There are limits to freedom, and they go like this:
Never assume that you are safe. Never assume you're not looked for. Curfews. Closed curtains. Meals at home. Avoid villages and public spaces. Keep indoors if possible. If you must go out, charms. And never stay out for long.
But Sirius has long had his own disguise, better than charms or false beards or anything like that. It's what got him out of Azkaban--that, and the bleak knowledge of his own innocence, a poor sort of talisman to hold against darkness unfathomable.
Remus hasn't said how he came by this cottage. Sirius hasn't much pressed the issue. He doesn't know that he wants to know the answer. Thinking of it in those terms feels like bedding down in a corner somewhere, turning nose to tail, turning inward. This is also something he has had a long time to practice at.
It's the company he finds himself most unused to. There is only one bedroom, and one bed. They trade off. Sometimes Sirius makes a joke about it. Sometimes he sleeps under the bed, or rather, Padfoot does. The narrow sofa in the parlor is covered in black dog hair and sags rather more in the middle than it used to. When Sirius wakes up, it's usually with a start, with the bedsheets stuck to his chest with sweat. And then the smell of tea, which is something so clean and simple he barely knows what to do with it.
Crossword puzzles, awful ones, out of the muggle newspapers Remus fetches from the village. Trying out this shit and borrowed wand. One afternoon, rather late, Sirius is going through the cupboards because he can't stand doing nothing any longer, because he's wearing a tract in the floorboards, and while he's rummaging he finds a bottle of brandy.
"Is it yours?" He turns around and presents the bottle to Remus, who is sat across the room. "Didn't take you for having grown up to be a brandy man, Lupin."
Lupin is easier to say than Moony, sometimes. If he thinks about it. The bottle is dusty. Sirius swipes a thumb across the label and reads it aloud. "'Dragon Barrel'. A man of middling taste, anyways."
hey there fellow grandpa
Never assume that you are safe. Never assume you're not looked for. Curfews. Closed curtains. Meals at home. Avoid villages and public spaces. Keep indoors if possible. If you must go out, charms. And never stay out for long.
But Sirius has long had his own disguise, better than charms or false beards or anything like that. It's what got him out of Azkaban--that, and the bleak knowledge of his own innocence, a poor sort of talisman to hold against darkness unfathomable.
Remus hasn't said how he came by this cottage. Sirius hasn't much pressed the issue. He doesn't know that he wants to know the answer. Thinking of it in those terms feels like bedding down in a corner somewhere, turning nose to tail, turning inward. This is also something he has had a long time to practice at.
It's the company he finds himself most unused to. There is only one bedroom, and one bed. They trade off. Sometimes Sirius makes a joke about it. Sometimes he sleeps under the bed, or rather, Padfoot does. The narrow sofa in the parlor is covered in black dog hair and sags rather more in the middle than it used to. When Sirius wakes up, it's usually with a start, with the bedsheets stuck to his chest with sweat. And then the smell of tea, which is something so clean and simple he barely knows what to do with it.
Crossword puzzles, awful ones, out of the muggle newspapers Remus fetches from the village. Trying out this shit and borrowed wand. One afternoon, rather late, Sirius is going through the cupboards because he can't stand doing nothing any longer, because he's wearing a tract in the floorboards, and while he's rummaging he finds a bottle of brandy.
"Is it yours?" He turns around and presents the bottle to Remus, who is sat across the room. "Didn't take you for having grown up to be a brandy man, Lupin."
Lupin is easier to say than Moony, sometimes. If he thinks about it. The bottle is dusty. Sirius swipes a thumb across the label and reads it aloud. "'Dragon Barrel'. A man of middling taste, anyways."