl. His one hope was that perhaps Peter would manage to convince Sirius that he, Remus, was firmly on the side of whatever was right and good. He was even wondering whether he shouldn't contact Peter himself, ask Wormtail to put in a good word for him.

Price: loving and being loved. Paid, 1981: payment refunded, summer 1994.

Sirius didn't just fancy his werewolf rotten, he totally, utterly loved him, with every iota of his romantic soul, the good and the bad of it, the desire to lavish adoration mingled with the desire to stalk and possess.

Remus didn't seem, on the surface, someone you could possess. He possessed himself. He was self-sufficient. He was pretty aloof but could be pretty wild too, though he clammed up at the mention of anything personal. He loved Sirius at least as much as Sirius loved him, but his feelings weren't so obvious, simply because his emotions went deep, rooted themselves and were hard to shift.

As the Potters' lives drew to a close, the balance shifted dangerously. Sirius began to withdraw and withhold, and Remus tried to clutch on to the vestiges of whatever it was they once had. He wasn't sure he could remember what it was. He would look at Sirius without the projection of habit and affection, and find that he was cold, haughty, too sculpted. And Sirius's grey eyes would look back coolly, the pupils undilated. This was the first time Remus had ever consistently seen Sirius with grey, not black, eyes.

'How are James and Lily?' Remus would ask, hoping to see the black flare up in his lover's eyes for a second, and perhaps catch and take when Sirius looked back at him. 'How's Harry?'

Sirius would look away. 'They're fine.'

'And how are you, Sirius?' Remus would ask in his head. 'How are you, Padfoot?'

Then, he would carry on his silent, internal monologue. 'Well, thanks for asking, Pads. I'm effing rotten, actually. I have a gash on my arm that wasn't treated properly, because I transformed in some godforsaken Eastern European country, where the level of healing is non-existent. The cut keeps opening and bleeding, and I can't get it to stop. With any luck, I'll just bleed to death, and I don't really care if I do. Or I'll kill or bite someone at the next full moon, and they'll send me to Azkaban, and it would be an improvement on this flat here with you. I think the Dementors might show a bit more interest in me, even if they only want to suck out my soul.'

He often added, still in his head, 'I don't have any new secrets, Padfoot. Not a single one. But maybe you do.'

Sometimes, very rarely, Sirius would seem to catch an echo of Remus's thoughts. And the haughty cold look would disappear, and his face would crumble, and he'd put his arms around Remus and hold him very tightly, his head on Remus's shoulder. As if he didn't want to, but felt compelled to. As if he felt as desolate as Remus did. As if there might be hope that someday, somehow, they could be together again.

Then, Remus would feel ashamed of his bout of self-pity, and perhaps he'd stroke Sirius's hair, absent-mindedly, in the same way Sirius was holding him, as if they were characters in each other's dreams, so their actions could only affect themselves. They would even occasionally make love then, so slowly, so carefully, like wraiths that might dissolve at a touch. Such solipsistic loving, but in the end it was far better than nothing, because it was all Remus had to hang on to for a long, long time.

Price: twelve lost years. Paid, November 1981 onward.

Remus had always survived, been strong, kept his emotions under control and soldiered on; but everyone has his breaking point.

Everyone, that is, except a werewolf who had now turned twenty-one and come to terms with his innate and annoying sense of responsibility, who needed to keep in touch with reality so that he didn't accidentally wipe out half the neighbourhood every month.

He stayed in the flat, as it was in his name as well as Sirius's, waiting for some Black relative or other to come and throw him out and claim the leasehold. When this didn't happen, Remus allowed himself to relax a bit.

As this was a wizarding flat, the block held secure accommodation for resident and visiting werewolves. Remus was far from being the only one, after all. At every full moon, he went docilely to the holding pens, usually with three or four others of his kind. Because of ministry regulations, the pens weren't just secure but complied with certain humane guidelines laid down by the Care of Werewolves Association: they were spacious; water, meat, bunks and scratching posts were provided; and a healer was on permanent call to come and cure the werewolves' wounds on the morning after each full moon.

What Remus craved was firewhisky, men and women, endless sensation after sensation, to stop his mind working, to stop him from thinking. He yearned for anything he could fuck, snort, imbibe, inhale, inject, in order to crush out all lingering remnants of consciousness.

What he settled for was solitude, a restless, aching misery that could only find relief in escaping into the fictional worlds of Muggle novels, an emptiness that was, surprisingly, alleviated to some extent by vast quantities of chocolate.

He didn't want to touch Sirius's money, so all income from investments was directed to Vault Seven Eleven at Gringotts. He felt strange continuing to live in the shared flat, where the ghosts of half-forgotten love and laughter could leap out brightly from any corner to startle him. But he had nowhere else to go, bar a cottage in Wales left to him when his aunt died. He didn't want to live in Wales. Wales would certainly kill him.

Under the surface, grief and pain simmered so hotly that they sometimes caught Remus unawares, as when he was stacking shelves one day (a different supermarket, another job this time) and found that tears were pouring down his face; he was a bit bemused, but then suddenly the feeling caught up with him, and he nearly howled, the way the wolf howled, had to get down from his ladder halfway up a stack of baked beans, go and lock himself in the loo for half an hour until the paroxysms of total despair had abated a bit. Then he walked out and went home, not even bothering to give a forwarding address for his paycheck.

Three years on, he started compulsively to research everything he could about Azkaban: its position, its guards, its history. Five years on, he admitted to himself that if Sirius walked through the door he would rush to him and fling his arms around him and forgive him, as he always did.

Seven years on, he suppressed that thought, and decided that if Sirius ever came back he would call the Aurors immediately.

Ten years on, he finally replied to an owl from Dumbledore, who had been writing to him regularly for the past decade.

Twelve years on, he heard that Sirius Black had escaped. He didn't know whether to be scared or happy, but for some reason he decided to undo all wards on the flat, leave all the Floos open. Sometimes, he thought he felt a bit disappointed that Sirius hadn't tried to contact him. But he supposed that Sirius would now see him as the enemy. No doubt Sirius would try to find his Death Eater friends first.

After Sirius's escape, Remus accepted the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts master at Hogwarts. He didn't know whether he was bait for Sirius Black or whether or this was for his protection.

Before he left for King's Cross on September 1^st, he removed his three earrings and put them safely away in his bedside table drawer.

Interest: a brotherly hug, documented elsewhere.

And the year at Hogwarts passed: not another lost year, but the best year of all, because at the end of it the light came back into Remus's life.

End of Part II