When I walk into the Three Broomsticks, my eyes are drawn immediately to the two men sitting at a corner table. One, with long black hair falling messily in front of his face, seems completely comfortable being here. He is holding a bottle of Butterbeer between his hands, balancing on the back two legs of his chair. He is well aware that every eye in the room is on him, and he seems utterly at ease with this knowledge. The other man is more subdued, his face more serious, his greying brown hair cut short and neat to his face. There are lines of worry and care around his eyes, and they dart around the room, assessing, discerning.
The two men are deep in some conversation, easy with each other. The words flow between them as they talk, unaware that I am there, laughing and murmuring, casual touches to each other’s shoulders and arms. It seems to me that if two men who’ve known each for over twenty years can’t be comfortable with one another, no one can.
Remus Lupin, former Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor at the esteemed Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, sees me first, a smile creeping onto his lips as he nudges his companion to look in my direction. Sirius Black, the first man to ever escape from Azkaban turns, sees me, and his chair clatters back onto all four legs as I make my way over to their table.
Introductions are made, memories of the years we shared in Hogwarts discussed and then we get down to business: discussing the history of two men so intertwined, neither is ever mentioned without the other. Remus and Sirius. Black and Lupin. Never will either of these men enter memory or thought without the other.
It seems that everyone is aware of Remus Lupin’s lycanthropy, and how could they not? The scandal that surrounded his leaving of Hogwarts at the end of his first year teaching was discussed for months. It needs no saying that Professor Severus Snape’s slip in the Slytherin Common Room, the day after Peter Pettigrew was revealed to be a traitor was, in fact, no slip. The animosity existing between the Marauders and Severus“more notably the tension between Black and Snape“ is nearly the stuff of legend at Hogwarts. This reporter clearly remembers the days of “Snivellus” and, take my word, lives to regret it as well.
The crux of the matter seems to have been a cataclysmic event back in their own days of school when, after much goading, a young Sirius informed the curious Severus precisely where he could find the missing Remus. The fact that this was on the night of the full moon did not occur to him until it was nearly too late; James Potter made a spectacular rescue, saving Severus’s life, and all were sworn to secrecy.
(Those students wishing to know precisely how to sneak off the Hogwarts grounds, without actually, technically, leaving them at all, may contact this reporter directly for the information.)
It would appear though, that Remus had taken no part in this midnight adventure. It is at this point that Sirius explains something that has confused all those who knew them until now: the nicknames.
Five minutes into a conversation with them and you will realize that, despite appearances, Sirius is actually the more affectionate of the pair. He constantly touches Remus, is always on the other’s defense and refers to Remus, for a large part, as ‘Moony.’ Knowing that Remus is, in fact, a lycanthrope, leaves no question as to the choice. And Sirius uses it almost lovingly, endearingly, his eyes turning to Remus with each recitation of the name as if seeking approval. As though asking, “Is it okay that I’m doing this?”
Remus is, easily, the more reserved. He uses Sirius’s nickname, Padfoot, only once. Although, it must be said, that he says it with such fondness in his voice, such care with just the slightest touch of humor, that there is no doubt to the fact that he cares as much about Sirius as Sirius obviously cares about him. And knows the one or two dirty little secrets as well.
It is, frankly, entertaining to watch the both of them communicate. There are moments during our meeting when the eleven-year-old in each shines through with the need for acceptance and approval; Remus comes from a life he calls cursed until he met his fellow Marauders while Sirius comes from the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black“a legacy that, it assumes, will end with him. His childhood, it might be said, had not been much easier. Pressured by his parents and family, he let them down when he Sorted into Gryffindor instead of Slytherin, and was disowned in his sixteenth year of life.
And then there are the moments when the seventeen-year-old in them is dominant. The need to be better, bigger, stronger. Lewder. It is Remus who claps a hand over Sirius’s mouth as he is about to reveal a secret that would no doubt shake the foundations of every marriage in the Wizarding World and probably grant every wizard reading this article a sense of validation they might have been missing with the prospect of the eternally handsome Sirius Black out on the loose and...in theory, free to steal their wives from them.
Ladies“Sirius Black is taken. And you have never laid your eyes on a happier kept man.
We move on in our discussion and when the matter of Peter Pettigrew is brought up at the start of our interview by Remus, Sirius mutters darkly, “I don’t know how you can even say his name.”
Remus replies, both sounding and looking long-suffering, as though they’ve had this conversation too many times already, and is tired of Sirius’s apparent lack of maturity in this issue, “Some of us, Sirius, actually spent our twenties growing up.”
Sirius makes an unpleasant face, a twisted mixture of hurt and betrayed anger. “Well. Pardon me for being in prison for a crime I didn’t commit,” he says, glaring.
An angry silence passes over the table for a few moments, and it is clear that there is some forgiving that is going to happen in private, once they leave this interview.
I bring the conversation to more neutral topics, discussing Hogwarts once more before we move on to a more somber note and the real interview. It was clear, within moments, that Remus Lupin is a man who has carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. A veritable Atlas of mythology, he has suffered, subjected to pity when it seemed to the world that he had been taken in by the charismatic Sirius, a man who they believed to be a murderer and traitor.
When I ask Remus what it was like, being the only one left
after the death of the Potters, he is quiet for a moment, before he explains to me“ever the teacher“precisely what he felt and why. There are no one word answers from this man; it is nearly a history lesson of his life.
“These three boys had risked their lives to make mine a little easier,” he says slowly, trying to explain his relationship with his friends in school, referring to their decision to become Animagi in the foursome’s fifth year to make his own transformations less violent and less lonely. He goes on, trying to adequately describe his shock upon finding out, for all intents of purposes, that it was Sirius who murdered the Potters and Peter, as well as the thirteen Muggles. He admits that Sirius and James were closer friends than the two of them were, and, when Sirius attempts to deny this, shushes the denial with an impatient noise.
“I could not accept that Sirius had done it,” Remus says. “I refused to. Sirius and James were closer than anyone else I knew in the world.”
Then comes the attempt to explain his feelings at the time. “Betrayed,” he begins. “Hurt. Abandoned. Unloved.” He pauses, stuck in memories so painful they don’t seem to want reliving. Sirius is staring at Remus, nearly unblinking as Remus speaks. It seems that Sirius must know what Remus is talking about“it can not be that he does not“and yet, it almost seems as though he is seeing his friend in a new light as Remus says, “I had no friends, no family and no means of support; no one would hire a werewolf who had been the closest friend to Sirius Black“betrayer of the Potters; murderer of Pettigrew and thirteen Muggles with a single curse.”
Concentrating on Remus, it is only out of the corner of my eye that I see Sirius flinch at this accusation, this conviction that has hung over his head for nearly all his adult life. There are moments when it is clear that this is a man who spent his formative adult years without human company, stuck behind bars.
When I ask him about what their reunion was like, on that now fabled night in the Shrieking Shack, Sirius considers me. “It was the most decisive moment of my life,” he says finally. When I ask him to elaborate, he explains, “Up until that point, excluding Azkaban, my entire life had been based on living up to other people’s expectations, or failing to do so. Whether it was my friends, parents, extended family, Professors or even other students who expected some kind of explosion at least once a day“I had worked myself into a place where I was expected to please everyone.”
He pauses, and then continues, “Seeing Remus again, after all that time, all that history, all that we had between us“ I knew that I had to prove my innocence to Remus for me; to live up to what I knew I was, even if the rest of the world didn’t know, or chose not to believe. I deserved happiness and I was going to get it. For me.”
There is steel in his voice when he says this and I am now looking at a man who has put his foot down; whether the Fates allow it or not, he is going to be happy for the rest of his life. Even if he has to hunt down the Fates themselves.
But, as everyone in the Wizarding world knows, that night in the Shack did not see the two Marauders with a proper reunion. All their time up until that point had been spent proving Sirius free of the murders and Peter Pettigrew guilty of them. Any conversation that took place were those of two men independent of one another; the explanations for the acts of two men trying to survive in the only way they had seen possible, in the moment, twelve years earlier. And once they left the Shack, towing along, as everyone knows, an unconscious Snape, a broken-footed Weasley and a chained Peter“well. The full moon was up and out.
Says Remus of the moment he remembered, so caught up in the reunion that he had forgotten, “It was terrible. The werewolf transformation is one of the most painful things a human body can suffer. Added to that the knowledge that my students were watching, that they were in danger, that it was going to be another three days before I could have a proper talk with Sirius“”
He cuts himself off, silent for a long moment.
“It was not a happy full moon,” he says finally.
It needs no saying that the Forbidden Forest’s animal population was considerably dwindled that night as the werewolf feverishly exercised its urge and nature to destroy.
But a few days later, the pair reunited in Egypt, coming together once again as they had been all those years ago. They claim to a myriad of emotions, a kaleidoscope of feelings overwhelming them at the time of reunion. They do not say anything more than that, careful to keep those moments and memories to themselves. They seem firmly resolved that no one else but the other will ever know any details about that meeting, and, aside for telling me which country they reunited in, the pair is tightlipped.
And so our formal interview ends and it was now my time to to give their words purpose and flow. Drive. So I go home...and I think. After a few hours, and a Floo-ed conversation to clear a few matters, this is what I see:
One can believe that upon leaving Hogwarts, upon reminiscing over the seven years of their friendship that they would have sworn to one another, the Marauders four, to stay friends forever. Their seventeen-year-old selves would not and could not have imagined ever existing as anything other than the Marauders. They were four souls, united in a chance Sorting that bound them together, in a friendship that bound them to one another in a way that is and was nothing less than magical.
No one could have foreseen the tragedies that would face these young men, fresh into the adult world. No one could have guessed the choices any of them would make, through force or free will. No one could have known of Peter’s deception, James’s bravery, Sirius’s silent suffering for an evil he did not commit or Remus’s quiet vigil, watching and waiting for the moment, the day that the truth would will out.
No one could have seen the need for any of these things.
It is certain that none of the Marauders did, either. Certainly, from what we know of them, of their years in Hogwarts, their time fighting for the Order, their friendship and love for one another“it is certain that their teen-age selves would not have believed their adult selves capable of what they did, in fact, do.
Peter’s treachery tore the Marauders apart. Believed dead, believed murdered by Sirius’s hand, the two ‘surviving’ Marauders were forced apart as Sirius was dragged to Azkaban and Remus attempted to recreate some semblance of a life for himself“Alone. Neither Sirius nor Remus had ever been alone, and they certainly had never been apart from one another since they were eleven. Both suffered an equally terrible sentence for the twelve years of Sirius’s imprisonment; Sirius a convicted murderer, innocent of his crime, kept in a place that breeds depression while Remus built a cage of solitude around himself, a prison of emotions and a dignity he insisted on maintaining.
The twelve years passed, seeming unending as Remus fought to survive a world too harsh for his kind. His kind. When I ask him about that, a quick dark look passes over his eyes before he slowly says, “It was unfair to ostracize the werewolves for a curse they did not ask for or invite. Though the old prejudices still exist, I am pleased that since the Last Battle...my kind is being treated more humanly.”
But survive it he did, coming full circle to teach in Hogwarts. We all know the story of that night, so glorified in publications past. But what of their reunion? What of the reunion of two men so connected, so tied together, they share a relationship closer than friend, closer than brother? When I speak with them again, hoping for a slip, they still do not divulge anything more than the country the reunion took place in.
I have watched these men, this Sirius Black and Remus Lupin. The convict and the confidant The Dark Arts Professor and the Dark Creature. I can not help but watch them, watch their exchanges and behaviors. It is a marvelous thing to behold, these two men who have suffered, together in their solitude when they were apart in body; these men who watch each other, each gesture, movement and word. There is an almost tangible wariness in their eyes and you can almost see that they are forcing themselves to blink, to break the eye contact, the fear that the other might not be there when their eyes open once more.
It is heartbreaking and devastating to see this pain in the eyes of two men who should have been famous for their accomplishments in the Wizarding world, not for the betrayal of a man believed to be friend who’s treason changed the world. This pain that is nearly hidden, but not quite. A pain that is there on surface, if you so choose to look.
But if you do look, and they so wish that you would, that you would seek to look beyond the external visage the media has painted over them“if you look beyond this, behind this you will see...happiness. Calm. Ease.
You will see there, in front of you, two men who have suffered. Men who have lived longer than their years, beyond them and ahead of them. You will see history with unimaginable depths, unbelievable twists and turns.
You will see, if you look, the story of two men who loved.