The cottage that Pandora had given Remus the coordinates to was small, or at least appeared so on the outside the Gryffindor soon realized as he walked inside.
There were a total of three floors that made up the 'cottage', two above and a basement down below that the wizard had already mentally set aside for Dora to use for her experiments. The front door immediately led one into a well light, but rundown and tarnished kitchen that was only thinly divided from the large living room by the flooring left open so that one could freely walk between the two and the door to a rather large office that was off to the left, the stairs - going both up and down - to the right.
The upstairs had three rooms, each much too large for there not to be an extension charm somewhere in play. The rooms were rather dark looking, worn down and dirtied by so many endless years without use, but Remus knew that it would all change soon enough.
For the time being he only cast a few cleaning and repairing charms and slept in the bed in the room farthest from the stairs, but with the largest windows, his Hogwarts things at the end of the bed, all that he had to his name. The starlight kept him company at night as the sunlight woke him with the morning.
—-
Two days later there was one loud crack outside of his house, the scent of wild magic belonging to an elf coloring the air as Remus walked out to meet the newcomers, the Fidelius Charm thick in the air around the cottage as he could see them, but only Dora could see the lion.
Remus could tell the moment that this changed as Evan and Barty's eyes went wide, almost comically so, and the Gryffindor could tell that the secret had been shared.
"The cleaning crew is here to help!" Dora called brightly as the three drew close, wands in their hands as the elf - Evan's house elf - popped away to return later once the boy called for it.
Remus would never know how the wizarding world could look down on such creatures, but the wizarding world seemed to look down on anything and anyone that they deemed other, he knew that about as well as anyone.
No one mentioned the third snake that they were missing, the one whose rings matched Remus's own that he wore on stark display for all to see now that summer was here. They didn't have to, they all felt the absence like some sort of serverince charm.
"Then I suppose we should get to it."
And they did.
The four started with the study, the least damaged place within the former Ravenclaw home as it was spelled with protective charms. The boys set about moving all of the books and furniture from the room as Pandora casted repairing charms on the walls and the bookshelves that sprouted from them like limbs from trees. Muggle music played through the air as the four painted the room a soft gray, a miniature version of the sky bewitched on the ceiling as it was at Hogwarts.
Remus felt the itch to flip through the books, magics of all kinds staring back at him from the spines of each of them, but he only shelved them with the others to be looked at later.
Next were the bedrooms. Dora took the one nearest to the stairs, painting it a deep blue, while Evan and Barty took the middle room turning it the same shade of green as the Black Lake during the day. The Gryffindor let the trio do whatever they wished with the rooms as he painted and repaired his own - the walls were a warm gold with silver linings - it was theirs after all.
As the four met in the hall on the way to go down the stairs, a feeling of tightness fell over the group, the wall opposite to the rooms staring back at them as if they had offended it. The magic worked was hesitant, but soon a balcony that overlooked the living room was where the wall had been, one that opened the space and allowed those upstairs to see any that dared come through the door with the advantage of height.
Remus never thought he would be making changes to his house based on offensive capabilities. He never thought that someone like him - a wolf, an orphan in everything but the legalities, a care home kid - would have a home to change. He never thought a lot of things actually.
The four of them paint the living room and kitchen white, a dull color that shines with the warm glow of the sun. With the water on for tea and his friends gathered at the table discussing which flavor they should make, Remus could almost forget that there had been a time before it was always like this, and that they weren't heading head first towards a war that none of them are likely to get out of unscathed.
Reality was a cruel thing , Remus knew, thinking of the mark undoubtedly marking Regulus's pale skin now, marring it. The same mark that was sure be borne on the other two Slytherins as well before the war comes to a close, one way or another.
No one is owed anything in life.
Remus had known this since he was five, but for now he would bask in the sounds of his friends' laughter, in the home that was entirely theirs.
—-
Remus wanders into the study one night when the moon is too close to sleep and the time too late to go into town and do anything productive that he had been putting off for some time now. The books there stunk of dark magic, gray and light, wild and none at all. Remus grabbed book after book, making small piles of them on the floor with some parchment beside him as he set about the ambitious project of reading through as many as he could, writing down anything that he thought would prove helpful in the times to come.
There were books on healing magic and prophecy, wild magic and rituals, soul magic and necromancy. On nights like these he read of creatures that they would never teach of at school and of spells so sickening that he took to keeping a trash can in the study and the windows open as he smoked everything else away.
There were old books on werewolves that he was hesitant to even touch, knowing already of what each of the ones within the Hogwarts Library told.
Sometimes on restless nights like these he took to pretending that there was another on the floor beside him, scowling as muggle music filled the cottage.
There never was, but Remus held the ring that laid against his chest with the silent hope that there might one day be.
—-
The crack of apperation fills the air one night when Remus is in the study reading a particularly dark book with spells on healing within them, the full moon was soon and Madam Pomfrey wouldn't be there to help as she had so many years before.
Remus grabbed his wand, holding it tightly within his hand as he walked to the window, prepared to fight should he need to, but lowered it and left the cottage almost immediately, feeling almost like a child again.
Regulus didn't bat an eye when Remus appeared out of thin air before him, only returned the tight embrace. The past few weeks had been the longest that they had been apart from one another before then, and it showed.
They each knew that it would only get harder.
"Why are you here? How are you here, love?" Remus asks, worry in both his gaze and tone. They had all known going into the summer holidays that the Blacks would have a tight grip on their youngest son, one that wouldn't allow any of them to truly see the boy even without Voldermort and his schemes.
"My parents are at a meeting, something about financials," the Slytherin answered before kissing the other as if he were air and Regulus had been holding his breath.
Love , it wasn't a name that he ever thought he would be called by someone that he would want to hear it from.
Hands roamed thin frames, and the younger teen let out a soft moan when the other's lips fell to his neck, kissing it as the wolf growled with restraint, not leaving a mark. Regulus almost wished that he would, it would be better than any other one he had.
Remus led the other over the line of the Fidelius charm, a special tweak to the spell that Dora had made that allowed the lion to bring others inside so long as they were touching, even if their memory of the location of the home would still be blurry once leaving. They knew that Regulus wasn't nearly good enough at mental magics to fend off Voldermort should he come prying.
Regulus wanted to stoop and look at the carefully redone cottage, but he knew that they were on borrowed time, meetings could only last so long, and Remus was looking at the other with a hunger in his gaze as the wolf rumbled in his chest.
The bed was soft beneath the snake as Remus sat atop him, lips hot on his skin as the other kissed his way down it, buttons coming undone as he did. There were scars from a wand on his chest that Regulus could never bring himself to look at in the mirror, but Remus only touched as if they were the mark of a survivor.
The Dark Mark on his arm wasn't, and shame and disgust coiled in Regulus's stomach each time that he saw it glaring up at him, no matter the fact that he knew what the alternative would have been.
Remus only kisses it as if it were any other scar before looking at Regulus with enough adoration that the Slytherin found it hard to breathe.
"I love you," Remus said as if the words were some sort of oath, one that he knew to be true. One that he would never give to another. It was the sort of love that one risked everything for, fighting with your life on the line just for the chance to make it back to the one that you held it for.
Regulus sat up some, pulling off the other's thin shirt as if it had done something to offend him.
"I love you too," Regulus breathed, kissing his way down the other's scars, the tarnished body that he adored. The broken boy that he loved more than he ever thought he could.
Regulus has never believed in soulmates, or if they existed he never thought that he would have one of his own, but as their bodies moved as one, he thought that maybe they were made from the same cosmic dust, connected by a red string, whatever the story was.
He knew that there wasn't anyone else out there for him.
—-
Regulus stole one last glance at the sleeping teen, a boy whose body was now covered with marks and bites that matched his own, one set of clothes strewn across the floor. One day he promised that he would come to this room - good and silver and so clearly meant for them both - and he wouldn't have to ever leave.
But that wasn't tonight, he knew as he left the teen, the ring on his finger heavy as he disappeared with a crack once more.
—-
When the moon came, it wasn't a dog, deer, and a rat that the wolf ran with, but two birds and a bat that soared high above him all through the night. He gained a few scars as he always did, the wolf missing his previous pack, but it was enough.