Stardust

He hadn't expected the house to be so quiet when he got back from the small Muggle village . He had though the cacophony of the old record player, nostalgic scratching and popping filling the air as Sirius played the records he had wanted to dig out of the attic, or maybe Padfoot's gentle snores as he basked in the midmorning sun that spilled through the windows and into the front room. The silence seemed to the fill the small house instead was almost tangible and Remus groaned inwardly as he kicked the door shut behind him.

His shifted the Tesco bags in his hands and tossed his keys onto the hall table, letting his eyes wander up the narrow staircase. He sighed at the sight of the trapdoor leading to attic still thrown open, the rickety old ladder standing stoically and dust particles in a trapped sunbeam filtering through the small opening above.

"Brilliant," he said to himself and sat the bags down as to struggle with his overcoat.

"You told him he could go up there," his reflection said from the mirror over the table.

"No one asked you," he said gruffly, throwing the coat unceremoniously on the table.

"Aren't we a happy camper today?"

"Do you have to be so damn cheeky?" Remus glowered at his reflection.

His mirror-self shrugged. "Makes my day a little less boring. Oh, and it wouldn't kill you to get a haircut, would it? Our fringe is really getting quite out of hand. We look like we did back in 1977. It was a good year, but we're how old now?"

Remus snorted and crossed his arms over his chest. "You know, some people would think a mirror isn't supposed to talk."

"Some people," his reflection raised an eyebrow, "don't argue with themselves and lose. Sometimes I question our sanity."

Remus rolled his eyes and toed off his shoes. "Careful. I might just have to chuck you one of these days."

"Admit it--you like my charm and charisma too much to do something so horrid as toss me out with the rubbish," his reflection said with a pout and a bat of eyelashes.

"If that's what you're calling it these days, then yes," Remus said and grabbed the bags again. "Has Sirius been down here since I left?"

The reflection sighed and ran a hand through its hair. "He came down for a coffee earlier. Didn't see him go back up though. I must have dosed off."

Remus frowned and took out his wand. "That all you've seen of him today?"

His mirror self huffed. "Yes! Haven't you got anything better to do than annoy me?"

"I could ask you the same question."

"Piss off," the reflection said and crossed his arms. "Who needs you anyway?"

Remus smirked. "What would you do for entertainment if you couldn't bicker with me?"

The reflection made a rude gesture and Remus let out a barking laugh. "Piss. Off. Lupin."

Brushing his fringe from his eyes, Remus picked up the bags and started for the kitchen. Sitting them on the worktop by the sink, he took a moment to stare out at the rolling countryside and centre himself before climbing into the attic to face Sirius and a past he would much rather forget. A dark cloud was looming ominously in the distance, a stark contrast to the clear blue sky above green of the garden and distant hills.

He sighed again as a rabbit hopped among the flowers by the old white fence around the house and looked back down at the bags. He frowned at them and, deciding they could wait, turned and walked to the doorway. He leaned against the frame and stared up at the trapdoor, his hands stuffed deep into his pockets.

"You'll give us wrinkles if you keep that up," his reflection called with a yawn.

Remus ignored him and ran a hand through his hair before taking a tentative step towards the staircase.

Placing a hand on the carved railing, he took a steadying breath and started slowly up the stairs. He absently counted them off as he climbed, wondering what Sirius was still doing in the cramped and dusty attic. He sighed as he reached the top of the stairs and stared at the latter as if it held the answers he was looking for.

He fought back the panic threatening to rise, not sure if either himself or Sirius was ready to face the past that he had carefully tucked away in the grime and accumulated trinkets that lay waiting at the top of the latter.

With an audible swallow, he laid a hand on a rung and pulled himself up. He sneezed as he crawled into the small attic and took a moment to brush the forgotten filth from his knees.

"Sirius?" Remus called out and raised a hand to his eyes, shielding him from the still bright sun shining in through the window that looked out over the Brecons.

"I didn't think you'd be back so soon," Sirius croaked from somewhere behind Remus.

Remus turned quickly spun around with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Going into town doesn't take a long time anymore," Remus said, looking around for Sirius. "Especially with the new supermarket the Muggles put in."

He sighed as he spotted him sitting on the floor with his back pressed against an old chest of drawers, his shoulders slumped and grey eyes rimmed with red. In his lap was a picture frame Remus hadn't seen in what felt like a lifetime. He watched Sirius trace the carved wooden frame and let his finger wander carefully over the cracked glass covering the old black and white from bygone years.

"A supermarket? In the middle of nowhere, Wales? What's next? Are we going to be the first people in the village to get one of those new fangled automobiles? Things have changed since I...went away," Sirius mocked, earning himself an elbow to the ribs.

Remus grinned and crossed the attic in three quick steps. He sat down next to Sirius, thigh touching thigh, and grimaced as his knees popped painfully in protest.

"And apparently I've got old since then too," Remus said and leaned back against the chest of drawers. "My knees never used to do that quite so often."

He saw Sirius smirk out of the corner of his eye. "Listen to us, Moony. 'Went away.' It makes it sound like I've been living it up in Tenerife for the last thirteen years. If only I had been so lucky."

"It could have been worse, you know," Remus said quietly and picked at a speck of dust on his trousers. In the distance, thunder rumbled and the room grew dark as the clouds moved over the house.

"Moony," Sirius said solemnly, "I think you may have finally proved Peeves right. Of course, we all thought you were loopy at school, but this cements it. Believe me, there is nothing worse than Azkaban."

Remus smiled bitterly. "You could have been dead."

He heard Sirius sigh and felt him shift closer. "Yeah, well, sometimes I wished I was."

Remus started as Sirius took his hand and met his eyes, stormy grey ones that reflected the sky outside meeting molten pools of brown.

"Don't say that," Remus whispered, not looking away.

"Why shouldn't I? It would have been easier on everyone if I had died or--or killed myself after all this shit happened! Or...or....Oh, fuck, I don't know--anything would have been better than instead of sitting in that hell like it was my penance!"

Remus squeezed Sirius's hand and ran his thumb gently over his knuckles. "It wouldn't have been easier on me if you had died."

"You would have found someone else," Sirius said and traced the cracked glass of the picture frame in his lap. "You deserve better than me." He snorted. "Always have."

Remus watched Sirius's finger dance over the glass and grimaced as a small streak of blood trailed in its wake. "Maybe I should have. But I wanted you."

Sirius looked up and studied his face for a long moment. He flinched as thunder clapped and rain poured down on the tin roof in an angry cacophony. He sighed and squeezed Remus's hand. "We were young and stupid back then, Moony."

"Yes, well, the two don't seem to be mutually exclusive," Remus deadpanned.

"Ha bloody ha," Sirius said with the ghost of smile tugging the corners of his mouth upward. Sobering he cleared his throat and ran a hand through his dark hair. "I'm sorry for hurting you. I know I did and I'll never forgive myself for being so damn blind."

Remus closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the chest of drawers, listening to the rain pound on the roof. "Like you said--young and stupid."

"But we were in love," Sirius said, turning his head slightly to look at Remus. "Weren't we?"

Remus smiled a gentle, wistful smile. "I know I was."

"I think I was too," Sirius said and stared down at the picture resting on his thigh with a frown. "Why's it broken?"

Remus looked at the photo and sighed. "I threw it in the box when I packed everything up. I couldn't look at it anymore. It just...it was too soon to think about what had happened in terms of what we had been. And Peter took the photo--I couldn't stand the memory and the reality was too horrible to bear when I looked at it. Now it's just a reminder that things weren't what they seemed."

Sirius smiled wearily and held the frame up, careful not to tip out the shattered glass. "We look happy."

Remus took it and smiled at their younger selves as the danced to music that had long since fallen quiet. Sirius's hair was shaggy and hung down into his eyes as he twirled a less grey Remus around Lily and James's cramped front room. In the background, Lily laughed and playfully prodded James, her lips moving in a silent tease as he intermittently shouted catcalls at them over the music.

"We were happy," Remus said as the Sirius in the picture dipped his younger self and held him just a little tighter. He smiled at the blush that crept over his photograph's cheeks as picture-Sirius kissed him soundly.

"What happened to us, Remus?"Sirius's hand tightened around his in a vice-like grip.

"War happened."

"Not the romantic kind, though," Sirius said gravelly.

"War's never romantic," Remus said and glared at Sirius.

"What?" Sirius raised an eyebrow. "Dashing young men getting ready to ship off, beautiful young girls with pencil up the back of their stockings, and Kay Kyser playing in the background? Come on, Moony. Even you have to admit it's kind of romantic."

"You've been watching too many old films," Remus said, lips quirking into a half-smile. "And don't even start on the relative merits of Kay Kyser and Glenn Miller."

"You used to like those types of films," Sirius said. "Besides, it's your fault I've been watching them--I've already worked my way through your bookshelf and they were all that was left to entertain myself with."

Remus raised one eyebrow and Sirius chuckled. "Mum finds them at car boot sales and they tend to accumulate over here once she's done with them."

"You don't mind?" Sirius asked.

"Not really," Remus said with a chuckle. "She still thinks I watch them and it humours her since Dad's been gone. I just don't enjoy them as much as I used too, that's all."

"Why not?" Sirius frowned. "You used to love going to the cinema on Saturdays when they had a showing. Double feature, usually something with that Henry Boggart--"

"Bogart, Sirius. Humphrey Bogart," Remus stressed with a snicker.

"Fine. Something with that Bogart chap, lots of odd, Muggle little old ladies comparing him to Cary Grant and Errol Flynn, and plenty of those sweets your mum always had when we'd pop in for a visit. What happened?"

Remus squeezed Sirius's hand, not looking up at him. "I moved back in with Mum and Dad after you...went away. There was nothing left for me in London and the cinema back home is more content with kids' films and those horrible ones with no plot, too much violence, and budgets you could live on for a good long while. Besides, watching some dark, dashing man woo an equally as good-looking heroine hurt too much. All I saw was us and all I could think of was you yelling at the screen while some usher threatened to throw us out if we didn't keep quiet." He paused and looked down at their entwined hands. "It's just...after a while I stopped caring about them."

"Oh." Sirius looked at the photo again and took a deep breath. He absently wiped away a strip of dust from the frame. "What were we dancing too? I can't remember the name of it. It feels like a lifetime ago...."

"Something by Glenn Miller," Remus said, grateful at the sudden shift in the conversation. "Lily found it in the attic when they moved in. 'Moon Love,' I believe it was. Said she thought it was fitting, put it on after dinner at the housewarming and, next thing I knew, you were twirling me around the room, making up lewd lyrics at the top of your lungs. I had bruises on my shins from you bumping me into the coffee table repeatedly and on my feet from your two left ones the next morning."

"I remember you also had one on your neck too the next morning," Sirius said, the ghost of a smile on his face.

He shifted closer and leaned into Remus's side, legs curling under him. He handed the photo to Remus.

"I loved you. A lot," he said and watched their younger selves twirl around the picture frame. "And I threw it all away! I should have known it was him all along!"

Remus sighed and sat the old picture on the floor, thunder rumbling in the distance. "It wasn't stupid, Sirius. It was wartime--you couldn't trust your own mother."

Sirius snorted. "I never trusted mine anyway."

"That's beside the point." Remus pulled his wand from his robe and pointed it at an old trunk across from them. The top creaked open and an old gramophone and a record floated out. With a flick of his wrist, the arm of the gramophone lifted and the record slotted into place. As the needle scratched at the material and the machine wound itself, lighting flashed and illuminated the small attic for a moment.

"It wasn't Muggle London teeming with soldiers on leave like in all those old films--it was our world imploding because of an old prejudice. And we were the kids caught up in the chaos and grandiosity of it all, fighting for something we knew was right and didn't know quite how to handle the strain of it all."

Gentle jazz filled the room as the record began to play, a subtle beat against the rain rapping on the tin of the roof, and Remus wasn't surprised to see the mother-of-pearl tear tracks running down Sirius's cheeks.

"We grew up to quickly," the darker man whispered, grey eyes that matched the storm outside staring at the gramophone. "I never wanted--never meant--to hurt you, Remus."

"I know," Remus said and placed a gentle kiss to his temple.

He ignored Sirius's steely gaze as he studied him and stood. He offered him a hand, and Remus pulled Sirius to his feet with a watery smile as the music drifted through the cramped attic. "It's not our song, but I think it'll do."

Sirius returned his smile and wrapped an arm around Remus's waist, holding the man's hand to his chest with his other. They moved in time to the music, bodies pressed close as they clung together. Remus sighed as Sirius laid his head on his shoulder, the record player starting the song over again, and held the man tighter.

"Moony?" Sirius's voice was muffled against his neck.

"Hmm?" Remus murmured, resting his head against Sirius's.

"I still love you," Sirius said and wrapped both arms around Remus's waist.

Remus kissed his temple again and rubbed his back in soothing circles.

"And I never stopped loving you, not really. All that time and I couldn't simply forget you." He smiled bitterly. "You spoiled me for anyone else."

Sirius sniffed and Remus chose to ignore the hot wetness soaking into his shirt. "You should have moved on."

"Maybe, but that's all in the past now. All that matters is right now and where we're going. You're here and so am I--everything that happened has happened and what's to come will come. Whatever you want to happen--whatever you want me to do--all you have to do is ask." He smiled and pulled away to tilt Sirius's chin up to meet his eyes. "It's that simple. I never could tell you no."

Sirius forced a sad, smile. He leaned in close to Remus, chapped lips gently brushing soft ones in a gentle, insistent kiss. "Hold me? Please?"

"All right," Remus said and ran his hand up Sirius's back to cradle the man's head. He ran his fingers through his dark hair, swaying to the music and the slowing rapping of the rain. He shifted to kiss Sirius as the danced in place, oblivious to their younger selves stopping their antics in the forgotten photo to stare up at them from a lifetime ago.