AN: It's been done before but I had an urge to write Sirius/Remus angst. After too much fiddling with it to be deemed healthy, this is what I ended up with. I have taken some artistic lisence with Azkaban I must admit.

Disclaimer: Sad though it is, they aren't mine.

What Once Was

"We was told no visitors, sir."

There's something in the way the man looks at him that makes the portly prison guard swallow nervously. He looks like he's aged decades in a matter of days, flecks of grey already creeping into his hair though he can't be out of his twenties. He grips the wood of the warden's desk until his knuckles go white, and for a moment it's almost as if it's the only thing keeping him upright. "I'm here from the ministry." At this hour, the guard isn't surprised. No one other than the ministry would dare send a representative all the way out here in the early hours, although the man in front of him looks almost too ill to be being sent anywhere.

"Was the ministry what told us no visitors." The words are supposed to be imposing, but leave the guard's mouth barely more than a whisper. This haggard young man makes him uncomfortable and he's not quite sure why. "He's... he's a murderer, sir. Out of his head, they're sayin'."

Something flickers in the man's eyes, but it passes as quickly as it appeared and they regain their focus. "I know damn well what he is, warden. I am under instruction to see him regardless."

The warden steps back and busies himself with a pile of paperwork on his desk. "Got no papers from the ministry saying you was coming, sir." The guard can see that the visitor's patience is running out and any moment now the quiet anger behind the façade will bubble forwards. He looks up. "I'm 'fraid I can't let you in without papers."

The man releases the edge of the desk and digs a hand into the pocket of his shabby coat, all the while staring unblinkingly at the guard. He slaps a sealed envelope down in front of him. "The part of the ministry I'm from likes to keep its papers to itself." He watches as the guard takes the envelope and turns it over in his hands. "May I pass?"

The envelope is thick parchment, expensive, and the seal is inconspicuous. The prison warden cracks it open and studies the document within. He recognises the signature at the bottom, most wizards in Britain would, and that's enough. "Y-yes, of course." He stutters, but the strange man has already brushed passed him and so he drops the letter back onto his desk. The Order wants to speak with its traitor before his incarceration.

November 1981

The headline is emblazoned across the front of every newspaper he sees and it makes his heart stop. He doesn't read the whole article. He catches words like terrible loss and shock grips Wizarding community and massacre and then he's half walking, half running, knocking ministry workers aside until he finds him.

"Where's Sirius?"

"Remus, calm yourse-"

"Where is he?"

Dumbledore looks at him carefully over the top of his glasses. His eyes are gentle. "Remus, you've read the Prophet."

Remus glares at him, hands knotting into fists by his sides as if the jittery movement is the only thing keeping him in one place. "Of course I've read the bloody Prophet!" He snaps, jolting forwards until both hands are braced on the professor's desk. "Where have they taken him?"

Dumbledore sighs, long and world-weary. "For such a crime, Remus, you know they've had to take him straight to Azkaban. Complete isolation and high security until the Minister decides whether or not he deserves a trial. He'll be out of the holding cells in a matter of hours."

Remus scoffs at that; there won't be a trial. He pushes off the desk and wheels round, scraping long fingers through his hair. He hasn't slept more than three hours in the last forty-eight, if that. With closed eyes comes images he wants to forget. "I have to see him."

"The guards are under strict instruction not to-"

"Then change the instruction!" Remus rarely raises his voice. He swallows. "Albus, I need to see him."

Dumbledore takes in Remus' look of worn disbelief and his haunted eyes, and seems to understand everything without asking.

Remus is half expecting Dementors to be roaming the prison, but it seems that the holding cells are manned by wizards, all as disinterested as the one he first encountered. The guard that has escorted him down two narrow corridors already brings them to a halt outside a heavily fortified door. He looks at Remus hesitantly. "I can stand with you while you talk to him, sir."

"That won't be necessary."

The guard frowns. "He's a very dangerous man, s-"

"I said it won't be necessary." Remus' voice is sharp, and the guard looks taken aback. He nods once.

"Right you are, sir. I'll be outside." He slides back the bolt and then taps his wand against the frame of iron. There are clicks and whirs as a multitude of locks within the door are disabled and charms are lifted. The guard pauses before undoing the last lock. "There's a temporary guarding field dividing the room, so he can't cause you any harm."

"Take it down."

The guard blinks. "What?"

Remus gives him a hard look. "Disable the field."

"I can't do that, sir."

"Then find me someone who can." Remus stares him dead in the eye. He's not in the mood to argue, not with a prison warden of all people, and he's not scared of the man behind the door. There are what seems like hundreds of emotions he can aim at Sirius Black, but fear is not one of them. "If you don't, I will contact people in the ministry who can do it for me. Do you understand me?"

The other man stands defiant. "It's against protocol."

Remus steps forwards, fingers itching to grab him by the collar of his rumpled work robes and slam him against the wall. "A man I used to call a friend is in that cell. I couldn't care less about your protocol. Alright?" He hisses, his anger tainted with an underlying weariness of the whole situation.

The warden nods. "I'll see what I can do."

After what seems like hours the door to the cell is finally opened and Remus ducks into the dark interior. Even for a temporary cell, the conditions are appalling. It's dark and reeks of death and despair, and Remus tries not to let anything show on his face when he catches sight of the hunched figure in the corner of the room and the way it cringes away at the sound of the door, like a kicked dog. He waits to be acknowledged.

"Remus!" Sirius is on his feet in seconds. Remus can't look him in the eye. He's manacled, sporting a bruised cheekbone and a split lip; evidently he didn't come without a fight. "Remus, I have to talk to you, they won't let me see Dumbledore, I need to see him, Remus. I..." His aimless, near hysterical rambling ceases. "Remus?"

There's silence for a long time. Then Remus draws a shuddering breath. "Why?" He doesn't specify any more; he doesn't need to. There are so many whys he could be asking, so many questions he wants answered. He'd hoped seeing Sirius would be enough, but if anything it makes it worse, only rubbing salt in an already painful wound.

July 1981

Remus dreads going home. Before, he used to relish the small flat they shared, with its untidy bookshelves and mismatched bedsheets. It offered warmth and respite from work and the horrors that seemed to be happening far more frequently, and he could step through the door and forget. Now it seems cold and lonely even when Sirius is sitting less than a metre away. The kitchen table divides them physically, but there's more.

The silence is awful. "How was today?" Remus hates such stunted conversation, though they rarely talk any other way now. The Order gives them little time to themselves anyway.

Sirius grunts, turning a page in the Prophet. He takes a bite out of his toast to lengthen the time before he has to say anything. "No news from Caradoc. James' saying we should assume the worst." The look he gives Remus then is almost accusatory, as if he should already know all of this. Remus hates those looks, too. News like that, about a missing member or the death of someone they knew is always accompanied by one of those looks. Remus isn't sure what he's supposed to have done and Sirius is hardly forthcoming. He looks at him like he's trying to find fault, like he's waiting for Remus to slip up, but he never says anything outright. Though he's never accused him of anything verbally, his eyes have a thousand times over. Remus wills him to say something, to actually lose his temper and say what he's thinking, but he never does. Whatever allegations he has he keeps to himself.

Sirius stands, clearing his plate to the worktop. "I'll be back late." He leaves the kitchen and Remus hears him taking his jacket off the hook. The front door is unlocked and after a seconds hesitation slammed, and Remus doesn't get up. Instead he grips his mug of tea and wonders what happened to them.

"I didn't do it, Remus. it wasn't me."

Remus laughs, a bitter bark that drags against his throat. "Don't lie to me, Sirius. Please."

Sirius is staring at him, helpless. "You have to believe me."

"Why? So you can betray the rest of us?" He glowers at the man he once trusted everything with.

"You think... you think I'd tell him where they were? You really think I'd sell Lily and James out? Me?"

"I don't know what to think." Remus turns away from him and breathes deeply. This isn't doing any good. He needs sleep. He needs for everything to go away. "They're dead, Sirius." Sirius goes to say something, but he doesn't let him continue. "James and Lily and Peter are dead, and you as good as killed all of them yourself."

Sirius practically snarls. "Don't you dare mention him in the same breath as our friends."

"Peter was our friend too, unless that's slipped your mind since you blew him to pieces." Remus grits his teeth. Sirius is shaking his head slowly, as if he can't quite comprehend what's happening.

"You have no idea what you're talking about."

"What did he offer you? Power? Money? God knows you've got enough of that lying around. And I thought the Ancient House of Black was supposed to be noble."

"You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Is that why you were so keen to be their Secret Keeper? So you could run back to Voldemort and prove you're just as loyal as your brother was?"

There's force in Sirius' voice now. "It's not like that, I wasn't their Keeper!"

Remus whirls around, strides forwards until he's got him backed against the wall. He doubts everything that's ever happened between them, everything Sirius has done or said. His throat feels tight. "Is there anything you've said to me that hasn't been a lie? Anything?"

"I wasn't-"

"Stop it, just stop it. Everyone knew you were their Secret Keeper, why deny it now, why lie to me?" Remus' fingers curl into fists, and he so wants to add to the bruises on Sirius' face. If not for James and Lily and poor Peter then for himself, and for the selfish hurt that's lodged in the bottom of his stomach and won't disappear. "They trusted you." I trusted you.

Sirius looks less defeated now, bright with anger. "I was never their Keeper." He says, firmly and steadily, but the desperation is creeping back into his voice. "It was Peter, Remus. Peter told. Not me. I would never have... Remus, please."

Remus studies him, eyes narrow and distrusting. "You can say what you like, now you've got Peter out of the way though, can't you? A dead man can't stand up for himself."

"James switched, he switched Keepers. He never used me."

"And why would he do that? Tell me, Sirius. Why would James swap you for Peter and not even tell Dumbledore?" Remus spits the words out as if they were poison. "Three of my friends have been murdered, and another is a lying bastard who insults me by thinking I'll-"

"For God's sake Remus, I thought it was you!" Sirius all but howls the words. He grasps at Remus' coat, desperately searching his eyes for something other than confusion and disappointment. "I thought you were his spy, I didn't think I could trust you. D'you know what that's like? D'you have any idea-" He stops then, because the look Remus is giving him is enough to tell him that he knows very well what that's like.

"I trusted you, even when you gave me no reason to." The hurt in his words is audible and they hit home as well as any punch.

Sirius stares at him. "Then trust me now."

Remus wants to. He wants to believe that it's all a misunderstanding, that maybe Peter was the inside man – it's plausible, he was always so weak, so easily manipulated – but he can't. He can't bring himself to put faith in it. Even if it was the truth, it would mean nothing. Peter is dead, and Sirius is going to spend the rest of his life in Azkaban regardless of whether or not he's responsible. There's no evidence to suggest otherwise. To believe him now would only make Sirius' fate at the hands of the Dementors even more unbearable. "Let go of me."

"Remus-"

"I said let go." Remus steps away. He looks at Sirius and all he sees now is betrayal and anger and hurt, and he doesn't want to look any more. He closes himself off and refuses to let Sirius see him break. When he's alone, at home, then there'll be time for self-pity and for mourning his friends. For now he puts on a mask of indifference, because he knows it'll hurt Sirius even more than hatred. He thumps on the door twice. "I'd like to leave now."

Sirius' eyes go wide and fearful. "No! You can't, Remus please!"

The door is opened and the wardens, two of them, stand far back enough to give the air of privacy but close enough to hex the prisoner if need be. Remus nods at them. "Thank you." He pauses in the doorway, and looks Sirius in the eye for the last time. "I hope you die in here. I hope the Dementors take everything."

He steps out of the cell. Sirius tries to reach for him, anguish twisting his face into the image of the madman everyone else already sees, but he's gone. Remus doesn't turn back, doesn't even glance over his shoulder, and he tries not to hear the cries of his name that haunt him long after he leaves the prison behind.

June 1978

It's the end of seventh year and they're sitting out by the lake. James is off somewhere with Lily, doing something sickly that maybe involves leftover cake from the feast and kissing, and Sirius thought the lake would be a suitably nostalgic part of the grounds for them to do their own kissing and cake eating. Peter is still fussing over his packing up in the tower.

Remus flops onto his back and looks at the sky. The stars seem to go on forever. "Strange, isn't it?"

"Hm?" Sirius looks down at him from where he's hunched over his knees in the grass, mouth full of chocolate cake and hair dancing in the breeze.

"We'll all be leaving soon, doing proper stuff." He pulls a face. "Getting jobs."

"So?"

Remus picks out stars he knows, naming them in his head. "We've been here so long." Sirius is quiet, so he goes on. "It's going to be strange, is what I meant. Things will be different."

Sirius stretches out beside him, swallowing the last of his cake. "Not that different. You're over thinking, you are."

"Things'll change."

Sirius looks at him for a long time. He's pensive, studying Remus' face like it's a book and he has to read between the lines. Then he leans down and kisses him, soft and slow and tinged with the slight taste of chocolate. "Not us, Moony." He smiles crookedly as Remus pushes his hair out off his face. "Not ever."