Push and Pull (Sirius Black X Reader)

Chapter 13

I hate moving. But one thing I will say is that moving as a witch is much easier than as a muggle. If I were a muggle, I'd have to pack all my things (not that I have a lot) into multiple boxes and probably load them into a truck or something, and then I would have to get to the new place and unload everything, and it would be a huge process.

Not for me though. Not as a witch. Just one box magically enlarged to fit all of my things and a fireplace.

"Are you sure you don't want me to come with you?" Remus asks me. "I can help you unpack if you'd like."

"No, no, I'm fine. Thank you."

He sighs and frowns. "Doesn't feel right."

"There's not that much anyway," I tell him quietly, shifting the box in my arms.

"No," he says. "I mean... It doesn't feel right that this is how we're ending things. Living together for eleven years, and you're just going to walk out like nothing happened?"

"You deserve space."

"This is your home just as much as it's mine."

"That's not true."

He sighs again. Sets his hands on his hips. Looks at me with a frown.

"It'll be better this way," I say. "We'll both be happier, I think."

"I know," he says. He wraps an arm around my shoulders in a kind of side hug, and I rest my cheek on his shoulder, gripping the box tighter. "I'll miss having you around."

"You can always come visit me, can't you?" I ask, squinting my eye shut when he presses a kiss to my eyebrow.

"Of course. I'll probably stop by before the week's over," he says. "Make sure you and Sirius haven't torn off each other's heads."

"We won't. We'll be fine."

"I know." He drops his arm to his side and steps back. "All right, then, Springpaw. Get out of my house."

I can't hold back my smile. He matches it. He says, "Good luck. Don't be afraid to reach out if you need anything."

"Thank you, Rem. For everything."

"Anything for you. Always," he says.

I smile at him as best as I can and shift the box to one arm so I can cast a palmful of floo powder into the fireplace, and then speak the address aloud and step through without looking back. Remus is right. It feels strange to just leave like this. Just packing my things and leaving on a random afternoon. No goodbye kiss or anything. Not that I want that, of course. Just—it's strange. After being together for so long...

Remus and I weren't always together. Not like that. After what happened that Halloween, I couldn't bring myself to go to work. I took a lot of time off. I used up all the sick time I had accumulated from the ministry, and then I took a couple more weeks off afterward before I was told that I had to come back or I would lose my job. I dropped some shifts and transferred away some of my responsibilities, and then I was essentially right back where I had started after graduation. Just some ministry worker. With the loss of those responsibilities, I also lost privileges, and I lost a lot of wages.

I could have always worked to get them back, I suppose, but I never did. I accepted the shorter hours and the more menial tasks, and then the money was coming in less and less and paychecks were stretched thinner and thinner, but it was easier to be poor than to force myself to work hard through my grief. I let it happen.

And then I was evicted, eight months after James and Lily and Peter—no, James and Lily—died. Remus offered me a place to stay, and I slept on his couch for months, and then he replaced it with a day bed—one of those couches that rolls out into a bed—and I stayed there for a long time too, helping him pay the bills and for groceries. Things got a little better for a while, and he and I lived together as roommates for years. A couple of times, I looked at other places, and once I even got an apartment on the outskirts of London. Until Remus showed up at my door, bloodied and bruised after a particularly bad full moon and I knew I had to help him.