Work Text:
Remus is eleven when he starts to notice shapes.He likes books, with their straight, square pages; he likes the long, smooth curves of the staircases at hogwarts, the way the lake is a long oval made of glass on a still, sunny day, or when it is frozen.
He likes the shape his hands make around a cup of tea - he likes (later on) the way a raindrop looks, paused by his magic, perfectly round. There are shapes all over; things steady, secure, definite. It’s comforting - perhaps because in this stage of his life Remus has no control over the shape he, himself takes. Not that he really ever has, but he seems to shift everyday. One month he’s a four-foot midgetty thing in trousers too long, the next he realises in horror that he’s got to grow them - again - just to cover his ankles. By the end of third year he is almost seven foot, towering over the others, skinny so as to look underfed.
By fourth year he is tired of his own shapes, even though they’ve evened out. By fifth year, he barely pays attention, absorbed in other things. By fifth year, he notices the shapes of claws, of wood, of stone. Fresh linen, hospital corners, make him seethe. He lives in a series of tiny, carefully-shaped rebellions; he leaves his bed purposely in disarray.
In sixth year, he notices Sirius (or Sirius, finally, notices him) - the long slope of his straight nose, the curl he tried to curse out of his hair. His short, clean fingernails, rectangles - the arch of his spine.
After school is done, a while later, he notices the shape of them together. Not straight edged, like his bed, or doorways; not even curved like alcoves or the staircases he so loved. They don’t fit anything at all - Sirius lies snoring, one arm over Remus, one hanging over the side of the bed, a leg underneath the werewolf’s, the other bent up - Remus sleeps as best he can amongst the chaos. But they are a shape. Of sorts. In the little things - he notices that Sirius’ feet are exactly the same size as his own, and Sirius’ forehead is exactly the right height to fit between Remus’ shoulder and neck. The pad of his thumb fits in the hollow of Remus’ long collarbones like it had been there all along, and was once removed. They can be cohesive; even neat.
But their joy - his joy - is in their disorder. It’s in a carefully orchestrated, gentle kind of rebellion - in their duvet which never quite fits itself, the windows on their tiny flat which don’t quite sit in the frames. In the cups and plates which are all chipped, and which neither of them bother to fix with magic.
Sirius never plans, never holds himself accountable, does not stand up straight -Remus frets and fusses over the shapes of his ‘e’s in a letter. But they, too, together, are a shape. Of sorts.