Whatever frustration had been building deflated immediately, Sirius’ words startling enough to wipe the slate clean. Remus’ expression wavered, a flicker of something youthful and afraid, the black pit of the war seeming to grow even deeper in that moment.
“Are you serious,” he said, a shaky incredibility. It wasn’t even a question, familiar enough with Sirius’ anger to know he wasn’t joking around.
Shifting forward, Remus reached over to push the other chair at the table away from it, a rough invitation for Sirius to stop fidgeting and take a seat, desperate to see this conversation to an end.
“He’s an infant,” Remus repeated.

While Sirius easily saw the offer from Remus for him to sit down he feared that allowing his body even that amount of rest would make him fall asleep immediately. Instead, he stayed standing and smoking his cigarette impatiently, wondering what more they could possibly have to talk about.
“It’s mostly speculation, I honestly can’t remember what it said exactly,” he stated, running a hand through his hair, which was already a mess, and feeling so absolutely dejected and hopeless. “But people are taking it seriously enough that we found it best to hide them away. Rumours o the grapevine is that You Know Who is taking it very seriously.”

_________________

Sirius’ rejection was small and insignificant, and yet it made Remus’ frustration reignite, feeling cast aside by Sirius’ nonchalance. It once again made his jaw clench, feeling the urge to yell at Sirius for it, but he knew that wasn’t the issue; everything else was.
“So what, they’re just gone until -” Remus started, but the sentence lost its punch when he couldn’t get the ending out. It felt like such terrible, helpless odds to think they’d all survive this, that James and Lily would ever have an opportunity to come out of hiding - or that Remus would even be there to receive them.
“When was this?”

There was something devastating in seeing Remus trying to make sense of everything that had been going on since he had left, but it was as if the feeling never really took hold within him, instead passing through him briefly as an echo of something he had felt a long time ago.
“A couple of days ago,” he said, the dates blurring together for him to a point where he wasn’t actually sure when James and Lily had left the safe house, but he knew that it had at least been a couple of days.
Once his cigarette was smoked down to the filter Sirius pulled out his pack once more, figuring that as long as he kept standing and smoking he would be able to keep having a conversation.
“It was very sudden and we had to work fast.”

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When Remus had asked the question he had had no expectations as to what the correct answer would be, but it soon became clear that this wasn’t it. It was once again Sirius’ nonchalance that stabbed him between the ribs and the desperation and panic of knowing Remus must have only just missed it, and the absolute devastation of what that would entail.
“It couldn’t have waited a few days? I haven’t seen them in months and now -” Remus felt nauseous at the thought, his anger momentarily giving way to something young and scared. It was so ****ing different knowing anybody could die at any time, it was a different thing entirely knowing for sure you had seen someone for the last time.
Anger soon settled back onto Remus’ expression, a much easier emotion to process. “You knew I was coming back.”

Something within Sirius snapped at Remus’ question, utterly unable to comprehend how Remus could be so blind to the reality of their situation.
Obviously, they couldn’t just have waited a couple of days to move James, Lily and Harry, otherwise they might have found a better way to do it, not when their lives were at stake the way that they were.
Furthermore, if You Know Who caught wind of which safe house they were kept in, there really would be no telling what kind of consequences that would have for the rest of them.
“Well tough,” he stated, feeling so raw and emotional that he was amazed that he managed to still be standing. “Sorry we didn’t prioritise you seeing them when their lives were in danger, but I guess that we should have just taken that chance, yeah?”

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Remus looked like he’d been slapped. Over the course of their friendship, Remus had not been a
stranger to the feeling of being just on the outskirts of Sirius’ and James’ friendship, but never had it struck him this much in the face.
“That’s not what I said,” he staggered, still visibly shaken at the accusation.
Bitterness soon took its place, blooming somewhere deep in his chest with roots that spanned not only days but months, if not years. Remus was tired and malnourished and suddenly overcome with an almost childish sense of things being unfair, of Sirius not caring about Remus’ life as much as he cared about James’.
“You’re so ****ing holy, Sirius,” Remus bit, fuel to the fire. “It’s so easy for you to do the right thing when it also just happens to serve you. You got to say goodbye, because you’ve been with them this whole ****ing time.”