Chapter Text
For Sirius Black, the Auror Office's Entrance Examination is a piece of cake. Except for the bit at the end, which is a piece of bullshit.
The selection committee fawns over his N.E.W.T.s. Screw you, Mother, he thinks, it's high time someone appreciated an Outstanding in Muggle Studies. He brews six potions simultaneously, Vanishes the tablecloth underneath a house of Exploding Snap cards without so much as a single spark, battles the Ministry's training troll - a grumpy old bastard even by trolls' lousy standards -, and breezes through the physical fitness test barely out of breath.
"That was fun," James remarks when Sirius plonks down next to him in the auditory.
"That was boring," says Sirius. "I wish they still had that dragon! What's left?" He scans the programme slips they've all been given in the morning.
Individual interviews, it says at the bottom of the list. Motivation and mental health.
James snorts. "About time someone started asking you questions, Pads."
"Easy-peasy," says Sirius. "If that is their standard of mental health –" he jerks his head towards the madman currently clinking woodenly towards the lectern, "- I don't think we have anything to worry about."
Said madman introduced himself this morning as Alastor bloody Moody; you might know me from your worst nightmares.
Around them, the excited, exhausted, and already thoroughly thinned out murmur dies away. Moody slams his wooden leg down, but by then it's quiet enough to hear a pin drop.
"All right, you got through the easy part," the scarecrow in charge of them says, "or at least, a third of you did. I have no choice but to infer the whole cohort's full of wet blankets, so you better step up your game."
It's not exactly what the audience has expected. James leans over to Sirius and whispers, "I like him."
"You would," says Sirius. "He sounds like you during Quidditch try-outs."
"I'll tell you what," says Moody. "If you're still around after the day you've had, you probably can do the job." On the other side of the lecture hall, someone whoops. Moody's artificial eye, which Sirius finds highly distracting, swivels towards the noise. It dies mid-whoop.
"Whether you should be doing it," adds Moody calmly, once again enjoying their undivided attention, " – well, that's an entirely different beast. The interviews will be held under Veritaserum –"
This time, a groan goes through the hall, and Moody laughs mirthlessly. "Yeah, I know," he says. "It's only the Auror Office, let's just let in a bunch of basket cases and Death Eaters, shall we? If your delicate sensibilities can't handle a touch of privacy invasion, get out now. The rest, turn over your parchments."
The tension has certainly risen in the hall, but under the Moody's asymmetric watch, no-one dares leaving.
The madman waves his wand. "On the back of your parchments, you should see a list of guiding questions," he says. "Interviewers may divert from them at their own discretion."
Sirius scans his parchment. At the top, it says, Are you, or have you ever been, in contact with a known or suspected Death Eater?
"And there's no point in trying to lie under Veritaserum," says Moody casually. "The yelps of pain will give you away."
Sirius is aware that James is giving him a semi-concerned look.
He ignores both scarecrow and best friend. "Finally, a challenge," he says, and feels a grin spread over his face.
The highly ironical thing is that Remus Lupin would have aced this part. The Werewolf Registry requires biannual interviews under Veritaserum, and Remus has become a pro at hiding truths inside technicalities. Besides, he is the very picture of motivation and mental health. He might not even have had to lie.
He'd be the perfect Auror: More committed than James, more rational than Sirius, more hard-working than either of them. Except the bloody morons at the Auror Office had sent back Remus's application – twelve N.E.W.T.s, prefect, captain of the duelling club, peer mentoring, the list goes on – stapled together with a copy of the 1978 Control of Dark Creatures in the Workplace Act. Remus works in a bar now.
He's not there when Sirius gets home, which is bad because Sirius has questions. In a world in which Veritaserum is a thing, what's even the point of keeping secrets? Why has it seemed so important all this time? And how on earth can Sirius throw himself at the sofa and miss?
Mr Black, do you currently suffer from, or have you ever suffered from insomnia or feelings of restlessness?
Between endless winter nights in the Gryffindor common room and the fact it's currently four a.m., it's probably a fair question, even though Sirius has so far operated under the assumption that Auroring takes place largely at night, so where's the problem? Or maybe that's Remus's Muggle crime shows. His grasp on reality is a bit shaky right now.
He hears a key turn in the lock. It's Remus. Sirius hears him kicking off his boots in the hall, then walking over softly on socked feet. A creak of the sofa tells him Remus has settled down on the armrest.
"How was it?" he says. Probably giving him a look.
Sirius shrugs. "Wretched," he informs the sofa pillow. "Scary. Strangely intimate."
"Yeah, James mentioned it went a bit pear-shaped in the end," says Remus.
"Not for him, I don't think," says Sirius.
"He's worried." Remus smells of thick cigarette smoke and other people's spilled drinks, and his Welsh accent is slightly more pronounced than usual after a full shift at the bar. "What happened?"
"Ticked too many boxes," says Sirius. "Too little impulse control, too little sleep. Too many panic attacks. Too many nightmares. Too fucked up by my family." He flops over, to stare at the ceiling for a change. "Maybe a little bit too gay, too."
Remus gives a soft whistle. "Thorough, weren't they."
"Sort of came out with all the rest," says Sirius.
The very obvious problem is that Sirius isn't a naturally open person. Remus is looking at his face the way he sometimes does, looking for the things Sirius usually hides. Then Remus slides down from the armrest to sit on Sirius's legs, probably anticipating an attempt to run away.
Sirius expects something that Remus considers soothing, something comforting, something like, Do you want to talk about it? To prevent that from happening, he employs an old joke.
"Dogsitting again, Moony?"
It doesn't even get him a smile. Instead, Remus says, "Is the Veritaserum is still working?"
Mr Black, have you ever experienced episodes of extreme terror or fear, even though you knew at the time that there was no immediate danger?
"Yes." The answer is out before Sirius has had a chance to think about it. "Thought it'd be over by now."
"Alcohol prolongs its effects, genius," says Remus. "Thought someone with an "Outstanding" Potions N.E.W.T. might know."
"Wasn't thinking."
"You're generally not," says Remus. He sighs.
Well, Sirius has certainly expected more sympathy and less disappointment.
In fact, the whole conversation doesn't go like he's imagined, pretty much like the wretched interview, but how could it, when he doesn't even know what he's going to say until he says it, with Veritaserum seeping around in his brain, creating voids that suck up words and explode them out of his mouth. No, not creating voids, creating truths that somehow come into existence because he says them out loud.
They're made up, right? Until today, he hasn't even known what a panic attack is; he's just sort of just assumed that it is normal to curl up and hyperventilate on the Hogwarts Express when it's chugging towards London, given what's waiting for him there. Apparently it is a sign of a weak and fragile mind, a sign that he shouldn't be an Auror. Unlike James, and they're supposed to be brothers, equals, partners in crime fighting.
Maybe he is more like Remus, after all, destined to try twice as hard as everyone else and still never catch a break. Or maybe he's like Peter, destined to be pathetic.
He doesn't realise he's expressing all this out loud until he sees the look on Remus's face. "We can just stop talking until it wears off," offers Remus.
"What's the point," says Sirius. "It's just secrets. Odd phrase, keeping secrets. I kept all my secrets, so of course they're still here. They still fuck me up."
He'd kept them badly, of course. James has bits and pieces, and Remus has, too, and Peter is probably more observant than they all give him credit for. Between them, they probably have most of the story. But none of that changes the fact that the only person who has a thorough understanding of what went down in Grimmauld Place is his own brother Regulus, and he still picked their side.
And now, of course, that lady from the Auror Office knows all his secrets, too.
Remus sighs, shifts his weight until he leans against the backrest, his legs still thrown across Sirius's. "You realise you're still talking out loud," he states.
"I ran, Moony," says Sirius. "I ran from them two years ago, but what's the point? I took them with me. I have them written all over my skin. I want to punch every reflection I see. Blacks aren't Aurors, for fuck's sake, and of course I'll never be one. I shouldn't be one. I'd abandon everyone to save my own Death Eater brother."
"I'll never be an Auror, either," says Remus calmly. "It's not the end of the world."
"Through no fault of your own," says Sirius.
"Sirius," says Remus, and he's using his earnest voice, the one that he uses for big, important things, not usually for one of Sirius's sulks on the sofa. "None of this is your fault. You were just a kid, and they… They were fairly terrible parents."
Sirius ponders his parents. He doesn't particularly want to think about them, dark muddled mess of memories obligations and pain, but the Veritaserum is designed to seek clarity where there is none. So that exactly is where his thoughts are going.
If he had to give one reason for why he's so crazy, he'd point towards his mother. Letter by letter and summer by miserable summer, she'd made him fear for the remains of his questionable sanity. His father, of course, had made him fear for his life.
But where Walburga had been a constant grating presence, Orion had been intermittent, impersonal. It's almost funny from a distance. While his mother clearly prefers his younger brother, Sirius has never been sure if his father can even tell him and Regulus apart.
"It's really not," says Remus. "Funny, I mean," and Sirius realises he's still talking, and he doesn't even mind.
"That's not the point," says Sirius. "The point is, the point is, Regulus has the same parents."
He knows Remus is not a big fan of Regulus Black, none of his friends are. But Remus is the one with the soft spot for fucked up childhoods, and he tries to be fair. "Told you. Terrible parents," he says. "Terrible choices, too."
"I made some terrible choices," says Sirius.
It's clear to both of them what he's referring to. Not even two years have passed since The Prank, as Sirius calls it, or The Whomping Willow Incident, as Remus calls it, or The Time Sirius Was A Colossal Idiot, as James and Peter call it. Twenty-two moons, and The Prank still occasionally resurfaces in the tension between them.
"I forgave you for that," says Remus eventually. It's not a topic he particularly enjoys, not because of some sort of weird Freudian denial, but because the past is not the boss of him (it had sounded better when Remus had explained it, but that is the gist as far as Sirius is concerned).
"Well, maybe you shouldn't have," says Sirius. "I never understood why."
"I never said," says Remus.
For a minute, Sirius is just breathing, miserable and uncomfortably tipsy. "Why?" he says eventually.
"Why I never said?" says Remus. "Or why I forgave you?"
He's still sitting across Sirius's legs, and now he reaches out to grab Sirius's ankle. Remus does that sometimes, reach out and touch random body parts, whether to steady or reassure or claim, Sirius is not sure.
"Both," says Sirius.
"You were an idiot of the highest order," says Remus, his hand warm on Sirius's skin. "Worse, you were cruel, and you didn't think, and you didn't care. You deserved consequences, not forgiveness."
"I know," says Sirius.
"But you didn't deserve misery," says Remus. "And you'd been my friend for five years, and I couldn't throw that away. I had to at least pretend it meant something. So I forgave you."
"You're an idiot," say Sirius.
"I thought I was, at the time," says Remus. "But you proved me right in the end."
He lets go of Sirius's ankle and carefully rearranges his long limbs so he's lying half on and half next to him. Sirius sort of expects snogging now, but it doesn't seem to be that kind of day. Remus casually reaches out to open two buttons at the top of Sirius's shirt, splaying his fingers across the alchemical symbol tattooed over Sirius's heart. Amalgamation: something stable, something new, forged of lesser things that are no more.
Hope springs eternal.
"Why did you never say, then?" Sirius says.
"Because that forgiveness was mine to give," says Remus, letting his hand rest where it is. "If you knew why, you'd have used it the next them you did something stupid, and I wasn't going to let that happen."
Sirius takes a moment to process that. "I'm still on my last chance, then?" He can't believe he's unknowingly walked that particular tightrope since November 1st, 1976. Specifically, he can't believe how he hasn't fallen off yet.
"I was very hurt at the time," says Remus. His fingertips are putting a light pressure on Sirius's chest. "But I got better. So did you."
"Tattoos just go skin-deep," murmurs Sirius. "Deeper down is where it hurts."
His brain seems to be dead-set on being miserable tonight, but he registers that he's enjoying the closeness, the comforting weight on his ribs, the touch of nimble fingers on his skin. Naturally, he must sabotage this.
"Meet Sirius Orion Black," says Sirius, catching Remus's hand in his own. "My great-grandfather, my father, and everyone I hate. Gaze deeply into my mother's eyes and tell me you trust me. Prepare to be fucked over, it's written in the stars -"
"Sirius!" Remus's voice is sharp. He's held out for longer than usual, Sirius thinks, but clearly he is at the end of whatever patience he still has for Sirius's self-loathing bullshit. Sirius smiles for the first time tonight, because he secretly called it.
And then the bastard goes and proves him wrong again by pressing a light, dry kiss on his mouth. It's over before Sirius can think of anything to do in response.
"Take this from the Werewolf," Remus says. "Don't bend over for fate. It's never been there for you."
He extricates himself from Sirius and the sofa in a fluid, wolfish motion. "I'm making tea," he says.
Mr Black, have you ever engaged in behaviour that others have told you was reckless or risky?
The Order snatches him up, or either he gets caught in the Order like driftwood in a dam. He's exactly their type: Intelligent, independently wealthy, idle, insane. He knows Pureblood society like the linty inside of his pocket, has learned their convoluted family trees by heart, and Dumbledore is nothing if not opportunistic. Thus, in his nineteenth year on the planet, Sirius develops a disturbed relationship to mirrors – he's never quite sure who's going to stare back at him, since he's Polyjuiced to the gills half the time, in and out at dances, banquets, the Ministry, to spy, spy, spy.
Walburga called it ages ago, he thinks, when he has time to think. He's such a blood traitor.
Walpurgis night 1979, he spends an overly intimate twenty minutes with Lily in a cramped bathroom, and when he emerges, his friends stare at him. Their faces, like the mirrors he's avoiding, show no hint of recognition. Peter fans himself. Remus looks like he wants to.
"Nice job, Lily," croaks James.
"Oh, the make-up's all him," says Lily, the traitor. "I just did the hair."
Sirius huffs, grabs his breasts with both hands and adjusts them in the uncomfortably tight dress.
"Don't do that in front of company," says Lily.
"You're the expert," says Sirius. As it turns out, his voice is a surprisingly low, husky alto.
"Oh my god," says Peter. "I mean, oh my god. How do you feel? Confused?"
Sirius ponders this. "Very confused," he admits after a moment. "And a tiny bit turned on."
"So, no different from normal, then?" manages Remus.
Lily, grinning devilishly, grabs the rest of the Polyjuice potion containing a single hair from the head of Dr Meredith Fawley, famous Werewolf hunter, and transforms it into a bag of dinner mints. They're a lot less obvious than a hip flask, as long as Sirius remembers not to offer them to anyone.
She hands him the bag, then looks at him sternly. "Seriously, don't do that," she says.
Sirius looks up innocently, while his hands are busy freeing certain parts of his new anatomy from certain parts of his new wardrobe. "The underthings pinch."
"They're not optional," says Lily.
"Christmas 1977, Lily?"
Lily doesn't even blush. "Not optional," she insists. "You're going to a ball. God, do you even know how to follow?"
"Tutored these three losers before the Yule ball, didn't I?"
"This isn't working," says James. "You're just not very – I'm sorry, mate, but you're just not a girl. Even your face is somehow off."
"It's not my face," says Sirius.
"Yet somehow –" starts James, and then opts for just flailing.
Sirius sighs, wriggles off his comfy woollen socks and slips his silk-stockinged feet into frighteningly small, delicate, kitten-heeled shoes (even he hasn't been mad enough to try high-heels). He draws himself up to his full, considerably shorter than usual height, remembers not to perform a gender, but a type, lets his dark-red mouth curl into a subtle sneer at the sight of Lily ("Mudblood!"), lets his eyes flicker over to Remus with just a hint of threat ("You're next!"), gives Peter a look of derision that he admittedly doesn't have to work hard for, then informs James curtly that he may accompany him outside to the Apparition spot.
"Oh god, that's frightening," says James.
Sirius has a grand old time at Malfoy Manor. When he returns to his flat, still in the skin of the Werewolf hunter, it's with four vials full of stolen memories in his handbag.
He considers walking over to Moony and plain-out seducing him, all femme fatale movie style, because he's always wondered about Moony's relationship with girls – he claims he likes them, too, but Sirius has never seen proof of that. And fuck him, he's curious. Ironically, if here were using his own brain, he would never in a million years have hesitated, but suddenly he thinks of consequences, of the million prim objections Remus is going to have, and decides to wait until the Polyjuice wears off.
Maybe it's the Polyjuice. Maybe he's finally growing up.
The next morning, he wakes to sunlight streaming in through the windows, with all his bits and pieces back in place, but without Remus. Fucking Order.
Mr Black, have you ever been a victim of a curse classified as Unforgivable by the Ministry of Magic?
"No," says Remus.
"You're a shite boyfriend," says Sirius.
"Your definition of a good boyfriend involves setting Unforgivables on you?" says Remus.
"Obviously," says Sirius. "A good boyfriend would be concerned that I am so shit at resisting the Imperius. I don't want to find out how it works while I'm captured by Death Eaters."
Remus idly turns his wand in his hands while gazing earnestly into his eyes. "Be that as it may," he says. "I object for conscientious reasons. Ask James, or Peter."
"Just because my mum did it to me doesn't mean I'm delicate," snaps Sirius.
"Never said you were delicate," says Remus with a shrug, and that's true, Sirius remembers, because Remus has used so many words to talk about this, but not that one. Sirius wants to hit things now.
Instead he takes a deep breath and says, "Whatever, I'm making tea."
Remus smiles, ostensibly at Sirius's newest way of dealing with frustration.
Seething, Sirius marches over to the kitchen, boils water, fishes a teabag out of the tin, lets it steep for exactly two minutes, then adds a dash of milk. He brings the steaming mug of tea over to Remus.
"Thank you, Sirius," says Remus softly.
Sirius stares.
He has forgotten how terrifyingly competent Remus is with silent spells. And then he finds himself running to the toilet, where his breakfast makes a reappearance.
Remus gives him a moment, then saunters over to the bathroom door, tea still in his hands.
"Maybe a bit delicate," concedes Sirius, still kneeling in front of the toilet. He knows Remus can see him shaking. He wants to explain that it's not Remus's presence in his head that has made him lose it, largely because he's never even felt it. It's the memory of his mother doing the same thing to him when he was sixteen, and how he'd been so helpless to fight it, so betrayed by his own weakness. He can't find the words, and then something closes inside him and he doesn't want to.
"I'm sorry, Sirius," says Remus, his voice calm and comforting. "But they're not going to announce an Imperius. It is not fought out in the open, it is fought in your head."
"How?" says Sirius.
It takes the better part of two days, of Remus patiently teaching him how to look for differences between his own thoughts and those of an intruder. He learns that it requires constant low-level monitoring of his own impulses, which is… not his specialty.
But Remus is a terrific teacher. The first time Sirius can shake the curse off completely he is already getting ready for another trip, this time in the body of Avery the elder – and by far uglier – and maybe it's because Sirius's own thoughts feel so different when thought with another's brain, but this time the contrast between his own thoughts and Remus's gentle prodding is jarring.
"Can I try it on you?" he asks, before Remus gets the chance to realise that Polyjuice makes it easier.
Remus shrugs. "Be my guest," he says. Sirius makes him walk a circle in the middle of the living room, before sending him over to the slate in the kitchen where they write their shopping lists, and making him write, I promise Sirius a long sloppy blowjob for when he returns.
Remus turns, grinning mischievously. The slate just reads two words, Return, then, underlined three times, and Sirius laughs.
Of course, Remus has switched between bodies more often than Sirius ever will, and they both want different things. If anyone's capable of identifying their own thoughts in an avalanche of wants, it's probably him.
"Awright," says Sirius in Avery's obnoxious Northern accent. "Let's try Crucio next."
Remus throws a shoe at him.
Mr Black, how would you describe your relationship to your family?
To be continued.