Chapter Six: Desire
“S-Sirius was always good at carving,” Remus stammered, sinking into the chair in front of Dumbledore’s desk as the Headmaster examined the statuette. “I suppose he must have done that because he doesn’t have any paper . . . wherever he is . . . but there’s plenty of wood in the forest and it was an easy way to leave a message . . .”
Dumbledore said nothing for a long time, finally putting the statue down. “I’m glad you brought this to me,” he said quietly.
Remus stared at the floor. “I almost didn’t,” he admitted. “Why do you think he left me anything at all?”
“Particularly something with this message on it,” Dumbledore mused, turning the statuette in his hands. “It’s a puzzle. I see three options. One: he is attempting to play mind games with you. Two: he is attempting to gain your alliance. Three: he is honestly still in love with you.”
Remus looked at the small piece of wood and said nothing.
“If it is the first, I think it’s safe to say that he has succeeded in his goal,” Dumbledore said, giving Remus a careful look. “It’s been a long time since I last saw you this shaken. It is possible he wants more out of you, or is seeking to confuse you. Obviously, we don’t yet know.”
“Or he could be trying to convince me he still loves me,” Remus said slowly. “So if he comes to me, I’ll help him.” He straightened his back. “No need to worry about that. I know where my loyalties lie.”
Dumbledore spared him a brief smile.
“But . . . the third . . .” Remus’ voice wavered. “Do you really think that’s possible?”
Dumbledore shrugged. “To be a servant of Voldemort didn’t make one incapable of love, certainly. It could be that his plan was to attempt to turn you to his side after your other two friends had been dealt with.”
Remus shuddered.
“It’s also possible that, now that he’s free, he is again attempting this,” Dumbledore said. “And not even so unreasonable. I do like to think of myself as a good judge of character, and I would have been rather certain that Sirius did love you, at least as much as you loved him.” He paused, then said gently, “However, I never would have guessed Sirius to be a traitor, either, and it is clear that I was incorrect about that.”
Remus took the statuette back from Dumbledore.
“He could have, of course, intended to leave you a longer message, using paper and ink from your room,” Dumbledore said. “A plan which failed as he didn’t visit you first. It’s difficult to say what his true motives were. We may never know, in fact.”
Remus leaned forward in his chair. “When -- if -- they catch him again -- this time I need to see him before they take him away. It can be under supervision, I don’t care, but . . . I have to talk to him. I have to know why he did this.” He looked up pleadingly into Dumbledore’s dispassionate face. “Please, you don’t understand how this has been torturing me for years . . . I have to know.”
“I will see what I can do, Remus,” Dumbledore said quietly. “But if he is missing much longer, they may authorize use of the Kiss.”
Remus felt his stomach grow cold. “But . . . no . . . even Sirius doesn’t deserve that . . .”
“It may not happen, Remus,” Dumbledore said. “But it’s something you must be prepared for.”
Remus swallowed hard. “Yes. Of course.”
“You’ve had a very tiring evening, Remus,” Dumbledore said. “You should get some rest.”
“I know. I still have papers to grade, too.” Remus made a slight face. “Thank you for your advice.”
“I wouldn’t worry about Sirius visiting again,” Dumbledore said. “Security is being tightened.” He suddenly gave Remus a very sharp look. “Unless, that is, you can think of some way he is getting into the castle that we don’t know about?”
Remus’ stomach lurched as he thought of Sirius being an Animagus, of the passage below the Whomping Willow. Dumbledore knew about the passage, of course, but he didn’t know that it would be quite easy for Sirius to get in through it. But to admit that to Dumbledore meant admitting that the others had become Animagi for his sake.
For a long second, he battled with himself. Then he finally shook his head. “Dark arts of some sort, I suppose.”
“I assume so,” Dumbledore said heavily. “All right, Remus, you may go.”
Remus left the room, feeling worse than he had in months.
****
By the next day, theories about how Sirius could have entered the castle were running rampant. Remus’ new contentment with life was running at an all-time low. Snape gave him dirty looks every time they came within glancing distance of each other. The staff seemed to be quickly reaching its own conclusion about how Sirius had gotten in.
He went on as normal. The full moon was approaching, and he was almost looking forward to those few days of being not himself.
Two days after the attack, Remus sat in the staff room in front of the fire, fiddling with the wooden figurine. The other staff members eyed him nervously. None of them would sit near him or even speak to him except McGonagall and Dumbledore himself. Hagrid was still friendly with him, for what his support was worth, but as only about half the teachers respected him in the first place, it didn’t count for much. Mostly, he was ignored or whispered about. Remus didn’t blame them. They were frightened. So was he.
“Don’t you have somewhere else to be, Lupin?” Snape asked him harshly, upon entering the room.
“This is the staff room, Severus,” Remus said quietly, still staring into the fire. “As I’m a member of the staff, I think I have the right to be here.” He refused to hide in his room. He’d had enough of hiding.
“So you don’t have any secret meetings to go to?” Snape asked sharply. “Any plots to come up with? Any new entrances to the castle to find?”
For the first time in his life, Remus understood the phrase ‘seeing red.’ He was so angry he could barely breathe. His fists clenched down on the figurine, and the sharp wooden edges dug into his skin.
“I’m amazed you didn’t make your move before this, Lupin,” Snape continued venomously. “Everyone knows what you are.”
Remus stood. Slowly. Calmly. Taking care to breathe as if the oxygen would somehow extinguish the fire that was burning in his veins. “Severus,” he said, his voice strained. “I’m going to advise you right now to not continue this.”
The two of them stood glaring at each other for a minute while several other professors looked on. Remus slid the statuette into his pocket.
“Afraid I’ll say the truth?” Snape asked. “The truth about what you and Sirius Black were? You think there are still people who don’t know?”
Remus felt something inside him break. Before he could truly think through what he was doing, he punched Snape in the jaw. That made him feel slightly better, so he grabbed Snape by the front of the robes and pushed him up against the wall.
The room was dead silent except for the crackling of the fire.
“Need I remind you,” Remus said in a low, deadly voice, “that Sirius Black was a servant of Voldemort? He sold Lily and James Potter to him. He killed Peter. He betrayed everything that I felt for him, everything we had. If there’s anyone who’s going to let Sirius into the castle, it isn’t going to be me. I hate him more than anyone else in this room.”
He let Snape go and turned away.
“You love Sirius Black,” Snape hissed.
“I won’t deny that,” Remus replied, fighting to keep his voice steady. “But there are some things that cannot be forgiven.”
He turned to walk away.
“You expect us to believe that?” Snape called after him, voice harsh.
“Quite frankly, Severus, I don’t give a damn whether you believe it or not,” Remus replied. He fished the figurine out of his pocket and threw it into the fireplace so hard that it shattered. Then he turned to Snape. “I am not helping Sirius Black into the castle. I hate him just as much as any of you, most likely more. And if he was in front of me right now, I would kill him.”
It was a lie, of course. Remus knew he was no more capable of killing Sirius than he was of killing Dumbledore. But it was a convincing lie, and he held Snape’s eyes as he said it.
Snape backed down. “I had to be sure,” he said stiffly.
Remus felt an odd wave of understanding. They had plenty of reason to doubt him. Snape was simply the only one with enough of a backbone to come out and say it. “I know,” he said. “I’m not angry. I would be suspicious of me as well, I suppose. But I’m not helping Sirius . . . and I will protect Harry.”
Snape nodded and turned away.
“Sorry about your face,” Remus said. He turned and left the staff room.
There were no more rumors of his complicity after that. Remus felt slightly guilty, having won them over with a lie. And on the whole, could it not be said that he was helping Sirius by not telling Dumbledore that Sirius was an Animagus?
He tried not to think about it. Sirius must have been using some Dark magic to get inside the castle. After so long in Azkaban, he probably didn’t even have the ability to change form anymore.
He told himself this over and over again, and after a while, he even managed to convince himself.
****
If nothing else, Remus reflected, it was shaping up to be an interesting year. The full moon was on Christmas again, which reminded him painfully of that Christmas he had stayed at Sirius’. He attempted not to think about it. In fact, he attempted to not think about Sirius at all. It was a losing battle. The longer the year went on, the more preoccupied he found himself. Only his lessons kept him on earth at all.
He thought he would have gotten rest over Christmas break, but returned to the school year feeling more ill and exhausted than ever. It didn’t help that three weeks after classes started, the Ministry announced they were authorizing the use of the Kiss on Sirius. Even worse was the fact that this was on the day of one of his dementor lessons with Harry.
He tried to appear as usual and even managed it for a while. The first session had gone well enough, despite Harry asking if he’d known Sirius and Remus having to struggle very hard to not lose his cool. Fortunately, he seemed to have gotten across the message that it was something he wasn’t particularly fond of talking about, and Harry had never asked again.
On occasion, Remus thought it might be nice to tell Harry some of the stories about his father’s school days. God only knew Harry had been deprived enough of information about his parents. But he couldn’t think of any stories that didn’t involve Sirius, and Harry didn’t want to hear about Sirius any more than Remus wanted to talk about him. So Remus kept his silence.
Harry, of course, believed that Sirius deserved the Kiss, though Remus was smart enough to know that Harry was only thirteen and probably didn’t understand the situation entirely. As smart as Harry was, he only knew what he had been told, whatever that was. For all Remus knew, he had heard the specifics of the situation from Snape.
Remus lay awake at night thinking of Sirius soulless and empty. Could it really be worse than him being a traitor and a murderer?
If the dementors performed the Kiss, Remus would never have his answers. And he considered that more important than anything else. He wanted desperately to find Sirius before the dementors did, but had no idea how to go about doing it. Sirius could be hiding anywhere in Hogsmeade and the surrounding area. The only advantage he had was that he knew Sirius could possibly be wandering around as a large black dog -- and that wasn’t much of an advantage at all.
Sirius’ visit after the Gryffindor-Ravenclaw Quidditch match left him shaken and confused. He simply didn’t understand what had happened. At least this time Sirius hadn’t seen fit to leave him any gifts. The staff had looked at him oddly for a few days, until Remus had a fit and offered to take Veritaserum and be questioned if it would make them all feel better. Dumbledore told him it wouldn’t be necessary, but the very fact that he had offered was enough.
Remus slept less than ever.
It didn’t make sense. Though Remus didn’t like to think of Sirius that way, what had stopped him from murdering Harry while he’d been in the room? Even without a wand, Sirius could have taken on five thirteen-year-old boys. He had proven he was capable of murder. What had stopped him?
The staff’s theory was that once Ron had shouted, he had realized he wouldn’t be able to get out quickly enough if he stopped to kill anyone.
It wasn’t a bad theory, but Remus didn’t buy it.
Sirius just didn’t think like that. If there was one quality Remus had always been annoyed by in Sirius, it was that he almost never stopped to examine long-term consequences. He had a goal and he usually accomplished it, not stopping to think about what would happen once he did so. The Sirius that Remus remembered wouldn’t have been thinking far ahead enough to realize if he waited, he would surely be caught.
He could have been spooked, Remus supposed. He knew what Azkaban supposedly did to one’s mind. But that, too, didn’t fit in with what Remus knew of his former friend. Azkaban might change someone, but Remus had trouble picturing Sirius being spooked by a thirteen year old boy.
Which only left one option in Remus’ mind: Sirius had never meant to kill any of them. But then, why on earth would he have snuck into the room with a knife?
Once Remus got started on the whys and wherefores of how Sirius was acting, he simply couldn’t stop. He found himself going over and over everything that had happened twelve years ago, looking for a loophole, a flaw, anything that might, if not prove Sirius innocent, at least explain to Remus why he had done what he had done.
The more Remus thought about it, the stranger it got. He couldn’t help but wonder when Sirius had gone over to Voldemort. He had never noticed any change in the way Sirius was acting. That left two options: either Sirius had been like that all along, or he had been able to hide the change.
The second seemed far more likely, by virtue of the fact that the first was simply impossible. The Sirius that Remus had known would never have even considered being on Voldemort’s side. In fact, if anyone had suggested it to Remus before Sirius’ betrayal, he would have laughed for at least ten minutes.
So he had changed, and merely been able to hide the change from the others. That fit in slightly better with what Remus knew of Sirius. He had always been a good liar and a good actor, ranging from wheedling teachers for better grades he didn’t deserve to convincing Snape it was a good idea to go look for Remus in the Shrieking Shack.
But one thing that Sirius wasn’t was patient, and what Sirius had done spoke of tons of that. To hide himself that long and that well, from people who were as close to him as Allister and Remus . . .
It just didn’t make sense.
Despite all this, though, Remus knew it to be true. People had seen Sirius kill Peter and the twelve other innocents. Remus himself knew that Sirius had been James’ Secret-Keeper.
Or at least, he knew that it had been planned that way. He found himself wondering who had actually performed the charm. So during one of his many sleepless nights, he looked up the Fidelius Charm and found that it was performed only by the two people involved. He put the book away and sighed. That didn’t help at all, and he knew it was stupid to keep going over the details like this. There was no way Sirius could be innocent. His current actions must be just because he was simply insane.
And how had Sirius gotten into the castle? Furthermore, how had he been there long enough to find the list of passwords that Neville had written? That spoke of some lengthy time inside. Of course, it had been very late at night, and even the teachers slept. Something about it was bothering Remus, though, and he couldn’t quite name what it was.
Unless, of course, one counted his natural desire to find any way he could to explain Sirius’ actions.
****
After four days of practically no sleep, Remus finally dozed off in the armchair he kept in front of the fire. He slept fitfully, waking up near dawn with no clear idea of why he’d woken. The fire was sputtering and nearly out. Remus stood up and put another log on it, then watched as it flared back up. He held his hands out to it, concerned to find that he was shivering.
He stood there for a long time, only half-conscious, barely aware of what was going on around him. He didn’t hear his door open, or the quiet footsteps behind him. He didn’t know anyone else was in the room until a pair of thin arms encircled his waist.
“You threw away the present I sent you,” a hoarse voice whispered.
Remus tensed, his mind freezing with shock. “S . . . Sirius . . .”
“I don’t mind, though,” Sirius continued.
Remus’ brain tried to kick itself into gear. Sirius was evil. Sirius had to be stopped. He should definitely not be allowing this. He slid his hand into his pocket, reaching for his wand.
“Don’t,” Sirius whispered, as Remus pulled it out. “Please don’t.” His hand closed on Remus’, their fingers entwining.
“Sirius . . . you . . .” Remus kept a tight grip on his wand, but didn’t move otherwise. He didn’t want to startle Sirius; that could be disastrous.
“I have to talk to you . . .” Sirius said softly. He leaned in a little, kissing the back of Remus’ neck. “There’s so much you don’t understand.”
Remus closed his eyes. “Then tell me,” he said. “Explain it to me.”
“Later,” Sirius whispered. His free hand tugged a little at the top of Remus’ robes, exposing more of his skin. He leaned over Remus’ shoulder, pressing himself closer. “I’ve waited too long for this.”
Remus’ wand fell from his limp hand.
“Turn around,” Sirius whispered. “I want to see your face.”
Remus didn’t move.
Sirius put his hand on Remus’ shoulder and gently turned him around. Remus didn’t even have a chance to register Sirius’ face before Sirius kissed him. He tried to think, but his mind was spinning and he couldn’t concentrate on anything except the feel of Sirius’ lips against his. He twined his arms around Sirius’ neck, ignoring the little voice in the back of his head that was yammering something about betrayal and Voldemort. It was such a tiny voice that he could barely hear it anyway. Everything was drowned out by the rush of blood in his ears.
Sirius pulled away, and for a minute they simply stood with their foreheads touching as Remus struggled to catch his breath.
“It’s wrong . . .” he whispered. “This is wrong . . .”
“But you don’t care,” Sirius replied, and kissed him again. “Because if you did, I’d be dead by now.”
Remus gave in to the kiss. He could feel his mind shutting down from shock. He couldn’t think. He didn’t want to think. He just wanted Sirius.
“I’ll explain everything, I swear,” Sirius whispered. “But first . . .”
Remus was numb. But he was no longer cold.
****
Remus sat up with a gasp. He looked wildly around his room, but it was empty. His wand was still in his pocket; he was still sitting in the armchair in front of the fire, where he had dozed off.
He drew in a shaky breath.
“. . . all a dream . . .” he finally managed to whisper to himself. “It was all a dream . . . Sirius was never here . . .”
He was trembling violently, but not from chill.
“Oh, God, Sirius . . .”
****
Remus stared down at the piece of parchment in his hands. It seemed like yesterday that the four of them had been lying around in their bedroom where Sirius said lazily, “You know what we need? We need a map of the castle. One that would help us avoid Filch.”
Three months later, presto, the Maurauder’s Map. Seeing it lying on Snape’s desk with those insults written in their respective handwriting was probably the most nostalgic moment of Remus’ entire life. He knew that Snape had to know who had made it; he all but accused Remus of giving it to Harry himself.
Remus felt slightly bad about how snappish he had been with Harry. Three consecutive sleepless nights following that extremely vivid dream had not really improved his mood any. He was angry with everything, and Harry had been the recipient of most of that bottled up emotion.
Still, he wasn’t going to apologize. What Harry had done was enormously stupid. At least, Remus reflected, now he was fairly sure that Harry wouldn’t do it again.
And now he had the map again. Filch had found them with it and confiscated it while they’d been in their seventh year, though he’d never figured out how to use it. James had come up with the decoding phrase for it; Sirius had been the one with the idea to spit back insults at anyone who was attempting to read it incorrectly.
So, after snapping at Harry about how he should have turned it in, Remus was sitting with it spread on his desk, with no plans on turning it in.
He had to use it first.
There was something he knew was kept in the castle; he had stumbled upon it his very first year. He waited until it was three in the morning and the castle was silent. Everyone would be asleep; as long as he could avoid Mrs. Norris and Peeves, he’d be fine. And that was what the map was for, after all.
It took him two hours of prowling the castle before he entered a dusty storage room that contained what he was looking for. He approached the piece of metal reverently and stopped a few feet away.
The Mirror of Erised.
“What do I really want?” Remus murmured to himself. He stared into the mirror for long moments. When he’d found it in his first year, the picture had been obvious; he’d been standing outside under a full moon, still in human form. Now he stood by himself for a long second, before Sirius flounced into the picture. It wasn’t Sirius as he looked in the newspapers, but Sirius as he’d been when he was young. Remus realized that in the mirror, his gray hair was still light brown. There were no lines in his face or dark circles under his eyes. He was young again. Or not precisely young. They were still the same ages they were now, but with none of the signs of the pain they had endured. Sirius grinned mischieviously and draped his arms around Remus’ waist, peering over his shoulder.
As Remus watched, James, Peter, and Lily all appeared in the mirror. They stood around and talked and laughed as if nothing was wrong. They were young, they were smart, they had the entire world and their entire lives in front of them.
Remus sank to his knees in front of the mirror, but in the mirror he remained standing. Remained smiling. Loved and in love, without a single care in the world.
How long he knelt there, he never really knew. He just stayed there and stared into the mirror in fascination. There he could have his friends back. There he could have Sirius, and not be guilty about it. His dreams didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. The real world just faded away until this image before him was all that was left.
“What do you see?” a soft voice asked.
“I see the way things should be,” Remus whispered.
“‘Should’ is a powerful word,” the voice replied.
Remus didn’t turn to see who was speaking to him. He honestly didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything except sitting in front of this wonderful mirror and looking into it.
“Remus,” the voice said, “your first class will be meeting in ten minutes.”
Remus still didn’t reply.
A pair of hands rested lightly over his eyes. Old, dry hands. Dumbledore. “You must not look into the mirror again, Remus. You are already too much under its spell.”
Remus made no move to push Dumbledore away, reciting what he had learned in Charms class so many years ago. “The Mirror of Erised’s spell is strongest for those who need the most.”
“When you were young,” Dumbledore said, “you were able to walk away from the mirror. You must be able to do so now.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore,” Remus said harshly. “What does anyone care if I want to sit up here and waste away, watching what could have been?”
“I think you’d find quite a few people in this building who care,” Dumbledore replied. “And I happen to be one of them.”
“I think I should leave,” Remus whispered. “I’m not safe here. If I saw Sirius . . . I don’t know what I would do. But I don’t trust myself to do the right thing.”
“That’s as may be,” Dumbledore said. “But Sirius has not approached you for help, and if he has not yet, he will not. I don’t believe we are in any danger from you, Remus. The person you pose the most danger to is yourself. And that’s why I’d like to keep you here, where I can be sure you’re all right.”
Remus finally pushed Dumbledore’s hands away, and stared into the mirror for one long second. Then, in a strangled voice, he said, “The Mirror’s charms are also strongest for those who can never have what they want.”
“That’s true,” Dumbledore replied. “You can never have that, Remus. And for that, you have my sympathies. Now let it go.”
With great effort, Remus wrenched his eyes away from the mirror. “How long until my first class?” he asked in a dull voice.
“Six and a half minutes,” Dumbledore replied. “You had better hurry.”
Remus nodded and walked out of the room.
He did not look back.
****
Part Seven
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