Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

For more than a decade, Isla Jones has proudly served as a Wish Coordinator for the UK chapter of Make-A-Wish. This is a fact that comes up frequently after a one or two drinks with friends; she will say it loudly enough for other pub patrons to hear or confess it easily to a vaguely interested barman, like this: “Tough day at the office—Make-A-Wish. Sick kids, you know.” 

And the barman will, often, make her next drink on the house and give Isla a sympathetic look and wish her well in her child-saving endeavors. 

The recognition pleases her, even though in reality, her job is mostly clerical work. Mostly sitting at a desk and typing on computers and calling hospitals and organizing files stuffed with, yes, sick kids. Sick kids who she mostly never meets but only hears about in vignettes from local referral partners before their stories are passed on to the next phase in the approval and wish-granting process.

Still, Isla is very proud of her job. She remembers every request she’s helped grant. For most Wish Coordinators in her office, the granted and ungranted wishes blur together into an ambiguous mish-mash of requests. Which makes sense, the wishes are mostly the same, really: I wish to go to Disneyland Paris, I wish to meet Harry Kane, I wish to be a princess for a day. There is the occasional hard-to-grant request: I wish to go to space, I wish to meet the King, I wish to perform surgery (seriously—Isla remembers this one with startling clarity; she’d been the one to track down a surgeon and patient willing to have oversight from a ten-year-old with muscular dystrophy). 

But during more than a decade spent at the UK office of Make-A-Wish, Isla has never received a request like this: Teddy Lupin wishes to meet Sirius Black. 

Everyone knows about Sirius Black. 

Even before the BBC podcast and the televised appeal and the exoneration, everyone knew a little something about Sirius Black. 

His crimes—sorry, alleged crimes—had been all anyone could talk about around the time Isla first started working at Make-A-Wish. In fact, she remembers distinctly during her second day of work, someone in the office was loudly listening to a small, handheld radio broadcasting the details of his sordid trial. Later, in the break room, a spirited debate had erupted on whether he was guilty or not. 

Frankly, Isla never had much of an opinion one way or the other. She mostly assumed the legal system would do its job and if Black was convicted (as he was), he must certainly be guilty. The specifics of the case never trickled their way down to her, other than the basics. For example, she knows he was accused of killing his very best friends (very wealthy and attractive best friends, to be more specific), thus the drama and intrigue. She knows he’d been the subject of a viral, high-profile BBC podcast which, somehow, proved his innocence twelve years after the initial crime. (She wondered how a podcast, of all things, could uncover more evidence than the police). And she knows that someone else had been arrested for the murders just a few months after Black’s release from prison. 

Isla does not know why this sick child—Teddy—would want to meet him. 

Which, at present, she is explaining to a social worker and regular referral partner from the Noah’s Ark Children's Hospital in Wales. “You do realize this is a highly unusual request?” 

The social worker sighs. “I know—believe me. I’ve tried reasoning with the boy, but he is adamant. It’s Sirius Black or nothing, I’m afraid.” 

“Well,” Isla tries to be delicate, “I mean is he, and I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but is he terminal?” 

She can practically hear the social worker’s tightly pressed lips through the phone. “Well, no. He’s been through a lot, though, the poor dear. Mother passed away a few years ago, then leukemia. He’s fought hard and he’s rather adamant—he wants to meet Sirius Black.” 

Tapping at the keys on her computer, Isla pulls up the database of wish-granters. Although she’s fairly certain no one has ever requested Sirius Black before, it is worth a try to see if he’s somehow in their extensive database of European celebrities. 

She types “Black, S.” A blue circle pops up indicating the system is searching and then, as expected: “0 Results Found.” 

“He’s not in our system, but we can have someone reach out. Perhaps he has an agent? Probation officer? Solicitor?” 

“I don’t think they get probation officers when they’re innocent.” The social worker’s voice drips with thinly veiled disappointment with both Isla and this conversation. 

“We’ll get back to you. Give me a few days.” With that, she hangs up the phone. 

Isla is frustrated by this request. Not because of its absurdity, but because of its impossibility. There are many things Isla would do—and has done—to make wishes come true. She has coordinated convoluted travel arrangements and coached foul-mouthed rock stars on the proper etiquette of interacting with children and secured tickets to sold-out football matches at the last minute. 

But this feels too out of reach, even for her. Still, for this Teddy Lupin, she is willing to try. 

An hour of online searching leads her to the office of RAB Law Services LTD in London. With a small, silent prayer, Isla picks up the phone and dials. 

☆

“Sorry, you asked to meet who?” 

Remus Lupin has spent far too much time in hospitals. Dead mam. Dead wife. Sick kid. The losses seem to be stacking up as the neverending years trip over themselves. And the antiseptic must be getting to his brain, because he is sure he’s misheard his fourteen-year-old son who, admittedly, has a penchant for weird things and lost causes. 

But surely, even Teddy isn’t daft enough to use his one Make-A-Wish on–

“I want to meet Sirius Black,” Teddy says, arms wrapped around his knees where he sits in his hospital bed. “The lady said they’d try their best.” 

“He’s a criminal, Ted.”

“He’s innocent, dad.” 

“That’s—yeah, I know. But he still spent more than ten years in prison, he might be…” 

“Might be what?” Teddy raises a stern eyebrow. He inherited this from his mother, of course. 

And Remus understands why he’s disappointed with him—hasn’t he been doing his best to raise Ted with good morals and an open mind and a willingness to accept others. Here he is being very judgmental and (admittedly) frightened of a former prisoner and, as Teddy pointed out, an innocent man. 

But his mugshot does look rather scary, doesn’t it? Sirius had been only 21 years old when they’d arrested him for the murder of his friends. Remus has seen the documentary produced after the success of the podcast no less than 30 times, and he remembers vividly the first time he saw that mugshot splashed on the screen. 

At first, he thought Sirius was probably guilty, because of his terrifying, open-mouthed scream frozen forever in a black and white photo. But by the third viewing, he started to see something different, something familiar. 

In Sirius’s eyes, Remus thought he saw grief and a tremendous amount of pain. 

Perhaps he was projecting, though, and Sirius really was nothing more than a mass-murdering, hardened criminal. 

All this started when some well-meaning nurse in the childhood cancer unit suggested Teddy try listening to podcasts to pass the time during his treatments. This sounded like a great idea to Remus, at first. Knowing nothing about podcasts, he thought this sounded educational. Weren’t podcasts educational? 

And Teddy was missing so much school. His teachers did their best to help him keep up, but Remus knew there were some things that would be forever lost to this life detour. He assumed Teddy could find a nice podcast about current events or ancient history or geography and culture, and at least keep his mind occupied during the long days spent in hospital. 

Teddy, instead, found something called true crime, and became thoroughly obsessed with all manner of crimes and criminals and other horrifying events. One criminal in particular more than the rest. Sirius Black—who Teddy always insisted was innocent. 

When his appeal came through, Teddy kept the television on both at home and in the hospital twenty-four hours a day in case the decision was announced. He wouldn’t miss it. When Black’s innocence was finally reported, Teddy smiled brighter than Remus had seen him smile in years and said, “See dad, I told you he didn’t do it.” 

A bit later, Remus watched shaky, zoomed-in footage of Black leaving the prison and getting into a large, black car with tinted windows. He thought, briefly, he could still see the shadow of grief reflected in the way Black held his shoulders. 

But Remus pushed the thought away and chalked it up to more projecting. 

For his part, Remus only watched these documentaries with Teddy because he promised Dora, before she’d passed from cervical cancer when Teddy was just four, that he would not be a stereotype of a single father. He would not forget birthdays or friends’ names; he would not sink into a pit of grief so deep and wide that Teddy would be unable to reach him. He would be present, emotionally available, engaged.

He has tried very hard to keep this promise. 

Most of the time, he thinks he is successful. Like on Teddy’s birthday, which he always makes into a big deal. Or every time he cooks dinner and Teddy says, “None of my friends’ dads ever cook anything.” Or when he agrees to watch the Sirius Black documentary for the thirteenth time in as many weeks, just in case Ted’s missed some important detail. 

Perhaps it should not be surprising that he has decided to use his wish like this. 

Remus sighs. “Well, it is your wish, so I can’t get torn up over it now, can I?” 

“I think he deserves to know there are plenty of people out here who think he’s innocent—who always thought he was innocent. I told everyone on the Reddit that if my wish is granted, I’d ask him–” 

“Ted,” Remus interrupts, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “What have I told you about getting on Reddit?” 

“But, dad,” Teddy whines. “That’s where all the good theories are. I’m being good, I didn’t tell them my name or where I live or anything, just that I got a Make-A-Wish and I was going to try to meet Sirius Black.” 

“...and?” 

“And they sent a list of questions to ask him in case it’s approved because, as you know, he’s refused any and all interviews after being released from prison and the people want to hear his side of the story now that he’s free.” 

Remus, not for the first time, wonders if he had anything to do with Teddy’s conception. His son is all Dora. When they’d first brought him home from the hospital—both 19 years old and terrified to be responsible for something so small—the tiny, wrinkly baby had looked a little like Remus’s childhood photos. Everyone said this, while squinting at baby Ted: “Oh, he looks just like his daddy.” 

But after a few months, it was clear the child was all Dora. More than his looks, he has all of her bravery, mischievousness, and passion for justice. Before she’d gotten her diagnosis, Dora had been training to be a police officer, determined to find a way to do some good in their community. She’d died so quickly and so young, leaving the odd pair of them behind. And still, not a day goes by that Remus doesn’t think of her, if only because she is still so very present in the body of their son. 

“Well,” Remus hesitates. “I guess we’ll have to see if Sirius Black is keen to meet you.” 

Teddy winks, actually winks—which seems far too brazen for a 14-year-old child. It suits him anyway. “Believe me, dad, when he sees my application, he’s not going to be able to say no.” 

☆

Regulus Black is very tired of being his older brother’s solicitor. He never should have agreed to it, really. They have more money than they could spend in fifty lifetimes; he could have hired someone else to take on the thankless task of representing his petulant, ungrateful, alcoholic, brother. 

There is one small problem with this train of thought; one issue that would have haunted him if he’d foisted his brother’s case on to some other unsuspecting solicitor. RAB Law Services LTD is the very best legal representation in the country. Regulus knows this—he is the best. 

Isn’t Sirius’s newfound freedom enough evidence of this? Sure, people are eager to thank the podcast (which Regulus has never and will never listen to), and the swell of public support garnered by such distasteful publicity. The podcast host (who claims to be a journalist) is eager enough to profit from this notoriety and claim all the credit—let him.

Regulus knows the truth. After all, who was it who spent all those years studying in school and acing qualification exams and working at high-profile legal firms across the city and waiting for their parents to die to have access to funding to start their own practice? The podcast host had not been there during the endless sleepless nights; he had not put in the hours representing truly asinine defendants, just hoping to one day have the opportunity to defend the only convict who mattered. 

Not that Regulus would say all this to his idiot brother. If Sirius asked, he did this as a practical joke, or something. No feelings were involved. In fact, one wrong move and Regulus might get him thrown back in prison. 

Sirius did not need to know how desperately he’d wished for exactly this: his brother free and alive and cleared of charges; the true perpetrator locked up for good (whose name does not bear repeating unless it’s on a list of people being exiled or executed or shipped off straight to hell, as far as Regulus is concerned). 

The glorious happiness in Sirius’s overturned conviction lasted exactly twenty-four hours. Upon Sirius’s arrival, Regulus calmly opened the door to a spare bedroom for Sirius in his pristine and too-big flat. He pretended he has not kept this room set up exactly for Sirius for years now, hoping. He acted very aloof about the whole thing, allowing Sirius space to settle in. 

And then it all went to hell, basically.

Because as it turns out, going to prison at the young age of 21 does irreparable damage to one's psyche. Sirius keeps nothing clean—he manages to destroy every corner of Regulus’s truly oversized flat. He does not speak, hardly ever, except in grunts and one-word requests for more booze or a motorbike (not happening) or to be left alone. 

He screams at night. 

Regulus has not slept in months. He is not sure if Sirius knows he does this, or if he is unaware. He is afraid to bring it up; scared to ask what haunts him at night. As if he, Regulus, is not haunted by the same things.

Does Sirius think it has been easy for him, living on the outside? Fighting for Sirius’s life and freedom, thanklessly, for all these years? Does Sirius think Regulus doesn’t have nightmares—that he isn’t haunted as well by the crime scene photos and autopsy reports he’s been forced to read? Ones Sirius will never be allowed to see. Does Sirius forget that he knew James and Lily, too? That he mourns them. 

To be fair to Sirius, Regulus does not admit any of this out loud. 

Still. He regrets very much agreeing to be Sirius’s solicitor, except that he doesn’t regret it at all. Because isn’t this what he’s always wanted? His brother back, the acknowledgement of his lack of wrongdoing common knowledge in the whole of the UK? Isn’t this the only thing he’s been working toward all these years?

These affirmations are what Regulus plays on a loop internally as he makes his way, reluctantly, back to his flat for the evening. He feels like an unpaid child minder, except that he does not know how to control or even slightly manage Sirius. The moodiness, the silence, the drinking—it is all weighing on him and Regulus does not know what to do.

Before, back in time, he would have asked James. Who would have dealt with it and never mentioned Regulus’s concern to Sirius. Now he is on his own. 

What would James do? Regulus wonders. 

Not this, not what he has been doing, which is ignoring and enabling and funding all his self-destructive behaviors. Tonight, Regulus will have to take a different approach. 

Because he has something very important to ask Sirius. Something he hopes will shake Sirius from his well-deserved pity party and into the next phase of recovery or reintegration into normal society. 

There is a child, he’s been told. Somehow, a very persistent woman named Isla Jones tracked down his personal office line and rang with a rather unusual request. A child who wants to meet Sirius Black—his hero. 

Regulus laughed when she called, assuming it was another overzealous prankster or a "fan" gone rogue. But as the conversation continued, he realized this was not a prank. Some child, a sick child in Wales, wants to meet Sirius. Says it would make his year better—a year spent in hospitals and cancer wards and undergoing all kinds of treatments. He wants to meet Sirius.

Regulus is going to make this happen, one way or another. For the child, yes. But for Sirius, too.

Because there is another child. One often forgotten by the podcasters and the Reddit threads and the overeager fans of Sirius Black and his alleged crimes. 

A child left behind—orphaned. A child Sirius is still refusing to see. A child who looks just like James and who has Lily’s piercing green eyes. 

Harry. The child Sirius does not want to—or can’t seem to find the strength to—meet. His godson, for Christ’s sake. Could be his actual son if he’d get his fucking life together for five minutes, long enough for the courts to declare him a fit parent. 

When Sirius is ready (and he will be ready, dammit), this will be the second most important court case of Regulus’s career. 

And if meeting Teddy could get Sirius one step closer to being ready to meet (remeet?) Harry, Regulus will do whatever it takes to get his brother to Wales. 

☆

There are too many things on the telly these days. Sirius painstakingly flips through each channel for the hundredth time that day. Thoughts like this make him feel ancient. He is only 33, and yet, it is like he is simultaneously stuck at 21 and somewhere around 100. 

And the world has changed so much while he was in prison, which seems unfair. If his life had to be frozen, why couldn’t the rest of the planet just follow suit? Why is there now social media and a thousand television channels and fucking podcasts? Why is everything so confusing? 

He wishes James were here to explain it all to him, like he’d always done. When they’d met in primary school, James made it his mission to explain the “real world,” to Sirius (and Reg, by proxy). Sirius—who’d been raised by an entire staff in a closed-off manor by a noble and fucking evil family—knew absolutely nothing about the real world. James had been eager to give him these lessons.

And then he had fucking died. Who does that, actually? Who dies at 21 and leaves behind a child and (more importantly) a best friend who really needed him? 

Very selfish of James, actually. 

Sirius only drinks when he remembers James, which is all the time. It should be easier to cope with when he is pleasantly buzzed, the way he used to desperately enjoy on weekends and during parties at university with James and Lily and– 

No, Sirius will not think his name. 

He takes another swallow directly from the bottle of half-empty vodka he’s been nursing all afternoon. It’s shit, but it does the trick. Or, it does enough. 

Sirius is not sure why Regulus keeps buying alcohol for him. He really should cut him off, start a taper before he becomes dependent and is forced to dry out under medical supervision, like they had watched their mother do at least six times before her death. Sirius hates how much he feels like her these days. 

He does not know how to stop it, either.

Because everything is different about the world. New monarch, new prime minister, new exit from the European Union, new Regulus with short hair and wrinkles in between his eyebrows, new celebrities, new neighbors, new fucking world. This should not surprise him—he had kept up with the news from prison. He’d been allowed that one small freedom, if nothing else.

Still, still, it feels so overwhelming all the time and always and he wishes just desperately his best friend was here to make sense of all of it for him.

Since James is not here and never will be here, Sirius keeps drinking. 

Regulus keeps buying the booze and pretending he is not disappointed. 

Sirius keeps pretending not to notice Regulus’s disappointment. 

No one brings up James or Lily or little Harry (who is not so little anymore, probably, Sirius would not know). 

And the world keeps turning. 

The door opens. Regulus home again. Sirius tenses in advance of his little brother’s presence and the inevitable lecture that will follow. 

In the cavernous hallway of Reg’s echoey flat, Sirius hears the regular sounds of Regulus’s arrival at home. This has become the soundtrack of his sad life: keys on the entry table, shoes slipped off and neatly lined in the organized bin by the front door, the shuffling of Regulus loosening his tie. 

Regulus never speaks when he gets home, not at first. He does his little routine, and Sirius wonders if he is bracing himself for what he will find inside the rest of the flat. Which is fair, probably. It grates on him anyway. 

By the time Regulus makes his way into the living room, where Sirius is sprawled out on the sofa wearing the same ragged pajamas he’s been stuck in for three (four?) days now, Sirius is irritable and itching to fight. Why? He is not sure—is he ever? 

“Yes, I’m still here,” he manages, probably slurring his words. 

“Where else would you be?” Always so practical, Regulus. It makes him a great solicitor—not that Sirius would ever say this out loud. 

“Alright.” He turns his attention back to the telly. Until Regulus, rudely, switches it off. 

“Read this.”

For the first time, Sirius notices the stack of papers in Regulus’s hand. It is not unusual, not really. Regulus is always bringing work home with him. A dark and neglected part of Sirius wonders if he does this on purpose, as an avoidance technique. It is effective, anyway, if that is what Reg is aiming for. 

Sirius grabs the stack of papers and is instantly confused by the letterhead. 

“Make-A-Wish? What is this?” He looks up at Regulus and instantly wishes he hadn’t. Reg’s face is soft, almost pleading. 

“Just read it.” 

Something long-dead twinges in Sirius’s chest. 

He reads. 

Sirius’s hands shake and not because of the alcohol. 

“What is this?” he asks Regulus again. 

With a sigh that makes him sound at least a decade older than he actually is, Regulus sits on the chair positioned across from Sirius. “This child has asked to meet you, and I think you should do it.” 

Sirius feels suddenly ashamed of himself. Of his greasy, long, unwashed and unkempt hair. Of the smell of alcohol on his breath and the way the bottle feels too comfortable in his hand. Of his worn clothes and their sticky scent after days of not showering. 

This child called him his hero. He is a fraud, at best. A disgusting disaster, at worst. He feels so much shame it is palpable, he is sure Regulus can feel it. 

“Why?” Sirius’s voice cracks. 

“Because I think if you snap out of your wallowing for even a few hours, you will see that there are a lot of good things left. A lot of people who care about you and want to see you succeed. And maybe you start with this kid, who seems to think the world of you.” 

Sirius hears what Reg is not saying. Of course he does. It is always there, unspoken between them. Harry. Sirius brushes it away. 

His hands still shake. 

“If I say yes,” he wonders aloud. “What would I do? I mean, where do I meet this kid?” 

Regulus leans forward, just slightly. “He’s at a children's hospital in Wales. Finishing up treatment for his leukemia. You can meet him there, or if it takes a little longer for you to get…ready to meet him, he lives with his dad in Cardiff. They’ve told the agency you’re welcome to come there and meet in their home or somewhere public in the city—whatever you’re comfortable with.” 

“I don’t want a photo-op.” Sirius says, adamant. “Let’s meet in their home. I don’t want this to be a big thing.” 

The small twitch of surprise on Regulus’s face makes Sirius realize he is actually agreeing to this. Perhaps it is the alcohol. Yes, that must be it, he is so drunk he’s agreeing to things he probably won’t remember in the morning.

That’s not it, though. He knows it’s not. For one, he hasn’t had that much to drink today, some disillusioned part of him is trying to cut himself off completely. 

There is just something so innocent about the application. Something so enticing about the idea of being a hero—although he’s done nothing for years but be miserable and rot in prison and blame himself for the death of his best friends. 

Maybe there is a small part of him that wants to be the person Teddy Lupin thinks he is. 

So yes, he is agreeing. 

“Give me a few weeks, please,” he hopes Regulus can sense his desperation. “Then we’ll go to Wales. Tell the agency I’ll do it. Tell them I’ll meet Teddy.”

Now he is sure he sees surprise on Regulus’s face. “I’ll call them right away.” He stands and leaves the room—presumably to call the Make-A-Wish people before Sirius gains enough consciousness to change his mind. Fair.

In the distance, Regulus’s bedroom door closes softly, muting the sound of his phone call. Sirius can’t make out what he’s saying. He turns his attention back to the form, and this line: I knew right away he was innocent.

How could a Welsh child who has never met him leave him feeling so unmoored? So seen?

Even Regulus had never said this. Obviously, a part of him must have believed in Sirius’s innocence—he’d spent the better part of a decade (his entire young adulthood, misspent) trying to free him, after all. Logically, Sirius understands that. But Regulus has never said it out loud; never assured Sirius he believed in him.

This Teddy Lupin unraveled him.

How could Sirius say no?

Still clutching the paper application, Sirius set down the bottle of vodka for the first time that afternoon. 

He did not pick it up again.