Silver

Silver

Ex-professor Remus Lupin liked to go on walks at night to clear his head. While the fresh air hardly led him to anything even close to clarity, walking at night was much more relaxing, as long as he didn't look up at the sky and see the moon glowing, haunting, above him.

Still, it was better than being out in the hot sun, where the daylight made him that much more obvious as an outsider, with his patchy robes pulled tight around him. Hardly anyone went out at night; the land was just as empty as his flat, but without the four walls closing in on him.

The silence was the most rewarding part of the walking. Crickets and owls, and leaves crunching under his boots were the only sounds, and Remus liked it that way.

But Sirius walked with him that night. He had slept all day and well into the evening, and was beginning to resemble Remus on the day after the full moon. Remus had expected him to roll over and fall back asleep after he woke him to say that he was going out, but the prospect of being alone did not bode well with Sirius, and he insisted on coming along.

"Don't mind me," he said around a badly stifled yawn. "I won't be a bother."

"I'm just going for a walk," said Remus. "I'll be back in an hour or two. Sleep."

"Let me come with," Sirius said, trying to shrug off his discomfort. "Really, it's not a problem."

"If you don't want to be alone," Remus said, "then I'll stay." After all, they hadn't really seen each other for fourteen years, save for a brief encounter in the Shrieking Shack.

"No," Sirius said all too hastily, and while he tried to regroup - "Don't bother, is what I mean." - Remus couldn't help but smile sadly at his friend.

Even if Sirius was just going to go back to sleep, Remus wouldn't have minded spending the night inside, getting to look up from a book and see his old friend just lying there right in front of him, safe and whole, and not just some dream. "I'll stay." But Sirius was already reaching for the shoes Remus had loaned to him.

So there they were, walking together through a grassy meadow, enveloped in the lush greens of night-colored country. There were no trees, and the sky was clear.

While he swore that he was feeling well enough to walk, Sirius often fell behind. But being a Black, after all, he swore and protested every time Remus offered to slow down or stop to rest. He trudged on, swatting angrily at fireflies.

Remus was particularly thankful to have not been denied his walk that night, for on that particular night, a new moon hung in the sky. Rather, it didn't hang, for it was a new moon. It was as if there was no moon at all, and getting to indulge in that fantasy for just a few hours was very comforting.

Even without the moon hanging above, everything was still just as bright, thanks to the stars. The world as far as Remus could see was bathed in the same silvery glow.

Even with Sirius walking with him, everything was still just - almost - as quiet to Remus as it had always been. Aside from an occasionally muttered curse or grunt issued forth as Sirius stumbled over a fallen branch or a particularly rough patch of ground, nothing was loud enough to block out the beautiful silvery silence of the night.

"I'm stopping," Sirius unceremoniously declared and promptly sat down in the grass. "Just need to stop for a minute or two."

Remus decided not to sit down beside him. "Do you think you'll be able to make it back?" he asked from a few feet away.

"Of course I can make it back. That's why I'm stopping!" Sirius's voice was suddenly harsh and angry. Remus was still too wary of what twelve years of Azkaban had done to Sirius, too wary to risk testing the boundaries of their reunion, so he was thankful for the distance between them. He turned away to look for half-forgotten constellations.

At length, Sirius spoke again. "Christ, Moony," he muttered with weary astonishment. "Your hair's gone gray."

Only then did it occur to Remus that it had really been almost fourteen years between Sirius and himself. When he received the owl from Dumbledore, informing him of Sirius's impending arrival, he found himself unsure of how to feel. The last thing he remembered of his friend was losing Peter, and Sirius's innocence into the night, hands on his shoulders, and a rush of emotions. Fear, pain, rage, and then waking up underneath a tree, pine needles stuck to the sticky blood congealing on various wounds all over his body; and Sirius.

The last thing he had expected to have to talk about was the color of his hair. But really, the last time Sirius had seen him before going off to Azkaban had been... almost fourteen years ago.

Remus took a deep breath; he didn't know how to reply.

"Everything, every single thing... nothing's the same," Sirius said for him. He looked sad, fiddling with a blade of grass in his hands.

Remus offered a hand to help him up from the ground. "Do you want to go back?"

Sirius pushed his hand away and scoffed. "Back to what? Hogwarts? Running through the woods under a full moon? Back to the hollow, with James and Lily and Harry?" He shook his head and stood up. "How about going back so I never gave the secret to bloody Peter..."

"I meant going back to my flat," Remus said, touching Sirius's shoulder. "If you're tired, we should head back."

Sirius shook his head, still caught up in thoughts of what could have been. "There's no going back to anywhere, Moony," he said sullenly, but turned and began walking back the way they came.

Falling behind a bit, Remus let Sirius storm ahead, kicking rocks aside and clapping his hands around the fireflies in feeble attempts to kill them. When they had walked for some time, and Sirius was calm enough to let Remus come up and walk beside him, Remus allowed elbowed his friend in the arm.

"Just so you know," he said, "I take offense at you saying that my hair's gray." Sirius said nothing, so Remus continued. "I'd say it's more like silver, and even if it's not, I'd like you to say so anyway."

Sirius snorted, but there was something on his face that might have evolved into a smile had they been living their lives fourteen years prior.

When they returned to Remus's flat, Sirius, as predicted, had collapsed on the couch as soon as he could kick off his boots. Remus sat in the armchair by the window, bent over the book in his lap. Every so often, he would look up from the words to see Sirius sleeping on his couch, safe, whole, real. Being able to see him there, Remus thought, was more comforting than ever going walking beneath a moonless sky.