Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“He’s growing up so fast, I almost can’t believe it. Lily, Lily! Come join me, we’re talking to our son!”

Remus tried for a haughty exhale, but ended up shaking his head fondly instead. “Once again, I am two months older than you,” he defended, speaking loud enough to be heard through the car’s bluetooth. 

“Hi Remus!” Lily’s voice rang out through the car. “You’re almost there, right? Are you excited?”

Remus grinned. “Yes, to both. Probably fifteen minutes or so. And yes, wow, I honestly haven’t really let myself believe that this was happening until I started driving this morning. Very excited.”

“Are you nervous?” James asked, louder than necessary. Remus could hear some sort of static shuffle on the other end, and a few cut off words like “James!” and “not helpful!” He pictured Lily tackling her boyfriend while grabbing for the phone. 

Remus took advantage of the pause to carefully switch lanes. He would be exiting the highway soon, and thus had to brave the merging lane for a few miles. Ever a cautious driver, Remus liked to go about ten miles under the speed limit on a good day, but he still preferred driving slow in the fast lane on the left with its protected shoulder over the right lane, where erratic drivers were prone to cutting in and out of exits at the last minute. 

The static stopped, and Lily’s voice was heard again. “Remus, we’re super proud of you. You’re going to be more than prepared for all of the research stuff. Remember that! Even if the other researchers are high on themselves or something. You did an awesome senior thesis! And it got published in freaking Nature! ” 

“Remus Lupin, certified botanist badass. Watch out, plants of the Hogwarts National Park, you’ve got a new botanist baddie coming your way. He’s so good, you’ll want him to press you like a herbarium specimen. They’ll all say that-”

“James, enough!” Lily cut him off. “Jesus Christ, get over your man-crush on Remus. I’m literally right here.” 

Remus could barely hear Lily’s laughter over his own. His friends may be a bit ridiculous, but he loved them all the more for it. And he appreciated the pep talk, even if it was a little… over-sexualized.

“What this clown means, Remus, is that everyone there is going to like you, just be yourself,” Lily advised.

“I’m not too worried,” Remus defended with a laugh. “It’s not summer camp. We’re all adults, so I’m sure we’ll all be able to get along okay. I mean, so long as Sirius Black isn’t there.” He laughed again to emphasize the joke.

Silence.

Remus’s eyes widened, and his hands stiffened on the 3 and 9 grip on the wheel. “I think the call cut out for a second, can you two hear me?”

James’s calm voice came through clearly. “Yeah, we’re still here.”

“James,” Remus said, only one word but full of warning.

“Yeah? What’s up, best friend?”

“I am aware that you still follow Sirius on Instagram. You are aware that I do not follow him on Instagram.”

“Those are facts!” James said, cheerily. “Although to be more clear, you blocked him like four years ago, you don’t just ‘not follow’ him.”

“James. Are you shitting me right now?” A pause held, until Remus could swear he heard Lily stifling a giggle. “Evans? Are you in on this? Et tu, brute?”

Lily let out a full cackle. “Sorry, Remus, I left it in James’s hands.”

“No way. No. I am turning the car around. What the fuck, James? Tell me you’re just fucking with me right now. Tell me that he hasn’t posted that he’s going to the Hogwarts Reserve Field Station right now.” Remus fully meant his driving threat, even though he diligently kept his car perfectly in the middle of the lane. 

“Remus, you already said it best. You’re all adults now, you’ll be fine,” James said loftily. 

“Oh. My. God.” Remus dragged out the vowels for emphasis. A non-scuffle originated static burst let both parties know that the call was starting to drop now. “I think I’m losing cell service now, great timing.” Remus deadpanned.

“Okay, okay,” Lily said quickly. “You’re going to be fine, don’t worry, we love you very much and please text us when you can! We’re here for you whenever you need,” she reassured.

James piped in with a rapid-fire “Hey, you’re going to be fine. You’ve worked so hard for this, so please make the most of it. I love-”

The call dropped. 

“Fuck,” Remus exclaimed, hitting the side of the steering wheel very lightly (he didn’t want the air bags to go off). He took a deep breath as he carefully flicked the turn-signal on. This was his exit, and from the looks of the dirt and gravel road, there wouldn’t be an opportunity to make a U-turn and abort the entire plan.

Secretly, Remus had already prepared for the possibility. Back during high school, it seemed like every opportunity Remus was selected for or decided to take part in, Sirius was also picked or already involved. Lily had told him that they were just very similar people. At the time, it felt romantic, likely because he was a dumb teenager in the beginning stages of his first real romantic relationship. Now, though, after having been exes for the last 3.58 years (his brain was just like that, he wasn’t counting the days or anything), it felt like a curse.

He knew that Sirius was also a very gifted and hard-working scientist. It wasn’t impossible for him to have also been accepted into the program. But, with an applicant pool of over a thousand, statistically speaking, Remus was at least allowed to hope that the other 19 researchers would not include the man he hadn’t spoken to or seen since four Novembers ago. 

“Fuck,” he said again, as he navigated the car down the fork with the Field Station, 1 mile sign. He just needed to keep his head. He knew that. He’s here for an amazing opportunity, and he deserves it. He’s going to spend the entire summer living at the research station in the mountains of the Hogwarts National Park with prestigious researchers his age from all over the country. And one of them is his ex-boyfriend. Fuck.

***

Remus put the car in park, and became suddenly able to admire the scenery around him without worrying about driving off the road and sliding into a ditch. Everything looked clean. Not in a sterile sense, but in a void-of-human-interference sense. Nature was alive, and it was thriving. He could have sworn that the leaves on the oak trees were larger than he had seen before, but figured he would be able to collect one for his plant press at a later date. 

The field station melded nicely into the surrounding forest. It was a picturesque log cabin, complete with a huge front porch, but it bent into an elongated L shape in the back, presumably where all the rooms and lab equipment had been established. The front door opened, and out marched a tall and graceful older woman. Her uniformly gray hair was tied into a neat no-nonsense bun, but her eyes were warm when she saw Remus.

“A new summer researcher, I presume?” She called out, walking down the steps.

“Yes! Hi!” Remus answered. “I’m Remus Lupin.”

The woman’s smile widened. “In the flesh? Pleasure to meet you, son, I’m Minerva, director of the station and this summer’s program.”

“Oh, Dr. McGonagall,” Remus’s eyes widened as she shook his hand. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

Her eyes seemed to twinkle with mischief when he called her by her formal title, but she pursed her lips while taking in his appearance and car. “I was very impressed by your application, Mr. Lupin. But don’t tell the others I said that. Come on, you can unload your belongings into your room and then move your car into the carport down the road. You won’t be needing to drive anywhere and it’ll be best to keep it protected from any critters.”

Remus smiled. “I’ll imagine having twenty cars parked outside the station would ruin the aesthetic a bit too,” he joked. 

Minerva quirked a brow at his attempt at humor, but after a moment she nodded in approval. “I’m looking forward to working with you. All the rooms are down the hall, yours will have your name on it. And also your roommate’s name. Sorry not sorry,” she said with a wave of her hands, already turning towards the station again. “It’s better than a tent, though!”

Remus laughed. His first impression in front of the prestigious Dr. McGonagall seemed to have gone okay, and he wasn’t surprised at the news of sharing rooms. Although he did have one reservation about it. Remus took a moment to make peace with the simple fact that if his roommate was Sirius Black, he would simply drive away. He would throw away his entire career as a field botanist, and not have any regrets. He could move to a small town, become a waiter, say his name was Steven, and that he was “figuring things out.” 

He shouldered his backpack and hoisted one duffel bag full of clothes from the back seat. He could get the rest of his stuff, which was mostly field equipment, on his second trip. That is, if he was making a second trip after all. With twenty researchers divided into two-person rooms, there was a ten percent chance he would be with He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. An acceptable gamble, he decided.

The front door opened into a massive kitchen, complete with a literal bucket full of granola bars in the center of the largest dining table he had ever seen. Remus navigated between the chairs to get into the hallway, and realized his odds were incorrect. Assuming that he, who had written male on his application, would be paired with another researcher who identified as male, the odds that he would be with Sirius were higher. Horrified, he pocketed a granola bar before entering the hallway. If he had to leave for good, at least all wouldn’t be lost.

He found his name near the center of the long hallway. His roommate was (mercifully) named Caradoc. Unless Sirius had adopted a new equally-ridiculous nickname in the past few years, Remus was safe. After dropping his bags on one of the two twin beds in the room, he crept back into the hallway. Since it was quiet, he decided to snoop a bit to find out whether or not Sirius was actually going to be here. Maybe James was just pulling an elaborate prank after all, and he had nothing to worry about. Remus went to the end of the hall and back, and didn’t see Sirius’s name anywhere. He couldn’t help but crack a grin.

Then, he noticed that one of the doors was propped open, and he hadn’t yet seen the name cards on it. Specifically, the door directly across from his room was propped open. Sirius Black, along with somebody named Gideon, was not his roommate, but instead his neighbor.

Fuck.

Remus moved the rest of his belongings into his room, and then sat on the edge of his bed. He took a deep breath, and tried to picture James and Lily here with him. They would tell him it was going to be fine. They had told him it was going to be fine. With a determined breath, he stood. He would move his car to the carport, return on foot, and be stuck here, for better or for worse, for the remainder of the summer. 

Upon returning to his still-unoccupied room, Remus sat again on the edge of his bed. While driving, he had seen a collection of picnic tables outside the back of the station, and knew that he should join the few people he saw sitting at them. But he felt his anxiety kicking in. He deserved to be here, but what the fuck was he supposed to do about Sirius deserving to be here as well? Would they talk? They hadn’t spoken since the night that Sirius broke his heart. To be fair, in retrospect, he was glad they weren’t together anymore, but still. He felt he was entitled to still be bitter about it. 

Was he supposed to apologize for blocking him on everything? Maybe Sirius hadn’t even noticed. Although he had to admit that he hoped he did. More than a few times over the years, Remus had wondered about Sirius, and thought about reaching out. Lily would help talk him down, and he knew that he didn’t really have anything to say. His brain was just frustrated that he hadn’t had any real dating success since Sirius, and in some combination of confused neurons and selective memory, he would romanticize the idea of seeing him again. But now that it was here, he didn’t feel powerful or particularly romantic. He just felt scared. And ashamed, for feeling that way.

A few minutes later, the door to his room was opened, and an extremely tall and lanky man shuffled in, weighed down by the apparent decision to carry all of his belongings in one trip.

“Hi, I’m Caradoc!” He said warmly, and dropped the bags in his right hand to offer it to Remus. His perfectly white teeth contrasted with his dark brown skin, and his huge glasses somehow made him look even more friendly than his smile.

Remus stood to accept his hand, and spoke up after clearing his throat. “Hi, I’m Remus.” He dropped the pitch of his voice slightly, subconsciously. Remus knew that he passed completely, but for him, meeting new people would always be a tiny bit more stressful than it needed to be. 

“Great to meet you, looks like we’ll be roommates this summer! Did you hear all the birds outside? God, I’m so excited to be here.” Apparently everything that Caradoc said oozed positivity and warmth, and Remus mentally checked himself for his own initial coldness. He needed to make a good first impression with the others, and especially so with his roommate.

“You must be a birder then? I’m a botanist myself.” Remus smiled and pointed to his plant press at the foot of his bed.

“That’s awesome, dude! Ornithologist and botanist roommates: total dream team.”

Remus nodded and smiled, not quite sure what to say in response.

“Well, that was all my stuff,” Caradoc eventually said, looking at the pile on his bed. “Minerva said that some of the other researchers who already moved in are talking outside. You coming?”

Remus nodded affirmatively. Meeting everyone while with someone as bubbly as his new roommate seemed like the best option so far. He followed Caradoc through the hallway, suddenly feeling very short as he watched the other man duck slightly under the doorway. 

Outside, Remus immediately felt some of his anxieties melt away as he took in the fresh air and view. The back of the field station opened into an expansive wooded grove. Giant trees leaned in around the porch, and a few smaller ones actually grew through holes in the deck. People his age were congregating around picnic tables to one side, as well as sitting on the steps that led down to a promising-looking set of trailheads. 

“Hey! New people, come join us!” A voice called from the right side, and Remus walked with Caradoc over to meet the two women chatting against the side of the porch. Remus learned that Dorcas was the researcher with a perfectly coiffed Afro and sharp gold eyeliner against her dark skin. Marlene could have been mistaken for a stereotypical sorority girl at first glance, with her long blonde hair and light summer dress with its tiny floral pattern. But, her impressive number of piercings and tattoos didn’t fit into the profile. 

The four of them talked for a moment, about research interests and the locations of their old colleges. Remus was pleased to find a fellow botanist in Dorcas. Eventually, they were interrupted by Minerva, who had stepped out onto the porch to let them know that everyone had now arrived. She asked them to form a large circle.

“Time for some painless icebreakers,” she grinned. “If you’re a scientist who doesn’t like talking in front of other people, it’s time to change that now! You need to effectively communicate your results, and you need to be able to convince people to give you funding to start your research in the first place. Why is no one taking notes?”

There was a quick scramble as everyone either went for a notebook or their phone, only interrupted by Minerva’s laughter. “I’m only kidding, oh my. I love the innocence of week one. Alright, as the kids have it, two truths and one lie! And if you say your research focus then you are boring. Get creative! Also tell us your name and pronouns.”

Remus listened to the words, but couldn’t bring himself to look up from the floorboard in front of his feet. It had an interesting sort of appearance, gnarled on one side, and a large knot on the other. An interesting piece of floor to look at, from a botanical perspective, completely unrelated to the fact that Sirius must be standing somewhere in this circle by now.

“To start us off today, let’s hear the one-and-only Ms. McKinnon!” Minerva seemed to be one of those people who found themselves incredibly funny, and reveled in laughing at their own jokes, even when no one else understood them. 

“Okay, here we go. I’m Marlene, she/her/hers pronouns,” Marlene said from Remus’s left side. “One: I’m banned from all Hooters restaurants. Two: I got my driver’s license the day I turned sixteen. Three: I hold the record for most live spiders held inside a closed mouth for at least ten seconds.” 

“Wow, great start.” Minerva nodded appreciatively. “Let’s change things up by having only one person guess their answer. We’ll start with you, Mr. Prewett.”

Remus looked across the circle to see a man who could only be properly described as a lumberjack. “Oh dang, okay. Uh, I’m almost hoping I’m wrong but I’m gonna guess that you don’t have your driver’s license.” To his right was none other than Sirius Black. He was looking towards the lumberjack man, so Remus took a millisecond to study his profile. He looked a bit older, but otherwise just as Remus remembered. He quickly looked away, back to Marlene.

Marlene grinned, showing her arms that were previously held behind her back. They were covered in beautifully-drawn spider tattoos. “Correct.”

“Alright, pick a direction, clockwise or counterclockwise,” Minerva advised.

“Counterclockwise!” 

Suddenly, all eyes were on Remus. “Oh, okay, um. My name is Remus, my pronouns are he him and his.” Remus spoke loudly but looked down at the floor again, unwilling to meet Sirius’s eyes. “One: I got the scars on my arms from a car accident. Two: I received a twenty-four hour ban from the Goodreads website when I was in high school. Three: my favorite food is chocolate.” He liked to get the scar explanation out of the way early. This way, he wouldn’t have to later volunteer the information when he caught someone staring at him with a painfully-awkward sympathetic facial expression.

“Alright, what’s your guess, Mr. Black?” Minerva prompted.

Remus jerked his head up. Sure enough, Sirius was looking directly at him, with a relaxed posture while he pursed his lips with a thoughtful hmm. “Is the lie that chocolate is your favorite food?” 

Remus reflexively narrowed his eyes. Really? After all this time, this would be the first thing that Sirius would say to him? He couldn’t help but snap a little. “No. The lie is not that chocolate is my favorite food.” Remus winced slightly when he realized everyone staring at him like he just kicked a puppy. “Um, it’s actually the second one, about the Goodreads thing. Yeah.”

Minerva clapped her hands together twice. “Caradoc Dearborn, if you please!”

The game went on from there, but Remus was barely able to pay attention. He definitely made a bit of a scene. His anger about Sirius being here had turned into anger about Sirius seemingly forgetting a very basic fact about himself, and then quickly to the embarrassment of lashing out at him publicly for it. Since Minerva was playing, the twenty-one person circle was mercifully asymmetrical, and Remus wasn’t set to guess Sirius’s lie.

At the end of the game, Minerva directed everyone inside to the kitchen, where she would give an introduction to the summer and present everyone with a binder full of “riveting literature that I’m sure you will all be reading thoroughly before signing on the line at the end.”

Remus walked slowly, giving other people a chance to go inside before him. Before he could enter the station, however, he felt a familiar presence at his side.

“Hey,” Sirius said softly. “I know that you got banned for a full seventy-two hours on Goodreads, after telling Debra E. ‘Jane Austen’s novels aren’t all the same, just like your baby daddies.’” He enunciated the quote clearly, with a little laugh at the end. “I just didn’t want to make it obvious that we already knew each other, if you didn’t want to.”

Remus exhaled loudly. “Looks like I managed to do just that. And also make everyone think I’m a psychopath.”

“Hey,” Sirius said again, insistent. “You don’t have to be friendly to me. But be friendly with everyone else here. Don’t withdraw just because of me.” With that, Sirius entered the station, leaving Remus on the porch.

As much as he hated being told what to do by someone like Sirius, Remus had to admit that it was solid advice, and he did need to hear it right about now. And Sirius feigning confusion in order to not announce his past relationship with Remus was surprisingly considerate. It was unexpected, but Remus could only focus on one thing at a time at this point.

Vowing to ignore Sirius from here on out, Remus entered the research station intent on being himself and being friendly to the other researchers. He definitely needed to make up for his weird behavior from before.

***

Remus took a seat at the giant dining table in the kitchen, joining the other researchers. The woman to his left passed him a huge three-ring binder and a mug full of pens, and he smiled his thanks, wishing he had been able to pay more attention to everyone’s introduction. As he read the cover he couldn’t help but grin to himself. He was at the Hogwarts Reserve Field Station. He would be doing research here for the entire summer, and he was only twenty-two. It was a dream come true.

“Alright kids, read the first fifteen pages silently and then go back to the first page to sign your name. Also, I’ll call you kids at first. Sorry not sorry, I am an old woman and you are all young whippersnappers by comparison.” Minerva smirked as she continued to pace in front of the kitchen island.

Remus smiled. He only knew of Dr. McGonagall from her prestigious record and surprisingly high number of peer-reviewed research publications per year. This newer and snarkier side reminded him more of a fun grandma or chaotic aunt character.

“Nonsense, Minnie, you can’t be a day over thirty!” Sirius Black called out from the other end of the table, because yes, Remus, your ex-boyfriend is here, and that is exactly what he would say to remind everyone that he needs attention. A few people laughed, and a few others just shook their heads, quietly amused. It was exactly like Remus remembered from high school.

“And yet still too old for you, Mr. Black,” Minerva quickly fired back. “Read and sign, read and sign,” she directed. “When you’re done, come get a snack from either one of these coolers or the bucket on the table. I know you kids don’t eat enough, and I, along with the hefty budget granted to me from the Hogwarts Research System, intend to remedy that.”

Remus followed her directions. The document served as a catch-all waiver, acknowledging that doing stupid things could result in injury but not a lawsuit against the station, as well as detailing the rules and regulations for conducting research in a protected environment. Since he would be focused on plants anyway, Remus didn’t have to worry about the animal collection processes. He was free to take cuttings of plants as long as they didn’t “reduce the aesthetics of the immediate surroundings of the field station or were less than two meters off of plotted foot trails.” 

Once everyone had a snack in front of them, Minerva continued. “First of all, congratulations. There were many, many applications to sort through, and the twenty of you were determined by a whole team of people to be the best candidates from the bunch. You can definitely put this on your resume or LinkedIn profile or whatever. But, if getting here alone is good, then excelling while you are here is even better. Over the course of this summer, in addition to working on collective projects and learning new field skills, everyone will be paired up into groups of two, and will conduct an independent research project with your teammate. End-of-summer presentations are where you will present your results, not only to each other, but to many scouts and potential employers for future research opportunities.”

Remus knew about these presentations, and the importance of doing well during them. He had done plenty of research about the field station summer program, and found that many past attendees were now working as research assistants for leading institutions and universities, and many others had been directly recruited into Ph.D programs after their summer.

Minerva paced as she continued. “You may end this summer with a widened network, or a new full-time job, depending on how those presentations go. Now, I’m not saying this to scare you, but I want to remind you why you are here. You all know that research is important, and you have all been active members of the research community during your undergraduate years, but please understand that finding payment for your research is not always simple. You’re getting an opportunity to meet people who can hire you, so show them your best side.”

Remus, along with most of the other researchers, nodded. He thought about glancing towards Sirius, but held fast. He imagined the other man to be reclining in his seat, not taking notes.

“In addition, what you may not have known, is that at the end of the summer two of you will be offered positions to stay on-site for the following year, conducting your own research and contributing to the long-term ecological data surveys that you’ll get a closer look at this summer.”

Remus’s eyebrows rose. He hadn’t known about this possibility. The prospect of living at the field station and being completely immersed in nature for a year sounded like heaven.

“In addition to room and board, these two will be compensated with a salary that should allow you to start chipping away at your student loan payments.”

A collective laugh/groan/mumble combination went around the table. Remus definitely had loans to worry about, but he didn’t imagine that Sirius did. Remus didn’t envy his ex-boyfriend’s relationship with his very cold and awkwardly-formal parents, but at least they had plenty of money to throw at any school-related cost of Sirius’s. 

“Alright, exciting, woohoo, incentives,” Minerva said in a flat voice, while waving her arms in a sort of wave-like pattern that was possibly distantly-related to dancing. She laughed a bit (at herself? At them?) before continuing. Remus liked her even more for it.

“Station etiquette, don’t be a Brad! We don’t talk about Brad. Brad is evil. Brad was a researcher who was so absolutely awful at being a conscientious person that he was voted out of the station after three weeks. Last I heard, he lives in a dumpster in Florida and harasses the garbage-collectors. Any questions?” Minerva paused for only a millisecond, raising her eyebrows at the group, before continuing. “Basically, be nice, and be an adult. If someone has an issue with you, listen to them. If you have an issue with someone else, talk to them like an adult. I suggest you have some more in-depth conversations with your individual roommate tonight, and get on the same page about things like lights being on and amounts of clothing being worn in the room. Standard things.”

Remus nodded. He was at a point in his life where coming out meant revealing his sexuality, and not his gender. He wasn’t planning on coming out as trans during this summer, and didn’t think he would need to. Showing his post-top surgery scars to others while doing plant research was not high on his priority list. Similarly, sleeping in a t-shirt wouldn’t be a big issue.

“And, the pièce de résistance, as the French would say, right Mr. Black?”

“Exactement, mon amour,” Sirius replied with a grin. Honestly, Remus thought. Because just in case he had forgotten, Sirius spoke French. And wonderful: the other researchers all get to find out on day one that the gorgeous Asian man speaks fluent French. Perfect.

“Yeah okay,” Minerva narrowed her eyes at Sirius. “Appelle-moi quand tu as un doctorat.” Sirius flushed with a surprised smile. Minerva continued. “My final advice is this: don’t sleep with each other until the summer is over.” 

Remus blushed reflexively. He could swear that Sirius was now looking his way from his peripheral vision, but wasn’t about to turn his head to confirm it.

“Trust me, it’ll make things very awkward at worst, and at best you end up not building friendships with everyone because you’re spending all of your time with one person. Just wait until after the presentations are over. Alright then. That’s that on that, take the next hour to settle in. Anything in the kitchen is up for grabs except for the fridge in the corner that has all the ‘NO’ signs on it. But don’t spend all your time in here, get to know your roommate better and have those awkward conversations.”

***

It looked like Remus would get along with Caradoc very well. Soon enough, everyone was back outside on the porch, ready to get paired up for their research teams. Minerva announced that the teams were pre-selected by the application-reading committee, and Remus had a brief panic that he would be cursed to work with Sirius. She then said that the pairs were chosen based on research interests, though, and he calmed back down.

“First team,” Minerva called out from where she stood by one of the picnic tables, with a new stack of three-ring binders. “Dorcas Meadowes and Remus Lupin! Come grab your binder.”

Remus smiled in relief, and walked up to the table with Dorcas. 

“You were chosen because you are both botanists,” Minerva explained. “But that does not mean you are limited to botany alone for your research topic.” The two nodded and returned to the group, Remus now standing with Dorcas in her original spot near Marlene instead of his roommate.

“Second team,” Minerva called as she picked up the next binder. “Caradoc Dearborn and Rolanda Hooch.” Researchers continued to be announced in groups of two, and eventually Sirius was paired with Marlene. When the pair approached Minerva, she held the binder close to her chest and narrowed her eyes at Sirius again. “Don’t let him give you any trouble,” she advised Marlene, while handing the binder to her.

“Don’t worry, boys don’t scare me,” Marlene announced with a smize. Sirius only grinned and walked back with her. Remus could have sworn that Marlene emphasized the word boys a little bit. Perhaps he and Sirius weren’t the only queer scientists here.

Remus and Dorcas explored one of the meandering foot trails that wound around the field station. They had immediately opened their research project binder, intending to get started immediately, but were met with a very Minerva-esque series of pages that told them to get to know each other before even thinking about picking a topic. 

Their conversation started very professionally, if not a bit mechanical, but soon Remus found himself growing more comfortable after Dorcas interrupted one of his sentences to point out a gigantic bumble bee on a nearby flower. Afterwards, he felt free to express how amazing he found every other plant specimen, and soon enough the pair was professing their love for nature and awe at being selected for the program.

“You know, I wasn’t really sure I’d even become a scientist at all,” Dorcas confessed after a thoughtful pause.

“Really? When?” Remus asked.

“During freshman year of college, I think,” Dorcas frowned. “I did well in high school but then found myself struggling with the workload of college classes. And then when I asked for help I started to realize that no one in my field looked like me.”

“In botany? Or science as a whole at your university?”

“I think both. Science is still a bit of a white man’s game unfortunately. No offense,” she added with a laugh.

“None taken,” Remus assured. “I, um.” He paused for a moment, wondering how much he ought to say. “I know that being a Black woman in STEM is a completely different experience than I would ever know first-hand, but I can sort of relate to the feeling that everyone else is different. I was the only openly gay person in my lab for the first two years, and it was kind of exhausting. In the field none of the other men wanted to share a tent with me, so on the bright side I got more personal space, but, yeah. Kind of isolating.”

“What changed?” Dorcas asked. “After those first two years, I mean.”

“Oh, yeah,” Remus smiled at the memory. “Two new Ph.D students joined the lab, and they were both super queer and super awesome. One was non-binary and the other talked about how much she loved her wife like 24/7. They flipped the culture pretty quickly.”

“That’s awesome,” Dorcas said. “I um, I’m bisexual, too.”

Remus turned to her and smiled. “Awesome,” he parroted.

***

As it turned out, there was more time for exploration in the afternoon after pairing up into teams. Minerva guided everyone on an easy two mile hike that looped through a meadow. With the sun creeping lower in the sky, the dense yellow flowers shone like gold. Remus stopped to stare at the view. An outcropping mountain framed the field in the south with the ever-rising trees bordering the north, and Remus intended to remember the sight.

“Still against taking photographs?”

Remus turned from the view to see Sirius standing right beside him, an expectant smile plastered on his face. Remus narrowed his eyes at him just slightly, but Sirius noticed and took a step backwards. “I thought we weren’t being friends,” Remus said flatly. 

Sirius winced, before turning fully and leaving to catch up with the other researchers. Remus sighed. He wasn’t trying to be dick to Sirius, but what was he supposed to say? “Yes, Sirius, I am still against taking photographs, because I prefer to look at the scenery and stay in the moment, and you mentioned this to me because over four years ago we had a long-winded debate over the topic at the top of a mountain and then afterwards I shut you up by kissing you for the first time? And then you broke up with me later?” 

No. Sirius may be naturally bubbly, but he needed to learn some boundaries when it came to bringing up their shared history. 

***

Laying in bed that night, Remus thought that all things considered, it had been a good day. Sure, it had started with the sudden news that one of his fellow researchers was his ex-boyfriend, but otherwise, things were looking up. Minerva was someone that Remus wanted to spend more time with. She continued to make her jokes that only she got through the evening, and had begun to start looking at a specific person to possibly share the humor with them. He received her glance more than a few times, and he did remember her compliments about his well-received application from the morning.

Dorcas seemed great. They got along well, and both shared interests in native and non-native plant ecology, among other social justice topics that just seemed to come up. 

Dinner was cooked in small teams that alternated every day, and tonight Remus had gotten to eat without having to cook or clean the kitchen afterwards, although tomorrow morning he would be preparing breakfast and a to-go lunch station with Caradoc and two women he hadn’t yet spoken to much. 

Caradoc had continued to astonish Remus as potentially the world’s most conscientious roommate. After Remus climbed into bed, the ornithologist whispered to ask Remus for permission to read a book with a tiny reading light that Remus could barely see from the angle at which their beds were arranged. When Remus gave the obligatory go ahead, and asked which book he was reading, Caradoc proceeded to offer the book to Remus to read instead if he was interested, despite being halfway through, because he had brought a few others anyway. He was a huge improvement over Remus’s freshman year roommate in college, who felt the need to vape strawberry-scented nicotine at all hours, day and night.

Remus was a bit sore from the hike. It had been short, but after sitting in the car for most of the morning his legs were bound to be a little tight. He knew the persistent pain was a possibility while being here, but he was determined to not let the injury get in the way of his time at the research station. It was something that he hadn’t reported on his application, and was another thing that he didn’t intend to tell others about. The scars from the old car accident couldn’t be hidden, but the more-debilitating effects could at least be obscured.

Eventually satisfied with a comfortable position with his pillows and blankets, Remus drifted off to a restful sleep. 

Chapter Text

Remus woke up to the sound of his wristwatch buzzing. Caradoc was moving about the dark room silently, but he turned the lights on once alerted to Remus’s stirring. They prepared coffee and set out a huge list of breakfast foods on one table, and lunch foods on another. Upon Minerva’s direction, everyone was to pack their lunch first, then enter the breakfast line. 

The morning set-up process was pretty simple, and it gave Remus some time to meet Alice and Mary. The two women, like everyone, seemed perfectly pleasant to be around. They were roommates, and focused on climate science and vertebrate zoology, respectively. After everything was ready, Remus finally poured himself a mug of freshly-brewed coffee. Before his first sip, Sirius entered the kitchen.

His bed head was somehow artfully tousled, and he still appeared attractive even through a half-stifled yawn. It would have been less annoying if Remus didn’t know that his own hair was still sticking up in multiple places. 

“Morning, Rem,” he said as he padded over to the coffee, mug in hand.

“Good morning,” Remus returned politely, trying to ignore the nickname.

After pouring a full mug and taking a large sip, which was accompanied by an unnecessary groan of approval, Sirius spoke again. “James wants to know if you’re still here, and if you are here then he wants to know why you haven’t texted him.” Sirius gave Remus one of his knowing looks, that said he could see the gears turning in Remus’s head, and was either amused by what he saw or he just liked the fact that he was able to read Remus while other people couldn’t. 

Remus frowned. “It’s been less than twenty-four hours since I talked to him. But I’ll text him.”

“The WiFi info is in the blue intro binder,” Sirius offered. Remus appreciated that he didn’t vocalize the obvious next thought: that he knew Remus hadn’t even taken his phone out of his backpack since arriving at the station.

“Thanks,” Remus returned. 

The two men stood next to the coffee for another moment, each holding his own warm mug, and Sirius took the encouragement from not being shooed away yet to continue. “James seemed to think that you may have fled the research station yesterday.”

Remus tried to stop his smile by biting his cheek, but only half-succeeded. “I may have considered it,” he replied honestly. 

“Well. I’m glad you didn’t. This program is perfect for you,” Sirius pointed out.

“And it appears that it’s perfect for you too.” Remus accompanied the words with a little smile, making sure Sirius knew he wasn’t actually jaded about Sirius being here. He definitely was, but that didn’t have anything to do with Sirius’s qualifications. The other man was definitely a top-tier candidate from all of his entomology research.

Thankfully for Remus, Minerva entered their conversation and switched the track towards easier topics. “Coming through boys, I need a good cup of joe.”

“Good morning Minnie! You weren’t feeling like having a can of cold brew you keep in the No fridge?” Sirius asked innocently.

“You do not know about those, because you have never opened the No fridge, son. And if you took one of the cans of cold brew that did not exist, I would end you.” Minerva grinned as she nudged Sirius aside lightly to gain access to the carafe.  

“When was the last time you counted them?” Sirius questioned. Remus noticed that his gray eyes were bright and playful, and he couldn’t help but smile at the sight.

Minerva took a sip of her coffee before turning her back to Sirius. “Stay away from him, Remus. He’s trouble.”

Remus laughed lightly as he moved towards the lunch-making station. I know, he thought.

***

After breakfast, Minerva led the researchers for about one mile on a wide trail to the east of the station. Remus walked slowly, and admired the pristine plant life growing and thriving in front of him. Eventually, the trail sloped downwards, and the group of researchers found themselves facing a wide stream crossing, with water meandering through. Minerva stood in front of it and faced them.

“Alright, listen up, kids,” Minerva called out. “Stream monitoring is one of the many long term ecological research projects that the Hogwarts station is responsible for maintaining in this region. Today, all of you will be learning how it’s done.”

Minerva paused as she opened and closed her hands at specific people-- those that were carrying equipment for her, Remus realized. She proceeded to hold up examples of the monitoring tools everyone would be using to record certain qualities of the stream: temperature, pH, amount of dissolved oxygen, water clarity, and the amount of algae in the bed.

“You’re going to be divided into groups of four, and each team will be responsible for filling out a clipboard’s data sheet. The groups will be two individual teams paired together, let’s see.” Minerva flipped to a new page on today’s master clipboard-- pink, Remus noticed. He wondered if she had one for every day of the week. Or maybe even every day of the summer. “Okay, group one is Mary’s team and Gideon’s team. Group two is Alice’s and Frank’s, group three is Caradoc’s and Emmeline’s, and group four is Marlene’s and Dorcas’s.”

Everyone began to clump up with their group, and Remus regretfully moved closer to Sirius and Marlene.

“But there’s a catch!” Minerva shouted, and then proceeded to laugh at their surprised expressions. “Today we’re also going to be working on people skills. Some scientists aren’t very confident in the difference between speaking to a human being and reciting from a textbook. In an effort to broaden your ability to read your fellow researchers, there will be zero talking allowed from this point on.” She grinned as she passed out supplies to the groups.

“Spread out a bit folks; let’s have groups one and three go to the other side of the creek. And you can talk via writing on a clipboard if you’d like, but be aware that I’m only going to give you twenty minutes to fill your data sheet.”

Sirius, Marlene, Dorcas, and Remus all looked at one another warily. After a beat of silence, Marlene pointed to a wide sand bar at the edge of the water and raised her eyebrows. They all nodded, and began to walk their equipment to the chosen spot.

“Three two one GO!” Minerva shouted, and all twenty researchers simultaneously switched from a walk to a run.

At the mouth of the stream, Marlene picked up their clipboard and scribbled “I want to win” in hasty letters. The rest of the team nodded enthusiastically. Dorcas got their attention and began pointing at certain lines on the data sheet-- measurements to be taken-- and then certain group members. Getting the idea, everyone grabbed their appropriate tools and waded into the water.

Remus soon realized that it would have been much easier to talk, because the pH indicator that Marlene took for herself was the same machine that measured dissolved oxygen, which he was supposed to record. In the water, Dorcas was trying to silently get Sirius’s attention, but the other man kept squinting at his thermometer, not seeing his arm-waving teammate behind him. 

After a few more minutes of confusion, all four researchers regrouped at their pile of backpacks, feeling defeated. They spent a few moments writing down their woes-- apparently Sirius’s thermometer was broken, Sirius’s feet were kicking up sediment in front of Dorcas who was trying to measure water clarity, and Marlene had forgotten the pH value in the time it took to wade through the water and back up onto land where their data sheet was. 

“Five minutes, everybody, five minutes!” Minerva called out from upstream.

Back at the sand bar, Sirius waved his hand frantically, getting the group’s attention. Once they were all looking at him, Sirius gestured for Remus to take the floor.

Remus’s eyebrows rose minutely, but he quickly nodded and took the clipboard Sirius presented him with. He quickly wrote. “Dorcas, Marlene: pH, oxygen, temperature. One measures, other writes.” The women nodded and ran into the stream with the probe and Dorcas’s binder for note-taking. Knowing Minerva so far, Remus guessed that everyone’s thermometer was broken, and that the probe that measures pH and dissolved oxygen must also take temperature. She just didn’t tell them because she wanted them to work through a challenge.

Turning back towards his final team-member, Remus began to write, but Sirius shook his head and tapped his digital wristwatch. Remus followed a running Sirius into the water, carrying only the clipboard while the other man carried both the PVC pipe quadrat and visibility disc. In the water, Remus pointed to the latter first, and Sirius nodded.

Soon enough, Sirius was carefully lowering the black and white disc into the middle of the stream, while Remus stood right behind him, ready to write the depth at which the disc disappeared. Remus mildly realized that this was the closest he had ever been to Sirius in over three and a half years, but reminded himself that the need to collect data (and win, as Marlene put it) was more important at the moment. 

After the visibility was successfully recorded, Sirius dropped the quadrat into place, ready to measure algal density. The sixty-four corresponding squares on the data sheet looked daunting to count during what Remus assumed was their last few minutes, but Sirius mimed a pair of scissors, and gestured that he would count the right half and Remus would count the left half.

Thirty-two squares later each, they successfully recorded an estimate of algae coverage in the stream bed. As he moved towards the shore, one of the rocks Remus stepped on rolled, and he started to fall further into the cold water. Remus quickly thought about how much he didn’t want to be the only researcher hiking home fully soaked instead of just up to his knees like everyone else, but then was interrupted when strong arms grabbed his waist, stabilizing him. Blushing and still unable to talk, Remus nodded his thanks and continued towards the shore.

Marlene met him on the sand bar and scribbled her and Dorcas’s measurements on the data sheet before running it up to Minerva. 

“And with an entire twelve seconds to spare! Congratulations, group four,” Minerva offered with a possibly-sarcastic smile. “Alright everyone else, drop your pencils and bring me your data sheets please!”

Everyone trudged their way back up the slope to the original spot before having been divided into teams, punctuated by all of their water shoes or sandals squelching along. Minerva granted everyone the ability to speak again, and led them through a discussion of how it went, and how it would have differed if they had been able to talk. 

“Well, great work everybody,” Minerva said. “Team four was the only group to finish their entire data sheet…”

Sirius gave a cheer and extended his hands for high fives. Marlene obliged, applying a surprising amount of force. Dorcas and Remus respectfully kept their attention on Dr. McGonagall, who was smiling suspiciously at Sirius’s celebration.

“But unfortunately,” she continued, “I had to disqualify them, since they didn’t write their names at the top of the page.” Minerva grinned as Sirius’s face fell. “Metadata, folks. It’s all about the metadata. Who, what, where, when, how,” she punctuated with claps. “Remember that for next time!”

***

“Honestly, I thought we kicked ass,” Marlene said as they walked back to the station. All of the teams had stayed together for the trek back, more or less, taking advantage of their new ability to converse with one another.

“Absolute dream team,” Sirius confirmed.

“Hey, Sirius,” Dorcas started, with a thoughtful expression on her face. “How did you know that Remus had a plan? When there were only a few minutes left and we didn’t agree on what to do, you pointed to Remus.”

Remus looked to Sirius, who met his eyes cautiously. “Oh, um.” He shrugged. “It just seemed like he knew what to do.”

Marlene nodded, seemingly satisfied, but Dorcas looked between Sirius and Remus twice before turning back to the trail. 

***

Later, during lunch at the picnic tables, with drying socks and shoes decorating the porch railing, Remus remembered to thank Sirius. “For catching me, I mean. I’m glad I didn’t become the one person to take an accidental swim on day two,” he said with a laugh.

Sirius smiled but gave a noncommittal shrug. “I was just saving the data sheet.”

“Well thanks for catching me in order to save the data sheet then,” Remus revised.

“Anytime, Rem.” Sirius smiled genuinely, and Remus took a moment to enjoy it before turning back to his sandwich and the conversation going on between Dorcas and Caradoc.

***

“Hi James.”

“Oh my god, you’re alive! Lily, our son is alive!” James’s voice yelled through the phone. After a half-second of silence, he began whispering instead. “Oops, I forgot Lily is on a work call right now.”

Remus laughed. It had only been a few days since he saw James and Lily, but he missed his friends. He missed their weird banter and collective inside jokes. When added up together, they felt like home. He made a mental note to call his mom soon.

“So how is it going? Tell me everything,” James prompted.

Remus smiled. The dinner crew was preparing tonight’s meal, and Remus was free to roam around the outside of the station, close enough for the WiFi-powered call to go through, but far enough that he would be able to speak freely. “Oh, it’s great. The station director is super funny, but also like the smartest person I’ve ever met, and we’ve only seen a few trails so far but everything is beautiful. We did stream monitoring today and the water was probably clean enough to drink from.”

On the other end of the phone, James sputtered a bit. “Well, and?” 

Remus grinned mischievously. “Well that’s pretty much all there is to say. We’re split into two-person research teams for the summer, and I’m working with a botanist named Dorcas, and I think we already see eye-to-eye on a lot of ideas.”

“Remus,” James said.

“James,” Remus responded. He knew he was waiting to hear about Sirius, but Remus intended to make him wait-- reparation for James not telling Remus he knew Sirius would be at the station in the first place.

“Sirius!” James finally broke. “I know he’s there, have you two talked? What’s happening?”

Remus laughed. “Yes, he is here, and like the other twenty people that now live in this station for the summer, I have talked to him.”

“And?”
Remus exhaled, finally dropping his faux-indifference. “I don’t know. It’s fine? At first I was kind of annoyed, and it showed, probably to everyone. But since then, I’ve just been trying to be myself and either ignore him or be polite. Today he saved me from falling into the stream. Literally caught me around my waist.”

“Oh my god.”

“I know.”

“And how do we feel about that?” James asked. For all his bluster and humor, James had always been one of Remus’s best friends to process emotions with. The other man could switch from slapstick to serious instantly, and he often did so when he sensed Remus needed a shoulder to cry on or a listener to talk to.

“I mean, I’m glad I didn’t fall in the water? So, good, I suppose,” Remus laughed. “But no, overall it’s fine, I think. He kind of crossed a line yesterday by referencing some shared history stuff but stopped when I shut it down.”

“Shared history as in sexual? Wait, no, don’t tell me.” 

“No, James. God. Shared history as in, referencing an old argument? Or not really an argument, but he asked if I still don’t like taking pictures of things in nature, because I was looking at the view.”

James gasped. “How dare he.”

“You’re not helping,” Remus said, but couldn’t help but smile a bit. “I don’t know. It was just the way he said it, maybe? Like, we’re both here, right? But that doesn’t mean we need to talk about the past. We can get along just fine and do research without ever talking about anything more than the data.”

On the other end of the line, James stayed quiet, waiting to make sure Remus was done speaking. “I hear you,” he eventually said cautiously. “But just keep in mind, it’s been a long time. You aren’t the same person today that you were when you dated him-”

“And thank god for that.”

“But neither is he,” James continued through the interruption. “He’s probably changed a lot since you dated. I’m not saying you should get back together with him or anything, but maybe just be open to talking with him and being friendly, because it sounds like that’s all he is doing.”

“Ugh.”

James laughed. “I know. But there’s a gray area between only talking about data and talking about how your relationship ended years ago. Just think about it.”

“I will,” Remus promised. “I have been,” he corrected. He had to admit, resentfully, that the chemistry between himself and Sirius still seemed to be there. Not in a dating way, but in a conversational and friendship way. As Lily would no doubt remind him if she were on the line, they are somehow very similar people. Sirius and his extraversion, obsession with making everyone laugh, desire to be the center of attention, his cockiness. Remus and his introvertedness, his overthinking, quietly saying the joke that later gets repeated to the others not lucky enough to bear witness to the original, his ego. Somehow, they were still “very similar people.”

“It’s going to be fine,” James repeated. 

“Yeah,” Remus agreed. It was, and it will be. 

“Hey,” James said. “Remember us little guys when you get all of those job offers to direct the Smithosonian and all of those big herbarium places!”

Remus smiled. “I will. I don’t think you would let me forget you if I tried.”

***

The next day, Minerva’s master clipboard schedule-- blue today-- prescribed two hours of research project work, for brainstorming questions and methods protocols. As pairs of two spoke to each other, Minerva walked between groups to check on their progress.

“How do you feel about invasive plants?” Dorcas asked, pen in hand. Minerva had told them to make a brain map graphic organizer, with circles and lines connecting their ideas.

“Evil,” Remus answered. “How do you feel about hiking and mapping?”

“Pretty good,” Dorcas smiled. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“Pick an invasive plant and then monitor and map where it’s the most abundant?” Remus asked.

“Yeah. And what if we pick one that the field station does periodic removals of, so our final result could help contribute to their planning?”

“That would be great!” Remus nodded. “We can ask Minerva about potential plant species to research. What are some potential hypotheses?”

Dorcas proceeded to take notes about their question ideas while talking through new hypothesis ideas: an impressive feat. “Well, I would assume that invasive plants that are removed by the station will be less prevalent closer to the station.”

“That makes sense. And maybe they’re also more prevalent the further you are off of a trail?”

“How are we doing folks?” Minerva asked as she sat next to Dorcas and began to read from their notes. “I like where you’re headed,” she said.

“Do you know of any plants that would be good species to target?” Dorcas asked.

“I do!” Minerva smiled slyly. “But I’m not going to tell you. The green binder above the computers in the mini library has all the info on non-native plant removal here. You can search through it to find a suitable species. But,” she said, interrupting their move to stand up and check the book, “this is a fine project, but I know that Mr. Lupin and Ms. Meadowes are capable of accomplishing a bit more. Keep that in mind. And when you do data collection, remember that you can collect more data than you think you would need. You could answer more than one question in a project. And remember the metadata.”

The pair thanked her, with Remus embarrassed to be blushing at her compliment, and made their way inside. On the way, they passed many pairs of researchers respectfully discussing their ideas. In contrast to the others, one pair was shouting at each other from their perches on opposing porch railings. 

“Fuck yeah, that’d be so fucking cool!” Marlene shouted.

“Dude, we’re gonna have the best project, this is so badass.” Sirius affirmed.

“Bugs for the fucking win, let’s go entomology hoes dream team!” Marlene yelled.

As they shut the door behind them, Dorcas laughed. “Sounds like they’re having fun.”

“It definitely sounds, that’s for sure,” Remus joked as he picked up a granola bar on his way through the kitchen. The pair continued to walk through the station hallway past the many bedrooms.

“I like them,” Dorcas pronounced. “Everyone here seems really cool; I’m glad I got to meet everyone. But I would still pick you as my partner if I had the choice.”

Remus beamed. “Thank you. I’d pick you too.”

In the previously-empty mini library, Dorcas paused before opening the green binder. “Do you think, um. Do you think Marlene and Sirius have something going on between them?”

Remus felt his eyebrows raise. “Um, no, I don’t think so?” Pretty sure she wouldn’t really be his type, he added in his head. “Are you interested in him?”

Dorcas gave a nervous laugh. “No, not him. But maybe her?”

Remus smiled, nodding. “She’s pretty cool. I don’t think there’s anything going on between them,” he reassured. It wasn’t his place to announce Sirius’s sexuality, so he didn’t. “But are you going to heed the abstinence until presentation day rule?” 

Dorcas laughed. “Minerva said don’t sleep with anyone. That doesn’t mean I can’t flirt with her,” she said coyly, raising her chin and poofing her short Afro dramatically. 

Remus laughed at the display. It reminded him of Lily tossing her hair over her shoulder while waiting for the floor before delivering a devastating punchline at either James or Remus’s expense. He was thankful for his friends, and he was thankful that Minerva gave him such an awesome teammate. 

“Okay, let’s see,” Dorcas started, having finally opened the research binder. “Looks like they do periodic removals of azure weed and labyrinth brush, but those are more casual.”

“Looks like emerald weed is pretty harmful to the native plants it out-competes,” Remus pointed out.

“Yeah. Eucatriptus is a big one too. But the project from five years ago seems to have removed most of it.”

“Yeah, I haven’t seen any of it on our hikes actually. Plus, it wouldn’t be the easiest to miss, or to remove, for that matter.” The large trees were harmful to their environments, Remus knew, from the poisonous sap they dripped down beneath them. It was unlikely that he and Dorcas would be able to remove entire trees during their summer project, however.

“True,” Dorcas finally returned. The pair had been reading in silence for a minute or so. “What if we just keep an eye out for all of these, and then decide what to focus on once we’ve been in the field for a little while?”

“That sounds good,” Remus allowed. He didn’t like the idea of starting without a clear goal, but it was hard to know what project they would be able to accomplish without actually accomplishing anything in the first place.

***

The morning air was crisp and cool. Uncolored birds flitted about in the uncolored trees. Remus loved the palette at this hour. He remembered his mom telling him about the rods and cones in his eyes when he was about eight years old. It had been on a morning like this, and they had gotten up early for an exploration. Remus later realized that they were just walks, but it felt more important when Hope asked if he was “ready to set out,” as she zipped up the front of her jacket all the way, hooking her chin under, making him laugh. She would hand him a thermos of hot chocolate, taking one filled with coffee for herself. “And don’t forget to ration it,” she always said with a raised finger. 

Their explorations started around the same time that his dad began to sleep on the couch. In his teenage years, Remus reflected that his mom must have been hiding a lot of pain at the time, and he felt almost used, or somehow lied to. But now, as an adult, Remus thought that she was genuinely happy. She was going through a lot, and trying to protect him from a lot, but she was also genuinely happy to wake up before dawn and make a thermos full of hot chocolate and a thermos full of coffee and walk through the woods behind their house with her son. During one exploration, Remus asked her why the woods seemed to get more colorful after the sunrise, and she explained the in-depth scientific topic at his level, effortlessly and excitedly. 

Their explorations became less frequent over time. Eventually his dad moved out, and Remus began spending weekends at a new house, with his dad and a woman he didn’t know. Sometimes her kids were there, and sometimes they weren’t. But Remus and his mom didn’t completely stop walking through the woods together. It was on one of those walks that Remus told her he was gay, and it was on one of those walks that he told her that his friend Sirius, who came over to study together, was his boyfriend. A few conversations about hormones and procedures started on those walks as well, but he had made his gender identity clear from a much earlier age, and his parents had both already accepted it.

Remus was never the biggest fan of direct eye contact. It was fine in short bursts, but when having deeper conversations he liked to look away, gathering his thoughts. During the walks through the woods he would be studying the bark, or the way the leaves looked from different angles, or the horizon peeking through the crossed branches, and he would be able to talk freely. He thought his mom was the same way. It was during one of their walks that he told her Sirius broke up with him. And it was during a separate walk when he told her that he didn’t know how to move on. In a rare breach of her convincing facade of strength, she asked him to let her know how, if he ever found out.

At the station, Remus sat on the steps of the back porch, looking at the birds and the trees, watching them slowly gain back their color, as the sun crept over the mountains, and the cones in his retinas began to gather enough light to display color, and the less-accurate but more sensitive rods began to welcome the extra help. His thermos was actually a ceramic mug, and his hot chocolate was actually coffee, but he still missed his mom, and he was in the middle of a huge exploration, alone.

He heard the back door open and then close softly. When he turned, Sirius was standing there, thick wool socks stuffed into flip-flops, puffy jacket askew, and his own mug in hand. 

“Oh, sorry,” Sirius whispered. “I can go somewhere else if you want to be alone right now.”

“You can stay,” Remus said. Sirius’s eyebrows rose, and Remus smiled at the very understandable disbelief in the other man’s face. It must have been all the thinking about his mom that made him sentimental enough to welcome Sirius to stay, Remus thought ruefully as he gestured to the stairs, half-hoping that Sirius would sit.

He did. Sirius and Remus sat in silence for a few minutes. Eventually, Sirius broke. He was never able to keep quiet for very long, Remus knew. “What are you thinking about?” Sirius asked tentatively. 

“My mom,” Remus answered honestly, still looking out at the trees. Remus could see him nod in his peripheral vision.

“Is she doing well?” Sirius ventured. He had always gotten along with Hope, enough for Remus to joke that both of them liked each other more than himself. They had both protested the claim.

“Yeah, she is,” Remus assured. “She’s just, I don’t know. Getting older, I guess. She’s fine though. I’ll call her soon, I think.”

Sirius smiled. “I bet she’d want to hear everything about this internship. She probably already knows how to do most of the data collection stuff.”

“Probably,” Remus agreed. 

They continued to sit in silence until Marlene called out that breakfast was finally set up, no thanks to the two coffee thieves who only got in the way. Sirius quickly stood up and offered a hand to Remus. Remus pretended to not see as he studied the side of his coffee mug, and pulled himself up with a hand on the porch railing. His legs may be a little stiff in the cold morning, but that didn’t mean he needed Sirius to pull him up. 

***

“Very informative woman, very patronizing lecture. But somehow I still love her.”

“Minerva McGonagall, Ph.D, could slap me and I would say thank you.”

“I think you mean Minerva McGonagall, Ph.D, station director, badass who takes no shit, and experienced cartographer.”

“You just like her because she puts Sirius in his place,” Dorcas accused with a grin.

“Not true,” Remus announced quickly. He remembered Dorcas’s look between himself and Sirius from the other day, and he didn’t need to agree with her (correct) assumptions. “I like her because she taught us how to use these maps and this ancient GPS tracker. Without her wisdom, where would our poor, iPhone-dependent souls be without cell service?”

They both laughed. Remus appreciated how quickly Dorcas had become one of his closest friends at the station. Caradoc was great, and everyone seemed very friendly overall, but he spent the most time with Dorcas. Somehow he ended up spending a lot of time with Sirius as well, but that was probably just an anomaly.

The pair continued to hike through the middle of the day. They stopped at any instances of emerald weed or the other invasive plants being fought by the research station. Today was structured into the summer schedule as a “throw-away data day,” as Minerva called it. Research pairs were supposed to spend time practicing their protocols and refining their processes for future data collection. For Remus and Dorcas, that meant coaxing a rapidly-personified GPS tracker into working properly, and writing down any observations that went along with it. 

Whether or not the GPS tracker gave up its coveted numbers willingly or not seemed to depend on the patience of its human user. So far, Dorcas found success by speaking kind words to the machine, such as “you can do it,” and “come on, little buddy!” Remus, on the other hand, affectionately referred to it as “the little bastard.” 

They stopped for lunch on a shaded section of a trail that wound up and around the foothills of a small mountain. 

“Okay,” Dorcas said through a bite of sandwich. “I feel good about our data collection process. I think our protocol is pretty straightforward.”

“As long as the bastard can keep up.”

“Hey, he can hear you,” Dorcas protested. “Be nice!” She patted the outer pocket of her backpack gently. She had taken custody of the machine after Remus tossed it in the back of his pack carelessly. It was a brick equivalent to an old Nokia phone-- Remus had no doubts about its safety, only fears for the safety of the other contents of the bag. Nevertheless, Dorcas had alleviated him of the burden out of caution.

“I agree that our protocol is pretty straightforward. But maybe that’s a problem?” Remus asked.

Dorcas nodded. “Yeah. I get the feeling that we could be doing more somehow. But maybe that’s just because Minerva keeps saying so.”

“No, I agree,” Remus said. “I don’t know if presenting a hand drawn map of plants is going to win over those future employers. But let’s just keep today as a throw-away day. We can look for examples of other things to incorporate into the project, and maybe get some inspiration from just being out here, instead of in the library.”

“Good plan. Hey, are you on dinner tonight? I can’t remember who is cooking with me and Emmeline.”

“I am not,” Remus answered. “I will have the pleasure of cooking tomorrow night, with Caradoc and Gideon and Sirius.”

“Ooh, boys night,” Dorcas joked. She had definitely picked up on the fact that Remus seemed to have some sorts of reservations about Sirius, but hadn’t yet pushed him for an explanation. So far, Remus hadn’t told anyone here about his past with Sirius, and he wasn’t intending to do so soon. It seemed like Sirius hadn’t either.

***

At the top of their little mountain, Dorcas and Remus admired the view before getting ready to make their way back to the station. They had collected plenty of preliminary data, and were cautiously optimistic about the future directions of their work. They heard the other two researchers approaching before they saw them. They seemed to be chanting the lyrics to some song Remus was unfamiliar with, but it may have been modified, as many of the words seemed to end in “spider.”

Marlene’s blonde hair appeared over the side of the hill first, slightly obscured by a blue baseball cap. Her many ear piercings gleamed in the sun, and her eyes lit up when she saw Dorcas and Remus. Next was Sirius’s black hair and then aristocratic facial structure. He looked confused by Marlene’s sudden vocal absenteeism, but then stopped singing himself when he saw the others. 

“Hey plant people!” Marlene called out.

“Hey loud people,” Remus muttered to Dorcas. She laughed quickly before greeting Marlene and Sirius herself.

“We were just about to head back,” Dorcas told them. “Do you want to walk together?” Remus noted that she looked mostly at Marlene when making the offer.

“Yeah, definitely,” Marlene replied. “We’re pretty much done with data collection for today; we just wanted to see the view.” 

After a moment to admire nature from above, the four researchers turned to hike back down towards the research station. Dorcas had deliberately positioned herself in front of Sirius to be near Marlene, and eventually two new pairs had formed. Remus would normally have admired Dorcas’s bravery in initiating conversation with Marlene, but today he was mildly annoyed by it, as it left him alone with Sirius.

Realizing that they would either need to walk in silence or start to talk to each other, Remus decided to start a conversation on safe ground. “What are you and Marlene researching?” he asked politely.

“Spiders!” Sirius answered. “We’re trying to track spider diversity around the research station and compare it with the results of the last big arachnid survey here, which was done twenty years ago.”

“Wow, that sounds like a lot of work.” Remus didn’t know if he should be annoyed or not that Sirius was working on a viable project. It wasn’t surprising, since the taller man was very intelligent and driven. 

“Yeah, it probably will be. Marlene is kind of a spider expert, so I’ll be letting her handle most of the spider IDs. But we’re trying to sample across altitudes because we both wanted to hike a lot.”

Remus nodded. “That was something Dorcas and I thought of too. We wanted to collect data along these trails.”

“And what is your project?”

“It’s a bit of a work in progress right now,” Remus confessed. “But we want to do something with invasive plants, with monitoring and mapping.”

“That sounds really cool!” Sirius enthused, and Remus had to stop himself from rolling his eyes at the performance. “I bet that will be super useful for all of the future plant restoration projects here.”

“Yeah, I hope so.” Remus remarked how easy it was to talk to Sirius. There were definitely plenty of unsaid words, and the air was by no means clear, but something about really knowing another person made it impossible for silences to be awkward or strained. Remus wanted to be nice, and he wanted to be himself, but he knew he couldn’t fully let Sirius back in. Their past was too complicated for that. Or maybe, Remus thought ruefully, it wasn’t complicated enough. They dated. They broke up. They didn’t see each other for years. 

But why does Remus still feel so many mixed emotions about him? He really needed to call his mom.

Deciding to procrastinate his mental gymnastics, Remus looked for something to talk about. “So, Marlene is a spider specialist. Did you end up specializing in any particular branch of entomology?” It was almost talking about the past, but not quite. Sirius entered college interested in insects, like Remus had entered interested in plants. Presumably, Sirius had narrowed his focus over the last four years.

“Yeah! I mean I’m kind of still interested in everything, but I started to focus on beetles for a year, with museum collection specimens, but then kind of got back into everything when I got to do some field collecting with the grad students in my lab.”

“Beetles are cool,” Remus agreed. “But yeah, any field work is the best.”

“How about you?” Sirius asked. “Which plants are your favorite?” The trail narrowed for a switchback, and he gestured for Remus to go ahead of him.

“Well, that’s a hard question.” Remus thought for a moment. “I don’t know if they would be my favorite, probably more like my least favorite but most studied? But I’ve spent a bit of time working with the invasive plants near my college: tumblerush and manganate vine. So maybe those ones. Even though they’re bad. I understand them the most now, I suppose.”

“Fraternizing with the enemy?” Sirius joked. 

In more ways than one, Remus thought wryly. 

“And do you understand them the most, or have you published two different peer-reviewed papers on them? As the primary author?” Sirius continued, now grinning at Remus.

“Have you been stalking me on Google Scholar?” Remus laughed, eyebrows raised. He had wondered whether or not Sirius would have known about his success at the college many miles away from his own. He always doubted it, but he himself may have typed Sirius’s name into the search engine a few times, and found out that Sirius had been listed as a coauthor on a beetle distribution paper during their senior year.

“I never thought of that,” Sirius contemplated. “But I do follow your number one fan on Instagram.”

Remus shook his head fondly. “James.”

“James,” Sirius agreed.

After a moment of silence, Remus spoke again. “He knew you were going to be here. And he didn’t tell me until I was driving, and I was almost fifteen minutes away from the station.” 

“Well, he does know you best,” Sirius said loftily. Remus recognized that the beat of silence that followed was the both of them acknowledging that Remus wouldn’t have wanted to come if he knew Sirius would be here.

“In any case, I’m glad he didn’t tell me earlier.” A beat of silence: they both acknowledged that Remus would’ve still come, but it would have been a lot more stressful. “It’s going well so far,” Remus added. Translation: they are coexisting.

“I didn’t know that you would be here,” Sirius mused. “I mean, I thought you might be. You were definitely qualified. Over-qualified, probably.” Remus gave a small laugh. He tried to look to the side to hide his forsaken-blush, but Sirius already saw it. “But the morning of the first day, I saw James’s goodbye post to you, and I was ninety-nine percent confident you’d be here.”

“Oh, I don’t think I saw that, actually,” Remus pondered. “Maybe it was after I already started driving.” 

“It was very,” Sirius paused, looking for the word, “dire,” he settled on. “But heartfelt,” he reassured.

Remus laughed. “James,” he repeated.

“James,” Sirius agreed.

Remus realized that he could no longer see Dorcas’s hair on their path ahead. He wondered if that meant his partner was having a successful one-on-one conversation with Marlene. Or maybe they were just going faster by default. He could swear Sirius was deliberately walking slower, probably trying to make the descent easier on Remus’s joints. He found the gesture insulting. To be fair, his legs did hurt, and the downhill was the worst, but he didn’t need Sirius’s pity. And especially not on a short hike back to the research station.

***

In the evening, while Dorcas prepared dinner with Emmeline, Kingsley, and Frank, Remus sat on the back porch, with his feet up on the rail. He thought about calling his mom, but decided to wait for a day when he had more time. They were known for having phone calls that required intermissions, where one of them needed to find a phone charger, or take a bathroom break. In an effort to process his emotions alone, he opted to journal.

He wrote about the last few days. He summed up the highs of the internship, and then began to write about his interactions with Sirius. As Remus often did while journaling, he began to flip through old pages and reread what he had written months or years before. A common theme in all of the entries was his love life, or lack thereof. Remus often wrote about Sirius, and how frustrated he was to be unable to find someone else that would make him feel the same way that Sirius once did. 

It wasn’t really that there was anything perfect about Sirius. He was gorgeous, sure, but being with him, all those years ago, for the relatively brief portion of his life that it was, wasn’t groundbreaking. Or revolutionary. It just felt right. And ever since then, he hadn’t been able to settle with any other man, because no one had felt as right as Sirius had. Mostly, Remus didn’t date. He didn’t have the time, between all of his classes, work, and research, but he also didn’t think it was fair to the other person. As his journal entries reflected, he wasn’t exactly “over” Sirius.

But how do you get “over” someone you didn’t even date for a very long time? Remus had thought that time would do the trick. After years of no contact, Remus still wasn’t sure he was over it. And now, living across the hallway from him, Remus still didn’t know how he felt. He wasn’t still in love with Sirius, that was obvious. He didn’t know if he ever really was. Maybe just infatuated, for a long period of time. 

Here at the station, he was frustrated by the little things that Sirius did, or didn’t do. He was frustrated that he himself would anticipate those actions. He was frustrated that he still knew Sirius. And maybe that was what getting over someone was, he thought, as he finally began to write again. Getting over someone is accepting that you still “know” them, and you always will. But you will be apart from them, and it will be okay. 

And then what was left? A summer, to be spent here, in nature, in the research station, in their separate rooms across the hall. Together, but not quite, and not for long. Because the summer will end and they will go their separate ways, and Remus will know Sirius but he will not see him, and years later they may meet again or they may not, and Remus may check Google Scholar or he may not, and Remus will probably not meet someone who makes him feel the same way he felt when he was seventeen. And if all of this was true, and it seemed like it was, then what was wrong with having a conversation during a hike? Nothing. Because it meant nothing, or it should, if it didn’t. Because he knew it meant nothing to Sirius, just like how 3.58 years ago Remus suddenly meant nothing to Sirius.

Remus wiped his eyes, returned his journal to his room, and went to dinner.

Chapter Text

“Alright kids, welcome to our second group data collection technique day!” Minerva was standing on one of the picnic tables on the back porch, with everyone else milling about in front of her. Remus thought she seemed a little extra-caffeinated today, and he was slightly worried about what her enthusiasm would lead to in terms of group challenges. She may have them remain silent during the task again.

“Today is going to get a little bit messy!” She rolled her shoulders as she said it in some kind of vaguely dance-like motion. “But I’m sure you are all fine with that, after all, you do get two entire showers per week out here.” She grinned. Yes, Remus’s fears were confirmed. She was going for it.

“Who knows about sandy beach monitoring?” Minerva asked. When Emmeline raised her hand, Minerva gestured for her to speak.

“It’s a type of sampling to check for the presence of invertebrates on beaches close to the water,” Emmeline recited. “It usually requires some type of sand core that then gets washed in mesh.” Remus noticed that instead of her usual light colored hijabs, Emmeline was wearing some type of modesty swimwear. Potentially a burkini, he thought. If they were supposed to be swimming during the data collection then he would need to change. Or maybe he could just make Sirius do it.

“Exactly!” Minerva enthused. “Five points to Ms. Emmeline Vance!” She was definitely over-caffeinated. 

“Wait, so like, bugs?” Marlene asked.

“Yes!” Minerva answered, still from her perch on the table.

“Oh fuck yeah,” Marlene nodded, then fist-bumped Sirius.

“Teams will be the same as last time,” Minerva explained, “and we’ll go through a demonstration when we get there. It’s about a one and a half mile trek to the lake we’re going to. Who wants to have the special privilege of getting to carry these supplies?”

On the way there, Remus and Dorcas discussed their research plans, and also stopped at every third plant to admire it. They didn’t fall behind, because most of the other researchers were doing the same thing, albeit with their own organism of interest. Or in the case of Kingsley, rocks of interest. 

“Have you thought more about our timeline?” Dorcas asked. They had agreed that they still weren’t ready to begin their real data collection, and as such were slightly worried about falling behind.

“Yeah,” Remus said. He had spent a long time thinking about their project while unable to fall asleep the night before. “Since we don’t have anything to process, like, we’re not collecting samples to then go through in the lab or anything, I think we can collect data longer than Minerva scheduled. So instead of ending up with the structured two weeks of data analysis, we could probably just do one.”

Dorcas nodded. “That works for me. I still think we’ll find something cool while in the field, but it’s hard to not know if it will be groundbreaking or not, especially with a short timeline.”

“I want to win,” Remus confessed, with a nervous laugh. “Well, I guess we all do. But it would be nice to impress the people watching the presentations.”

“And maybe end up with a job offer?” Dorcas asked. Remus had told her how happy he would be to work at the station throughout the next year, and Dorcas had told him about the various programs she hoped would send scouts to watch their results. 

Remus smiled, and held up crossed fingers.

“Oh, by the way!” Dorcas interjected, with a raised pointer finger. “Since we’re both doing a lot of hikes for data collection, Marlene and I thought we would coordinate so we could go together.”

Remus frowned.

“But,” Dorcas said, drawing out the vowel, “you’re totally down for that because it’s like field safety 101 to have buddies, and you’re also totally down for that because you are my awesome wing man who is supportive of giving me time to talk with the prettiest and coolest spider girl I have ever met.”

Remus did the best impression of Minerva listening to one of Sirius’s quips, pursing his lips and narrowing his eyes. “Fine.”

When they arrived at the lake, Remus remarked how much it looked instead like an ocean. It wasn’t large enough to have waves, but he could easily picture James setting up an umbrella for Lily on the sandy shore and then pestering Remus into hitting a volleyball back and forth with him, just like he did at the Potters’ summer beach house.

“Alright, don’t run away yet,” Minerva called out. Sirius and Marlene had made a beeline for the water’s edge, and a few others looked like they were considering following. “You’ll have plenty of time to get in the water later if you choose to do so.”

Minerva gave an introduction to the data collection process, complete with a demonstration of the omnipotent “clam gun:” a metal tube that was pressed into the ground to make sand cores. The researchers “oohed” and “awwed” at the display, while Emmeline, who had presumably already used one plenty of times in her intertidal zone studies, rolled her eyes in amusement.

“Okay, that’s it! Same groups as last time, chop chop!” Minerva clapped her hands twice, prompting everyone to find their teammates. 

“What’s the catch?” Sirius called out.

“Are you speaking to me?” Minerva asked. She accompanied the question with a wide-eyed head-tilt forwards, with something related to jazz hands at her sides. It occurred to Remus that he would very much like to see Minerva on the other end of the spectrum: inebriated instead of over-caffeinated. 

“Well, yes, Minnie, you are a catch,” Sirius grinned. “But I meant what’s the challenge? Last time we couldn’t talk.” 

“And wouldn’t that be nice for all of us listeners,” Minerva shot back. “But no, today you are allowed to talk. But, seventy-five percent of your group isn’t going to be allowed to see.” She held up a bag of bandanas with a mischievous smile. “For safety’s sake we’ll all practice the process a few times while we can all see, but then to fill your data sheet you’ll have to nominate one person to see and give directions while the other three, how should I say, blindly take orders.”

After distributing the makeshift bandana-blindfolds, Minerva spoke up again. “Now, I want to be clear about something. We are not trivializing blindness. This is an activity about trust, and responsibility, because you are all seeing people, who will temporarily be unable to see during this activity. You can be blind and be a scientist. You can be blind and do a great many things, just ask my wife.” Minerva smiled upon mentioning her spouse. Remus wondered if the great Dr. Pomona Sprout would be visiting the research station soon. She and Minerva often published papers together, as a wife and wife research team.

“What?!” Sirius demanded. He sputtered a few words, then finally landed on, “Minnie, you’re married? When were you going to tell me? I’m heartbroken.” Remus laughed, watching his teammate’s flabbergasted expressions.

“Get over yourself, Mr. Black. You never stood a chance.” Everyone was either laughing at the display or accumulating their equipment for the upcoming procedure, but through all of the activity Remus could have sworn he saw Minerva throw a wink his way, before turning around.

Remus’s eyebrows rose.

After a few minutes of practice with the clam gun, and a few (less) minutes of practice doing other portions of the procedure, like taking the enmeshed sand core down to the water and cleaning it to reveal and count the collected invertebrates, everyone was almost ready to officially start. 

“Who is going to be the one person that gives directions and is un-blindfolded?” Dorcas asked. “I don’t want that level of responsibility.”

Marlene looked to Sirius, and Sirius looked to Remus. Surprised to have the attention on him, he spoke up. “Um, well the person who can see is going to be the person who sorts through the invertebrates, so that should probably be one of the entomologists,” he pointed out.

“I don’t mind giving orders,” Marlene said with a cocky smile. “As long as everyone feels comfortable with that,” she amended, looking hesitantly towards Dorcas. Remus guessed that Dorcas’s feelings were reciprocated.

“Works for me,” Dorcas said. 

“Don’t forget the metadata, Marls,” Sirius said as he began to tie his blindfold in place.

“Remus already wrote it,” she replied.

“Whenever you are ready, you may begin,” Minerva called out from further up the shore. She had spread the groups out considerably, in an effort to reduce the chances of inter-group collisions. “I would time it, but I already know it’s going to take forever,” she joked.

Now blindfolded, Remus, Dorcas, and Sirius awaited Marlene’s instructions. 

“Okay, so,” she started. “We need to set up the transect so we can take samples at every two meters.”

“Got it,” Sirius said. “Where’s the tape measure?”

“Um, it is…” Marlene started. Upon Minerva’s instructions, the seeing person had to remain stationary during the activity. “Can you spread out a bit, I can’t see it.”

As they each took a few steps, Remus heard someone kick the clam gun, and then heard Sirius cursing from where he must have landed on the ground. “Oof, sorry Sirius,” Marlene grimaced. “On the bright side, I found the tape measure.”

“Oh, divine,” Sirius said, still on the ground. Even when seventy-five percent of the researchers couldn’t see him, Sirius liked his theatrics. 

“Dorcas, next to your left foot, a little more, yeah, there. Okay, one of you can stand here by me and the other can walk it down to the water’s edge?” Marlene sounded more hesitant after Sirius’s fall. 

“I’ll walk it,” Remus said. “Dorcas can you talk so I can find you?”

With only a few directions needed to walk in a straight line, and after a few snickers from Sirius about the word “straight,” their transect tape was in position, and Remus followed it back up to his team. 

“Let’s start up here, at twenty meters,” Marlene said. “Okay, Sirius, the clam gun is-”

“Right where I kicked it, yes,” Sirius interrupted, picking it up.

“And the mesh-”

“I’ve got it,” Dorcas said. “Remus, can you grab the other two corners?” After a few awkward grabs at Dorcas’s arms, the mesh net was ready. 

“Sirius you’re almost at twenty, but move a tiny bit to- no, to your other- okay too far- and stop. Perfect.” Marlene’s directions seemed just as fine as his would have been, Remus thought, but it was still difficult to rely on them without his own vision to supplement. Going solely from sounds, Remus guessed Sirius had plunged the clam gun into the sand, and was now ready to deposit the core onto the net.

“The net is right here,” Remus said, to help guide him. A second later, he got smacked in the shoulder with the metal clam gun. “Thank you,” Remus deadpanned.

“Oh shit, sorry Rem,” Sirius offered, as Marlene chastised him. 

“Okay, the sample is on the net now,” Marlene eventually announced. Dorcas offered to take it down to the water, and returned a few moments later with the washed sample, sans sand. 

“That was fucking cold, you guys are doing the next one,” Dorcas pronounced.

After Marlene counted and recorded their invertebrates, and the net was washed out, it was time to repeat the process nine more times. 

As the measurements got closer to the water, the three blindfolded teammates got further from their guide. At around the six meter mark, they started to bump into each other again, but Marlene was too far away to be as helpful at preventing it. Remus heard Minerva begin to talk to Marlene, finally interrupting the string of “wait no,” and “Remus, just,” or “Sirius watch out,” and “sorry!”

“Ms. McKinnon, if you were to start over, where would you place yourself in relation to the transect?”

“In the middle,” Marlene lamented.

“Learning moments!” Minerva laughed. “It’s all about the learning moments. Mr. Black!” She called out. “Remember to adapt and react to your new obstacles as they come up.”

Apparently in response to this, Sirius grabbed Remus’s arm, then slid his hand down to his wrist, and firmly laced their fingers together. “I can get the sand core with one hand, and hold Remus’s hand with the other, so I know where the net is. Dorcas, you can stay on your own side of the transect, and this way I shouldn’t hit anyone.”

You could’ve held Dorcas’s hand instead , Remus thought feebly, as he kept his fingers laced with his ex-boyfriend’s. At least Sirius couldn’t see his blush.

“Aw, young love! How sweet,” Marlene called from fourteen meters away.

“Fuck off, McKinnon,” Remus yelled back.

“I’m still here, Mr. Lupin,” Minerva’s voice carried over. Thankfully, she sounded amused.

Overall, the hand-holding system seemed to work well, especially when walking the net up the shore to Marlene. Before, tripping on an errant rock would lose their entire sample, but now it would end with one of them catching the other. 

When their data sheet was complete, and they had approval to remove their blindfolds, Sirius was still holding Remus’s hand. Remus was used to it. Back when they dated, Sirius loved to always be touching Remus somehow, with an arm around his shoulders, or a hand on his thigh. The most common was hand-holding, and Sirius would often absentmindedly lace his fingers with Remus’s, and seem to forget that he had. If Remus was holding a book with one hand, Sirius would take his other, and then Remus would be unable to turn the page. Or when ordering coffee or ice cream, when Remus made to pay, Sirius would forget he needed to use both hands to open his wallet. They had devised a system where Remus would lightly squeeze Sirius’s hand twice, and Sirius would let go, for however long it took to turn the page or finish the transaction, before being allowed to grab his hand again.

Here on the shore, Remus reflexively squeezed his hand twice, and Sirius reflexively let go. Realizing what had happened, Remus blushed furiously as he took a few steps away from the other man and removed his blindfold. 

***

“Hey botanists, the water’s fine,” Marlene called out. After a post-activity discussion led by Minerva, the researchers had been turned loose to explore the lake if they so desired. The two entomologists promptly stripped to their underwear and jumped in. Emmeline followed, with much more dignity, and with fewer profanities about the temperature.

“The water is cold as fuck, you can stop lying to yourself,” Dorcas called back, with a big smile. Remus and Dorcas were standing with just their feet in, and Remus didn’t think he would be able to swim even if he had brought the appropriate clothes to do so. It was indeed, as Dorcas said, cold as fuck.

After they swam away, apparently racing to Frank and Alice at Sirius’s suggestion, Dorcas nudged Remus with her arm. “So, Mr. Hand-holder.”

“Shut up,” Remus laughed, already starting to blush.

“Are you ever going to tell me the story? I know there has to be a story between you two. Did you get into a road rage fight on the day you drove to the station? But it had, like, a lot of sexual tension too?”

“Ew, no,” Remus defended. “If you must know, we went to the same high school.”

“You went to the same high school,” Dorcas deadpanned. “And also dated and then broke up? Where does the tension come from?”

“Yeah, pretty much what you said,” Remus nodded. “Not the road rage, but the dating and then breaking up thing,” he amended. He hadn’t really wanted to talk about his past with Sirius to the others, but it seemed inevitable with Dorcas. She was currently his closest friend here. “And then the first time we saw each other since the breakup was day one.”

“Oh, shit,” Dorcas appreciated. “The first time?”

“Yeah,” Remus laughed humorlessly. 

“Have you two talked about it? Like, the breakup?”

“Nope.” 

Dorcas must have picked up on Remus’s clipped tone, because she soon switched the conversation topic. 

***

“Hi Mom,” Remus smiled.

“Hi baby,” Hope said through the phone. “How is everything going?”

“Really well!” Remus enthused. He updated his mom on almost all of the components of his internship. They spoke for a while longer about Hope’s life, and the current projects she was working on, both in home decor and in writing. His mom was a scientist for fun, and a writer for the paycheck: the opposite of many day-job scientists Remus met in college. Eventually, Hope asked about how everything was going a second time, and they both knew what she meant.

“Well,” Remus started. “One of the other nineteen researchers is Sirius Black.”

“Ah,” Hope said.

“Yeah.” 

“Has he been flirting with you?”

Remus was surprised by his mom’s forwardness. “Um, no, I don’t think so?” His statement twisted into a question at the end. Holding his hand during a data collection activity in order to not accidentally hit him with a piece of metal probably didn’t count.

“Is he still single?” She asked.

“I actually don’t know. I assume James would have told me if he wasn’t. He’s been flirting with the station director,” Remus offered, a smile playing across his lips.

“With Dr. McGonnagall? Yeah, that sounds like your Sirius,” Hope said fondly.

“Mom.” Why would you say my Sirius, Remus added in his head.

“Sorry.” After a pause, “so what has it been like, then? Seeing him again.”

“Well, I don’t know? I think,” Remus paused, searching for the right words. “It’s been very... familiar,” he eventually settled on. “Like, I kind of thought that we would be sort of meeting for the first time again, but it feels like only a few months have passed, not a few years. We’ve both been sort of cautiously polite to each other, but we aren’t talking about the past or anything. Well,” Remus amended. “He’s been polite. I was rude to him at first but he told me to be nice to the other researchers, and they’d all think I was crazy if I was rude to him for no reason.”

Hope stayed quiet; Remus appreciated her giving him the space to talk through his feelings. So far at least, talking to his mom about it instead of journaling was far less… angsty.

“Part of me likes being friends again, or at least vaguely friendly, if we aren’t friends. But part of me doesn’t want to let him back in, because he’ll leave again. Even if it wasn’t like another breakup or something, we’ll be going back to different towns at the end of the summer, potentially with different job offers, if the end of summer presentations go well.”

“I hear you,” Hope eventually said. “It is okay, though, to have temporary friendships. Or even just alliances.”

Remus waited for her to add to her statement. He knew that she was likely building up towards something philosophical that would either hit home because it was spot on, or at least remind him of home, because he had missed their deep conversations. 

“You know, Remus, all relationships-- whether they are romantic or platonic-- are temporary. People change, people move, people die.” She said matter-of-factly. Remus thought of his dad. He wondered if the last time Hope saw Lyall was at Remus’s graduation. It probably was. He wondered when the next time would be. 

She continued. “Knowing that a friendship will end, or at least be threatened with a potential end, by some sort of timeline, like the end of the summer, probably feels more important than it is. Your whole life you’ve had deadlines like that, but you’ve had to persist around them and in spite of them anyway. A school year ending, moving from elementary to middle school, choosing a college and knowing that not all of your high school classmates would be there. Statistically speaking, you’re going to either witness a lot of final relationship endings, or be the cause of them. I don’t plan on outliving you, you know.”

They both smiled at the statement, Remus sadly and Hope fondly. 

“So my advice is this: life is short. Be friends with him; you still like him and you get along well together. You don’t have to get back together with him for that.” 

Remus nodded. “Yeah, that sounds like good advice.”

“May your heart remain breakable,” Hope said soberly, “but never by the same hand twice.”

“Mom,” Remus groaned.

“What?”

“I know that’s a Taylor Swift song lyric. Come on.”

“What? No it’s not!” Hope defended. She used to tease Remus for having more Instagram followers than him with her borderline Taylor Swift fan-account, “Hope_the_Swiftie.”

“Then where is it from? I could swear you’ve used that as a caption before.”

“It’s not a song lyric,” Hope repeated. “It’s a line from a poem. Written by Taylor Swift.”

“Oh my god,” Remus shook his head fondly. “I knew it.”

“Hey,” Hope said, suddenly serious. 

“Yeah?”

“I love you, you know. A lot. You can call me anytime. I’ll always drop anything to talk to my little man.”

“Mom, I’m twenty-two years old.”

“And I’m still your mom.”

“Okay,” Remus laughed.

“Okay?” Hope questioned. She sounded almost offended.

“Okay, I love you too. And I will call you again, probably soon. Thank you.”

“Anytime, baby. Anytime.”

Chapter Text

It was a chilly morning, and Remus, clad in sweatpants, sweater, and slippers, had his hands wrapped around his coffee mug for warmth. He had helped prepare the breakfast and lunch stations this morning, and so he had also been one of the first people to go through them. Over the years, Remus had discovered that the cold was often worse on his legs, but he mentally shrugged off the pain. He wasn’t going to be sitting today out.

“Hey, hiking buddy,” Marlene said as she set her bagel down across from him. “Ready for the long trek?”

Remus gave a convincing smile. “Definitely.” Marlene went back to grab coffee before sitting down. 

“It should be illegal to eat a bagel like that,” Remus commented, frowning.

“What?” Marlene said through a mouthful of cold bagel and cream cheese. She had presumably cut the bagel open, not toasted it, spread on cream cheese, and then closed it again, before biting into it like a too-tall sandwich. “It’s more efficient,” she defended, after swallowing.

Remus shook his head, took a bite of oatmeal, and then returned his hands to his mug.

“Hey, where’s Dorcas?” Marlene asked. “She wasn’t on breakfast crew with you?”

Remus grinned. “No, she wasn’t on breakfast. You seem eager to find her though.”

“And what about it?” she challenged.

After a moment of consideration, Remus went for it. “Are all four of us queer?”

Marlene’s eyebrows shot up. “Dude!” she exclaimed. “Yes! Also, oh my god, so Dorcas is? And she’s like, single, right?”

Remus laughed. “You can talk to her about it on our long hike today. I have a feeling that you two will go off in front of us again.”

Just then, Dorcas sleepily walked into the kitchen, and Marlene’s cocky body language dropped. “Hey, good morning,” Marlene said demurely. Dorcas returned the greeting and entered the breakfast line.

Remus waggled his eyebrows at Marlene, who then glared at him. “Don’t fuck with me, Lupin,” she warned. The intimidation tactic was a little less effective when she glanced quickly across the kitchen and softly smiled, before turning back to Remus. He laughed.

***

“Do we have everything?” Marlene asked Sirius. “We’re not turning around halfway again, I swear to god.”

“Well it sure feels like it,” Sirius complained. “Are you even carrying any of the equipment, or is it all shoved on top of the sandwich in my backpack?”

Meanwhile, Dorcas and Remus went over their neat equipment checklist that they had made on day one of data collection. Satisfied, they continued to observe their fellow researchers’ banter. 

“I am literally carrying the one gallon container of ethanol. It is literally in my hand.” Marlene raised the container for emphasis.

“Good call,” Sirius approved. “That way, as we use it to collect specimens it will get lighter.” Remus recognized Sirius’s play-arguing, and rolled his eyes, satisfied that no one was actually upset.

“Bitch, where do we put the samples we collect? My backpack.” 

“Okay,” Dorcas interrupted. “Remus and I are going to go alone, you two have fun arguing like an old married couple.”

Two synchronous, “gross, I’m gay!” objections rang out. 

“Hey, me too,” a voice called from above, on the porch. “But I’m not the one supposed to be collecting data today.” Minerva poked her head over the rail. 

Sirius froze momentarily, but recovered quickly. “We’re off now, bye Minnie, love you lots!” He called out, as he began walking towards their destined trail. “Don’t get into too much trouble while we’re away! Let us not say farewell, but as the French have it, au revoir!” 

Remus laughed at the Pride and Prejudice reference, as he made his way to follow Sirius. Sirius looked to him eagerly, likely in search of approval or recognition of it. Back during the summer between high school and college, Remus had shown Sirius one of the film adaptations of Austen’s novel, deciding that it had been long overdue. Sirius had surprised him by being engaged the whole time, and even misquoting the funnier bits of dialogue later.

Today, the four of them were in for a strenuous hike. They were going to Durmstrang peak, the highest elevation found within walking distance of the station. It was eight miles up, at a harsh incline, and then another eight back down. In an effort to make the trek easier, each research pair would be able to take breaks as they collected all of their data on the way up, and then they would walk on their way down without needing to take data.

***

Remus was exhausted. They all were, as they sat at the highest point in miles, taking in the view and eating their lunches. But while the others were looking forward to the downhill hike back, Remus was dreading it. His legs had hurt during the first mile or so of this morning, but had eventually loosened up. He knew the downhill would be harder on his knees, which were already hampered from the morning’s cold air. He didn’t advertise his concerns.

On the way up, each of the research partners had stuck together, since they needed to make their coordinated stops for data collection. On the way back, just as Remus had suspected, the girls went off ahead, leaving him and Sirius to take the rear. Once they were likely out of earshot, Remus turned to Sirius.

“Do you think they’re going to break Minerva’s golden rule?”

Sirius laughed. “They definitely both like each other. It’s pretty cute, they’re like the goth girlfriend and flower crown girlfriend meme. Except instead of goth it’s just… spiders.”

“Yeah,” Remus smiled. They continued to walk downhill, with either comfortable silence or with simple conversations about Minerva and the other researchers. Remus learned from Sirius that two other researchers appeared closer to breaking the rule than Marlene and Dorcas: Alice Wood and Frank Longbottom were spending lots of time together, despite not being in the same research team. 

“Hey, I didn’t know that Minnie was gay,” Sirius said, again initiating a new conversation after lapsed silence. “I guess not until she mentioned her wife yesterday, I mean.”

Remus nodded. “She and her wife are a research duo, they publish, like, at least three new papers a year. I have no idea how they’re so fast.”

“That’s awesome. Minnie is awesome.”

“Yeah, she is,” Remus agreed.

After another brief silence, Sirius hesitantly spoke up again. “Do you think she likes me? Or is she annoyed by my… antics?”

Remus’s eyebrows rose. He hadn’t been able to bear witness to slightly-insecure Sirius in a long time. He knew that the other man’s bravado was mostly for show, but he hadn’t stopped to wonder if his confidence levels had changed over the years. “I’m pretty sure you’re her favorite,” Remus answered honestly.

Sirius’s face brightened into a genuine smile. It was one of the expressions where he would bite the inside of his cheek slightly, in an effort to hold it back, but couldn’t. It was one of Remus’s favorites to watch, and in the past he would have kissed him for it. Now, he just adjusted his backpack straps and kept walking down the trail.

“Maybe second favorite,” Sirius amended. “She obviously likes you the best.”

Remus just shrugged, not bothering to hide his smile.

Many miles later, Marlene and Dorcas were completely out of both seeing and shouting range, and Remus and Sirius were taking a break in the shade of a few oak trees dotting the trail. When he stood back up, Remus’s knees protested, and he grunted softly. Sirius heard it.

“Are you okay? Is it your knees? Do you need anything? Do you have Advil?” 

“Sirius,” Remus interrupted. “I’m fine.” Remus began to walk, slowly, and Sirius warily followed suit. His legs were screaming in protest, but there was probably only a mile left, and once they got back to the station Remus would be free to relax until dinner. He could even get started on the book Caradoc had lent him while laying down in bed.

Silence reigned for as long as Sirius would allow. Eventually, he broke. “Remus, if you want to take a break, or-”

“I can walk,” Remus interrupted, with a biting tone.

“I know you can walk,” Sirius immediately replied. “But let me help you.” Sirius proceeded to pull Remus’s backpack off of his shoulders and then swing it onto his left arm. After a few lighter steps, Remus reluctantly put his left arm around Sirius’s shoulders and leaned onto him slightly. Sirius’s right arm wrapped around his waist and supported him. 

Even while they dated, Remus hated this. He hated feeling like he needed the support of someone else to just walk, but Sirius seemed to know when he needed to force Remus into it, and when to allow him to maintain his pride.

The rest of their hike was much easier, though slightly more embarrassing for Remus. Neither of them spoke. When they finally got within view of the research station, Remus pulled away from Sirius, and held his hand out for his backpack. When Sirius handed it over, Remus finally broke the silence.

“Thank you,” Remus stated soberly.  

“Yeah, no worries,” Sirius said lightly. 

They were both referring to the assisted walk, not the recent backpack handoff, but they didn’t need to specify. Remus headed inside to lay down, and Sirius went to find Marlene.

***

Two days after the cold morning, Hogwarts National Park decided to remind everyone that it was summer. At breakfast, the windows were all flung open, and the cold fruit and yogurt were proving to be more popular than hot oatmeal. Remus poured his coffee over ice, and read through his and Dorcas’s most recent data sheets. The kitchen was busy with other researchers, but its relative peacefulness told Remus that neither Marlene nor Sirius were present yet.

Eventually, Sirius sauntered in. His long legs were bare besides a very small pair of gray sweat shorts, and his muscular arms were exposed by his black tank top. Presumably, he had slept in this ensemble. Remus felt himself begin to blush, and studied his data sheet much more intently, holding it closer to his face.

“Sirius Black!” Minerva shouted as she entered the kitchen. “If there aren’t two cans of cold brew in the No fridge when my wife gets here in two hours, I will destroy you.”

Sirius froze. He was halfway to the No fridge, with no other probable destination in place. Caught. “Minnie!” He enthused. “My morning is going great, thank you for asking! How about you? Enjoying the warm weather? Excited to see the missus?”

Remus watched Minerva shake her head fondly, and he amended his earlier assessment. He himself was probably Minerva’s favorite researcher, but Sirius was more like her son. “If my wife could see,” Minerva said finally, a smile playing about her lips, “I would ask you to dress more appropriately when you meet her today.”

Sirius grinned at being let off the hook. Remus knew he had frequented the No fridge more than once in the past few weeks they had been here, and was sure that Minerva had just accepted it by now.

“But this way, at least it’s only the other researchers you’re making blush,” she finished with a wry smile. She threw a quick glance to a shocked Remus before departing the kitchen. When Remus looked up, Sirius met his gaze, with raised eyebrows quickly morphing into a smug smile. Remus was, of course, blushing. Caught.

***

“I can’t find my forceps. Marlene, do you know where my forceps are?” Sirius made a pinching motion with his fingers, the way someone will reflexively mime cutting when looking for scissors.

“I think you mean our forceps,” Marlene smiled, holding up the long metal tweezers.

“Did you lose yours again? Seriously?”

“I think there’s a joke to be made there somewhere,” Marlene pondered, handing over the forceps.

Remus turned to Dorcas. “Why haven’t we left them behind yet?”

Dorcas laughed. Today’s data collection collaborative hike would take the researchers about five miles southwest. It should be less strenuous than going to Durmstrang Peak, since there was less elevation to gain, but the hot weather meant they were carrying more weight in drinking water. 

Sirius had eventually changed into more hiking-ready clothing, and Remus was now wearing shorts and a t-shirt with his hiking shoes. The scarring on his legs was on full display, but he hardly thought about it. The two twin scars still blocked by his shirt were the ones he preferred to keep hidden. 

Once the entomologists had finished bickering, the group of four set off. The routine was becoming familiar-- Remus and Dorcas would record notes on the locations of invasive plants, as well as collect leaves and flower samples from the things they found pretty. Sirius and Marlene would search for spiders in the leaf litter and trees every five minutes. Sirius would often use their spider-catching tools, like nets and aspirators, while Marlene would just grab as many spiders as she could find with her bare hands, then brandish them at Sirius, demanding collection tubes.

Remus enjoyed the banter between the four of them on their hikes, and was glad that Dorcas’s interest in Marlene had strong-armed him into working alongside Sirius. He would be sad to lose the spider scientists in the upcoming days, when he and Dorcas would continue their plant data hikes, while the other two would be back in the mini-lab, identifying their variety of spider species.

4.96 sweaty miles later, their trail twisted to reveal a pristine alpine lake. The cool water beckoned everyone, but Dorcas kept them on track. “Let’s stop here on the way back, we’re almost to the end of this trail. We can have lunch at the vista then come back this way.” Marlene looked ready to argue, but something behind Dorcas caught her eye.

“Oh my god,” she stressed. “Insanely cute spider alert. Sirius, get a tube ready.”

They ate lunch not at the vista, which was unshaded, but instead a short distance down the trail which had more tree cover. Apparently already making their mid-hike transition, the women sat closer to each other than to their research partners, but no one was too inclined to speak much in the heat. It was sapping, and they all knew exactly how many miles they needed to travel to get back home.

But first, they stopped at the lake from earlier. Remus smiled as they each ducked under the branches in single file, entering the alpine lake’s clearing. Gear was unceremoniously dropped, and everyone made way to untie their hiking shoes. Dorcas and Remus sat, Marlene just toed hers off, and Sirius made a weird hopping performance as he tried to untie his laces while standing.

When he put his right foot in the water, Remus immediately felt cooler. The idea of swimming in the clear lake was even more alluring than Sirius’s breakfast outfit, but he didn’t want to have to let two people in on a very private part of his life. Having passed so easily for so long, Remus hated the awkward conversations, or realizations, when people found out that his being as a man came with an extra adjective. Remus was a man. He was a medium-height, brown-haired, kind, introverted, helpful, and slightly egotistical man. He was also trans. Those adjectives were never weighted equally in other people’s minds. Still paused by the lake with one foot in the water, his internal monologue was interrupted by Sirius.

“Hey Marlene! I bet you won’t jump in with all of your clothes on.”

“Bitch, watch me!” Marlene yelled back, and immediately flung herself into the water, shorts, shirt, and all, still wearing one sock. She submerged fully into the water, then breached with a dramatic wet hair flip. "God,” she stressed. “The water feels so good. Everyone else has to jump in fully clothed, or you’re not cool!” Marlene began to swim away after yelling the last taunt.

Sirius wasted no time in following, in shorts, shirt, but sans socks. Dorcas was halfway through taking her tank top off, but shrugged it back on and waded in with a smile. Her eyes were on Marlene’s swimming form. 

Remus couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all, even as he plunged fully into the chill. He got to swim, with no questions asked. And he was in Hogwarts National Park conducting field research for the entire summer with nineteen amazing other researchers, and one of them was Sirius Black. Who just tricked everyone into swimming in their clothes so Remus didn’t have to come out or sit out. Remus laughed, again.

As Marlene and Dorcas splashed each other, and Sirius floated on his back, Remus looked to his ex-boyfriend until they made eye contact. “Thank you,” he mouthed silently. Sirius just smiled.

***

Remus blew the steam from his early morning coffee into the outdoor air. He watched it curl in on itself silently and sinuously. Dew had settled on the nearby greenery overnight, and Remus’s seat on the wooden porch stairs was cold, but comfortable. He’d always answered that he was more of a morning person than a night person, but that wasn’t the whole truth. 

The truth was, Remus was an introverted person. And he liked to take time to process and to think without other people around. That often meant early mornings, but it could also mean late nights, as long as it wasn’t one of his very, very rare “sleepovers” with another man. Such events had been few and far between during college, but that was probably why he was able to end up here, getting paid to conduct research.

Remus was considering getting up to go grab a book from his room when he heard the porch door open, and the noises within the kitchen became audible.

“Sirius, make a new pot, oh my god.” 

“Sorry my dear, but as you can see, it’s not empty yet. And you’re on breakfast duty, not me, so…”

“Bitch.”

“Bye!”

The door shut again, and Remus turned to see Sirius, clutching a mug of coffee, walking out onto the porch. 

“Hey,” Sirius offered softly. It was a sharp contrast to his energetic fight with Marlene from five seconds ago, and Remus welcomed the transition. He knew that Sirius was more emotional than his brash center-of-attention personality let on, and it was one of the first things he had realized he loved about Sirius. They could be studying together, and Sirius would be making ridiculous jokes, or running with long-winded impersonations of teachers or other students, making Remus laugh so hard it hurt, but minutes later he would tell Remus about something that had been weighing on his mind, or really listen if Remus needed to talk about something serious. 

“Good morning,” Remus returned, nodding to the steps aside him in invitation. 

Sirius sat. 

After a moment of silence, Remus spoke again. “Thank you for yesterday. I wasn’t going to swim, but you made it very easy for me to do so comfortably,” he spoke slowly, thinking through his words. “I’m glad I can now say that I swam in an alpine lake, and it was also really fucking hot, so getting to cool off was nice too.” He finished with a little laugh, just an exhale through the nose with a small smile.

Sirius shook off the praise. “It was nothing.”

“It was thoughtful,” Remus corrected. “And it was nice, too, so, thanks,” he finished lamely.

“You’re welcome,” Sirius said eventually. He nodded as they made eye contact. It was almost bittersweet, Remus realized, to be having this conversation with Sirius. How would it have ended before? Maybe a hand squeeze, either on the shoulder or the knee. Depending on where they were sitting, Sirius could have wrapped an arm around Remus. 

Here, though, it ended with Marlene opening the porch door and yelling to them. “Breakfast is ready! If there was a way for me to tell Remus without letting you know, Sirius coffee-thief Black, I would,” she added with an indignant smile. 

Remus entered the breakfast line, leaving Sirius to his placating monologue. “My dearest Marlene, did you get prettier overnight? Maybe it was beauty sleep? Not that you needed it, of course. Remember how I collected all of those spiders yesterday and how much you love me for it?” 

Remus shook his head as he pulled a bagel out of its bag. 

***

Remus and Dorcas set out on their trail of the day, to collect data and plant specimens, without their louder co-researchers. They got started a little quicker, but Remus soon found he missed them. The spider scientists were in the mini-lab, working on identifying their collected specimens, leaving the two botanists to continue their hikes alone.

“Hey,” he called to Dorcas, as he tightened the sides of his plant press, with a newly acquired gemsage flower within. “How are things going with Marlene?”

Dorcas looked up from where she had been crouched over the GPS tracker. “She’s really cool! I like hanging out with her. It’s just friendly right now.”

“I feel like there’s a but in there somewhere,” Remus observed.

“Well. I don’t know. It just seems kind of temporary, doesn’t it? Like, if we get together here, we’ll be moving at the end of the summer anyway. And after that we may be applying to different graduate schools or we may end up working jobs in different parts of the country.”

Remus understood.

“But I really like her?” Dorcas continued. “So maybe that’s why it’s annoying, or something. I don’t want to get attached and then have it end, but I feel like I’m already attached.”

“Long distance is a thing,” Remus offered. 

“For a new relationship?” Dorcas questioned. “I don’t know,” she repeated.

“Maybe just have an honest conversation with her about it,” Remus suggested. “I think it’s pretty clear that she likes you too, so you won’t be revealing all your cards or anything.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right,” she agreed. “Okay, why the fuck is the GPS tracker still not working?”

Remus laughed. “I thought you said you had to be kind to it.”

Dorcas shook her head. “I’ve changed my mind. You were right when you named it the little bastard.”

“Hey,” Remus interrupted her tirade against the device, “does it feel like we’ve been here already? At this site?”

Dorcas looked around. “No?”

“Something about it looks familiar. Hm.” Remus continued to think about it as his partner eventually coaxed the desired string of numbers out of the GPS tracker, and they began to walk again. Maybe it just reminded him of the other locations they had already taken data, since they were staring at the same species of invasive plants each time.

Through the rest of their hike, Remus oscillated between thinking about their project-- something about the vague familiarity of the site was starting to feel important-- and half-heartedly missing Sirius and Marlene’s banter. Assumedly, Dorcas was sorting out similar thoughts in her mind-- maybe not of group banter but of Marlene’s conversation-- because she also remained quiet.

They returned to the station with a bit of time to relax before they had to start making dinner. Tonight was pasta night, as prepared by Remus, Caradoc, Dorcas, and Emmeline. Caradoc and Emmeline were quite the congenial duo, and Remus would have almost wanted to witness them as presenting research partners, if only to see their escalating apologies as they accidentally spoke over each other or clicked forward to a new slide prematurely. 

Something about their excessive kindness was endearing though, probably because it actually felt genuine. Nonetheless, it further reminded Remus of the much more direct, and humorous to witness, duo of Marlene and Sirius. He had seen Marlene briefly after the hike, and she reported a positive first day of spider IDs and processing, but he hadn’t seen Sirius. Now, after almost completing the dinner setup, Remus realized he still hadn’t seen him since the morning. 

Once the call went out for dinner, and everyone crowded into the kitchen, Remus did another scan of the room, still not seeing Sirius. He thought briefly about asking Marlene if she had seen him, but realized she would likely make a joke about Remus’s anxiety for the other man. Or, Sirius would come in from the bathroom or somewhere and she would announce his presence to Remus in a very public manner. He was probably fine. 

Remus sat at the table with his plate of spaghetti-- cooks got to go first-- and began to eat. When a jovial looking lumberjack passed by on his way to the silverware, though, Remus couldn’t resist speaking up. 

“Hey, Gideon? Have you seen Sirius?” he asked.

Gideon turned towards him, plate in hand. “He was in our room,” he started cautiously. “Said he wasn’t feeling like coming to dinner tonight.” He made a pained expression, as if showing his empathy while also respecting whatever Sirius had told him, that he was fine, likely, or, to not worry. 

Remus nodded. Without thinking about it too much, he rose from his seat, entered the dinner line, grabbed a new plate, and added spaghetti, marinara, and plenty of red pepper flakes. He picked up his own plate in his other hand as he walked out of the kitchen and into the hallway. 

Once he was out of eyesight from the kitchen, Remus realized what he was doing: bringing Sirius dinner, despite the man having told his roommate that he was fine and not hungry. Remus was familiar with Sirius’s depression, and he knew that there were days or moments when Sirius couldn’t do much more than lay in bed. At those times in the past, Remus would try to assist where he could-- helping Sirius meet basic needs like having food and water, letting the fresh air in, and just being there.

Now, here he was, in the middle of the research station dorm hallway, a plate of spaghetti in each hand, and unable to knock on Sirius’s closed door. He settled on kicking it softly, hoping no one saw. As predicted, Sirius didn’t answer, so Remus spoke up. “I brought you some spaghetti. With red sauce that is very spicy. Can I come in?”

A muffled “Remus?” came through the door.

“Yeah, um. I’m gonna come in, is that okay?” Remus asked. 

After hearing a quiet “okay,” Remus placed his plate on the floor, still holding Sirius’s, in order to open the door before picking it back up again. The lights in the room were off, but Sirius was sitting up in bed, not lying down. Remus entered and handed over the plate, before moving back and sitting with his back against the door. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked, feeling stupid.

“Depressed,” Sirius answered, but then added a humorless laugh. “As you can see. But I think I already passed through the worst of it. I was thinking about getting up for dinner actually, but wasn’t sure.”

If he had to guess, Remus would say that Sirius was downplaying his distress, so he merely nodded, and started to eat his pasta again. A few beats passed before Sirius started to eat. A few more before he spoke again. “This is good. Spicy.”

Remus smiled. “Yeah, it’s the red pepper flakes.”

“Noodles are cooked right, too. Not gummy.” Sirius mumbled.

“Al dente,” Remus confirmed. They continued to eat in silence.

Once Sirius had eaten all of his pasta, or most of it rather, but had set down the plate on his bedside table, Remus’s mission was complete. He could take the plates back to the kitchen, wash them both, and rejoin the other researchers. He didn’t though. He stayed.

When Sirius spoke again, after a long stretch of silence, it was so quiet that at first Remus wasn’t even sure he was talking. “Today, three years ago, is the day that my Uncle Alphard died. Or, it’s the day that I found out that he had died.”

Remus just listened.

“I still don’t know how I feel about it,” Sirius confessed. “He was the person I felt closest to, in my family. He was probably the best person out of all of them, but that isn’t saying very much. He wasn’t a very good person either. But in a lot of ways I feel indebted to him. I am indebted to him,” he corrected. 

Sirius let out a frustrated sigh. “I didn’t think it would affect me this much today. But it did. I got up early, went outside for coffee. And now I’m here.”

Remus thought back to the morning. How he had heard Sirius’s jovial banter with Marlene before he switched to pensive, sitting beside Remus in calm silence. During high school, he used to think that Sirius was just a bit of an attention seeker, and that the contrast between his extraverted loud public self and his thoughtfully quiet moments, or depressive episodes, was some sort of anomaly. While they dated, Remus got to see the larger picture, and learn that Sirius was just a complete person, with highs and lows, like everyone else. And he had depression. And he fought it. Really hard. But he still had it. 

“I’m sorry, Sirius.” It wasn’t much, but it was all Remus could do at the moment.

“Thanks,” Sirius said with a sad smile. More silence followed, before Sirius spoke again. “I officially went no-contact with my family about three and a half years ago.” Remus’s eyebrows rose. He hadn’t known that. And time-wise, that must have meant that Sirius had gone no-contact soon after breaking up with Remus. An eventful freshman year, to be sure. 

“I think it was probably one of the best things I did,” Sirius said. “Alphard was the only person I stayed in touch with, but only through the occasional email or letter. So it was shocking to find out, through a very impersonal letter from my parents, that he had died, and that he had made me the sole heir of his will.” Remus’s eyebrows had barely settled into a relaxed state before jumping up again. He didn’t know how much money each member of the Black family had to themself, but it was unlikely that Alphard didn’t have at least one mansion to his name, which would now be Sirius’s.

“My parents contested the will, so I had to see them again, for the first time in years, when they threatened to take me to court. I gave them half of the inheritance and made them sign a document saying they would never contact me again.”

Remus nodded slowly, still surprised. 

“So that’s the whole story. I have a lot of my dead uncle’s money, and I will never be bothered by my crazy family again. And I’m still depressed.” 

Remus realized that Sirius had switched from downplaying his distress to faking indifference about it somewhere in the past few minutes. 

“Hey,” Remus tried. “I’m sorry that you’re going through this. But you know that you’re loved, right? By your chosen family.”

Sirius nodded.

“And you’ll get through this,” Remus continued. “Because you’ve gotten through this before. And you’re really strong.”

Sirius nodded again. He looked to be on the verge of tears. 

“Can I hug you right now? Would that be helpful?”

Sirius, still nodding, whispered a little “please.” Heart breaking, Remus stood and quickly crossed the room. He sat beside Sirius and wrapped his arms around him. The other man melted into his embrace and finally began to cry. His whole body shook with the tears, but Remus, with his smaller frame and own heavy heart, held Sirius solidly through it all.

He didn’t know how much time passed, but Remus held Sirius tightly, whispering statements like “you’re going to be okay,” and “I’m sorry,” and “you’re strong.” Eventually, Sirius began to relax, and began to yawn. Knowing the exhaustion that sets in after one of Sirius’s emotional outlets, Remus guided him onto his pillows and stood up. After confirming that Sirius wanted to sleep, and that his first action if things turned bad again was to call Remus, Remus finally left the room, two used plates in hand.

Remus dreamt of Sirius. It was the night of their breakup, only this time, Sirius’s family was watching them, all standing within Sirius’s dorm room. Remus had only met Sirius’s parents briefly, and he had been introduced strictly as a friend, not a boyfriend. But here, in the middle of their conversation, Sirius turned to his parents and said something unintelligible, and they vanished. The scene shifted, and suddenly they were outside. A trail wound up the side of the mountain, with a beautiful view of trees and flowers below. Remus recognized it as the data collection site from earlier, the one that felt familiar to him. Here, emerald weed and native gemsage grew next to each other, wrapping and climbing and twisting. When he turned around, Sirius was gone. 

Chapter Text

“James.”

“Remus. What’s up? Are you okay? It’s early.”

Remus checked his watch. “It’s 7:08 a.m. You’ve probably been up for two hours by now, already ran, worked out, and woken the entire neighborhood with the noise of blending chunks of ice into your smoothie.”

“Facts! Ugh, you know me so well. If only Lily were so attentive to my needs and schedule. If she ever leaves me do you want to get married?” James’s loud voice carried easily through the phone as Remus paced in front of the research station. “Oh no, she’s giving me a look now,” James whispered. “Only kidding, babe, love you!” he said in a loud jovial tone, before dropping back to a whisper to add “I didn’t think she could hear me through the sliding glass door.”

“James,” Remus said again. As much as he loved his friend, he hadn’t called him early in the morning to hear James’s solicitations with him or antics with Lily. 

“Remus. What’s up?”

“I like him again. I don’t know if I ever stopped liking him. I know him really well. And he still knows me. A few days ago, we were hiking, and it was like a hundred degrees, and we found this beautiful alpine lake. And everyone wanted to swim, but I didn’t want to take my shirt off, so I was just going to put my feet in. And he just dared this girl to jump in fully clothed, and so she did, and then he did, and then they said I had to as well? And so I got to swim. And he didn’t make a big deal out of it. Last night he was depressed and I brought him pasta and we just ate in silence but then he talked a little bit about his family and then we hugged and then I left. And I don’t know what to do.”

A pause. Remus took a deep breath, grateful that James was as good a listener as he could be a talker. “I think that was the most times I’ve ever heard you use the word ‘and,’” James laughed. 

“And,” Remus stressed, “I’m here for another month. What am I supposed to do? I can’t like him like this.”

“Remus, you’re allowed to like people. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“James, what the fuck. Just tell me all the reasons why I don’t like him. Remind me of all the things I’ve said over the last three and a half years.”

“Hm, okay,” James said, a mischievous smile in his voice. “You have said that he is insufferable, annoying, brash, self-absorbed, which, let’s be honest here, Remus, you’re kind of self-absorbed too, but I still love you. You’ve described him as egotistical, infuriatingly good-looking, hot, I think you have said jackass a few times, emotionless, which, no, he’s not. Good arms, good legs, smart-”

“Okay stop.” Remus sighed loudly, making sure the phone caught it. “I don’t want to get hurt by him again. And the thought of losing the next three and a half years of my dating life because I’m hung up on him again just seems ridiculous. So I want to nip this in the bud, to use a botanical term.”

“Woah are you a botanist?” James asked incredulously.

“Shut up.”

“Anyway. Back to the whole me-giving-you-advice thing,” James said. “You’re allowed to like him. That doesn’t mean you’re automatically ruining the next three years of your life. And he’s allowed to like you back, or not. But either way, you probably shouldn’t do anything beyond friendship with him unless you both spend some time talking about your breakup. Getting back together when nothing’s changed isn’t smart, but I think you’ve both done a lot of growing up over the last three and a half years.”

Remus groaned.

“So it’s okay to like him,” James repeated. “It sounds like you both still have a lot of chemistry, which is important in all relations, friendly or dating. So just appreciate that for now, and if things move beyond that, make sure you talk to him first, which I know you would anyway.”

Remus groaned again, before settling on “Okay. Thank you.”

“You’re going to be fine,” James said for what felt like the umpteenth time.

“Yeah.” After a pause, Remus sighed and added another confession. “I kind of knew this was going to happen. That I would fall for him again once we had to be in the same place at the same time. It’s like I have some sort of weakness, or, character flaw.”

“Hey, Sirius is a good dude. Aside from the whole, you know, breaking up with you freshman year thing. But I like him. I wouldn’t mind him being the step godfather of my children.”

“Well, I think marriage is a little ways off from me just liking him right now. Liking him regretfully, I might add. And you haven’t even asked me to be a godfather. And Lily’s not pregnant.”

James nervously laughed.

“Wait. Oh my god, is Lily pregnant?”

“No. But we’ve been talking about kids. And maybe having them soon, maybe before she goes to graduate school?” Remus could feel James’s excitement.

“Oh my god,” he repeated. “Are you going to propose?”

“Yes. Soon. I don’t want to say too much about it right now though. Lily has bat hearing.” Soon after, Remus heard Lily’s voice through the phone. “Why are you whispering? Are you flirting with Remus again, while I’m ten feet away from you? Remus, I would sing that ‘Jolene’ song to you, but I know you don’t even want him.”

Remus laughed. 

“I hope you’re doing well,” Lily added. “We miss you!”

“I miss you too,” Remus responded. “I’ll see you in a month.”

“Entirely too long,” James decided. “When you get back I’m going to take a day off work and we’ll just hang out all day. Lily, you can join us for dinner, but I want him to myself for at least eight hours before that.” Lily muttered something that Remus couldn’t hear, and he laughed.

“That sounds perfect.”

***

“Remus. I’m annoyed with you.”

“What? Why?”

Dorcas groaned. They were on a short hike today, really more of a walk. One of the last trails they needed to collect data from was a meandering loop that went around the research station. “After you insisted that the last site looked familiar I’m starting to feel like I’ve been here before.”

Remus relaxed, realizing she wasn’t actually mad at him. “Really? What if I told you that I had a dream about being at that site last night?” It wasn’t the entire dream, but it wasn’t a lie.

“What is it? Are we just going crazy?”

Remus didn’t answer, he just stared blankly at the side of the trail, where emerald weed wound itself around gemsage, twisting and curling like strands of DNA. 

“Maybe it’ll make sense when we’re compiling everything together back at the station. We have a lot of good data, I think,” Dorcas continued. She had been fiddling with the GPS tracker for the last few minutes, ever since Remus had given up on it at this site.

“Wait,” Remus said. “We’ve been documenting emerald weed locations. But have we been writing down what other plant species are around it?”

“No?” Dorcas questioned. “We have pictures though.” They had been snapping four photographs at each data collection site, from a central vantage point facing out to each of the four Cardinal directions.

“I think I’ve seen emerald weed and gemsage growing together a lot. Does that mean anything?”

“It might?” Dorcas wondered. She looked down again, and began writing the GPS coordinates on her clipboard.

“I think we need to compare these sites with the plant removal data from the last few years. Something feels important about it. Just looking at the gap in the treeline, I would guess that this site used to have a large tree here. Where the emerald weed is now growing.”

“Eucatriptus?” Dorcas questioned.

“I think so.” Remus nodded. “Which used to be dripping its sap-”

“Which is poisonous to most things-” Dorcas continued.

“-over all of the other plants around here. Nothing could grow-”

“-except the gemsage. It must have fixed the soil, allowing the-”

“-emerald weed to take over. So the question is, was it already nearby? Or did it establish itself after the tree was removed?”

“I’m guessing it was already here,” Dorcas said. “But that it wasn’t directly under the Eucatriptus. It wouldn’t have survived in the poisoned soil.”

“Meaning that future projects need to plant gemsage to fix the soil, along with native plants that can then survive and grow, out-competing the invasive weeds.”

“Yes. Exactly,” Dorcas confirmed.

“I think our project just got a lot more useful,” Remus laughed.

“And impressive.”

“We need to go through all the data tonight. And compare our maps with the ones in the old green binder.”

“If there’s a significant relationship, then we’ll be presenting the most impressive results,” Dorcas pointed out. 

Remus grinned. “Emerald weed and gemsage,” he said eventually. “That’s what looked familiar. Finally.”

***

In the afternoon, Minerva met with each group to check on their progress. Her wife, Dr. Sprout, as Remus took to calling her (Sirius had jumped right in to calling her “Mona,” after hearing Minerva call her by the nickname) was still staying with them at the field station. She tagged along with Minerva for the check-ins. 

“Hello there, kids,” Minerva greeted them. “Remus on the right, Dorcas on the left. The botanists,” she narrated, describing the layout for her wife. “How is your project coming along?”

“We think it’s going well,” Dorcas replied. “Remus?”

“Well, just today, we realized something that may be a bit of a breakthrough. We’ve been plotting emerald weed locations along the trails, and we realized that we’ve seen it growing with native gemsage quite often-”

“Observation, not proven to be statistically significant yet,” Dorcas assisted. During one of the group data collection days, Minerva had spent at least fifteen minutes stressing the difference between casual observations and mathematically proven connections.

“Yeah,” Remus continued. “And now we want to compare the locations with the most recent Eucatriptus tree removal project, because we think it may be growing in the removed zones.”

“Okay,” Minerva said, nodding. “Dorcas, what would that mean?”

“It would mean that the invasive emerald weed is establishing itself in the recently-cleared spaces from the removed Eucatriptus trees. And since those trees were dripping their poisonous sap underneath them, nothing could grow there, except for the gemsage, which fixes soil. The emerald weed can then move in, and strangle the gemsage.” Dorcas looked briefly to Remus for approval, and he nodded.

“Genius,” Dr. Sprout muttered. “Absolutely genius. What are your surnames?”

Smiling from the praise, Remus almost stuttered his answer. “Remus Lupin, and-”

“Dorcas Meadowes,” Dorcas finished.

“Lupin and Meadowes,” Dr. Sprout mused. “I’ll expect to hear of great things from both of you. One of you will probably take my job once I convince Minnie to retire with me.”

Minerva smiled at her wife, but tried to make a stern face when turning back to the researchers. “I am pleased but not surprised that you two have found a convincing project. But what is your timeline like? Will you be presentation-ready in two weeks?”

“Yes,” Dorcas answered. “Our next step is to go through the older Eucatriptus removal data, and then digitize both our data and theirs. That should take us a few days.”

“And then we’ll run our statistical tests on computers, get results, and begin making a presentation,” Remus continued. “If it’s not significant, we’ll be able to still present on the locations of emerald weed for future removal, but if it is significant-”

“Then you’ll be presenting on new protocols for future invasive Eucatriptus removal,” Dr. Sprout said. “Smart kids, Minnie. We weren’t this smart at their age.” 

Minerva shook her head fondly. “I wasn’t,” she confirmed, “but you were.”

The love between the two women was palpable from across the picnic table. “When did you two meet?” Dorcas asked.

“A long time ago,” Dr. Sprout smiled. “It was during high school.”

“Wow,” Dorcas grinned. “And did you get together back then, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Nope, not until graduate school,” Dr. Sprout continued. “Minnie played hard to get.”

Dorcas awwed, Remus smiled, and Minerva rolled her eyes fondly.

“Alright Pomona,” Minerva interjected. “Let’s visit the next group.”

Dr. Sprout laughed. “Uh oh,” she whispered, leaning in towards Remus and Dorcas. “She only calls me 'Pomona' when I’m in trouble. I must be embarrassing her.” 

Remus and Dorcas laughed at the domestic-- and, in Remus’s opinion, quite cute-- scene: Minerva dragged her wife over to a new table, but not before Dr. Sprout pecked a kiss on Minerva’s cheek, making her grin.

“Completely adorable,” Dorcas mused. 

“Completely,” Remus confirmed. “Okay. Let’s go get that green binder, yeah?”

“On it. I’ll digitize removed Eucatriptus tree locations and you’ll digitize our data? I’m thinking spreadsheets with rows as observations, and then columns for latitude and longitude?”

“Perfect,” Remus approved. “And I’ll add columns on our data for the presence of other plants, like gemsage, or not. That way we can run the correlation tests at the same time.”

“Bitchin’,” Dorcas said as she stood. 

“‘Bitching?’” Remus laughed incredulously. “You’re starting to sound like Marlene.”

“And what about it?” Dorcas feigned indifference but couldn’t hold back her blush and smile as they walked inside the research station. The pair navigated their way through the kitchen, which had plenty of researchers working at the large dining table, and a few more grabbing snacks, before entering the hallway with the dorms. At the end of the hall they entered the mini-library, to retrieve the coveted green binder. A few pairs were quietly working inside the library, so Remus and Dorcas silently communicated and agreed upon the idea to try the mini-lab instead. 

There was more space inside the lab, since only two researchers were there. They looked up when the door shut, and Remus found himself immediately making eye contact with Sirius-- the first time since last night. He looked slightly tired, but much better than the night before. He gave Remus a bashful smile before turning back to his lab bench.

Marlene and Sirius had their spider samples spread out across the work surface, along with notebooks, laptops, pens, forceps, and a microscope situated in front of Marlene. They both had headphones in. Sirius was very focused-- probably listening to a podcast, Remus figured-- whereas Marlene was nodding her head along to the music in her ears. She had an uncapped pen and a pair of forceps in one hand, and would glance at spider samples under the microscope for only a millisecond before writing something down and passing the note and the spider to Sirius.

After staring at the pair for a few moments too long, Remus looked around to find Dorcas setting her laptop up on a bench at the other end of the mini-lab room. He followed over.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I’ve got trees, you’ve got our plants. I’ll see you on the other side.” Remus nodded as she put headphones in.

Only a few minutes later, Dorcas tapped his arm. “What’s up?” he asked.

“I’m getting impatient. Can you send me your spreadsheet so far so I can compare?”

Remus laughed. “I’ve done like five percent of our data.”

“But I already wrote the code to graph them!”

“Okay, fine. I’m emailing it to you. But we may not see anything yet, since not all of the linked sites will have been plotted,” he pointed out.

A few minutes later, Dorcas’s computer screen displayed a basic plot of tree removal sites and plant observations. “Looks pretty random,” she said.

“Needs more data,” Remus answered, turning back to his laptop. After a second, he glanced back to see his research partner still staring at the graph. “From our plants and from the trees,” he added, pointing to the neglected binder in front of her.

Dorcas smiled sheepishly before opening it.

***

It was random. Noise. Remus thought back to his college level statistics classes, the first time he learned about the difference between auditory noise and statistical noise. The graph on Dorcas’s screen was the epitome of statistical noise: random irregularity found in real-life data, with seemingly unavoidable and unpredictable errors. 

It was disheartening, especially after logging two consecutive work days plugging away on computers, filling spreadsheet boxes with the information that was already written once this summer. But there was nothing to be done. They could still present on the locations of the emerald weed plants throughout the nearby trails. After plenty of futile data manipulation, changing the colors of different parts of the graph, shrinking and expanding, the defeated pair headed to dinner.

The smell and sound of stir fry night wafted through the hallway, slightly brightening moods. Dorcas and Remus had once again been inside the mini-lab for the entire day, where they had found a good rhythm with Sirius and Marlene for silence, talking, and listening to music or podcasts as a group, played through Marlene’s portable speaker. The spider scientists had left earlier, however, to begin preparing dinner. 

Minerva entered the kitchen at the same time as the botanists, coming from the back porch. “How is it going researchers?” she asked.

Most people responded with affirmative noises or smiles, no one voice rising above the rest. Minerva continued her casual check-ins. “Alice? You spent more time with the data analysis today?” Alice nodded, and Minerva moved up the line.

“Frank? Today was your first presentation making day, right? Did you and Kingsley figure out a script?” She held two thumbs up, and turned up in the line again when Frank started to nod.

“Oh my god,” Dorcas whispered, from Remus’s side. “She’s just moving her way up the line. She’s cutting everyone to get dinner first.”

“Oh my god,” Remus echoed, grinning. “She’s amazing.”

“I love her,” Dorcas said.

“And Sirius, my boy, how were your arachnids today?” Minerva asked. Before Sirius could respond, likely with something jocular, she spoke again. “Oh, just the fork is fine, I’ve got my plate right here.” 

Remus and Dorcas watched, awe-struck, as Minerva plucked the clean fork Sirius had grabbed for himself out of his hand and then positioned herself in front of him just slightly, before ladling rice onto her plate. 

“Props to the chefs!” Minerva called through a bite of tofu while leaving the kitchen, walking outside once more. 

“Impressive,” Remus stated, eyebrows high on his forehead.

“And iconic,” Dorcas added.

***

Remus’s epiphany came at the same time he got stung by the bee. Or, more accurately, it came right before. The former seemed to cause the latter, as it was. 

The morning had started similarly to the others, with packing lunches and eating breakfast, before assembling on the porch for instructions. During the first half of the day, the researchers would be doing their final long-term data collection project. This one, as Minerva had instructed, would be focused on plant-pollinator interactions. 

She wasn’t quite as caffeinated as the morning preceding the sandy beach monitoring, but she definitely had some suspicious pep in her step, Remus thought. Surprisingly, however, no blindfolds were prescribed.

“Okay kids, gather round, gather round,” Minerva had called, waving her arms around wildly despite all twenty researchers already focused on her. “Welcome to Ilvermorny Meadows! No relation to Dorcas,” she added with a laugh.

“For this activity, or should I say data collection task,” she paused for a moment, before adding, “or should I say… competition?” She waggled her fingers while shimmying her shoulders. Remus decided that, no, she was definitely over-caffeinated. Maybe it just hadn’t kicked in before the one mile walk north.

“You will self select into teams of two, and no, your partner cannot be your normal research partner. Teams will take turns walking transects through the meadow-” she paused, squinting around the group for a moment. “Caradoc!” she shouted. “What’s a transect?” 

“A path along which one walks and records occurrences of the objects of study,” Caradoc recited. 

“Good!” Minerva yelled. “Teams will walk a transect. One person watches the stopwatch, and stops it when the other person spots an insect interacting with the pollinating parts of a flower. Not just the leaves or something. The non-stopwatch person tries to catch the insect with the net,” (she made a large sweeping motion) “the stopwatch person records what it was,” (a dramatized writing gesture), “and then you let it go,” (she added a dual-handed release-gesture reminiscent of jazz hands). “After ten minutes you switch with your partner. Sounds simple, right?” 

Everyone blinked.

“Okay, great! Go!” Minerva called.

“Sorry not sorry,” Dorcas whispered to Remus, before turning to Marlene and asking to partner up.

Remus looked around briefly. Caradoc was talking to two other researchers, Frank was predictably talking to Alice, and Kingsley waved to Emmeline. “Okay fine,” he muttered, before turning to Sirius who was patiently standing next to him.

As it turned out, working with Sirius for an insect-related task had its benefits. Sirius could identify most of the things they caught before they even went into the net, and had more experience than most in catching things in the first place. Alice notably whacked Frank in the side with her insect net, prompting Minerva to remind everyone where the first aid kits were.

“Bumble bee!” Sirius announced, writing it down. “Adorable. Don’t try to catch it, Rem, it may be a queen, so I don’t want to risk hurting her.” Remus tried to think about what he knew about social bees. There was only one queen per many workers, and so they should be more careful with potentially harmful activities like catch and release. He tried not to think about Sirius calling him by the nickname.

Sirius continued to narrate his descriptions of the insects along their transect, while Remus either swung the net or paused. “Okay, that one is a hover fly. But if you catch it I might be able to get a more narrowed down ID.” 

A few moments later, “Monarch butterfly! No need to catch it. Look at those wings!”

Eventually, “Wasp. Evil. But so, so cool. Let’s catch it.”

Remus’s thoughts drifted towards his project with Dorcas. As they documented the intersection between specific plants and specific pollinators, Remus had the epiphany. He had just caught a honey bee in the net, and was preparing to release it when he realized what he had missed the day before: they were plotting all emerald weed locations, not just the ones tied to native gemsage. They just needed to create a subset of the emerald weed spreadsheet to compare with the trees, and they might find more clear results. 

A sharp pain suddenly interrupted his thoughts, and he looked down to his right hand to find the newly-released (and apparently still upset) honey bee, with her stinger firmly embedded in his skin. “Ow, fuck,” he muttered.

“Oh no!” Sirius emphasized, as he set down the clipboard and took the net from Remus’s left hand. “Let me see,” he said, taking Remus’s right hand in his own. “Sorry, bee,” he whispered as he lightly flicked her away. “Here, I need to take the stinger out,” Sirius said, pulling Remus’s hand closer to him.

“I’ve been stung by bees before,” Remus pointed out. “I can do it myself just-”

“Shh,” Sirius interrupted. Delicately, he scraped the top of Remus’s hand with his fingernail, prying the tiny barbed stinger from his skin. “You okay?” he asked, tenderly.

“Yeah,” Remus said, throat feeling dry. “It was just a bee sting,” he muttered. Sirius hadn’t let go of his hand yet.

“Okay,” Sirius acquiesced, stepping back. “Let’s trade though, you can write and I’ll use the net.”

***

Remus related the story to Dorcas in the afternoon, leaving out much of the details involving Sirius, and instead focusing on the data analysis solution. Dorcas excitedly clicked away at the keys of her laptop, and presented Remus with a new line of code, ready to plot the missing tree data with only the emerald weed that had been found growing with gemsage. 

“Ready?” she asked. “In three, two, one.” Dorcas pressed enter, and the computer program processed the request. A new graph popped up, one that showed removed Eucatriptus tree locations as shaded boxes, and emerald weed locations as green dots. All but one dot was inside one of the boxes.

“Oh my god,” Remus whispered.

“You were right,” Dorcas grinned.

***

“And it matched perfectly. To get rid of the emerald weed, when they remove other invasive plants, especially things like Eucatriptus, they just need to plant more natives around the gemsage, which has to be planted first. It’s a whole new protocol, but it’s backed by the data, and it should be more effective.”

“Oh, honey, that’s great!” Hope said through the phone. 

“Yeah,” Remus agreed. “It, uh, it’s kind of a big deal.” Remus wasn’t trying to garner extra praise, but his mom, despite being a scientist, was prone to congratulating him on almost every vaguely-accomplishment-sounding thing he tells her about. He remembered one particular string of compliments after he joked that he managed to find all of his classes on time during his first day of college. It was about the same as when he told her he scored a five on his first AP test in high school, until he reminded her that five was the highest score.

“I’m proud of you, baby, I knew you would excel at this program, even though it was going to be filled with some of the best scientists your age.”

Remus smiled. He was walking slow laps around the research station while he talked to her; it was almost reminiscent of their woods explorations. 

“When are the presentations, again? I wish they could video them or something. Or wouldn’t it be fun if parents were invited? I could embarrass you in front of all of your friends.” Hope laughed.

Remus shook his head fondly. If anything, he thought, his friends would find her cooler than himself. And they both knew that Remus could never be embarrassed by his mother. “Presentations are in a week! We have five days of presentation preparation, one day of dress rehearsals, and then one day that Minerva structured in as a free day, so we can enjoy the station and nature before the actual presentations in front of the professors and employers and everyone.”

“Wow, it’s coming up! Are you nervous?”

“Not really,” Remus answered. “I feel pretty confident about the public speaking aspect. If anything I’m a little restless. It’ll be good to get the slides all finalized and everything though; Dorcas and I are going to try to finish those this afternoon.”

“That’s great, honey.”

“And I can present the project to you back at home at the end of the summer, if you’d like to see it?” Remus offered.

“Oh I would love that!” Hope answered. “We could invite your friends, make an event out of it! Only if you want to, of course,” she tacked on. 

Remus laughed. “That could be fun.”

“You know, I ran into young James Potter at the grocery store a few days ago, and it was very nice to chat with him for a bit.”

“Oh really?” Remus questioned. “I should call him soon.”

“Well, I’m actually going to his and Lily’s house for dinner on Friday. He talked my ear off about how much he missed you though. I was worried the ice cream would melt in my basket before I could buy it.”

“That sounds like James,” Remus laughed. “Yeah, see if they want to have a presentation night when I come home, we could have popcorn and I could try to field all of James’s ridiculous questions.”

After a brief pause, Hope spoke up, with a new tone, almost gossipy. “So, Remus.”

“No.” Remus knew what she was asking.

“Have you talked to him more? Anything happen, maybe?”

“Mom, you’re just as bad as James,” Remus pointed out.

“Well, he did mention a few of his hypotheses while we spoke in front of the produce section,” Hope mused.

“Hypotheses, or he told you that I told him that I like him?” Remus almost felt stupid for saying the string of words, but then had a brief out-of-body experience where he realized that yes, this was a real conversation he was having, with his mother. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Maybe both!” Hope’s laugh was infectious, and soon Remus was shaking his head again, staring at the trees.

“Okay, nothing is going on, but I promise to update the peanut gallery with any news. I should just make a group chat with you and James,” he joked.

“Alright sweetie,” his mom said suddenly. “I’ll let you get back to your social life, it was nice talking to you though. Thank you for calling me.” 

Remus thought he heard some background noise on the other end of the line. He frowned, not knowing what it could be at this hour in the morning. “Yeah, it was nice talking to you too.”

Then, Remus distinctly heard a man’s voice in the background. “Hope?” he asked. His voice sounded… sleepy.

“Oh my god,” Remus said. “Mom! Are you with someone right now?”

“What, sweetie? I think the call is getting a bit spotty.”

“No it isn’t,” Remus accused. “Oh my god. You’re with someone right now.”

“No, I am not,” Hope said, slowly. “I am in the kitchen. Of my house. He, is upstairs. In my bedroom,” she finished triumphantly.

Remus screamed. 

***

As it turned out, making the presentation with Dorcas was pretty easy. Since they had such compelling results, it basically wrote itself. Now, with a completed powerpoint and four days of practice before dress rehearsals, Remus could relax a bit. Strangely, he found himself missing the days of data collection, especially the hikes back down the mountain, when Dorcas would run ahead with Marlene, and Remus would find himself alone with Sirius. The four of them had spent some time together during the data analysis portion, having successfully monopolized the mini-lab, but there wasn’t really an opportunity for one-on-one conversations between the two men since the night of Sirius’s depressive episode.

Being an adult, a twenty-two year-old adult, at that, Remus could have simply asked Sirius if he wanted to go for a walk, or have dinner on the porch together, or anything. But being Remus, a man who overthinks and overanalyzes every possible move and intention, he simply did not. Eventually, it was the day before dress rehearsals, and Remus found himself locked in the mini-lab with Dorcas, Marlene, and Sirius.

“Alright,” Marlene started. “No one leaves until both of our presentations are perfect.”

“What if I have to pee?” Sirius asked. 

Dorcas rolled her eyes, and Marlene pointed to all of the glass beakers and other related lab equipment nearby. “Then pee, Sirius!” she yelled. “Our presentation needs to kick ass. I’m leaving this station with a new job, and I’m not letting your bladder drag me down.”

“Okay, great,” Dorcas interrupted. “Spiders are up first. You present, I’ll time, and then we’ll give feedback at the end. Then we’ll switch and do the same thing.”

Remus nodded. “After we both present we can take some time to incorporate the suggestions before restarting,” he stated. “I reserve the right to leave and go to the bathroom during those intermissions,” he tacked on, warily eyeing Marlene.

Sirius and Marlene stood, with Marlene’s laptop on a stool between them, showing their slides. “Okay,” Sirius began. “I’m Sirius, this is Marlene, basic introductions, yadda yadda and next slide!”

“Cut!” Dorcas called out, pausing her timer.

“Bitch, what was that?” Marlene prompted. “Full send. Game day. Act like it’s the real deal.”

“Okay, sorry. Let me restart,” Sirius said, taking a breath and composing himself before speaking again. “Hi, my name is Sirius Black, and I am an entomologist in the research program.” Remus found himself very interested in this more confident version of Sirius, and focused on the mostly-blank title slide even more to compensate.

“Hi, I’m Marlene McKinnon, and I am an arachnologist here. Today, we will be presenting our work on spider distributions across altitudinal gradients in the Hogwarts National Park reserve site. Next slide…”

The rest of their presentation went smoothly. They ended up being a little over the fifteen minute time limit, and therefore much of Remus and Dorcas’s advice was focused on cutting unnecessary components out. Soon enough, it was time for Remus and Dorcas to present.

When he got the go-ahead nod from Marlene, Remus began. “Hi, my name is Remus Lupin, and I am a botanist here in the Hogwarts Fellowship Research program.” This component of presentations always felt awkward to him. Practicing and explaining his work was one thing, but pretending that his ex-boyfriend and Marlene McKinnon were the real audience on the presentation day was another. If the two women hadn’t already told Sirius not to skip over introductions, Remus probably would have tried to do the same. 

“And I’m Dorcas Meadowes, also a botanist in the program. Today, we’ll be sharing our research with you, exploring the relationship between invasive emerald weed and native gemsage plant locations, as well as offering new protocols for further invasive plant removal and management. On the next slide, we see…”

The presentation was awful. Well, it was fine, Remus amended. Maybe good, even, considering the impressive results and data. They were only one minute over the time limit, and Dorcas was great, but something about it wasn’t clicking for Remus. Frowning, he accepted the feedback, and both pairs set about tweaking their slides before a new round.

“How do you feel about cutting this slide out?” Dorcas asked.

“That’s fine,” Remus returned.

“We could move this figure to the slide right after, but we probably don’t even need to include the other one. Or maybe we could move it to a blank slide at the end? In case someone has a question about it we could just pull it up right away?”

“Smart,” Remus replied.

Dorcas glanced up at him once, but returned to her laptop screen to make the edits a moment later.

“Sorry,” Remus said. “I just feel like I’m not presenting properly, or something. I don’t know.”

“I think you’re doing well,” Dorcas started. “But, if you’re anything like me, it feels weird to give practice presentations, because I know that whoever is watching me isn’t the real audience yet. I feel like I have to worry about pretending they are someone else and then I get distracted.”

Remus nodded. “Yeah, that may be it honestly.”

“But you’re doing well, you know. And we still have the rest of today to practice. And then dress rehearsals tomorrow will feel more normal, since there’s going to be more people watching, and none of them will have seen us present yet.”

“Yeah, true.” 

“It’ll be fine,” Dorcas repeated. “Okay, so if we move this figure to this slide, something has to shrink…”

Remus returned his focus to the powerpoint slides with newfound attention.

Up next, Sirius and Marlene presented again, landing a few minutes under the time limit but with new advice to bring back some of the content they had cut. It was an exhausting task, making scientific presentations as perfect as possible, but all four scientists were willing to put in the work. 

When Dorcas and Remus presented next, Remus felt even worse about his explanations than before. If they noticed, Dorcas and Marlene didn’t seem to have anything to say about it, but Remus knew that Sirius could see that something was off. He didn’t say anything about it while he gave his other feedback.

“I’m hungry,” Sirius mentioned. 

“Congratulations,” Marlene replied, looking at her laptop.

“Snack break?” Sirius suggested.

“No.”

“I’m kind of hungry too,” Dorcas said, prompting Marlene to look up from her screen. Her face softened slightly, and Remus knew they had won.

“Snack break,” Marlene granted. “But,” she emphasized, causing everyone to freeze on their way out the door, “be back in three minutes or you’re all dead to me. And bring me something.”

“Freedom!” Sirius sang, running out of the room.

The three of them spent at least three minutes in the kitchen, choosing snacks and talking about anything that wasn’t related to their research. After Dorcas excused herself to the bathroom, Remus found himself alone with Sirius.

“How are you feeling?” Sirius asked him.

“So frustrated,” Remus answered. He gave a humorless laugh and shook his head. “I know that it’s, like, going well. But I feel like I could be doing better and I’m not.”

Sirius nodded. “You’re not in the zone.”

“Exactly.”

Sirius paused, looking out the window in thought. “I don’t have all the answers, and I don’t want to give you unsolicited advice. But I think you just need to relax.”

Remus frowned, looking out a different window.

“You’ve been pretty tense this whole summer,” Sirius continued.

“Wow, thanks,” Remus said flatly.

“Hey, that wasn’t the end of my sentence,” Sirius defended. “You’ve been tense this summer, but you’ve been at your best when you finally relax. Like when you finally relaxed around me being here? And around our group, giving us directions?”

Remus nodded. He didn’t know if Sirius was looking at him, and he didn’t check.

“And just remember that it’ll be fine either way,” Sirius said. “If you present what you just did on Saturday, then you’re going to impress a lot of people. But if you want to get in the zone, just try to relax. Maybe think about presenting to James or something.”

Remus nodded, this time trying to be receptive to Sirius’s words. He was right, he realized. It would be fine either way, and his problem is that he’s tense. So he just needs to not be tense. “Okay,” he said. 

“Okay?” Sirius asked.

“Yeah.” Remus turned towards him finally. “Let’s go back before Marlene tracks us down.”

“Good plan. Marlene is awesome, but also kind of scary.”

“Yeah,” Remus agreed. “Anyone who chooses to specialize in spiders must be.”

Sirius laughed. And there it was, Remus thought. The ease of their one-on-one conversations returned, seconds after what may have been their most confrontational moment since their breakup. Remus had missed these moments, how easy it was to talk to Sirius, but he hadn’t missed the confrontation. When they meshed, they meshed well; when they clashed, it was glaring.  

Relax, Remus thought, as he shouldered open the door and stepped back into the mini-lab.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Remus and Caradoc quietly worked together to set up breakfast. A few minutes later they were joined by Alice and Mary. As Remus poured the water into one of the two research station coffee makers, Minerva entered the kitchen.

“I hope that coffee you’re making is strong, son,” Minerva called out. “We’re going to need it for today.” She herself evidently did not need it, as she squeezed past Remus and then Caradoc to get to the No fridge. Remus heard the pop of a canned cold brew a few seconds later. 

“Minerva,” Remus began, “how much caffeine do you drink per day, do you think?”

Before she could reply, Sirius and Marlene burst through the door. “Game day!” Marlene shouted.

“Here we go! Dress rehearsals!” Sirius joined her. “Minnie, you’re looking dressed to impress for dress rehearsals, what is your secret?” He himself was still wearing what appeared to be his pajamas. Marlene pushed his arm off her shoulders and joined Remus to wait by the almost-started coffee machines.

“Not enough, dear,” Minerva finally answered, looking to Remus. He saw her grin as she turned away from Sirius, though.

After breakfast was completed, the group of researchers gathered outside for Minerva to begin the much-awaited dress rehearsal schedule. While it was called dress rehearsals, as Minerva explained, they didn’t actually need to dress nice, or wear what they were going to wear on “game day,” as Marlene had referred to it. Merely, they were expected to run through all presentations, just as they would in two days, with time for final feedback for each project team.

“Alright kids, first up is going to be Alice and Hestia. Come get set up, dears, while I continue to jabber on.” Minerva gestured for them to join her at the newly-setup podium on the back porch.

“As you can see, this is our stage,” Minerva narrated. “When it is your turn to present, you will stand at the podium or in front of the projector screen, and your audience will be seated at the picnic tables and some additional folding chairs. There is still time for some last minute edits, so constructive feedback is welcome today, but only if it’s something that can be changed within an hour. We’ll leave the drastic fatal feedback for our audience on Saturday, posed in the form of benign questions.” Minerva smiled viciously. 

“But in all seriousness,” she began, with newfound sincerity, “it has been an absolute honor to work with all twenty of you amazing young people during this summer. Thank you for contributing to and furthering the advancements of science, and thank you for being yourselves.”

Remus heard a quiet “aw, Minnie,” from his right. He knew that the fact that Sirius hadn’t taken the opportunity to blurt out a quip meant he shared Minerva’s sincerity. It had been an honor to work with everyone, and Remus was surprised by how fast it had all gone by. All they had left was tomorrow (the free day Minerva had structured in to be stress-free), Saturday’s presentations (which would definitely be stress-filled), and then they got to live at the station until the following Wednesday, when they were set to move out. 

“That being said,” Minerva continued, “we’re not out of the woods yet. For our home stretch, please give constructive feedback where you can, focus on your peers’ presentations, and present to the best of your ability. We’ll have more time for the sentimental after Saturday, when you’re all anxiously awaiting the results.” Her treacherous smile returned.

“Alright, climate scientists,” she said as she turned back to Alice and Hestia, “when you’re ready you can take it away. I’ll be timing.”

***

Alice and Hestia did well, and they were followed by a successful presentation by Kingsley and Frank. Eventually, it was Remus’s turn to get in front of the makeshift stage. In some ways it was easier, he thought, to present in front of more people than just Marlene and Sirius. Pretending that the introductions were real was simpler, but the pressure was definitely greater as well. Heeding Sirius’s earlier advice, Remus imagined that James was in the audience, and he set about explaining the concepts and figures from his slides with confidence.

Dorcas spoke well also, and after fifteen surprisingly painless minutes, they were ready to jot down feedback notes from their listeners. Emmeline suggested making their axes title font sizes larger, to be seen from further away, and Dorcas thanked her roommate for the note. Sirius raised his hand to speak, and Remus nodded for him to go ahead.

“I just wanted to say you did a great job. Of all the practice runs Marlene and I watched I think that was the best by far.” From his side, Marlene nodded her agreement, eyes on Dorcas.

“Yes,” Minerva spoke up without raising her hand. “Great work botanists. I’m excited to see it again on Saturday. You’re at fourteen minutes and forty-five seconds, so no need to change anything with timing.”

Remus nodded, trying not to smile too obnoxiously at her praise. 

“Up next,” Minerva said, rifling through pages on a lime-green clipboard, “is none other than the ornithologists, Mr. Dearborn and Ms. Hooch!”

Remus and Dorcas left the stage as Caradoc and Rolanda approached. Caradoc reached out a fist bump to Remus, and Remus wished him good luck. Remus shot a smile Sirius’s way before sitting down, attempting to express his gratitude for Sirius’s earlier advice. Sirius just nodded. Apparently their ability to hold silent conversations in crowded spaces hadn’t been lost over the years.

***

The next day, the much awaited stress-free day, as Minerva planned, was a little more stressful for Remus than he would have liked. It wasn’t very easy to ignore the fact that he would be presenting to very important people in less than twenty-four hours, and that how well he did would determine if he would be offered a job with them, or maybe even-- he tried not to hope too much about this one-- offered one of the two positions to stay at the station for the following year. 

The day began with breakfast. Remus ate outside with Dorcas, Marlene, and Sirius, for what would likely be one of the final times. 

“It’s such a nice day,” Dorcas observed. The sun had already warmed the porch enough for them to sit without sweaters, and more than one researcher was already beginning to wander the trails.

“We should do a hike today!” Marlene suggested.

“I’m down,” Sirius agreed. “Maybe the one that-”

“Not invited,” Marlene interrupted. 

“What?” Sirius leaned in, tone incredulous. 

“Sorry,” Marlene said without remorse.

“Not sorry,” Dorcas finished for her, a tiny smile on her face. 

“Oh, so that’s what’s going on,” Sirius sat back. He continued with a slightly louder voice. “You don’t want us to come with you because you want to have alone time with Dorcas. So that the two of you can-”

“Shut up, Sirius,” Marlene interrupted again. Remus laughed at the exchange.

“So, about that hike,” Dorcas said, now turned fully towards Marlene.

Sirius hmmphed from his seat besides Remus, but Remus could tell he was happy for the two women. 

Remus mentally shrugged before turning towards Sirius. “Do you want to go on a hike? Maybe walk to the stream we did the monitoring at?”

Sirius’s eyebrows rose slightly, but he nodded affirmative. “Yeah, we can have lunch there?”

“Sounds good,” Remus confirmed. Across the table, Marlene shot Sirius a look that Remus couldn’t decipher, but it had the rare effect of making the confident man blush slightly. 

About thirty minutes later, Remus and Sirius began walking down the trail that led to the stream where they first worked together, albeit silently. After a few moments of silence, and enough distance covered that no one from the station would be able to hear them, Sirius spoke up.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

They kept walking. Remus thought for a moment, before answering slowly. “It seems about time, doesn’t it?”

Sirius nodded.

“Can we wait until we get there, though?” Remus felt he needed to procrastinate the inevitable conversation a tiny bit more. Just jumping in after almost four years because Sirius decides to isn’t his first choice.

“Sure,” Sirius returned.

And so they walked in silence, until one of them brought up one of their mutually accepted conversation topics: Marlene and Dorcas, Minerva, science, the research station. They steered clear of the past, and they didn’t stray too close to the future either.

Eventually, Remus heard running water accompany the soundtrack being offered by the birds overhead. The pair stepped into a clearing, and found themselves looking down into the winding blue stream, water slowly navigating around rocks and rushing through narrow gaps. Remus observed the push-and-pull for a moment, before joining Sirius, who was already sitting on the ground.

They both faced the water, and Remus was grateful for the lack of eye contact. “So,” Sirius began. 

“I guess I just don’t understand it,” Remus said. “I spent a lot of time thinking about it, and I could never figure out the why.”

Sirius stayed quiet for a moment. “What do you mean?” he eventually asked.

“Why did you break up with me?”

If the silence that followed was any indicator, Sirius seemed surprised by the question. He, apparently, hadn’t spent the last forty-six months thinking about it. “Because it wasn’t working,” Sirius finally answered.

“I didn’t know that,” Remus said, and felt stupid for it. If he didn’t know that it wasn’t working, wasn’t that obvious proof that it wasn’t? He and Sirius hadn’t been seeing the same thing.

“It wasn’t you, Remus.” 

Remus scoffed. “Are you really gonna tell me ‘it’s not you, it’s me?’”

“But it’s true,” Sirius insisted. “It wasn’t you at all.”

Remus harbored his annoyance for a few seconds, weighing words in his mind. “I don’t think you are as important as you think you are.”

“Wow,” Sirius said flatly. “Thanks.”

“No, really,” Remus continued. “You think that I’m going to believe that the relationship we had-- which, yes, wasn’t perfect, we were teenagers and teenagers are dumb-- but it ended solely because of one person? And had nothing to do with the person who got dumped?”

“Okay,” Sirius said with a tiny laugh. “Dumped,” he echoed. “Now we’re getting into the loaded words.”

Remus narrowed his eyes. He caught himself from saying seriously? just in time. “What was it about you, four years ago, that couldn’t be with me?” Remus caught his gaze for just a second. Sirius’s face was steeled.

“Well, for one thing, I had, oh, I don’t know, depression?”

Remus shook his head. “You’ve always had that.” If he wasn’t already angry he would have winced at the harshness of his words. If he wasn’t angry he would never dismiss mental illness like that.

“Oh, and I still do, so.” Sirius accompanied the words with an indifferent shrug. The gesture felt like some sort of shot at Remus, but he didn’t know exactly how. 

“Okay?” Remus said.

“Remus, I don’t know, okay? I broke up with you, because I didn’t want to be with you anymore, but that doesn’t mean I thought you were a bad person. I’m sorry, really.”

“You don’t need to keep apologizing. What was it that you said, that night? ‘I’m sorry, I am, but I don’t take it back.’ I think that was it.” Remus had memorized the words before he finished walking the length of the hallway of Sirius’s dorm, for the second and final time.

“Then what?” Sirius said, frustrated.

“Do you even know, Sirius, how embarrassing it was, for me to return home early, from what was supposed to be a week spent with my boyfriend, that I hadn’t seen since August, and have everyone at my mom’s Thanksgiving dinner ask me about you?”

“Do you even care, Remus? Do you even care how miserable I was? I couldn’t not break up with you.”

“No, Sirius, because you never fucking told me. But sure, I’m sorry that you were in a distanced monogamous relationship with someone you couldn’t sleep with whenever you wanted. Glad we could clear that up for you so you could scratch that itch . How chivalrous of you to maintain celibacy for the entire three month period between starting college and the Thanksgiving break that you broke up with me. If you even did.”

“Jesus, Remus.” Sirius chewed on the inside of his cheek, staring at the trees on the other side of the creek. “I don’t even know where to start with that. I didn’t fucking cheat on you. Pretty sure you knew that, though, and you just wanted to snipe at me for something.”

“But evidently I didn’t know you, Sirius. I didn’t know that you were miserable to be with me.”

“Ah,” Sirius gave a patronizing smile. “But I was. I really was.”

Remus felt the burn in his throat and a little sting in his eyes. He willed himself not to cry, holding his chin higher and away from Sirius. “Why are we even talking about this?” he eventually asked. “What’s the point? I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely not getting closure from this.”

After a pause, Sirius spoke. “Are you crying?” His voice sounded equal parts surprised and gentle.

“No,” Remus scoffed, as the first tear began to roll down his cheek.

Sirius didn’t move. “I broke up with you because I was depressed, and because I wanted to come out to my family, and because I wanted to start therapy. I broke up with you because I needed to change a lot of things in my life. And I didn’t want to drag you through those changes.”

Remus listened, still angry, and still frustrated, but he tried to see it from Sirius’s point of view.

“After I broke up with you, I came out to my family. It didn’t go well. It would have only been worse if they knew I was actually with someone. They said I was confused, and that I could either go to conversion therapy or move back home. I stayed where I was, and officially went no contact with them. I took out thousands of dollars in loans to pay for college, and I was in debt until Alphard died.”

Remus watched the push and pull of the water. Where it pooled in the stream it slowed down, and where it narrowed to pass through two tall rocks it sped up.

“I finally started therapy. And my as of yet undiagnosed depression was finally addressed.” The emphasis was for Remus’s earlier jab, he realized. “My first semester of college was pretty bad, overall. Everyone in my dorm hall was straight. I heard the word ‘fag’ thrown around the bathroom and showers every day. And I only hated myself more because I never said anything to stop it. They also used the t slur.”

At that, Remus winced.

“So I guess, all of this is to say, Remus, that I was miserable. And I needed to change my life, but I wasn’t going to make you stand by and watch.”

Remus frowned. “I would have, though,” he finally said with a stable voice. “I would have been there for you.”

“I know,” Sirius said. “And that’s exactly why I couldn’t let you. We both had a lot of growing up to do. If you just watched me then you wouldn’t have gotten to grow yourself.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Remus argued.

“We’re not the same people that we were four years ago,” Sirius pointed out. “And I think that’s a good thing.”

“I agree that we aren’t the same people that we were,” Remus said slowly. 

“Look, Remus,” Sirius began. “I’m sorry that it hurt. To break up. Because it hurt me too. But I think it really was for the best.”

Remus couldn’t help but scoff a tiny bit at that. If he didn’t want it to hurt then he should’ve just not broken up with me, Remus thought. But no, he knew that was selfish. Sirius had already explained the other factors at play. It was just easier to assign blame if he didn’t think about Sirius also hurting. It was also easier to imagine that they would never be able to get back together, if Sirius didn’t want him anymore.

“You’re an incredibly successful scientist,” Sirius pointed out. “You’re smart, driven, and accomplished.”

“Thank you?” Remus interrupted. “I don’t know what you’re-”

“Let me finish, Rem. You’re a great person, and I’m proud of all that you’ve accomplished. Even if I wasn’t a part of it. And even if you accomplished it in spite of me. Only because I wasn’t there.”

“Again, with the whole thinking-that-you’re-overly-important thing,” Remus said, but this time it was slightly jovial. 

Sirius exhaled a puff of air in amusement. “What I mean to say,” he paused for emphasis, “is that I wish I could have been a part of your life during these past four years. And I wish I could have had you in my life during them. But ultimately, I’m glad it worked out the way it did. If I had to do it all over again I would.”

“You would break up with me again?”

“Yes.”

“So you might say that you’re sorry but you don’t take it back?” Remus quoted lightly. Somehow, they both laughed at this. 

How was it, Remus wondered, that they could so effortlessly move through the push and pull, like the water in the stream, and come out unscathed? It seemed natural, or predestined. You’re just similar people, he could hear Lily repeating in his mind.

“Yes,” Sirius repeated. “I like you, Remus. I’ve had fun being around you again during this summer. Can we be friends again?”

Remus thought back to the most recent week. He had spent days missing Sirius, calling James and his mom, confessing that he had a crush on him again. Both of them had told him the obvious: that it’s okay to like him, it’s okay to be friends with him, and people change. After the conversation he just had with Sirius, he knows he’ll need to process it, and that he’ll need to figure out how he feels about the breakup. But right now, he knows three other things first. It’s okay to like Sirius, it’s okay to be friends with him, and people do change. Sometimes, Remus thought, less than it seems.

“Yeah, Sirius,” Remus finally spoke. “We can be friends again.”

Sirius smiled and stood, before offering a hand to Remus. Slightly wary, Remus allowed the taller man to pull him into a standing position. “Can I hug you?” Sirius asked.

Remus nodded, and felt strong arms wrap around him. Familiar arms. When he reciprocated the hug, Sirius sighed into it, leaning some of his weight against Remus. Remus just closed his eyes, head resting lightly on Sirius’s shoulder.

“I’m hungry,” Sirius eventually said, after a long silence during the embrace. Remus laughed, at both the hilarity and the familiarity of the situation.

“We can eat, but I’m gonna keep standing because my legs hurt.”

Sirius pulled back. “Are you okay? Should we go back? Do you have Advil with-”

“Sirius, don’t worry. I’m fine. Just a little sore.”

Sirius nodded, and eventually stooped to dig his lunch out of his backpack. Remus did the same. 

As they ate, they began to talk about simpler topics again. “Hey, do you remember when Minnie told everyone not to sleep with each other? Back on day one?” Sirius asked through a full bite of sandwich. 

Remus smiled, both at the memory and his friend’s inability to stop talking long enough to chew and swallow a bite of food. “Yeah, I wonder who has broken that rule by now.”

“Definitely Frank and Alice. And Marlene and Dorcas probably will soon,” Sirius stated. “Maybe even right now,” he added in a conspiratorial tone. 

“Ew,” Remus said into his orange. 

“But when Minnie said it, I looked at you.”

“Okay?” Remus asked, not sure what he meant.

“Because I knew that you would be blushing. And you were.” He laughed. “I don’t know, it was just, endearing, maybe. Some things don’t change.”

“Yeah,” Remus agreed. “Some things don’t change. I can’t believe I snapped at you in front of everyone when you guessed that I didn’t like chocolate.”

“Oh my god,” Sirius threw his head back in laughter. “As soon as I said it I saw flames coming out of your ears. Am I allowed to make fun of you for that now? I’m going to.”

“Shut up,” Remus said without any bite. “I’m honestly still so embarrassed that that was everyone’s first impression of me.”

“I don’t think that many people even caught it, to be honest. They were probably all trying to figure out what they would say for their own truths and lie.”

“But to be fair,” Remus said, “that was the first thing you said to me in over three and a half years. How was I supposed to react?” 

“Well,” Sirius pondered. “It was bound to be something. First time we spoke in over three and a half years,” he repeated.

Oh, Remus realized. “I guess I should probably apologize for blocking you on everything.”

Sirius smirked at his sandwich. “That didn’t sound like a very strong apology.”

“Well,” Remus stated. “I felt like it would make it less painful if I couldn’t see your posts. And it gave me fewer avenues to try to reach out to you as well. So here: I’m sorry, I am, but I don’t take it back.” 

Sirius huffed a laugh. “Is that going to be our inside joke now? The thing I said after I broke up with you when we were eighteen? God, we’re weird people. Fine, I agree with you. It stung to realize you had blocked me, but it was probably for the best. Ripping off a bandaid, as it were.”

“If you wanted to,” Remus ventured. “I could unblock you now. Well, not right now, I don’t have my phone with me, but eventually.”

Sirius nodded. “Of course you don’t have your phone with you. Have you even had to charge it this whole summer?”

“I did before I called James. And then I sort of forgot about it, but one day I found out that Caradoc had plugged it in to his charger after I had fallen asleep.”

Sirius shook his head. “Why is everyone here so nice? Gideon is the most considerate person I’ve ever shared a room with. And anytime I cook, everyone is so kind and so helpful for no reason.”

“I feel like it’s a Hallmark movie,” Remus said.

After a beat, Sirius spoke. “Isn’t it insufferable?”

“Yes!” Remus laughed. “No, they’re great, really, it’s just-”

“Sometimes you need a little snarkiness?” Sirius finished for him. “I think Minnie balances it out.”

“I can’t believe you call her Minnie.”

“I can’t believe she lets me,” Sirius confessed.

“You’re her favorite.”

“And then you.”

“Yeah. And then me,” Remus agreed. Remus almost laughed again, at the absurdity of it all. Here he was, talking and laughing with Sirius Black, at the end of the summer, and they just agreed to be friends again. He was pulled out of the thought by Sirius speaking again.

“Hey,” he said. “If you want to talk more about the breakup, we can.”

“I think I’m good,” Remus returned. “I’ll probably think about it more, because I'm me, but,” he shrugged. “Honestly I think I already started to come to terms with it after I realized you’re not an asshole this summer.”

“High praise from Remus Lupin,” Sirius laughed. “Hey,” he repeated. “Did your mom make you listen to Taylor Swift after she found out we broke up? I bet she blasted ‘Picture to Burn.’”

“No,” Remus answered, “she did suggest it though. And it kept creeping into her advice. She tries to give me Taylor Swift song lyrics as emotional advice to this day.”

“Amazing,” Sirius grinned, before turning back to the water. “Does she hate me?”

Remus turned to look at him. “No. Of course not.”

Sirius looked up and made eye contact. “Really?”

“You’re allowed to break up with people?” Remus offered, as a weak question. “I mean, I didn’t hate you, so I don’t think she thought she should.”

“Does she know that I’m also here?” Remus heard Sirius’s smile without having to look. 

“Yeah, she does,” Remus said lightly. He waited for the inevitable, smirking minutely.

“Well? And?” Sirius’s sputtering reminded him of James.

“Cue the Taylor Swift lyrics as advice,” Remus answered.

“Amazing.”

Remus watched the water for a few silent moments. After passing through one of the ripples, it dropped off into a tiny waterfall. The droplets splashed out from where they hit the surface of the stream, and a few landed on the silt- and sand-ladden bank. He wondered if those drops ever worked their way back together with the other ones in the creek. How long does it take for the water cycle to do its job? 

“Oh my god,” Sirius suddenly said.

“What?”

“No, wait, I shouldn’t say it.”

“Are you kidding me? Say it. You can’t just say ‘oh my god’ and then hide it. What?” Remus questioned.

“Fine. I realized that you weren’t stressed about the presentations tomorrow. And that we haven’t even talked about them since breakfast.”

“Oh my god.”

“What?”

“The presentations are tomorrow.” Remus looked at his wristwatch before picking up his backpack. 

“Some things never change,” Sirius muttered.

Ignoring him, Remus continued. “We should probably go back in case Dorcas wants to do another practice run. I should probably do one even if she doesn’t.”

“She’s probably doing something else right now,” Sirius offered. “Or should I say someone,” he added in a mutter. He stood up and shouldered his backpack anyway. He gestured down the trail. “Lead the way.”

Chapter Text

The applause was loudest after Sirius’s presentation. 

Well, Remus amended, the applause was the loudest so far. Of the ten teams, Sirius and Marlene were the fifth to go, and they had started during a period of time when many of those watching were beginning to get sleepy, or at least a tiny bit bored. You can only watch so many consecutive minutes of science presentations, after all. But with a scheduled intermission promising coffee and snacks right after the spider-scientist pair, attendees bravely tuned in to watch Sirius and Marlene when they cued up slide one. 

“Hi everyone, my name is Sirius Black, and I am an entomologist here in the research program.”

Remus half-listened to the presentation he had probably already memorized, after the week’s worth of practice runs. He did note though that Sirius seemed more in his element. He would always have compelling stage presence, Remus knew, but when he was genuinely comfortable, he was magnetic. From his side, Marlene also introduced herself, sounding equally professional and charming. 

The pair looked the part as well. In addition to their strikingly good looks, they, like all of the other researchers, were dressed up for the first time in the summer. Marlene wore a navy blazer, cut to fit her slender waist in a way that Dorcas had likely already noticed. Remus spent a bit more time admiring Sirius’s outfit though. He wore a navy suit, light gray shirt, and a slender black tie. It fit him well. Really well.

Remus fidgeted slightly, in his seat towards the rear of the porch. His legs didn’t enjoy the prolonged stasis, and his nerves didn’t like the fact that he had to present last. He envied everyone who had already finished, and could now officially relax. He had watched, jealous, as Frank loosened his tie. Remus smoothed out the creases of his own suit: black pants and gray blazer. 

He was pulled out of his nervousness by a rumble of laughter in the audience. Evidently, Sirius had included the jokes that Marlene told him to take out. When he looked up at the stage, Sirius was looking directly at him, a soft smile on his face. Remus returned it, with a slight nod of approval, and Sirius carried on with the presentation. 

The audience was more than impressed by Marlene’s spider identification skills, and by the sheer volume of specimens they sampled within a summer. After their final applause, many hands went into the air for questions. 

“Hi, maybe I just misheard you, but did you say you identified the spiders yourself? You didn’t have to send them to a taxonomist?” One woman with a very short bob haircut asked.

Marlene grinned. “No, I actually identified them all right here in the lab.”

“With DNA analysis?”

“Just with a microscope,” Marlene replied. “Thanks for your question.”

“Impressive,” the woman with the bob muttered, before scribbling down notes, likely the names of the two presenters.

One older man was leaning back in his chair as he asked his question.“What computer program did you two use to construct those maps? And did they already exist for the older spider inventory project?”

Sirius stepped forward. “No, I actually drew those by hand and then scanned them. They didn’t exist for the older inventory either, but in comparing our work to the older one we digitized both for the analyses.”

“And what was your name, again, son?” The man asked.

“Sirius Black,” Sirius answered, smiling. 

After a few more questions expressing incredulity at the accomplishments of the two entomologists, Minerva stood. “Thank you again, Mr. Black and Ms. McKinnon. And now, for the next thirty minutes, everyone, please have some coffee and some snacks. We’ll resume later with Caradoc Dearborn and Rolanda Hooch: the resident ornithologists.”

Remus stood and stretched his legs. He watched the crowd of people slowly make their way into the kitchen, and he smiled as he saw Marlene and Sirius immediately get approached by many of the attendees. He wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they already received job offers today, when the results aren’t supposed to come back until Tuesday.

A few minutes later, Remus was pacing back and forth on the porch, nursing a granola bar. He had wanted coffee, but knew it would be for the best to only allow one source of jitters in his body at a time, and the adrenaline wasn’t going to let him become sleepy any time soon. Finally free of his fans, Sirius made his way over to join him. 

“Congrats,” Remus said. “You did great, I think everyone loved it.”

“Thanks Rem,” Sirius smiled. “You ready for yours?”

“Just wish it wasn’t last,” Remus answered. 

“Saving the best for last?” Sirius suggested. 

Remus shook his head. “No, I think Minnie just wants to see if I’ll combust from the anxiety.”

Sirius gave him a confused-looking grin. “Since when do you call her Minnie?”

“Oh god,” Remus frowned. “You’re rubbing off on me. Not like that,” he added unnecessarily, then blushed. “Ah, okay. God. I don’t know why I said that, sorry. I take it back.”

Sirius laughed. “Flustered Remus is the best Remus.” Remus raised an eyebrow at the statement, but his face was still turned away from Sirius. “I’ll give you a pass,” Sirius continued. “But only because you took it back.”

At that, Remus looked up, and met his friend’s playful eyes. They laughed.

***

“To conclude, it is our hope that our findings will be utilized in further invasive plant species removal, not only in the Hogwarts National Park region, but in all other restoration projects that encounter Eucatriptus or emerald weed as well. This last slide shows a map of all Eucatriptus tree removal projects throughout North America. Clearly, there’s still work to be done, and we hope that we can continue to contribute to it. Thank you for your time, and both Dorcas and I would be happy to field any questions you have as best we can.”

Remus barely finished his final sentence before the crowd drowned him out with their applause. Sirius actually stood up while cheering, but he was thankfully seated towards the back with the other researchers, so none of the other attendees saw.

“Fascinating project, fascinating,” the woman with the bob said.

Dorcas called on a man with his hand raised. “Will you be publishing your results soon in a scientific journal?”

Dorcas nodded. She looked to be trying to contain her smile by biting the inside of her cheek, a gesture that reminded Remus of Sirius. “That’s our next step,” Dorcas answered. “We’ll still need to compile a broader literature review, but yes, we hope to submit a manuscript eventually.”

“If you’re looking for co-authors,” an older woman with short red hair spoke up, “me and my lab would love to work with you. Sybill Trelawney, at Harvard.” 

Remus’s eyebrows rose reflexively. He hadn’t expected to receive such a direct response already. He also didn’t know that he and Dorcas were apparently writing a manuscript, but her answer seemed to be a good one based on the audience’s reaction. If they thought their powerpoint was publishable, then it probably was. 

“Hey, you’re not allowed to steal them yet,” a young-looking Black man with long cornrows protested. “Firenze Fearon, post-doc researcher at Yale,” he introduced himself. “If you take a card from Dr. Trelawney, make sure you take one from me as well.”

At that, Remus couldn’t help but let out an astonished laugh. These researchers were apparently arguing over who gets to work with him and Dorcas, during their Q and A session. He had never even considered this possibility, even through all of the “I want to win” hypotheses that he and Dorcas would share during data collection. 

“Well,” an elderly man with a long white beard interjected. “I don’t work with plants, so I’m not going to try to recruit you. But I will say that your results are very impressive. Thank you both, for bringing your knowledge and work ethic to Hogwarts. I did have an actual question, though, if we’re still allowing those,” he added with a twinkling eye. “If you wouldn’t mind going back to that second graph you showed…”

***

 Remus practically skipped across the porch when the presentation day finally ended, after Minerva gave closing remarks and brought out two giant sheet cakes from the No fridge. He and Dorcas shared a ridiculously loud high five, one that would have rivaled those of Marlene and Sirius, before Remus scooped a generous square of chocolate cake onto his plate. He had just taken his first bite when he felt a hand clap his shoulder lightly. 

“Congratulations,” Sirius said warmly. “Now you understand why Minnie had you go last. No one would have been able to follow that up.”

Remus smiled, covering his likely-chocolate-stained teeth with his napkin while replying. “Thanks. I was pleasantly surprised by the responses.”

“I wasn’t surprised,” Sirius countered. “But I’m still happy for you. I took a few pictures of you and Dorcas mid-presentation, in case you want to post something bragging about your success. You still haven’t unblocked me, you know.”

Remus laughed. “Yeah, send them to me. Maybe I’ll make my biyearly Instagram post soon. And I suppose I can unblock you beforehand.”

“So you can give me photo credits?” Translation: does James know that we are friends again?

“I think James would lose his mind if I did that.” Translation: not yet.

“You should tell him how it went, he’ll lose his mind congratulating you.” 

“You’re probably right,” Remus agreed. “I told my mom I would call her tonight, I can send James a text as well.”

Sirius nodded. “How’s the cake? I was thinking about getting a piece of vanilla.”

Remus grimaced, prompting a bark of laughter from Sirius.

“Sorry, I forgot you hate anything that isn’t chocolate when it could be. Again.”

“Again?” Remus questioned.

“Two truths and a lie?” Sirius reminded, his face expectantly waiting for Remus to get the joke.

“God,” Remus rolled his eyes. “Yeah, the cake is good. Idiot.”

Sirius laughed and clapped his shoulder again, before turning towards the line of people in front of the dessert table. 

After Sirius left, Minerva approached. “Nice work today, Mr. Lupin.” 

“Thank you,” Remus returned.

“Official results and official job offers and all of that will be coming in on Tuesday. But if I were you, I would still chat with Firenze and Sybill today. They’re both very distinguished scholars, even if one of them is a bit… quirky. Again, congratulations,” she repeated, before walking back inside to the kitchen.

***

“Hi baby.”

“Hi Mom.”

“How did it go? Tell me everything. I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

Remus smiled. He had been looking forward to telling his mom about the successful event all day. He was also planning to spend a bit of time during their phone call fishing for advice about his new friendship with Sirius. “It went really well. Some of the attendees asked if they could work with us to publish our results. And the official offers and results don’t even come in until Tuesday.”

“Remus, that’s amazing,” Hope stressed. “I’m so proud of you. You must be pretty proud of yourself too, I would imagine.”

“Yeah, Mom, I am. Thank you.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing the presentation in person! We’ll have to schedule a night once you’re in town, because James and Lily are both excited about it. Although James said something about me not getting to see you when you arrive? You owe him eight hours of your time, free of interruptions. Apparently.”

Remus shook his head fondly. “Sounds like James.”

“Yeah,” his mom returned, “it sure does- hey, sorry about the background noise, groups of people keep walking by.”

“Oh, it’s fine, I hadn’t even noticed- wait, mom,” Remus said, confused. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Oh, I’m at one of those paint-while-drinking-wine things, but it’s quite alright, I knew you might call during it.”

Remus laughed. “Mom. Don’t stand outside talking to me on the phone when you’re literally in the middle of a painting class. We can talk another time. I should’ve texted you before calling.”

“No, sweetie, you don’t need to text me first. You know I’ll always answer the phone if it’s you. I already made that clear to my fellow artists.”

“Wait, Mom,” Remus said again. “Are you on a date right now?”

“What? I’m at the painting thing, sweetie. With the wine?”

“Oh my god, it’s a Saturday night, and you’re on a date right now. Again. Is it the same guy as last time?”

“Remus,” Hope admonished, drawing out the vowels. “First of all, who do you take me for? Some kind of floozy? Second of all, no. But he’s very nice.”

Remus laughed. “Go back to your date, Mom. I just wanted to let you know it went well. Thanks for answering even though it meant you’re missing out on parts of your painting. I appreciate you,” he said sincerely.

“Aw, honey. I appreciate you too. But don’t worry about me missing portions of the painting. Whenever I ask him for help he covers my hand with his to paint a splotch of color. It’s much better than the same process with bowling.”

Remus made a noise of disgust. “I don’t want to know!” 

Hope laughed. “Bye honey, I love you.”

“Bye, love you too.”

After the phone call, Remus was still pacing outside of the research station. He had planned on sending James a quick text-- saying the presentation went well and that he and Sirius talked about their breakup-- before turning off his phone, just for the pure chaos it would bring about in James. But, with a much shorter conversation than planned with his mom, Remus instead decided to dial James’s number.

“Remus!” he answered on the second ring.

“James!” Remus smiled.

“Am I finally getting a new update on your summer? Tell me everything that’s happened since last time.”

“Well, first of all,” Remus started. “Are you on a date right now? Am I interrupting anything?”

“Nope, all good on that front. We had an early dinner already, and Lily’s not feeling too well so I’m making brownies right now.”

“Oh, sorry to hear that. I hope she feels better soon?” Remus ended the statement in a question, wanting to ask about Lily’s health but not overstep in case it’s too personal. If he were speaking to Lily directly he would have had no problem just asking.

“Oh, don’t worry, it’s just period cramps,” James said.

“Just?” Remus said, in warning.

“Fuck, sorry,” James stuttered. “I didn’t mean, like, that cramps aren’t a big deal, because they are, they can be, even though I don’t experience them, but plenty of people do, and-”

“And you’re rambling.”

“And I meant she doesn’t have some new scary disease, she has period cramps.”

“Well done,” Remus laughed. When the topic of menstruation came up, he and Lily had more to say than James, and James always respected that. But that didn’t mean Lily and Remus passed up the opportunities to tease James.

“In any case, the brownies should help. I need to start mixing things now so I’m putting you on speaker,” James explained.

“Sounds good. So, um,” Remus wasn’t sure where to start. Logically, the presentation should come first, he decided. “My presentation was today and it went really well. Really well. I’m super happy with it.”

“Congratulations! That’s awesome, Re. I’m proud of you. Are you proud of yourself?”

Remus laughed. “You sound exactly like my mother.”

“Good, I love Hope.” Remus heard a crackle of static, probably caused by James opening a plastic bag in front of the phone. “But you don’t get, like, the job offers and whatnot until later, right?”

“Yeah,” Remus answered. “Tuesday. But I am optimistic about it.”

“That’s great. Did you do better than Sirius?” James’s voice was conspiratory and laced with hope.

“Maybe,” Remus answered with a smile. “Maybe ours were the best two.”

“Oh, okay!” James said, surprised. “Are we supporting him, then?”

“We talked yesterday. About the breakup, finally.”

“Oh, okay,” James repeated, voice expectant. “And? How did it go? What happened?”

“We’re friends now,” Remus answered. 

“Is that all you’re going to give me? Come on.”

Remus grinned, before thinking back to the tumultuous conversation. “Well, I guess we talked about it, and agreed that it hurt to break up, but that we think we’re in good places in our lives right now, and wouldn’t want to change that, necessarily. It was for the best, basically.”

“Okay,” James said.

“And he said he wants to be a part of my life again? Basically. I don’t know. So we’re friends now, is what happened.”

“And that’s good, right?” James asked.

“Yeah,” Remus huffed a little laugh. “I like having him be a part of my life again too.”

“Is there sexual tension?”

“Jesus, James.”

“What? It’s an innocent question! I’m your best friend! I should know these things.”

“You’re ridiculous.”

“But you love me anyway.”

“No,” Remus corrected. “I love you because of it.”

“Aw,” James said softly. “That was, like, really touching. I miss you, you know.”

Remus laughed. “Yeah, I miss you too. But yeah. We’re friends now, and there’s no sexual tension. We’ll probably hang out more in the next few days, but, it should be fine.”

“Do you still like him?”

“Of course I like him, that’s why we’re friends.”

“Oh my god, Remus, don’t play dumb. We both know this is why you called me in the first place,” James accused.

“Fine.” Remus rolled his eyes. “Yes, I still like him. I was annoyed at him while we talked about the breakup, but I think I still have a very-much there and persistent crush on Sirius Black. Sue me.”

“Wouldn’t it be really funny if he heard you say that just now?” James laughed.

“Unlike you, I’m not an idiot,” Remus quipped, but he did check over his shoulder to make sure there was no one there. He had said the name a bit quieter than the rest of the words anyway.

“Okay, fair. So what are you going to do about it? The crush?”

“Probably nothing? We’re just friends right now, and that’s fine with me.”

***

It was not fine with him. Somehow, with the threat of looming presentations and ever-approaching project deadlines, Remus had been able to keep a level head despite having feelings for Sirius again. But now, with none of the distractions, he was in free fall. Or rather, emotional distress. Sirius entering the kitchen in the morning was handsome. Sirius wrapping his hands around his coffee was sexy. Sirius looking at Remus first when a group of people began to laugh was… warm. 

“You’re staring,” Dorcas said from his side at the table.

“No I’m not! Who would I even- why- where’s Marlene?” Remus stuttered.

Dorcas laughed. “Okay, fine, you weren’t staring. And Marlene is in her room, getting changed. We’re going to the creek today.”

“Oh?” Remus questioned. “And how have things been, with her?”

“Good. Really good.” Dorcas smiled, before adding in a whisper, “we kissed on Friday.”

Remus nodded, having suspected as much, but still happy for his friend. “That’s awesome. Are you, like, together?”

“We haven’t talked about that,” Dorcas frowned. “Neither of us know what we’re going to be doing when the summer ends, or where we’ll be applying or working in the future.”

“Well,” Remus pointed out, “it wouldn’t hurt to talk about it.”

“Yeah?” Dorcas seemed to weigh it in her mind. “You may be right. Same goes for you, you know.”

“What?”

Dorcas pointed her chin towards Sirius, who was now across the kitchen and cleaning up the breakfast ingredients. “It wouldn’t hurt to talk to him,” she said, echoing Remus’s words.

“What if I told you that we already did?” Remus asked. “And cleared the air and are friends now?”

Dorcas gave a cheshire cat smile. “I could already tell that happened. I would guess it occurred the same day Marlene was making my lips numb.”

“Ew.”

“But,” Dorcas continued through the interruption, “now there’s just sexual tension.”

“There’s no sexual tension!” Remus shouted, a bit louder than he meant to.

“Who has sexual tension?” Marlene questioned, walking into the kitchen and planting her elbows on the table.

“No one,” Remus said, softer this time.

“Ohhh,” Marlene said, slowly nodding. She looked to Dorcas and gave an overly dramatic wink. “I see.” She looked back to Remus and offered more unsolicited advice. “Just talk to him. He’s staring at you, too, you know.”

“No he’s not,” Remus protested weakly, but felt butterflies in his stomach nonetheless. 

“Well, whatever, then,” Marlene laughed. “Dorcas and I are leaving soon, so, good luck.”

“I’m going back to my room,” Remus decided.

Once he got there, he thought about journaling, but didn’t go to the trouble of digging the notebook out of its carefully hidden location amongst his clothes before flopping on the bed. Did Sirius still like him? The idea was exciting. But could they ever get back together? That idea was more nerve-wracking. 

One of the things that Lily had talked to him about, in the many lessons he received from her about getting over a breakup, was to think about the idea of getting back together. She advised him to think about it, and what it would look like, to rationalize the idea that it wouldn’t work. As long as nothing had really changed, she said, then they would still run into the same problem in the relationship. If you broke up because your partner is rude to the waitstaff and hates your family, then getting back together will only work if they no longer do those things.

But hadn’t they changed? In many ways, they were still the same people. But Remus was more confident, happier, more secure, and he could see that Sirius was much more in control of his emotions, and had made for a clear separation between his life and the influence of his family. Was that enough?

Remus sighed, before trying to subtly fix his hair in the reflection of the window, and nodded. Having finally over-thought about it enough, Remus left the room, intending to find his ex-boyfriend/friend/crush. 

Chapter Text

Remus didn’t make it very far. Just as he entered the hallway he bumped into someone.

“Remus?”

“Sirius?”

“I was looking for you,” they both said at the same time.

“Oh,” Remus said with a nervous laugh, as he took a step backwards to create some space between the two men.

“I was going to ask if you wanted to go for a hike? With me,” Sirius added.

“Yeah, um, let’s do it!” Remus confirmed. “I mean, like, do the hike, you know. Not,” he trailed off. “Okay wow, I’m gonna change, I’ll meet you outside in a couple of minutes.”

Sirius just grinned, before turning into his own room.

Jesus, Remus thought. Pull it together. 

After changing into more hiking-appropriate clothes and shoes, Remus met Sirius on the porch. “Any particular trail you wanted to do?” Remus asked, pleased with himself for not turning the question into some sort of innuendo that he ended up blushing at.

“Do you want to just wander, maybe? Start with a random one and see where we go?”

“Sure,” Remus agreed. 

Soon enough, they were out of earshot of the station, and the ground was slowly rising in elevation. It was nice to get some exercise, especially after spending the entirety of the day before anxiously buzzing on the porch but not moving very much. 

“What are you doing on Wednesday? After we move out?” Remus suddenly asked.

“Honestly, I don’t know,” Sirius answered. “I suppose I’ll probably go to Alphard’s house. Well, my house now, I guess. Feels weird to say that though.”

“Have you spent much time there?” Remus asked, genuinely curious.

“Not really,” Sirius returned. “I’ve mostly been renting apartments near my school, but I spent some time over the summers at the house. Mostly I’ve been doing summer field work and things that keep me outside and away from it.”

“Like this?” Remus asked.

“Like this,” Sirius confirmed. “What are you doing after?”

“Going home,” Remus said. “I was planning to stay with my mom for the remainder of summer, and then maybe figure out where I’m moving for work or something next. Although James already booked a full day of my time when I get home, apparently.”

Sirius laughed. “Sounds fun.”

“Yeah.” The gravel crunched under their feet as they walked, and soon it turned to hard-packed dirt instead. Everything was still green, although the plants looked like they could use some water if it presented itself. Mostly, Remus thought, it was just the fact that summer was ending. 

As they stopped in the shade of a particularly large oak tree, Remus sat for a moment, stretching his left leg while digging his water out of his backpack. Sirius sat too. He had always tried to match Remus’s position, Remus realized. Whenever Remus needed to stand to stretch, and everyone else was seated, Sirius would join him. Even when no one was around, evidently, he still did the same thing.

“Sirius?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you-” Remus started. “Have you dated anyone? In the last four years?”

Sirius took a drink from his water bottle. “Not really, no. I went on some dates, and I had a couple of brief periods of time where I was talking to one person for a bit. But nothing really stuck.”

Remus nodded. He didn’t know what made him ask the question, but he was glad he did. And he was glad to hear the answer.

“You?” Sirius asked, carefully studying a rock to his left.

“Nope.” Remus said. “My friends made me go on a few dates, but, nothing worked out.” Silence followed his statement, and Remus was about to suggest getting back up and continuing their hike, before Sirius spoke up, softly.

“I think I was measuring everyone against you,” Sirius said. “And it was really frustrating. Because no one could compare.”

Remus would have preened, or swooned, but hearing Sirius say the exact thing he had felt over the last 3.91 years took him by surprise. In a stroke of honesty and bravery, Remus voiced his agreement. “No one that I ever talked with, or tried to date, made me feel the way that I felt with you.”

Sirius turned to look at him, eyes wide.

Remus continued. “And I used to think that it meant I just wasn’t over you yet. And that I couldn’t date someone successfully until I got over it.”

After a pause, Sirius spoke. “But now?”

“But now,” Remus continued, carefully considering his words, “I think they just didn’t compare to you, because you and I are very similar people. And we have a lot of chemistry, even just as friends.”

Sirius nodded slowly. “Yeah. I think I felt that way too. Like I was cursed to never happily date someone again since I had already had a really good experience with you in my first relationship.”

“Exactly,” Remus mused.

“What was your least favorite part?” Sirius suddenly asked, voice expectant.

“Of dating?” Remus asked, incredulous. He only had to think about it for a moment before realizing. “Oh my god, the ‘getting to know you’ questions. ‘What’s your favorite movie?’ and then ‘Oh my god, we should watch both of our favorites on our second date!’” Remus quoted. “Disgusting. And then I’d have to tell them that Pride and Prejudice was like five hours long, because I meant the 1995 film version, not the newer one.”

Sirius laughed through Remus’s entire rant. “That’s exactly what I was going to say! Like, ‘oh that’s so silly that your favorite movie is a kid’s movie’ and I’d be like ‘well, I didn’t exactly have a normal childhood, so I never got to watch them when I was a kid’ and that would bring the mood down, so I’d have to add ‘it has a great soundtrack though!’ and then they would say ‘we should watch it together,’” Sirius complained. “And it was, like, always like that somehow. There’s a script apparently.”

“You’re talking about Shrek 2, right?” Remus asked.

“Obviously. It’s the best movie of all time,” he defended.

Remus laughed, feeling light. “It does have a great soundtrack,” he agreed. “Sirius?”

“Yeah?”

“I still like you.”

Sirius smiled nervously. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Remus nodded. 

“I still like you too,” Sirius said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Remus, I don’t know what the future is going to bring. I don’t know what is going to happen after this summer. And I don’t want to jeopardize anything, and I don’t want to lose my friendship with you again. I don’t know if we’ve changed enough, over the last four years, for this to work again. Or if we’ve changed too much. But I know that I don’t want to live the rest of my life having never tried.”

Remus looked at Sirius, and took in his appearance. Sitting on the ground, wearing dirty hiking shoes, his T-shirt damp with sweat spots where the straps of his backpack were. His beautifully structured face had a small white spot of sunscreen on his left cheekbone, and his thin eyes, framed by long lashes, were expectant. And hopeful. 

Remus smiled. “Can I kiss you?” he asked.

“Yes please,” Sirius returned, as he moved to close the gap.

Their lips met, and it wasn’t groundbreaking or earth-shattering, and there were no poems written or wars started, but it was familiar, and Remus felt happy. Sirius’s lips were soft against his own, and Remus tangled his fingers into the curls on the back of Sirius’s head. It was slow, and it was gentle, and it was home.

As they pulled away, both men were smiling brightly. “Want to keep walking?” Sirius eventually asked.

“Yeah,” Remus nodded. After they were both on their feet again, with water bottles stowed away and backpacks on, Sirius cautiously reached his fingers out to Remus’s hand. Remus smiled and accepted it, lacing their fingers together. Sirius swung their hands a bit as they walked, and Remus didn’t think he would be able to stop grinning even if he tried.

They talked about nothing of importance, just little anecdotes from high school or their summer at the station. Little “remember when”s and “I wonder if”s flowed between them, and eventually they found their way back onto a familiar trail. When it twisted to the left up ahead, Remus knew where they were. The bend in the trail revealed the alpine lake they swam at weeks ago, when Sirius convinced everyone to swim fully clothed for Remus’s benefit.

“Oh my god, we’re here,” Sirius emphasized, evidently noticing it as well. 

“Do you want to swim again?” Remus asked, eyes bright.

“Yes!” Sirius emphasized, dropping his backpack. “Do you, um, we can-” he started hesitantly, plucking at the hem of his T-shirt.

“If it’s just you I don’t mind,” Remus answered him. He removed his shirt and slowly waded into the cold water. “Well?” he questioned, turning around to see Sirius still on the shore.

“I’m coming,” he answered. “You just- you look happy,” Sirius said.

Not knowing what to say to that, but smiling anyway, Remus dove under the surface. The water was refreshing, and Remus felt like he could easily hike ten more miles from the rejuvenating powers of the lake. Soon, he felt an arm wrap around his stomach and haul him above the surface again.

“Don’t hold your breath like that!” Sirius chastised, but he was smiling.

Remus turned in his grip so that they were face-to-face. Sirius’s arms stayed around his back. “What are you going to do about it?” Remus laughed through the stupid question. Evidently Sirius would do what he had just done: pull him out of the water.

“You’re ridiculous,” Sirius said fondly.

“Shut up,” Remus muttered.

“Make me,” Sirius challenged, eyebrows raised. Remus laughed again before kissing him. They stayed in the water for a while: kissing, laughing, swimming. Eventually they got out and sat on the shore to dry in the sun before they would have to put their clothes back on and begin their descent.

“We both have such bad tan lines,” Remus observed. 

Sirius raked his eyes over Remus’s torso for a while longer than necessary. “Yours are worse than mine,” he said eventually.

“Only because you’re pale everywhere anyway,” Remus said.

“I’m East Asian!” Sirius defended. “You’re a hick-ass country boy, you should be able to tan easily.”

Remus affixed him with a Minerva-esque narrowed-eyes stare.

“It’s okay, I like hick country boys,” Sirius continued, reaching out for Remus’s hand.

“Lucky me-” Remus started, then “hey, I kind of need that-”

“Just lay down then,” Sirius laughed. Remus had been sitting up but leaning back on his hands. Sirius evidently didn’t care for Remus’s structural integrity, wanting to remove his right hand from the ground to lace their fingers together.

“Fine.” Remus tried to sound haughty, but it was hard when he was laying on the shore of an alpine lake while holding hands with Sirius Black. In the silence that followed, Remus began to think, and then to over-think. What was he doing?

“Sirius?”

“Yeah?”

“What does, um, what does ‘trying again’ look like?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like-” Remus started, then just lifted their joined hands slightly in emphasis.

“Oh,” Sirius said. “Well, I know it’s early, but maybe one day we can be boyfriend and boyfriend again? If you’d like that?”

“I just-” Remus sighed. “I just felt really blindsided. Last time.” Translation: when you broke up with me. “I don’t want to get hurt in the same way, or I guess, misread the signs that were there last time. I don’t know.”

Sirius nodded. “Well, I want to be a better communicator. I think we both are already, honestly, and I think that will help. But I’ll do whatever you need to rebuild your trust in me.”

“I don’t not trust you,” Remus said. “I guess I just don’t know what’s best. Is getting back together with someone always stupid? Or can it actually work?”

Sirius thought in silence for a moment, and Remus almost spoke again, but Sirius eventually answered slowly. “I have thought about you, every single day, since we broke up. And I don’t know if that counts for anything, or what that may mean. But I think it means that I still care about you and I still want it to work. We needed to be apart for a little while, to grow, but I think we could make this work again.”

Remus nodded slowly. “I’ve thought about you too. Every single day.” He paused for a deep breath. “Okay. I think we can try again.”

“Let’s just go slow,” Sirius said. “Like how it was before we started officially dating.”

Remus smiled. “You mean texting until two in the morning every night and then almost hugging at the end of every homework session?”

“Hey, that’s not true,” Sirius said, offended. “I did hug you a few times.” They laughed.

“Okay,” Remus said again. “It’s fine, this is good.”

“Just tell me,” Sirius said. “If you ever want to go slower, or talk about anything, or spend more time talking about the breakup, we can. Just let me know.”

Remus pulled on his hand a bit, until Sirius rolled over onto his side, inches away. Remus pecked him on the lips before standing up. “This is good,” he repeated, beaming. 

They walked hand-in-hand back to the research station, pulling apart only once they could see the back porch. 

Sirius and Gideon would be making dinner tonight, so Remus thought about texting or calling James. Instead, however, he decided to keep the events of today to himself for now. It felt secretive, exciting, and new, and he didn’t really want to give that up yet. He spent some time with the plants he had pressed throughout the summer, getting them ready to transport back home in just a few days.

***

The next two days went by fast but leisurely. Remus and Dorcas began writing their manuscript for the invasive plant removal protocol, and Marlene enlisted Sirius’s help in packaging up their spider specimens for transport. The arachnids were going to be housed in a local invertebrate zoology collection, something the presentation attendees had been very impressed by. 

The four of them spent time together, playing cards or going for walks, but Dorcas and Marlene spent plenty of time alone as well. Remus and Sirius took advantage of those times. Even though Minerva’s ban on sleeping with other researchers supposedly ended after the presentations, Remus was content to take things slow. They kissed quickly in hallways and empty rooms, and longer on hikes and after-dinner walks. 

On Monday night, less than twenty-four hours away from hearing their presentation results, they snuck out of the station after dark. They weren’t technically locked-in, or even supervised really, but the station did have a lights out and quiet curfew of 10:30pm for courtesy’s sake. Remus had always abided by the rule, but found himself breaking it shamelessly on account of Sirius’s bad influence.

They crept out onto the back porch a few minutes before midnight, and laid down on Sirius’s blanket, looking up at the stars. The moon had been waning for the last few days, and tonight it was a barely-there sliver in the sky. The lack of lunar illumination meant the stars shone brightly. 

A few seconds of peace passed, while the men admired how many stars were visible while they were removed from ambient city lights. “You’re not going to flirt with me by teaching me the constellations?” Remus whispered.

Sirius laughed quietly at the joke. “I think you know them better than me. Plus the best one isn’t visible tonight.”

“It’s not,” Remus confirmed. “Only visible from here between December and March.”

“See?” Sirius asked. “You do know them better.”

“Only that one,” Remus said.

“Why that one?”

“Because it’s the one you’re named after, idiot.”

“You’re cute,” Sirius whispered.

Remus blushed at the compliment. “Thanks.”

“You’re not gonna say it back?” Sirius asked loudly, voice incredulous.

“Sirius, shush!” Remus whispered. “I don’t want Minerva to wake up and find us out here.”

“Then say it back. Or I’ll scream,” Sirius threatened.

“Oh my god,” Remus rolled his eyes. “Don’t be a- oh my god Sirius! Stop making that noise!”

While Remus was talking, Sirius had begun to make a high pitched “Eeeee” noise, which started soft but was slowly gaining volume.

“Sirius!” Remus chastised, but started laughing. “Stop it!” Remus clamped a hand over Sirius’s mouth, to no avail. “You’re adorable,” he said. “You’re cute, handsome, beautiful, gorgeous, and- Jesus Christ.”  

Sirius had continued to make the noise, now accompanied by his own laughter, even through Remus’s string of compliments.

“Fine, new strategy,” Remus announced, and kissed Sirius squarely on the mouth. Sirius instantly stopped the noise. 

Sirius grinned, before he pulled Remus by his hips to lay right on top of him, and brought their lips together again.

“You’re ridiculous,” Remus said fondly.

“So are you,” Sirius said, against his cheek.

***

“All right, all right, gather ‘round, gather ‘round,” Minerva ushered everyone to surround her in the kitchen. The majority of Tuesday had gone by anxiously, for Remus at least, and now he was going to finally put his nerves to rest. Through good news or bad, he would finally be able to sleep soundly tonight (or at least sleep while anxiously thinking about something new for a change). 

“Okay kids,” Minerva enunciated. “No, not kids anymore. Adults!” She shouted. “Well, no, young adults,” she amended. “Okay, anyway, moving on, moving on. I will now be sharing with you the final feedback from the attendees of your presentations last Saturday. Contrary to what you may be thinking, there is an actual reason we make you wait.”

Remus felt hot air on the back of his neck. “To see if you can combust from nervous energy,” Sirius whispered into Remus’s ear. And really, it shouldn’t have been seductive, but, wow. Maybe they shouldn’t worry about the whole ‘taking it slow’ thing, Remus thought.

“The attendees all figure out the openings they have, either in labs or research positions, and we work together to distribute the goods, as it were. I am extremely proud of all of you, and I hope that you are going to be taking something away from this beautiful location, even if it isn’t a job offer.”

Remus was now ninety-nine percent focused on the term “job offer,” but the other one percent of his brain power realized that he would be taking something away from this internship. His rekindled friendship-turned-relationship with Sirius. The time he had already spent with the taller man again was more special than any accolades he could collect from Minerva right now. He still wanted them, though.

“We also score the presentations, to generate a top three, which doesn’t win you anything at all! But the six researchers in those spots are pretty likely to end up with the offers, so, you get the picture. Can we get a drumroll going before I announce our third place researchers?”

Wow, Remus thought, it was really happening. It felt like he had just moved into the station, and now here he was. Listening to Sirius Black slap the kitchen table way harder than necessary, alternating with both palms open, fingers splayed. Ridiculous. Remus smiled at the sight.

“Rolanda Hooch and Caradoc Dearborn!” Minerva shouted. “Congratulations, ornithologists.” The pair high-fived, and a chorus of congratulations went around the table.

“Second place goes to, and this was a bit of a toss up,” Minerva said, then paused. “Where’s my drumroll?” She asked, faux-offended. When it started again she laughed. “Sirius Black and Marlene McKinnon! Congratulations, entomol-”

She was cut off by the elaborate yelling and jumping maneuver that the entomologists were now conducting. They ended with some form of modified chest bump, with Marlene turning to the side at the end to dodge the brunt of Sirius’s considerable momentum.

“And yet they rank lowest in humility,” Minerva said drily, but her eyes, flicking between Sirius and Marlene, were warm.

“And now, for first place…” Minerva trailed off, and the drumroll began.

“It’s gonna be you, you know,” Sirius said to Remus’s side matter-of-factly, a sharp contrast to his wild table-slapping. 

“Remus Lupin, and Dorcas Meadowes,” Minerva spoke calmly. Congratulations, you two.”

Sirius pulled Remus into a crushing hug, Dorcas high-fived him, and Remus didn’t think he would be able to stop smiling.

“Okay great, nice work everybody,” Minerva said, trying to regather attention. “Now for the things that actually impact your financial lives! You can officially accept these tomorrow over the phone, but for now, I made little paper certificates!” She brandished a second, previously-hidden clipboard, which had a rainbow pattern, in addition to the navy blue one she had been glancing at already. “Fair warning, I underestimated how long it would take, so the first couple have actual art on them, but after that I got lazy and just added some scribbles or a smiley face. Too bad!”

Remus laughed, along with many of the others. 

“Okay, let’s see,” Minerva said. “First of all, I’m passing out the pages of people and organizations that wanted me to give you their contact info. I recommend talking to them, and doing so soon, before they forget about your work, or they find someone else to fit any openings. These aren’t guarantees of paid work, but it can help to get in touch so that when they do have an opening, they’ll reach out to you.”

She walked along the length of the table, handing out individual certificates. Some of them did appear to have Minerva’s artwork- in black Sharpie- along the margins. Others were more utilitarian. 

“Oh my god,” Sirius gasped. “I’ve got Minnie’s autograph! Finally!”

“Woah,” Dorcas said, as a long list of people and organizations was presented in front of her.

Remus received a similar looking list. His certificate was adorned with a smiley face and a little flower. 

“Okay, big ticket items coming now,” Minerva said. Remus fidgeted in his seat. “To the Beauxbatons Academy of Ornithology, a one-year internship, offered to Caradoc Dearborn.”

Cheers went around the kitchen, and Remus noticed that Rolanda, the fellow ornithologist in the room, looked to be the happiest one congratulating Remus’s tall roommate. 

Minerva announced two other positions, but Remus could barely remember them, since he would tune out after hearing an institute or university program that didn’t deal with plants or bugs. 

“This last one is a bit of a unique position, and it only came about because of some of the  unique effort and talent that was brought to the station by this year’s cohort. Two teams had similar projects, although with different study organisms, and the Dumbledore Institute is funding a year’s worth of continued research in traveling, collecting, and mapping organisms of interest. The position is for two researchers, one from each of those two teams.”

Remus took a breath and paused. 

“Sirius Black and Dorcas Meadowes,” Minervra said, with a smile. “This job involves traveling together to different field stations throughout the country, and getting to experience research at all of them. Congratulations, for this truly special opportunity.”

Remus exhaled finally, and dully realized he should be congratulating his friends. He smiled towards Dorcas, and was about to say something supportive to Sirius, but he was turned away, facing Marlene, who was frozen in place.

“Uh, Minnie?” Sirius asked.

“Mr. Black?”

“You said it’s for one person from each team, right? So if I didn’t accept, they would offer it to Marlene, right?”

“If you didn’t accept?” Minerva asked, incredulous.

“Yeah,” Sirius shrugged.

“Then yes, the position would be offered to Ms. McKinnon.” 

“Okay. Then I don’t accept.”

“What?” Minerva and Remus asked at the same time. 

“Thank you,” Marlene said through a bark of laughter, before pulling Sirius close to kiss him firmly on the cheek. She then stood and was immediately embraced by Dorcas. Their hug quickly turned to an open-mouthed kiss, and Sirius wolf-whistled at the display. 

“Oh, I see,” Minerva said. “Well. Congratulations, ladies. That wraps things up then. Congratulations everybody, and thank you for spending your summer here with all of us. We’ll talk logistics in the morning, but enjoy your night.”

As the kitchen filled with the noise of multiple chairs scooting back and conversations starting, Remus felt confused. He had already received plenty of praise for his work, but he had been hoping that he may receive a more tangible job offer.

“Mr. Lupin?” A voice floated towards him.

“Yeah?”

Minerva’s voice sounded again. “Would you care to join me for a short walk outside?”

“Oh, um, sure.” He stood, and soon found himself walking around the station with Minerva. The air was cooling, and the sky was just finishing the glow of its evening sunset. 

“So, as you may have realized, I didn’t announce the two researchers who would be staying at the station, and getting paid to conduct research for the next year,” Minerva explained. 

“Oh,” Remus said. That’s what had been missing, he realized.

“I was going to offer the position to you and Marlene McKinnon.”

“Oh,” Remus said again. This was good news, he thought.

“But she is now unexpectedly taking a job elsewhere. As such, I would like to offer the other spot to my next choice in line. However, since you were my first choice, I want to check with you first.”

“Oh?” Remus said. He needs to stop repeating this monosyllabic word, he decided.

“I’ve noticed a bit of animosity, but most of it was earlier in the summer,” Minerva continued. “So, Remus. Tell me. Would you be able to work alongside Sirius Black for the next year? Offering the position to him instead of Marlene was my plan.”

Remus stopped walking, and turned to face her. “Yes,” he smiled. “I can work with Sirius Black here for the next year.”

“Great,” Minerva decided. “Then, congratulations. I know you’ll be a great person for the job, and I hope to see the two of you work as an effective team. I do kind of like having him around, I’ll admit,” Minerva added in as a conspiratorial aside. 

“Me too,” Remus said, then laughed. “Me too.”

Chapter Text

Remus clicked the radio off, and returned his focus to the road. It had been mostly static since he first got on the highway about twenty minutes ago. In the far left lane, Remus carefully navigated the car on the gentle curves of the road, staying between the white lines and below the speed limit. 

It felt strange to finally leave the station, but not as strange as it felt to know he would be returning in one week, with Sirius. In his mind he replayed, again, the huge hug that Sirius had engulfed him in when he and Minerva conveyed the news. The hug was warm, but not nearly as lovely as the smile on Sirius’s face when they finally separated. 

“I can’t believe you turned down that other job offer,” Remus had said to him, later.

“I can’t believe it worked out,” Sirius returned. 

They had stayed up late that night-- last night, Remus realized, surprised by how long ago it felt-- with Dorcas and Marlene, the couples playing cards on the back porch in the moonlight. Each pair slowly leaned on each other more, each under a blanket, before Dorcas finally fell asleep on Marlene, who then declared no one was allowed to talk or make any noise.

Sirius threatened to carry Remus to bed, and, while very intrigued by the idea, Remus had decided to use his own legs, not wanting to scare Caradoc awake at what must have been two or three in the morning. “There will be time for that later, once we’re back here,” Remus had promised with a smirk.

Remus had been an early riser the next morning, despite the lack of sleep. The thought of finalizing his packing and saying his goodbyes to everyone spurred him along, and it wasn’t until after breakfast that he realized he hadn’t even had any coffee yet. A half-full thermos now sat in his cupholder.

Remus continued his drive, hands carefully placed on each side of the steering wheel. Once he arrived back in town, he would be spending the afternoon and evening with his mom, and then sleeping for a long time. Tomorrow was scheduled for James. Remus hadn’t told either of them the good news: about the new job, or the new developments with Sirius.

He also hadn’t told them that Sirius’s deceased uncle’s house, or rather mansion, as Remus had taken to imagining it in his mind, was a mere thirty minute drive from Remus’s mom.

In any case, at current, Remus was focusing very intently on driving safely, and he didn’t have the capacity to think about all of the possible implications of those listed facts. When he eventually arrived at his mom’s house, she was standing on the porch, ready to greet him.

Hope wrapped her son in a tight embrace. “I missed you so much! But I was so proud of you! Congratulations! How was the drive? Do you need to sit down? Or stand up? How are the legs? I have Advil!”

Remus laughed. “Mom. I’m fine. I missed you too.”

“Well I’m very glad that you’re home, baby. Let me help you take this stuff to your room and then you can tell me all about it. I made some chai tea cookies earlier!”

“Chai tea cookies?” Remus questioned. “Sounds fancy, did you just come up with that recipe somehow?”

Hope lifted her chin a bit higher, a gesture Remus had certainly learned from her, to indicate a touch of haughty defiance. “Taylor Swift made them,” she answered.

“Ah,” Remus pronounced, before laughing. “Well I’m excited to try them, and maybe afterwards we could go for a walk? I think that may be best for my legs.”

“Oh, of course! It’s been a while since our last exploration, hasn’t it?” Hope asked with a smile. 

Remus felt a rush of emotion, and his throat felt a tiny bit constricted. “Yeah, Mom,” he eventually said. “It has.”

***

“So you won?” Hope repeated. They were about halfway through their meander in the woods, and Remus had already recounted most, but not all, of his summer tales: both triumphs and tribulations. 

“Yeah.” Remus laughed. “We won.”

“And you’re going to work at the field station for the next year, getting paid to do research while living in one of the most pristine places in nature that also happens to be only a few hours away from my house?”

“Yep. Exactly.”

“What’s missing?” Hope narrowed her eyes at her son. “I know something is missing.”

Remus laughed again, nervous this time. 

“Oh, honey, you can tell me anything,” Hope reassured.

“Trust me, Mom, I know,” Remus said. He knew, because he had. Successfully coming out twice seemed to have made that fact very evident to both parties involved.

“Okay,” Hope said, “just making sure.” Her tone was light, but Remus knew she was just giving him the time he needed to get his thoughts in order.

“Okay,” Remus started eventually. “It’s not anything bad, it’s just. Well, I’m worried you’ll think I’m an idiot,” he finished lamely.

“Oh, baby,” Hope comforted. “I won’t think you’re an idiot.” The seriousness of her tone combined with the words seemed ridiculous, and Remus couldn’t help a little laugh that escaped. In response, Hope continued with a killing blow. “Besides, I’d have a great poker face if I did. Lord knows I’ve got years of practice.”

Remus laughed, shaking his head. “How many years?” he asked with fake interest, knowing she needed to be egged-on for the finale.

“I don’t know, how old are you?” she finished with a triumphant grin.

They both laughed, in the asynchronous waves only they sometimes experience. Hope laughed at her joke, then stopped, and then Remus laughed at his mom’s ridiculousness, then stopped, and then Hope laughed at her son’s reaction, convinced she had finally succeeded in embarrassing him, something both of them knew would never occur. 

“Sirius and I decided to get back together,” Remus finally said. 

Silence followed for a moment. When Remus glanced to his side, Hope was frowning. “Why did you think I would think you were an idiot for that? Honey, that’s totally fine.”

Remus exhaled, nodding. “I just thought, well, I don’t know. You know those sayings, like, you can’t let someone back into your life after you tell your mom what they did?”

“Oh, so I’m not allowed to like Taylor Swift but you’re allowed to quote JustGirlyThings or something silly?” Hope questioned.

“Okay, well, when you put it like that,” Remus began, still frowning.

“Hey,” Hope interrupted. “You get to make your own choices. And anyone that you welcome into your life, I am going to be happy to welcome into mine.”

“Okay,” Remus nodded, smiling. “He talked about how much he likes you,” Remus shared. 

“Aww. That’s nice.”

After a pause, Remus spoke again. “So you really don’t think I’m making the wrong choice here?”

“Remus. He didn’t kill your cat or something, he broke up with you!”

“Sounds like a weird euphemism,” Remus muttered.

“Get your mind out of the gutter,” Hope tried to chastise him, but didn’t stifle her laughter in time. “Okay, that is kind of funny, I’ll give you that.”

Remus shook his head fondly.

“My point, though, is that he was allowed to break up with you. And that doesn’t mean I’m on his side, or that anyone that chooses to break up with you isn’t an absolute fool, but you’re also my son, so,” she explained. “Anyway, breaking up with someone, and then taking time apart to grow and change, and then finding your way back together is perfectly acceptable. The past breakup isn’t a red flag, unless it was done in some sort of harmful way.”

I’m sorry, I am. But I don’t take it back. “It wasn’t,” Remus said. Because it really wasn’t. It hurt, but Sirius hadn’t cheated on him or anything, and he didn’t exactly throw Remus’s clothes, which were also on fire, from a second-story balcony like Hope’s idol does in one of her high-budget music videos. 

“Then it’ll be fine,” Hope reassured.

“Great,” Remus said. “Now I just have to tell James.”

***

Remus had arrived at the Potter/Evans house at exactly nine in the morning. He knew from experience that attempting to arrive any later would result in several phone calls from one James Potter.

James greeted him by running towards his car before Remus had even gotten out yet, and proceeded to half-tackle, half-strangle Remus with the seatbelt, in some vaguely-hug-like behavior. When he was finally allowed to stand (and breathe in again), his best friend pulled him in for another, less precarious embrace. “I missed you so much,” James said into Remus’s shoulder, where his face was buried.

“I missed you too.”

When they finally made it indoors and James began cooking pancakes, Remus began to tell James about the events of the last few days.

“Wait, earlier in the summer I thought you said there were two spots for the research-at-the-station for a year thing. You’re not going to be there alone, right?”

“No, uh.” Remus studied the view through the kitchen window to James’s right. “The other person is going to be, um, Sirius,” he finished softly.

“Oh my god!” James shouted.

“What?”

“You’re dating again! Oh my god, I see it! I see it all over your face, wow. Why didn’t you tell me? Jackass, I’m supposed to be your best friend,” James complained, all with a smile on his face.

“Wow, okay, that was like the five stages of grief, or something, in ten seconds. Um. Sirius and I are together now.”

“I knew it.” James laughed. “Well? How did it happen?”

Remus blinked. “You’re not going to talk me out of it? Or tell me that he’s a bad person?”

James looked confused. “Is he a bad person?”

“No?”

“Then no.” James shrugged. “If you’re happy, then I’m happy. And I don’t know if you remember, but I really like Sirius. Oh my god, do I get to hang out with him again? Can I text him?”

“Oh god,” Remus muttered. He did remember. It was at some point during his first relationship with Sirius that Remus managed to become much closer with Lily, largely driven by the fact that James would steal his boyfriend whenever the four of them were supposed to be on a double date. James had only been spurred on further when Lily had vengefully introduced the four of them to an inquiring waitress as “my friend Remus, his boyfriend Sirius, and his boyfriend James.”

“Amazing,” James mused, flipping a pancake.

“He, uh, lives pretty close,” Remus ventured.

James winced. “Still with his parents?”

“No, actually, at a different house. He went no contact with his family, but ended up inheriting a house from an uncle?” Remus recounted, finishing the sentence in a question.

“Oh, okay. Wow. I bet that’s been really good for him,” James said. “I don’t have to talk any sense into him, then? About dating my best friend and not hurting his fragile little bird heart?”

Remus didn’t know how to respond to that, and settled with a shrug and a questioning, “what the fuck?”

“It’s okay, I probably will anyway,” James continued, with a smize. 

Remus shook his head.

***

“I’m excited to see your presentation on Friday,” James shared. “Hope said we don’t have to bring anything but I was thinking maybe some brownies? And a bottle of wine? Does she like red or white better?”

“Red,” Remus answered. “And that would be great, but you really don’t have to. It really won’t be a huge special occasion or anything, and I’ll just be doing my best to keep the presentation from being too boring.”

“Hey, Re,” James chastised. “First of all, it is a special occasion. Second of all, you can make any scenario into a special occasion with red wine and brownies.”

Remus smiled at his friend’s support. “Okay,” he agreed. “You know,” he started. “If we wanted, I could invite Sirius to come as well? My mom wants to have him over for dinner on Saturday anyway, but, it could be up to you?”

“Oh my god, yes,” James said. “That would be fantastic. I want to see his, too.”

Remus grimaced. “That sounds like a weird euphemism.”

“You’re immature. I meant his presentation. But, yeah, it kind of does, nice.” James laughed. 

“Nice,” Remus echoed. “Hey, what are our plans for dinner with Lily tonight?’

***

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“How are you?”

“Good! How are you?”

“Good.”

Remus laughed during the pause. “That’s good,” he eventually replied.

“I miss you,” Sirius said through the phone.

“I miss you, too,” Remus said. “What time are you planning on getting here?”

“I’m gonna leave the house at about 4:30, so I should be there around 5. You sure it’s okay for me to be there again?” Remus could hear Sirius’s insecurity within the question.

“Yeah, of course. Everyone’s excited to see you again,” Remus said honestly.

“Okay, good.” He heard Sirius’s smile. “I’m excited to see you,” Sirius added, and Remus grinned.

“I’m excited to see you, too. Text me when you get here. Bring a sweater, I think we’ll be outside for a bit.”

“For me or for you?” Sirius asked innocently.

Remus laughed. “Maybe both,” he decided. He almost told Sirius to bring his pajamas, too, but decided to play it safe. In a few days they would be living at the research station again, a location that housed their bedrooms but not Remus’s mother’s.

“Okay, cool.”

“Cool,” Remus repeated.

“I’ll see you soon.”

“Yeah. See you.” Remus stayed on the line, and evidently so did Sirius. “Drive safe,” he couldn’t help but add.

Sirius just laughed. “I will. Bye.”

“Bye.” Remus eventually hung up, and when he turned around to go back inside, James was there.

“Well, wasn’t that just absolutely adorable,” he said with a shit-eating grin.

“Shut up, James,” Remus tried weakly. “Why are you here already?”

“I’m here because you’re here, and also because I told Hope I’d help set up.”

Remus was slightly touched by the phrasing of the first half of James’s sentence, but it didn’t change the fact that it was noon, and the dinner-and-presentation event wasn’t supposed to begin until after five.

“Come hang out with me, I’m bored!” James pestered. 

Remus shook his head fondly. “Fine.”

***

A few hours later, everything was ready to go. The pizzas were prepared and ready to be placed into the oven, and James had helped by assuring Hope that, “no, really, one more Taylor Swift song on the playlist is completely necessary, let’s add it,” at least ten times, despite Remus’s suspicion that James had never listened to the non-popular Taylor Swift songs before. 

Remus grew steadily more anxious as the time passed by, and at 4:50pm he was bouncing his knees hard enough for James to notice and call him out on it.

“It’s gonna be fine,” his best friend assured him.

“Yeah. Yeah, I know. Thanks.”

“Anytime Re, anytime.”

When his phone buzzed a minute later, Remus immediately stood and went outside. Sure enough, Sirius had just finished parking his car in the long driveway, and opened the door as Remus walked down the porch.

He looked good-- no surprise there-- in what he must have decided was his “meet the parent again” outfit: black jeans and a fur-lined denim jacket over a gray shirt. Remus stepped entirely too close to him and smiled. “Hi.”

Sirius grinned, then pulled him forward into a tight hug. “Hi,” he repeated, into Remus’s neck, where he had tucked his head. After a few seconds, Sirius’s hands traveled down Remus’s back and landed at his hips. Sirius’s head turned, Remus followed, and soon their lips crashed together. 

Remus carded fingers through Sirius’s hair while they continued to kiss. Sirius pulled Remus forward until their lower bodies met, and Remus suddenly realized he really should have told Sirius to bring his pajamas. His thoughts were interrupted when Sirius suddenly froze. 

“No, don’t stop on my account, it’s quite the show,” James called out from where he must have been standing on the porch. Remus turned slowly, praying that he wouldn’t find his mom standing next to him. If she was there too, his reddened cheeks would probably cross some sort of line-of-no-return, and be stuck in a permanent blush.

Thankfully, she wasn’t. “Hi James,” Sirius said sheepishly.

“Hi? Hi?” James asked, incredulous. “Jesus Christ, I haven’t seen you in so long,” James overdramatized, before skipping down the steps of the porch, two at a time. “Remus, a little space here? I mean, no offense, but…” James trailed off.

Rolling his eyes, Remus stepped to the side to allow his best friend to tackle his boyfriend into an aggressive hug. Remus watched as Sirius’s face switched from panicked to surprised to content. He hugged James back, and locked eyes with Remus, before grinning. 

See? I told you it would be fine, Remus said through raised eyebrows. 

“We still need to have the talk, but I’m glad we get to be friends again,” James announced.

After a brief pause, Sirius said “what?”

“The appreciating Remus Lupin talk,” James clarified. “Maybe we could have it over mini-golf? This weekend?” James proposed the plans with all of the confidence that a normal person would have said “over dinner,” or “over drinks.” Remus rolled his eyes dramatically, even though neither man was looking at him.

“Yes,” Sirius grinned. “I love mini-golf. I haven’t played in so long.”

“Then start practicing, because I’m a master. Sunday?” James asked.

“Sunday,” Sirius confirmed.

Remus looked at them. They still hadn’t taken their eyes off each other. “I can’t believe this is already happening again,” he said.

In response, Sirius gave him a heart-melting smile, and reached out a hand. Remus accepted the gesture, and Sirius smiled wider as he laced their fingers together. At the same time, James said “it’s okay, Remus, you can hang out with Lily.”

Just like old times, Remus thought. 

“Okay, let’s go inside,” Remus said. 

They found Hope in the kitchen, heating the oven. “Mom, Sirius is here,” Remus introduced unnecessarily.

“Hi Ms. Lupin,” Sirius said hesitantly. His smile looked nervous and his hand, still linked with Remus’s, was tense. 

“Hi Sirius,” Hope said warmly. “It’s good to see you again.” She crossed the kitchen and  opened her arms for a hug. Sirius squeezed Remus’s hand twice, briefly, unclasped their fingers, and then accepted the quick embrace. Behind her back, Sirius raised his eyebrows at Remus, and Remus smiled. You’re fine, he mouthed.

“How can I help with dinner?” Sirius asked.

“You can help,” Hope said with a wry look at James and Remus, “by keeping them out of my hair.” At James’s shocked expression she laughed. “No, honey, I’m kidding. Everything is prepped, we’re just waiting for Lily to arrive before we put the pizzas in the oven. There’s chips in the dining room though,” she offered.

“Great, thank you,” Sirius said, still sounding a bit cautiously formal.

“Anything to drink, Sirius?” Hope asked.

“No, I’m fine. Thanks, Ms. Lupin.”

Hope laughed. “It’s just Hope, dear. If we were on a first name basis a few years ago I don’t see why we should revert to formalities.”

Sirius blushed but nodded. Finally addressing the elephant in the room, albeit vaguely, was bound to calm his nerves, Remus thought. Remus grabbed a water glass and filled it, before handing it to Sirius. He may have said no to Hope’s offer, but Remus had a feeling that Sirius wouldn’t have said yes to any possible inconvenience to Hope just now, no matter how small it was. 

After a beat of silence, Remus realized that he should probably say something, as the bridge between everyone there, but Sirius, surprisingly, beat him to it. “Oh my god, is this Taylor’s new album? I haven’t had a chance to listen to it much yet.”

Hope’s eyes lit up. “Yes! Isn’t it so good? Here, let me turn it up a bit-- just a bit, Remus, no need to worry.”

Remus laughed and squeezed Sirius’s hand, before letting his mom and boyfriend leave the kitchen in search of louder Taylor Swift music. 

“Well,” James said. “It appears to be going fine. Almost seems like you didn’t need to worry about it,” he added smugly.

“I wasn’t worried,” Remus lied. “But I did forget how they share music tastes, so I guess I might have been even calmer if I remembered.”

James sputtered, water glass halfway to his lips. “Calmer? Calm? No. You were not calm, oh my god. Saying that you would have been calmer implies that you were already calm. You were the opposite of calm, pacing the floor, looking like a downright fool, all afternoon really, you-”

A knock on the door saved Remus from the rest of James’s speech, which, if left unchecked, was likely to attract a two-person audience from the next room. One of which Remus did not want to hear it, and the other who would only jump-in and add to the ridiculous descriptions of Remus’s behavior. 

Remus opened the door to reveal Lily. He accepted a hug from her and began to offer a drink, but she interrupted him with a sudden steely look. “Where’s the bastard?” she demanded.

Remus raised his eyebrows in shock, while James rounded the corner with a quip of “I hope you don’t mean me.”

“Lily,” Remus tried to whisper. “Sirius is here.”

Undeterred, Lily continued as she entered the house. “Well, good, somebody can tell him that he took my parking spot!” 

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” Remus started to laugh. “Why did you have to do that?”

“I told you you weren’t calm,” James pointed out.

Having heard Lily’s complaints-- intentionally loud, Remus now realized-- Sirius entered the room again. “Do I hear Lily Evans?” he asked with a grin.

“Sirius Black.” She looked him up and down briefly. “Good to see you again,” she finally finished. When he turned around again, Lily mouthed to Remus at least he’s still hot. Remus tried to get her attention with a what? but James was already pulling his girlfriend away to get her a glass of water and explain which pizzas were vegetarian. 

***

“Okay, presentation time! We’re waiting!” James called from his seat on the couch. Lily was leaning onto him with a blanket that Hope had draped across the couple before taking the opposite end.

“Who’s going first?” Lily asked.

Sirius met Remus’s eyes briefly. The two had been standing in the center of the living room while the other three had made popcorn in the kitchen. The scientists were trying to connect Remus’s laptop to the TV screen, as well as take advantage of the rare privacy to exchange a few kisses. 

“I am,” Sirius decided. “I can’t follow up after his, it would make mine look bad. That’s why they made him go last on the actual presentation day.”

“Ooh,” Lily called out, through a mouthful of popcorn. “Compliments for Remus, is he blushing?”

Remus had already turned to the side to take a seat. He decided to ignore Lily, while also setting the record straight about Sirius’s comment. “Sirius, you presented last before the intermission,” he pointed out. “That was intentional, because it would have been hard to present right after yours as well.”

“Thanks Rem,” Sirius gave Remus a small genuine smile. Remus’s chest warmed at the sight of it.

“Oh my god, they’re science-flirting right now! Gross!” James complained.

“I think it’s cute,” Hope decided. “Would you mind passing the popcorn, Lily dear?”

“You better take the bowl for a little while. I think James and I would finish it otherwise.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” James questioned, indignant.

“Okay,” Remus interrupted. “Sirius is presenting now, you can hold your questions until the end, at which time he will welcome questions from Mom and Lily, before attempting to manage whatever batshit you come up with, James.”

James dropped his jaw and looked at Remus in amazement. He sputtered for a few seconds, looking for the right insult to make, but Sirius capitalized on the suddenly quiet peanut gallery by beginning his presentation.

After it ended, Hope led the group in hearty applause. Remus smiled. It was nice to see evidence of his mom’s support, as well as his friends’. Their ready acceptance of Sirius helped Remus remember that he wasn’t doing the wrong thing, and that getting back together with someone after years of growth and change can actually work.

Hope asked the first question. “What was your favorite part of the data collection, Sirius?”

Sirius glanced to Remus once before answering. “Well, getting to explore the area through hikes to find spiders was great, but honestly, my favorite parts were the return trips. We collected data going up the mountains, and then walked back without having to stop every minute, so we could talk more easily,” he rambled. “Basically, those hikes were the first times I got to talk to Remus again.”

Remus heard Lily’s soft aww amidst James’s louder “oh my god that’s adorable,” but he didn’t turn to look at them. Instead, he gazed at Sirius with all of the fondness that he didn’t know he could possess when he first dated Sirius. 

“That was really sweet, now I feel like I can’t ask my question,” James complained.

“Ask away, Jamie, I love attention,” Sirius announced. Remus just shook his head. He knew that Sirius was still feeling the effects of the admission as much as he was, and in a truly Sirius-like method, was encouraging deflection. Remus made a mental note to give Sirius more compliments, and find out if he still became flustered and feigned self-absorption after over-correcting. 

“Are there any spiders that are, like, radioactive?”

Sirius paused. “No.”

“Have you seen Marlene and Spiderman in the same room at the same time before?”

Sirius frowned. “You may be onto something there.”

“Okay,” Lily interrupted. “Remus’s turn. Great job Sirius, your project seems very impressive,” she added pragmatically.

“Thanks Lily,” Sirius smiled, before trading places with Remus.

Once Remus was set up, he looked at the living room before him and almost laughed. His mom was sharing a couch with James and Lily, and they were all excitedly waiting to hear him talk about his summer research. On an adjacent chair sat Sirius Black. He would never have guessed that this is how his summer would end, but he’s glad it is.

A week later, Remus would be back at the Hogwarts Reserve Field Station, next to Sirius, and this time he would be getting paid for it. 

Chapter Text

Remus woke slowly. The sunlight filtered through the room in even rectangles-- a product of the half-open Venetian blinds. He was warm, and he was comfortable. His legs didn’t hurt, and his pillows were soft.

A lazy arm wrapped around his torso, and Remus allowed himself to be pulled closer to Sirius. The taller man sighed in content when they were finally flush against each other. Remus smiled, and began to close his eyes again, when the arm that had been wrapped around him began to move about, patting the other side of the mattress. Stifling a laugh, Remus helped him out by gently reaching his own hand out for it. Sirius grabbed it, and lightly traced patterns over Remus’s fingers. Remus closed his eyes.

When Remus woke again, Sirius was lying on top of him, with arms bracketed on either side of his body. Remus shifted slightly so that he was fully on his back, and looked up at his boyfriend.

“Oh, hi,” Sirius said. His breath was minty fresh.

“Hi,” Remus repeated with a smile. 

“Do you want this?” Sirius asked, holding out an Altoid. 

“You are ridiculous,” Remus said, accepting the mint. 

Sirius began lightly tracing Remus’s collarbone with one hand. “Eat the mint faster,” he purred.

Remus laughed and began to chew it instead. “Again, you’re ridiculous.” He stopped laughing when Sirius leaned down to kiss his neck.

“Okay, the mint’s gone,” Remus announced a second later, and gently angled Sirius’s head up with fingers under his chin. “Kiss me.”

And he did. Eventually, Remus carded fingers through Sirius’s hair, and eventually Sirius broke the kiss to tell Remus how gorgeous he is. Eventually Remus flipped them over to gain control, and eventually Sirius took it back again.

Eventually, they got out of bed. They entered the research station’s giant kitchen, and Sirius set about the process of making coffee. Minerva was vacationing with Pomona for the week, so it was just the two men at the station. Remus set out a frying pan to make eggs, but didn’t turn the burner on yet.

He waited for Sirius’s attention before walking over to the normal fridge, opening it, moving aside multiple bags of produce, and pulling out a slightly-lopsided pink frosted cake. “Happy birthday, Sirius.”

“What? How? Behind the spinach?” Sirius sputtered.

“I knew you’d never check the normal fridge. Ever since Minnie left you’ve only been  using the No fridge,” Remus explained triumphantly. 

“When did you even make this?” Sirius questioned, still grinning.

“When I sent you off to do the water quality testing by yourself yesterday.”

“I thought you were tired!” Sirius accused. “I can’t believe- I fell in, you know. To the water. All by myself. It was very cold.”

“I know,” Remus laughed. “I wouldn’t have had time to finish if you hadn’t.”

Sirius laughed and pulled Remus closer to him for a deep kiss.

Remus eventually pulled away and finished the task at hand: lighting the singular candle affixed to the cake. “I won’t be singing to you because I have it on good authority that ‘the worst part of birthdays is trying to figure out what to do while people sing at you,’” he quoted.

“God, I love you,” Sirius muttered, then froze.

“Yeah?” Remus asked. He let out a nervous laugh before nodding. “Good. I love you too.”

Sirius smiled, and then laughed, and then crashed their lips together again. When they finally pulled away, Sirius’s eyes were glossy. Getting to the ‘I love you’ stage was something they had never done before. It held weight in their relationship. 

“I’m not going to lose you again,” Sirius promised.

“I know,” Remus returned. “Now please blow out the candle because it’s just dripping wax on the frosting now.”

“You’re ridiculous,” Sirius muttered fondly, before blowing out the candle. 

***

“What do you want to do after this?” Remus asked, as they walked up the hill towards Ilvermorny Meadows. They would be walking plant-pollinator monitoring transects again, but this time, Remus did not intend to get stung by any bees.

“Probably just relax,” Sirius answered. “Maybe you can read to me?” he added with a shy smile. 

Remus’s heart soared. Reading to Sirius began back during high school, before their first relationship. Sirius had declared a book to be boring, and Remus had decided that he just wasn’t reading it properly. Sirius ended up loving Remus’s voice more than the plots of the novels, but the arrangement stuck. It was during one of those times when Sirius first laid his head down in Remus’s lap, and Remus-- slightly panicked-- only pitched the words slightly higher in surprise. 

“Yeah, we can do that,” Remus agreed. “It’s your birthday, after all.”

“I don’t really like my birthday.” Sirius shrugged.

“I know.” Remus knew all about Sirius’s contentious past with birthdays-- or any celebrations really, with his complicated family.

“But I like spending it with you,” Sirius added.

Remus just squeezed his hand in response.

“But,” Remus emphasized, suddenly remembering. “That’s not what I meant. I meant to ask, what do you want to do after this, after, like, this job at the station ends?”

Sirius nodded in thought. He absentmindedly drew circles on Remus’s hand with his thumb, a habit Remus had learned accompanied the rarer moments of actual silence from Sirius Black.

“I think I’d like to get my teaching credential,” he eventually said. From the tone of his voice, and the fact that Remus had never heard Sirius express such an interest, the thought was completely new to him as well.

“Really?” Remus asked. “You’d be a great teacher.”

“Thanks Rem. But, I don’t know. Isn’t teaching kind of, well, below our expertise grade or something? Like, people expect us to get Ph.Ds.” 

“Minnie is a teacher,” Remus defended. “She taught us. And she still does her own research and publishes it.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Sirius allowed. “But what about, like, elementary school?”

Remus smiled. “You would be every child’s favorite elementary school teacher.”

Sirius grinned. “I could teach them that bugs aren’t scary. They’re impressionable at that age,” he mused.

“You could,” Remus nodded.

“I think I would still want to do research,” Sirius said after a pause. “Maybe on the side.”

“You’d get your summers off,” Remus pointed out.

“True. And, I don’t know, the thought of having to publish as many papers as possible just to keep a job in academia seems kind of stressful. Maybe I could find a better balance on my own.”

“Yeah, that’d be great,” Remus agreed. “You know, I think you’d succeed at whatever you tried to do.” 

Sirius squeezed his hand. Not two times, for “let go,” but three times, for “I love you.”

They continued to walk in quiet thought for a bit. Eventually Sirius asked Remus the same question. 

“I want to go to graduate school,” Remus answered.

“Master’s or Ph.D?” Sirius asked. Does he want to spend two years getting a Master’s degree, or at least five years getting a Ph.D, he meant.

“Maybe start with a Master’s. If I like it, I could stay for the Ph.D.”

“You’d do well in graduate school. You’ve already written enough papers to get in easily enough.”

Remus smiled at the compliment. He was almost finished with the manuscript that he and Dorcas had started writing at the end of the summer, and it would likely be published soon. “Maybe I could become a professor,” Remus mused.

“What do you mean maybe?” Sirius questioned. “You could definitely become a professor. You’d be the sexy professor that all your students have a crush on. You’d get tons of aggressively flirtatious teaching evaluations. I’ll have to come to all of your office hours to beat them away with a stick.”

Remus had to stop walking in order to recover from his laughter. “You’re so ridiculous.”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Good.”

“Good,” Remus repeated. “Come on, let’s get these transects done so we can make it back to the station with plenty of time for me to read to you.”

“Perfect.”

***

The year went by quickly, faster than Remus would have predicted. Maybe it was just a product of getting older, he mused. Or, maybe instead, a product of being content. 

They collected data on hikes, they analyzed it in the library. They cooked meals in the kitchen, they ate them together side-by-side at the table. Sometimes Minnie joined them, and sometimes other researchers visited the station. When Marlene and Dorcas came to stay at the station again for a week, the group of four reunited with plenty of antics and bickering. 

“We’re back!” Marlene sing-songed as she swung open the door to the field station on a clear morning in March.

“Oh my god,” Sirius stressed. “It’s been too long.” Remus knew that the two entomologists had been staying in touch via texting, but it wasn’t the same as spending entire days together like they had during the summer. 

Remus dodged the haphazard mass in the doorway that was Sirius and Marlene with their arms suddenly flung around each other, and hugged Dorcas, much more calmly. The two of them had been in contact as well, mostly through conversations about their manuscript edits.

“It’s good to see you again,” Remus said.

“You look good,” Dorcas pointed out. “Happier. Or just less stressed?”

Remus grinned. “Happier.”

Sirius suggested a short hike for the group of four, but the two women had to collect data on a specific hike that would take the entire day. Sirius and Remus’s daily station maintenance kept them from tagging along, but they were able to reconnect at dinner.

“Sirius, why did you make me chop the onion? You’re such a hoe,” Marlene complained. She had been sniffing and blinking a lot, in a futile effort to not cry.

“Sorry babe, I forgot that you’re incapable of helping out in the kitchen,” Sirius quipped back. “Also, I’m not a hoe. I’m only a hoe for Remus.”

Remus grimaced as Minerva walked into the kitchen, likely only hearing the last part of his boyfriend/coworker’s statement. Seemingly in answer, Minerva shrugged at Remus. “I’ve heard him say a lot worse.”

Dorcas laughed, from Remus’s side where she was stationed, peeling potatoes. 

The sound of her laughter drew Minerva’s attention towards her. “And I’ve heard Ms. McKinnon say plenty worse than Mr. Black! Don’t think I didn’t notice it, Ms. Meadowes. I know exactly what happened this summer.”

Dorcas’s dark skin flushed red, and it was Remus’s turn to laugh. “If you noticed, why didn’t you say anything?” he asked.

“I have a bit of a selective blindspot for the queer couples,” Minerva confessed. “But if anyone else asks, it’s because I was busy giving the hundredth ‘talking to’ to Mr. Frank Longbottom and Ms. Alice Wood.”

“They’re together now!” Sirius announced from across the kitchen. Apparently the entomologists had begun listening once Minerva mentioned their names. “Well, they always were, I think since, like, week two. But they posted the grossest captions on Valentine’s Day.”

“I saw those!” Marlene joined in. “I thought they like, got engaged or something.”

“Imagine their wedding vows,” Sirius continued. “They’d be absolutely revolting. I hope I get invited so I can witness it.” 

“Mr. Black,” Minerva cut in, with a wry smile. “Was it not you that I spoke to a few mornings ago, when I was told all of the reasons why Mr. Lupin is God’s gift to this Earth?”

Dorcas awwed, Marlene flicked a piece of onion at Sirius, Sirius blushed. Remus shook his head, fondly. 

***

Since one of them was supposed to be at the station at all times, Sirius would stay back while Remus occasionally visited his mom and friends on a rare weekend. One morning, soon after Dorcas and Marlene departed, Remus thought about how long it had been since he visited home. It was difficult sometimes, to make the long drive home, when it meant he had to forgo a weekend of sleeping in and waking up slowly, intertwined with Sirius.

“Hey, Sirius?” 

“Yeah babe?” Sirius was on his way back to the kitchen counter from the No fridge, holding the caramel-flavored creamer he and Minnie liked in their coffee. 

Remus, sitting at the counter with his own morning coffee between his hands, smiled at the nickname. “How long has it been since I visited home?”

“Like two days ago,” Sirius instantly said. “If you went back anytime soon they would think you’re too clingy.”

Remus laughed. “Are you trying to get me to stay here?”

Sirius shook his head matter-of-factly. “Just trying to prevent anyone from thinking you were clingy, is all.”

“But you trying to get me to stay here isn’t clingy?” Remus asked with a smile. “Don’t worry, I’m not going home this weekend or anything. I’ll call my mom soon though. And also James. He’s been too quiet lately, it’s making me anxious.”

“Anxious like you’re worried about him?” Sirius asked.

“Anxious as in, like, he’s plotting something.”

Sirius laughed, shaking his head. 

“Hey, what’s our plan for today?” Remus asked, finally addressing their work duties. Sirius’s influence had finally slowed Remus down from getting work started before coffee to sometime after the first mug was poured. During their first days of the full-time job, Remus had tried to talk to Sirius about their work schedule before getting out of bed. Sirius had been much more well-equipped to distract and impede Remus’s work ethic in that arena than in the more-public kitchen.

“We are…” Sirius trailed off, flipping through pages on an oversized clipboard bolted to the kitchen wall. It should really just be a bulletin board, Remus realized. But perhaps that didn’t suit Minerva’s aesthetic as nicely. “We’re prepping a room for a new researcher and doing their basic onboarding, because they haven’t done research here before.”

“Oh, cool,” Remus said. They hadn’t had a new researcher visit since Marlene and Dorcas. “What field?”

“Botany.”

“Nice. Who is it? Any name I might recognize?”

“Lames Pevans.”

“What?”

“Lames Pevans?” Sirius repeated. “That ring any bells?”

Remus shrugged. “No, I don’t think so.”

About an hour later, James arrived, and Remus wanted to kill him. He chose to book a stay at the field station under a lackluster pseudonym, one which merely combined his name with Lily’s. To Remus’s surprise, he was not, in fact, fired because of it. 

He went looking for his boss, and found Minerva in the library, typing away at a laptop computer. After he did his best to explain the situation to her, framing it as best he could, she surprisingly shrugged it off.

“Remus, I’m sure any best friend of yours is going to be a perfectly acceptable addition to the station for forty-eight hours. Just make sure he doesn’t distract you from your work anymore than Mr. Black does.”

Remus laughed, nodding. “Okay, will do.”

A few hours later, Minerva had regretfully realized that no, a best friend of Remus does not mean he will behave like Remus. Instead, he is an amplified version of Sirius Black. Minerva seemed thoroughly exasperated by the end of James’s short “research residency,” but accepted the invitation to his future wedding all the same. 

***

In the spring, the flowers began to bloom again, and Remus spent more and more time in the field observing them. Sirius always accompanied him.

“What are you thinking about?” Sirius asked Remus as they sat together in a vast meadow.

“Flowers,” Remus answered.

“Yeah? Anything more specific?”

“How flowering time responds to climate change. The different responses in different species, in terms of flowering earlier, or flowering later in response to warmer winters,” Remus elaborated.

Sirius exhaled a puff of air in amusement and squeezed his knee.

“Why, what are you thinking about?” Remus eventually asked. 

“You,” Sirius answered.

Remus smiled. “Yeah? Anything more specific?” he echoed.

“How lucky I am, to be sitting here with you,” Sirius elaborated. 

Remus turned to look at his boyfriend’s profile, a soft smile on his face.

“We’re in a field of blooming flowers,” Sirius continued. “And it’s spring, and we’ve been together since September. And you’re still the person who knows me best. And I’m happy.”

Remus’s eyes began to tingle. He reached for Sirius’s hand.

“And I’m happy that I get to love you again,” Sirius said. “When we broke up, I thought- maybe. Maybe, it could work out somehow in the distant future. But I always pictured you moving on, and becoming happy again, and I wanted that for you. I really did. Because I just wanted you to be happy. But I’m glad that it worked out like this.”

“You make me happy,” Remus said. “I’ve done a lot of reflecting, over the months, and I think I’ve changed my mind on how I felt about a lot of stuff regarding our breakup.”

Sirius stayed quiet, giving Remus the space to talk. Instead of speaking, he lightly traced lines on Remus’s leg. 

“I used to think that we didn’t need to break up, and that we would have been able to stay together and still be together today. But I’ve changed my mind. I think you were right-- we did need to break up, because we both needed to grow. I thought about you every day since we broke up-”

Sirius squeezed his knee again in response. 

“-and I couldn’t move on. I couldn’t successfully enter a new relationship, because I was still hung up on you. But during that time I think I finally worked on myself. I was happy to be with you. And then I was unhappy to be single. But then I grew, and I figured out a lot of things about myself that made me finally able to be happy again, even while single. That’s when I think I could have finally tried dating again, for real, but I still thought about you every day.”

Sirius smiled, and leaned his head against Remus’s shoulder. Remus laced their fingers together.

“We both changed, and we both grew,” Sirius eventually said. “And I’m happy that we’re still here together, or finally here together.”

They both contemplated the silence for a moment. Sirius’s arm draped around Remus’s waist, and the latter nestled in closer to the former. Eventually, Sirius broke the quiet.

“Have you ever made out in front of a meadow of newly blooming flowers?” 

“You’re shameless,” Remus said through a grin.

“Only for you,” Sirius defended.

“Okay then,” Remus decided.

“Okay, what?” Sirius questioned.

“Okay, so kiss me. Let’s make out,” Remus said.

“Remus!” Sirius announced, scandalized. “Outside? In public? You’re completely shameless, you dog,” he chastised.

“Once again, utterly ridiculous,” Remus turned away with a haughty smile.

“Hey, come back,” Sirius protested. “Make out with me.”

***

One morning, Remus woke up early, and took advantage of his reduction in sleep by staring at Sirius. The other man was sleeping soundly on his stomach, with his head on his extended right arm, facing towards Remus’s side of the bed. His bare back was only partly obscured by the sheets.

Sirius looked peaceful. And he was. In Remus’s life, Sirius, amidst all of his character and extraversion and funny quips and genuine laughter, represented peace. For nearly four years, while they were apart, Sirius represented turbulence. Remus’s thoughts would drift back to the what ifs and the remember whens, but everything was viewed through an uncertain lens. What would life look like, in the future? What would Remus’s love life look like? Would he even get to have one, after Sirius? Or was his one high school relationship that ended abruptly one November night all that he got?

Now, Sirius represented peace. Remus felt calm to be with him, and he felt safe. He was grateful that Sirius was a part of his life again, and he was, with minor reservations, grateful for their time apart. They grew into the men they are today, and now they are growing, together. 

The light fell gently on Sirius’s unconscious form. Remus thought about getting up to adjust the blinds, but decided to not risk disturbing the moment. Instead, he settled slightly against his pillow, still looking at his beautiful boyfriend. With feather-light touches, Remus began to trace along Sirius’s hip.

“Were you staring at me?” Sirius suddenly asked, with a scratchy morning voice that Remus loved hearing.

“No,” Remus said, smiling.

“Okay,” Sirius said loftily, and Remus watched him settle back against his pillow. “That feels nice,” he whispered. Remus continued to trace along the other man’s back in response.

“Why are you so far away?” Sirius complained.

“What?” Remus laughed. “I’m right here.”

Sirius grunted, and in response turned over and hauled Remus on top of him with two strong arms. “Much better,” Sirius whispered, then closed his eyes again.

“What?” Remus asked, indignant. “You’re just going to go back to sleep again?”

Frowning, Sirius opened his eyes. “It’s comfortable,” he defended. “You’re warm.”

Remus huffed, but settled against Sirius’s chest anyway.

“Why?” Sirius suddenly asked. “Did you have a better idea?” 

Remus squirmed slightly as he felt warm hands slowly move down his back. 

“Hm?” Sirius prompted again, with a knowing smile.

“Shut up,” Remus muttered, and buried his face in Sirius’s shoulder.

“No, I want to see you,” Sirius complained. When Remus lifted his head up again, Sirius smiled brightly. “You’re insanely cute, you know that right?”

Remus felt his cheeks begin to warm, and he smiled. “I know you have a bit of thing about not kissing in the morning until we’ve brushed our teeth or something, but we’re still out of those mints, and-”

“Kiss me,” Sirius interrupted. “Just kiss me.”

Remus laughed, and then he did.

“I love you,” Sirius whispered.

“I love you too,” Remus returned, then gasped as something ice-cold pressed against his calves. “Why are your feet so cold, oh my god.”

Sirius laughed. “I’m sorry, I am, but I don’t take it back.”

Remus tried for a huff of disdain, but it came off more as a shocked noise of disapproval. He tried to mask his laughter, but he knew Sirius felt it anyway.

“I love you,” Sirius repeated.

“I love you too.” And he did. And he would. And whatever the future threw at them, Remus was ready to face it, because he was happy to be in love with Sirius. If life was uncertain, and it was, as Remus knew, then the future held infinite what ifs. But if love was a choice, and it was, as Remus knew, then all he had to do was keep choosing to love Sirius. It was simple, and it was familiar, and it was home.