Title: Then and Now
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character: Remus Lupin
Pairing: past Remus Lupin/Sirius Black
Rating: G
Disclaimer: I don't own any recognisable characters, they all belong to J.K. Rowling
Length: 488
Content Notes: Prisoner of Azkaban era
Summary: Standing at Hogsmeade Station for the first time in years, Remus finds himself lost in thought.


As the Hogwarts Express started to lose speed, signifying its imminent arrival into Hogsmeade Station, Remus steeled himself in preparation of the expected influx of memories. He hadn’t arrived at the station itself since he had been a student returning for his seventh and final year as a Hogwarts student.

Remus couldn’t help but compare the difference in arrival between his then seventeen-year-old self and his arrival now as a thirty-four-year-old. Back then, he had been a prefect surrounded by his friends, one of whom was also his lover. He was amongst the top students in his year and despite the shadow that his lycanthropy cast over everything – not to mention the ever increasing Dark activity in the Wizarding World – he couldn’t help but be hopeful about the future. The Marauders and Lily had spilled from the Express and into a carriage full of high spirits and plans for their final year at Hogwarts.

Oh how different things were now.

This was hardly the return to Hogwarts that Remus had envisioned. The castle and all that it stood for had been a beacon for Remus, a sanctuary – just as it had been for so many others. Now, with Dementors patrolling the bounds and guarding the gates, it had been tainted by the very darkness that it stood against. Where once a laughing teenager had descended from the Express levitating his trunk behind him, nose buried in a book and absent-mindedly batting away his boyfriend’s grabby hands, it was now a prematurely greying, middle-aged and lonely man who disembarked.

Having ensured that all of the students were on their way up to the castle, Remus climbed into one of the last carriages – now able to clearly see the thestrals that pulled them – noticing as he did so that the Dementors gave him a wide berth, almost as though they sensed a fellow Dark creature.

He was about to take up the position of Defence Against the Dark Arts professor, he was finally going to be a professor at his old school, a job that he had long coveted but it was hardly under ideal circumstances. He was under no illusions as to why he had been hired. He doubted that he had been chosen because he was the best candidate. Merlin, he hadn’t even applied for the position. No, he’d been chosen because Sirius Black had escaped from Azkaban and Remus Lupin, as the man’s former best friend and lover, was in a unique position to protect Harry Potter from his godfather.

It was a position that Remus didn’t want to be in. Both he and Moony were conflicted about Sirius and Remus knew that being back at Hogwarts was only going to make that conflict worse. Still, he would bear it as best as he could. He would do what was needed of him. For Harry’s sake, and for the moment of Lily and James, if nothing else.