The Marauders: Year Five #Wattys2017

Logistics

Logistics

At Dora and Charlus's insistence after hearing the harrowing tale of what had happened in Cairo, Newt Scamander's briefcase was kept on the coffee table at the Potter's house - they were to stay while Newt was still healing from the werewolf attacks.

Remus woke up in the laboratory, on his bed in the room with the Charkorais birds, and lay staring at the ceiling, shivering. He had a funny feeling... like something had woken him up. He looked around the dark, but even the two Charkorais birds were silent. Then his eyes landed on the mirror - on the reflection of Sirius... He was laying face down on the pillows, his hands gripping his head... and, though he was trying at being very, very quiet, he was obviously crying; Remus could hear it, could see his shoulders shaking, could feel it in his heart. This was what had woken him up, he'd sensed Sirius needed him.

Quickly, he rolled out of bed - Burt beginning to peep-peep-peep at the sight of movement. "Shh," Remus whispered in the general direction of the peeping in the cage, "You'll wake everyone!" He slipped out of the room and closed the door, tip-toeing across the lab. The Niffler was asleep in her basket, curled up about the shiny gold pocket watch that Professor Veigler had given her for her heroics in the moonstone room. She curled her claws around it and snuffled against it. Remus was very, very careful not to make a sound as he passed by her, climbing up the ladder, and pushing open the briefcase.

The Potter house was silent, pitch dark. Remus drew his wand. "Lumos," he whispered and he walked very carefully through the living room, down the hallway to the stairs. He took them very slow, not knowing which ones would creak and which ones wouldn't. He'd only been upstairs in the Potter's house once and it'd been quite some time ago, but he slipped along the hall, past James's bedroom door (he could hear what he assumed was Bubo fluffing her wings in there), and stood, biting his lip, staring at the door that he thought was probably Sirius's.

Very, very gently, he knocked.

It was silent.

Remus backed up, away from the door, suddenly quite nervous that perhaps this was Dora and Charlus's room... then the door opened and framed in moonlight from the open window was Sirius. Seeing it was Remus in the hall, he held the door opened, stepping out of the way for Remus to come inside. Remus looked around the room as he entered - it had been outfitted in Gryffindor from head to foot, and bore an unmistakable mark of Sirius Black in that his things were strewn everywhere. The impossibly long Gryffindor scarf hung over his bed post, the leather jacket flung over the back of a desk chair... the contents of the trunk, which Dumbledore had rescued from Number 12, were all over the floor, all that remained in the bottom of the trunk was bits of balled up parchment and broken quills.

Remus turned to look at Sirius. His messy, reckless, crazy Sirius. They both just stood there staring at one another for a moment before Sirius walked over and climbed into the bed, patting the mattress beside him for Remus to follow, and he did. It was a small bed, narrower, even, than the ones at Hogwarts so that they didn't even fit shoulder-to-shoulder but had to lay on their sides, facing one another in order to fit. There was light coming in the open window, a breeze that fluttered the curtains... the smell of magnolias on the air...

Sirius's eyes were bloodshot and a bit puffy from crying and Remus hated that. Remus leaned closer and kissed Sirius softly. "You were crying," whispered Remus.

Sirius nodded.

"I heard you in the mirror," Remus said.

"I'm sorry if I woke you," Sirius murmured.