oh my god this was rly long but I did it! idk maybe less happened than I thought it would but! oh and I made Mary and Hope asians, deal with it, tho I’m sorry if there’s been inconsistent hc oops it’s been so long since I read through the tumblr version fully anyway I’ll stop now & as always ty for reading ily <3<3<3
It was bound to be a long and raucous evening. With the speaker turned up to full, and boxes of reheated pizza piled on the coffee table surrounded by bottles of wine and beer, they filled the room full to the brim. Those who didn’t fit on the couches and armchairs spilled onto the floor, making a circle between them.
No one and everyone was holding court, the way they sprawled across the room. Remus curled up on the couch with Lily and Mary, who was telling all sorts of stories about James from before, making Lily laugh till her eyes watered. Where James and Sirius sat on the carpet in front of the sofa, Sirius was gleefully adding to the mix, head leaning back just enough to rest on Remus’ knee. Peter, the lucky bastard, bagged the comfortable armchair before anyone noticed, and Dorcas and Marlene were snuggled into a beanbag by its side.
“Marlene darling—” Mary stretched an arm to pass a fresh can of beer, “how’s the hockey been?”
“Please, you wouldn’t understand if I told you.”
“What! It’s not like we know nothing!”
“Look, I’d grab Pete if I wanted to talk hockey. Cheers—” She saluted at Peter’s laugh, “The rest of you are all clueless.”
“How’d you know I haven’t become a hockey player! I could have just secretly changed careers overnight. Heard it was the fad ‘round here.” She turned to wink at Lily and Remus.
“Oh yeah, wasn’t that a surprise.” Dorcas said, “you all need to stop keeping things from us. Can’t believe I hadn’t heard a word of it till I showed up myself.”
“Well I’m not complaining,” Sirius grinned, and James hummed in acquiesce. Remus couldn’t tell if it was about him, or Lily and James.
Lily was blushing nonetheless. “Oh enough about us. How’s the States been, Mary?”
“Yeah, how are the people of the New World? Are they really all obsessed with money and guns?”
“No but hear me out, they’re still all so weird.” Mary laughed easily, “And also, apparently I sound too Chinese for the white people and too British for the Asians. Nevermind they all grew up with American accents anyway.”
-
“Remus Lupin,” Mary leaned across the space Lily left empty as she stood, “how’s my favourite fake asian doing these days, hmm?”
Remus groaned, and jostled her head on his shoulders. “Not bad, I suppose.” he said simply, not knowing how to elaborate.
Mary stared at him a bit, then snorted. “See, there’s why you’re a fake asian.”
“So was I supposed to tell you about the new bubble tea store in town?”
“Exactly. You don’t even need a ‘how are you’ to start ranting about your parents and shitty new Chinese restaurants.” Mary waved a hand, hiding a forlorn smile that showed up every time she started to ‘talk asian’, “And obviously I want a nuanced analysis of that new bubble tea shop.”
Remus smiled back. He never expected to have real opinions about something like this, but at some point, between him and Mary, it became a coded dialogue about missing home. “They’re quite good. And not too obsessed with tea leaves to be crazy expensive. You should try the ice matcha.”
“Do they have good pearls?”
“Pretty good actually. Perfect texture, and melts just a bit on the outside—”
“Ugh,” Mary groaned, then started to giggle. “Yeah, I do like bubble tea. Oh Rem, how’s aunty Hope been doing?”
“Yeah, she’s good. Well, physically she’s the best she’s been since before, but there’s been other things bogging her down.”
“You know,” Mary looked up, matching his frown, “she could ask my parents anything, even though they’re not in the country, right?”
“Oh Mary. Thank you. But you know she’d never ask.”
“I’ll get my parents to call then.”
“Even then she won’t tell. Or say yes.”
Mary sighed, “you two. You’re the exact same. But anyhow it’ll be nice for them to catch up.”
‘Yeah… You should come ‘round some day.”
“Yea!” Mary breathed eagerly, “I really missed those massive veggie buns she used to make.”
“Yeah.” Remus said quietly.
For the next few moments, Mary watched him. Remus barely realised, he was looking ahead and unconsciously gnawing his lips again.
“Whatever it is, stop worrying.” Mary slapped him lightly on the arm.
“What—”
“Just enjoy the evening, yeah? And stop worrying so much about everything, you sooty stick.”
He replied with a light chuckle, “I’ll try,” and raised his beer in salute.
-
It would be very welcoming indeed, Remus thought, if his brain was just wired to let go. Which it should, tonight of all nights. It would be ideal indeed, if noise and friendship was just enough.
But there was no way to explain the nameless agitation that started and didn’t go away. Soon it manifested physically as a headache rising from behind his eyes, an audible static that came in waves and settled as a buzz between his ears. It wasn’t the beer, he barely had any, and he was nowhere as drunk as the rest of his friends. But he found that their conversation started to race ahead that he could barely follow. They flitted in and out, never too far from skating, of course. He felt strangely unsteady, floating as though in a dream, and all that noise. Remus was hearing himself being drowned out.
-
They started talking about program music at some point. Sirius was proudly showing some moves from the Bohemian Rhapsody remix he’d put together for the free skate, even pulling Remus up with him at some point. Dorcas jumped up, matching move for move with her jazz tracks. Then Lily and James would start arguing among the two of them again.
“Just choose something you both like and be done with it! What’s so complicated?”
“Oh no Marls, that was the wrong thing to say.”
“It’s got to make sense, you know?” Lily said urgently, “It can’t just be a random track out of your workout playlist, or whatever your coach chooses—”
“You two are just obsessing at this point—”
“Itneeds to resonate. I need to feel it in my soul.”
Marlene laughed.
“She’s right though.” James added, “And it needs to be right for the both of us, which you know, is easy if you’ve paired for years but we’ve just started, and—”
“And we’re fighting about everything, it’s so frustrating, neither of us were like this before!”
Mary and Remus, ‘the ones before’, shared a grin and a smirk.
“So is it a romance you want to tell?” Dorcas suggested.
“Obviously it’s a romance!” Lily gestured, “And an intense one at that. ‘Cause you know, with Remus, all our narratives have been mostly— platonic, and even if it’s a love story it’d be some innocent and pretty fairytale, because it’s, it’s Remus—”
Remus scoffed, “what’s that supposed to mean?”
“She says you’re cute!” Marlene called from across the floor.
“Yeah,” Sirius breathed into his shoulder, “and I’d agree.”
Remus whipped his head around, “how drunk are you?”
But Sirius’ eyes were stone cold sober, startlingly clear in the light and edges crinkled with a smile.
Remus felt something jump in his chest. He hurriedly looked back towards Lily.
“And there’s nothing wrong with that at all, Remus, I love you, and you know that. But I just— it’s been two years and I feel different. I want to show something different now, you know? James doesn’t get it—”
“What do you mean I don’t get it? I totally get it!”
“Then why has everything you’ve suggested been, oh I don’t know, playboy pretty girl—”
“That’s not— I mean, that’s not what I—”
“Playboy, Prongs?” Sirius had burst out laughing, “you? Really?”
James’ drink-flushed cheeks coloured even more, despite his dark skin, “That’s not what I was going for! I’ll have you know—”
“Then who did you want to be?” Peter snorted, “some loverboy Romeo?”
“Yes, exactly!”
The room burst into laughter. James frowned.
“What’s wrong with that?”
“Oh James,” Dorcas wiped her eyes, “I knew we should have gotten you into acting with us.”
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing,” Remus nudged James with his elbow, “you would have made a nice Romeo, that’s all.”
“If he could have taken it seriously for more than a second.” Peter said.
“I’m not Romeo,” James blurted. “I don’t want it to be Romeo, but you know, I don’t really want it to be me either—”
“But James it’s meant to be you, how else do you tell the story?”
“Just that! Tell a story. I mean, it would be a bit creepy to imagine myself in the story with— you know…” James trailed off.
Remus heard Sirius’ quiet laugh, and dared to look over.
“I think he wants to not-himself,” Sirius whispered with a smile in his voice, “so he can unabashedly obsess over Lily.”
“Yeah.” Remus smiled a little, “That’s the impression I got as well.”
-
“What about you, Remus?” Mary finally asked.
“Huh?”
“You. Your music?”
“Oh, I— don’t know yet.”
“Oh.” She said, looking at him curiously. She saw Remus squirm uncomfortably, and quickly added with a smile, “not that far behind these two, then. Have you got any ideas?”
“Yeah I’m,” Remus grimaced to himself, “mostly not sure.”
“Wait, you’ve chosen our waltz for the short right?” Lily turned to beamed at him, “Chopin’s 19?”
‘Our waltz’, Lily called it, because it had been the track for their senior debut, a couple of years ago now. The posh kids from Slytherin scoffed and laughed at how it’s “one of Chopin’s easiest waltz”, but the two of them had always been ridiculously proud of it.
“Yeah.” Remus squeezed a smile, “that’s what I told McGonagall. But I don’t know, I could still change it, if I’m not sure. And the free skate—” he exhaled frustratedly, “I— don’t even know what I want it to be. I just know what I don’t want it to be— sometimes.”
“And what’s that?”
“What everyone else is doing?” Remus said, with half a frown, half a pout.
His friends burst out laughing, though Remus didn’t feel the humour.
-
“Oh my god!” Dorcas clanked her bottle down, “Are we here for another round of complaining about the scoring system?”
“Yes! I swear—”
“The very idea of a panel for subjectively judging components and interpretation—”
“Like sure, it’s not the 6.0 system anymore, with anonymity and everything, but I swear to god sometimes it just feels like they can now cheat you and have nothing traced back to them—”
“I did a degree on this, if you suggest a human panel for judging anything in computer science they’ll just straight up laugh at you, but not here it seems!”
“At least we used to be able to tell straight away if a score is off. But now we have to just guess, meticulously compare every person’s jumps and scores to call them out.”
“And what the hell do you do with the ‘presentation mark’?”
“Exactly!”
“It’s so easily manipulated it’s crazy.”
“And honestly, sometimes I feel bad for the judges, everyone is always taking a shot at them”, Dorcas said, ever-so-compassionate, “but it amazes me how they’d came up with a system so easily questioned.”
“Oh no, not just questioned, their reputation is getting destroyed in all circles of sensible people. Honestly, how many scandals does it take for them to start fixing things?”
-
Marlene was at the stage of drunk where she looked ready to climb on the coffee table, and start an impromptu impassioned speech against capitalism. Mary was trying to get the troupe to start singing show tunes together, old-time-theatre-kids-style.
“Comeon,” she intoned, “We’ve got the wines and beers, and all the loud obnoxious young queers”
“Mary, you’re speaking in rhyme.”
“La vie boheme!!” She shouted as the only reply, raising her glass to the ceiling.
“Oh is that Rent? I loved that show!”
“Hell yea Jamesy! And oh my god look, it’s like us now! A bunch of young drunk bohemians in a room—”
“Yeah, not quite sure we’re there yet.”
“We are drunk, though. And we love that show. I love living queer hippie anti-establishment. I love theatre,” Mary mumbled, smiling dazedly and one arm around each of James and Lily, pulling them around with her words, “Oh you know what— this is exactly what you two should do for your skate! Dig out your theatre roots and go for one of the musicals—”
Lily chuckled noncommittally, “yeah sure.”
“No, I’m being serious! Oh shut up Sirius—” she immediately said, with a huff from Sirius, “god. A couple of months away and I’m already forgetting. How could I. Anyway, James, Lily, you listen— you know what I think? I think you should properly look at all the theatre classics, romantic, and as intense as you want them—”
“Hmm,” James turned his head to the ceiling, snorting a laugh.
“Listen up! This could be your Eureka moment.”
“Alright, yes! Listening!”
“I could help you fix up a medley. No, really, I was going to do some work with Hogwarts’ orchestra anyway.”
“That— would be wonderful.”
“Wouldn’t it?” Mary grinned, “so what do you think? The Phantom, Les Mis— though James I don’t really think you could pull a Marius— Christian from Moulin Rouge— maybe. Or some Sondheim? A Little—”
“Wait no—” Lily started, at the same time as James:
“No stop a second—”
They paused, surprised, and slowly turned to look at each other. They became even more astonished to find the same shade of epiphany in each other’s look.
“Blimey,” James breathed, “this is it, isn’t it?”
Lily said nothing in response. She looked back at Mary.
“You said— Moulin Rouge, right?”
“Yeah…” Mary thought again, “Oh. Oh— oh my god! Satine and Christian!”
“I don’t get it.”
“Shut up Pete!”
“That movie was so cheesy!”
“Shut up! This makes so much sense!” Mary was grinning like mad, “Oh god this is wonderful. I could— we could start tonight—” she made to stand up, only to stumble.
“Hey it’s fine, it’s fine!” James pulled her back down. He and Lily were staring at each other with such a look in their eyes. “Oh Mary! Thank you, I— can’t believe we just—”
“I told you,” Mary said happily, “your Eureka moment! And Lily— come on, Satine is so hot—”
-
No matter how much Remus wanted to knock his own brains out, he couldn’t concentrate at all after that. On anything. He suspected something ugly in him was envious of his friends, and the thought sent through him shocks of guilt and disgust at himself. The buzz between his ears was becoming a swirl, pounding under his skull as though almost starting to block his vision.
He screwed his eyes shut. Surely, he could slip away without them noticing? The way they were so wrapped up in their rapture.
He felt Sirius place a concerned hand on his knee, but he lightly pushed it off. “Sorry Pads I— I’ve got a headache. Might just go outside for a while.”
Carefully, he stood and made his way to the door. Mary stopped him with a questioning look.
“Headache. Will probably turn in early tonight.” He said apologetically. And Mary put her drink down to envelop him in a hug.
“Go on you. I’ll explain to everyone.”
“It’s so good to see you.” Remus said sincerely. Having gotten Mary’s answering smile, he picked up his rucksack, “come for lunch on Sunday, yeah?” He said, and slipped out the room to the front door.
-
Out in the cool night air, Remus looked up and tried to breathe deeply. Above him, a blanket of bright stars were silently moving through another night, along their assigned tracks, in perfectly coordinated harmony. He wondered why everything else must seem so ordered, so peaceful.
Lily and James would really make an insane pair as Satine and Christian, he thought, despite how his brain might refuse to process it.
He sighed, feeling too tired to stay and too restless to go home. So he headed to the rink.
-
ok look I’ll break my rule and put my ramble here instead of in the tags because my dudes please watch Tessa and Scott’s Moulin Rouge free skate because it’s maybe *the* most iconic program in recent history?? it’s unironically almost a religious experience. if I remember right that was the reason this monster was started, like one time I watched (and look I’m not lying when I say I literally watched this daily recently while writing this) and my brain just went ‘wait… jily?’ and yeah anyway have a good day <3
“Remus Lupin!” bellowed a voice Remus hadn’t heard in two years.
He was just about to demonstrate the double axle to one of his older students. But he winced and stumbled on take-off, and landed with his arse on the ice.
And the boy had the audacity to laugh at him.
Remus groaned, “What do you want, you lunatic!” He shouted back, and looked towards the source of the voice. Sure enough, one Marlene Mckinnon, crop top, leather jacket, ripped jeans and all, was perched at the rails sporting an almost-amused smirk.
“Get your arse over here!”
The boy looked at Remus amusedly. “I guess that’s that for the day?”
“Yeah, I suppose so.” he muttered, shaking his head, “Sorry, Andrew. We’ll try that again next Tuesday, yeah?”
Marlene’s eyes followed him all the way as Remus made his way over. “You’ve got to stop letting those kids bribe you into unpaid overtime.”
“Well,” Remus shrugged, “how’d you think I started skating.”
“What’s it they say? Fight the system, not acquiesce to it?”
Remus laughed breathily, “good to see you too, Marls.”
Marlene was possibly the only one out of their friends to appear even less impressed to see Remus than he was to see them. But the fierce hug they shared betrayed them both.
“Marlene,” Remus drew back with a smile, arms still on her shoulders, “How did it take you so fucking long to show up?”
She lightly punched him in the side, “I’m here now, aren’t I?”
“How’ve you been?”
“Oh you know,” She grinned, running a hand through her messy blond locks, “a bit bored. But that’s life.”
“Oh my god,” Remus chuckled. They’ve come a long way from binge-reading Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky together at 3am, but— “you’re still exactly the same.”
“Surely nothing and no one ever really changes.” She deadpanned.
“None at all?”
“Well. Nothing that really matters.”
“Alright you.” Remus snorted fondly. “Then what’s this I hear about you falling in love?”
Marlene’s lips twitched, “Oh yeah?”
“So what. Have you gone crazy about someone and finally figured out what the fuss is all about now?”
“Oh no.” She laughed, “Didn’t you hear? Nothing changed. The world doesn’t turn over on its belly. You just don’t realise it isn’t really different. Sure, I’m crazy about her but. Always been, haven’t I?”
“Hmm.” Remus considered her with a small smile. “I quite like that. Good for you, Marls.”
-
It wasn’t long before the rest of everyone bundled in. They were impossibly loud as they poured down the sidewalk that led from Hogwarts into the village. Everyone was laughing, trying to have five different conversations with everyone else. Remus flitted between walking besides each of his friends, not a couple of words exchanged before one of them was pulled into another conversation. But it was the pleasant kind of exasperated buzz in his head. It’s been so long since they were like this. For perhaps the first time since they’ve graduated, all of them were gathered together in one spot. Well, almost everyone.
“Oh by the way!” James suddenly called out over all of them, “Did you all know that Mary is flying in tonight?”
“What?!”
“Who fucking what?”
“You’ve got to be kidding—”
“Why didn’t I know—”
James laughed as he was drowned out with a bout of surprised, indignant exclamations, and looked around delightedly at them all. “Well yeah! She told me her flight’s today, asked me to pick her up and everything!”
“No, no, no, James Potter—” Lily looked ready to pull out her hair, “did you just— forget to mention— how long have you known?”
“A couple of days.” The way James was grinning, one would think he’d won a million-pound prize. “Dance partner loyalty, and all that.”
“Not jealous, are you Lils?” Sirius nudged her with an elbow.
“Fuck you, Black.” Lily whipped her head around, her ponytail almost slapping James in the face as Sirius laughed.
“Mary that traitor,” Dorcas said disbelievingly, “How come she didn’t tell any of us! I knew she was coming back soon but not— James, when exactly is she arriving?”
“Oh, she’ll probably be landing soon, I was gonna get home and get the car straight away.”
“Bloody fuck,” Remus breathed. “Glasgow? Godspeed with the traffic, Prongs.” James responded with a two-finger salute.
“Yeah, want us to pack you something to eat on the way?” Peter added.
“Nah, it’s all good! Just make it good for when we get back.” James winked.
“You bastard,” Marlene said, “guess we’re at yours tonight then? Bloody hell, give some warning for this sort of shit next time.”
“Where’s all the fun to that!”
Marlene rolled her eyes. “We’ll go grab some beers then, shall we?”
“And pizza. Literally nothing else would do.”
“Good call, Pete!”
Remus shook his head to himself. This was bound to be a long and raucous night. As everyone else prattled on excitedly about their plans, Sirius sidled up to him.
“Remus—” he smiled a little nervously, and said under his breath, “I know we said we’d go somewhere just the two of us tonight, but—”
“Shut up.” Remus grabbed Sirius’ hand with both of his, “of course we’ll bunk in with everyone. What were you thinking?”
“Know you must be tired. Had a long day, wanting a quiet night, that’s all.”
“No, it’s fine.” Remus shook his head, “I can’t wait to see Mary. Fuck, I can’t believe we’re all here.”
“Crazy, ‘innit?” Sirius chuckled breathily.
“You didn’t know either, did you?”
“No.” Sirius gave him a lopsided little smile. “Not a clue.”
They shared a quiet smile, the lamplights’ shadow gliding across their faces as they continued walking forwards.
“We’ll do this again another day, won’t we?” Sirius asked.
“For sure. Any day you want, really. We don’t even need to set a date, most of the time you end up grabbing me for the evening anyway.”
“Alright, well. What about tomorrow?”
“A saturday? We won’t be at the rink though.”
“Yeah, but we could just go for dinner anyway.” Sirius shrugged, looking ahead.
Remus smirked a little. “Won’t miss me so much after one weekend, will you?”
Sirius huffed, “will you come with me or not?”
“Yeah, of course.” Remus said quietly, after a short moment.
Sirius turned to him then with a soft smile. “It’s set, then.”
-
Sirius’ phone buzzed— it’s a message from James. Remus leaned in to read over Sirius’ shoulder. They’ve piled into Sirius and James’ house, with enough food and drink to feed a zoo. Though Remus supposed they weren’t all that different from a zoo. The message read:
Pronks: were just outside town now!!!xxxx
“Ahoy mates!” Sirius exclaimed and jumped off the sofa, “they’ll be here soon!”
Remus picked up the phone that kept buzzing:
gon make it a surprise kay? turn the lights off and everything
With some sort of telepathic understanding, Sirius was already running up and down closing curtains and turning off lights.
“Right, Pete, you’re on window duty. Signal the moment you see Prongs’ car rolling in.” He flew around the room, so fully in his element, “someone go get the upstairs light, I’ll stand by for hall and kitchen— Lily, can you find the stairs?”
“I don’t know where your lights are—”
“Ow Lils that was my foot—”
“Oh I’m so sorry—”
“Can you turn the fucking lights back on?” Marlene waved an arm around, hitting Remus in the chest, “oh for fucks— can y’all calm down?”
“Calm down, Marls? We’re about to see Mary!”
“Can someone please go upstairs those lights on the stairs are our fanciest!”
“Alright I’ll go!” Remus relented, getting up and started to feel his way through the dark.
“Love you Moons! Okay, do you think we’ve got any streamers?”
“Oh my god can we not—”
“Code red!” Peter suddenly shouted, turning from the crack in the curtain, “targets approaching— everyone get to station, wherever we didn’t even agree to!”
After a couple minutes of waiting interrupted with occasional whispers and stifled giggles, they heard muffled talking through the doorway. Laughter— James’ booming bellows and Mary’s high pitched giggles— a jangling of keys, then the key was turning in the hole, and the door cracked open. The shadow of a shaggy head was seen in the doorway before James flicked a light on. With it, the entire house burst alight.
“Surprise!!” Everyone shouted, jumping from behind walls and furniture. Remus poked his head down the top of the stairs.
“Welcome home, Mary!” James grinned, stepping aside to let Mary take in the room and everyone around. She stood wide-eyed and still for long moments, jean jacket awry and high ponytail messy from travel, both hands full with travel sacks. Everyone held their breath.
“Oh my god.” Mary dropped the bags and covered her mouth with her hands. Her eyes were shiny, “of fucking course all of you are fucking here!”
In unison, the entire room flooded forwards, and crowded the tiny hallway in the loudest, grandest group hug they’ve had in two years.
“Mmh. I’ve missed you. Where the hell have you been?”
“What, I thought I was giving you and Sirius some space.”
Remus’ head snapped to her, looking scandalised, “excuse me? That’s what you’re call gallivanting around with James?”
“What was I supposed to do when you were off with Sirius all the time?”
“Well what if I thought I was ‘giving you and James some space’?”
They narrowed their eyes at one another.
“Let’s drop it.”
“Hm.” Remus hummed sceptically.
“Alright! I’m sorry!” Lily said, “Your love life is not my excuse! Neither is mine yours. Happy?”
“Fine.” Remus crossed his arms, “so it’s a ‘love life’ you’ve got now?”
“Oh you know,” Lily looked on the verge of blushing.
“What have you gotten up to?”
“We— ended up going on a few dates. And umm, went back to his, when Sirius was out,” she was undeniably red now. Remus smirked and punched her arm. “Hey! Not so fast. When Sirius was out— with you, I presume?”
Remus thought about it. “I think that’s when he came to have dinner with me and mum.”
“Getting cosy, are we?”
“Well. Then there’s that time we biked to the regional park? That wasn’t cosy at all, that was quite cold. And he had the bright idea of hitchhiking to Glasgow to go to an arcade. That one didn’t really work out, obviously, we ended up on the train. Got back in the middle of the night.”
Lily looked at him in wonder.
“He did get to go to the arcade, though. I quite enjoyed watching him go berserk alongside a bunch of children.”
“Have you—” Lily asked curiously, “talked with him about it?”
Remus took a long moment to sigh, then looked back at Lily. There was no question what ‘it’ was. The ‘it’ between two people that sometimes had a name but Remus simply didn’t yet want to name.
“Maybe. No. Not exactly.” Remus said, “We did decide to just be comfortable around one another. Physically too, to some extent. Doesn’t mean it has to be a— thing.”
The look Lily was giving him resembled how one might look at a cute little puppy about to make a fool of itself, brows drawn and holding in a laugh.
“Oh shut up.”
She continued to regard him with a tilt of the head, “but do you want it to be ‘a thing’? Have you really thought about it?”
“I— don’t know.” Remus muttered, and shrugged. “I sort of have a lot on my mind.”
-
“Do bandaids work on lips? Bandaids don’t work on lips.”
“Huh?” Remus looked up at James, who stood looming over Remus as he sat in the stands hunched over a pile of files “what in hell are you on about?”
“Can’t put a bandaid on your lips, so you should stop biting them, before they start bleeding.”
“Oh.” Remus poked at his bottom lip with his tongue. It did feel rather tender, “I didn’t even realise.”
“Stressed?”
“A bit, I guess.”
“What are those?” James sat down next to him and gestured at the pile.
“Oh. Just trying to figure out my jumps. Key word trying. And not getting very far.” He flicked through the top few sheets to display pages full of component score calculations.
“Blimey. All this for that? Sure you aren’t overthinking it?”
“Course not. And no, most of the pile is just class schedules for McGonagall, which I also still need to figure out, shit—”
“Oh. Chill, Remus, it’s fine—”
“—Oh and she’ll be hounding me about the free skate music again.” Remus didn’t like the way his head was almost going dizzy, “James—”
“C’mon Remus.” James wrapped an arm around his shoulder, “take it easy, yeah? It’s really all fine. Lord knows me and Lils are nowhere near the end of bickering about it too.”
Remus huffed through his nose but said nothing.
“You’ve got no need to be so wrung out about the jumps at all, either.” James declared, ever the pep-talker, “It’ll all make sense the moment you got your music sorted.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I suppose.” Remus sighed, and ran both hands over his face, “thank you, James.”
“No problem. And hit me up if you want me to take over a couple of classes, yeah?”
Remus knew that James knew he’d never actually accept the offer, but it was nice to hear, regardless.
“Sure.” he said with a little smile.
“Alrighty.” James nodded satisfiedly, and moved to stand up, “See you around, Moony.”
“Hmm.” Remus replied distractedly, before a thought occurred to him. “Wait— you wait just the moment.” he started, pulling James by his sleeve, “I’ve got a couple of questions about you and ‘Lils’, Mr Potter.”
James smiled sheepishly. Remus smirked.
-
“Oh my god, what are you doing here now?”
Remus sighed at another interruption. Though it was probably a good thing. He might be doing his head in at this rate.
It was Dorcas this time. She breathed heavily and her face flushed olive— most likely due to having run across campus from her dance session.
“Oh I, have a class to take in—” Remus said distractedly, checking his watch, “an hour.”
“Again, why the fuck are you here? Where’s Sirius?”
“He’s visiting Benjy’s studio in town for choreo.”
“Of course.” Dorcas muttered, “so what, you’re just going to coop in here all day because no one’s dragging you out?”
“It hasn’t been all day— and wasn’t going to be all day!”
“Yeah, ‘cause you’ve got dinner plans with Sirius?”
“No!”
“I know you do, love, he told me himself.”
Remus groaned. “What, you think that’s something you’ve got over me?”
“Why were you so quick to deny it then?”
“Well you made it sound like— something it’s not!”
“I said nothing of the sort. Have you considered this concept called projecting?”
“Sirius, why has Fabian sent me a letter to apologise to you?” Remus poked him in the stomach with his toes.
“Hmm?” Sirius groggily lifted his head from Remus’ chest, trying to blink the sleep away. “Fabian… oh! Er—”
“He said he’s sorry for, and I quote, ‘inappropriate advances’ towards you, ‘due to some misunderstandings that had inadvertently arisen, I hope this will not come between our friendship—’” Remus read quickly, “Sirius, what happened?”
“Hm.” Sirius slowly pushed himself up onto his elbows, “that’s funny.”
“I for one have not seen Fabian this awkward about anything.”
“All that sounding formal too.”
“What did you do?”
“I umm.” rip the bandage off, “I kissed him. Or really, he kissed me.”
“Oh, so you’re branching out.” Remus drew up his knees and looked at Sirius lopsidedly, “but then why’s Fabian apologising? Unless you aren’t branching out, but you’ve not been dating for a while either, so is that why you— did you think you might be— oh, Sirius. Come here.”
“Huh?” Sirius said a little dumbly, but let Remus take him in his arms.
“Who would have known all that was going on in your head, huh?”
“Is that supposed to be an insult?”
Remus laughed, Sirius scowled.
“Really, though, whatever worked or didn’t work— it’s alright. You know that, don’t you?”
Sirius bit his lips and grunted. “It wasn’t supposed to not work, though.”
“What does that mean?”
“This isn’t normal, is it?”
“What’s normal then? Having sex with boys?”
“Yes, obviously! Fabian’s fine!”
“But Fabian doesn’t want to have sex with girls.”
“Well yeah.”
“So it’s fine to not want to have sex with girls, and it’s ‘obviously’ fine not wanting to have sex with boys, it’s also apparently perfectly fine to want both— then why can’t you just not want either?”
“Yeah but. You have to want something, don’t you? It’s part of being human or whatever.”
“Pads, hate to break it to you,” Remus deadpanned, “but you’re actually talking to a werewolf.”
“That’s not what I—”
“And you happen to be a dog. Not really a ‘human’ are you?”
“I’m clearly more than just a human. So are you. That’s what Nietzsche meant by ubermensch right?”
Remus looked as though he seriously thought about the suggestion, “Sure. Something like that. And the ubermensch cares not about what’s normal, which are clearly all a farce.”
“It’s too early in the morning for this.”
“For what?” Remus said innocently? “Cuddling? You can get out now if you want. Or— is it too abnormal for a manly male friendship?”
“Shut up.” Sirius whined, snuggling even closer to Remus.
“Hiya lads!” James burst in through their door, “ooh have I come in on cuddling hour?” he said, and launched himself at them.
“Gerrof Prongs! You’re all sweaty and gross!”
“I’m joining too.” Peter poked his head out from the toilet, toothbrush still in his mouth. He ambled over and curled into Remus’ other side, butting off James to sprawl across the foot of the bed.
-
“Wait a second.” the thought occurred to Sirius halfway thought the day, “Remus, how did you know Fabian’s gay?”
“Oh well,” Remus said breezily, “he told me he had a crush on me once.”
—
The Marauders had a motto— they did whatever they liked, long as no one got hurt. (well, no one who wasn’t a git).
Then came the night when Sirius first failed his promise of never leaving Moony alone on a full moon. And—
“When we said we could do whatever we liked long as no one got hurt,” Remus said coldly, not looking at him, “this wasn’t what I meant.”
It was the morning after, when Sirius tried to visit feeling like he had a rotting pit for a heart. And sure, of course, whatever he did or wanted to do was precisely who he was. But it was clearly far from fine, or normal, or good.
—
He talked to the boys about it at the start of sixth year. Everything in their dorm, the window panes, the bed curtains, hung exactly where they’d always been. Yet everything felt so strange. Remus was standing in the corner, listening carefully, but the air between them was still stilted.
“I get it, I think.” Peter said, “I might be the same. Is it like, you don’t really care what the other person is? Boy, girl, whatever?”
“Got it in one, Pete.”
“Yeah. I think I’m like that too.”
“Oh. Thanks for telling us.”
“But then,” Peter continued, “you don’t really want to kiss them or have sex with them.”
“That too.”
“Yeah, that’s the part I don’t really get.”
“It’s just,” Sirius scratched his head, “I don’t look at a person and think, I want to have sex with them. Ever. Or even kissing, but that’s— fine, I guess. Could do without it, though.”
He glanced over to find Remus looking straight into his eyes, gaze sharp yet unreadable. At what must have been Sirius’ worried look, Remus pressed his lips together in what could have been a tight smile. Sirius felt acknowledged and reassured nonetheless.
—
Having been paired with Lily Evans for Charms, with James looking on in resigned despair, must have been the funniest thing to have happened to him— in some universe where it didn’t happen because Remus probably had asked to not be with him.
“I swear, Black, if you’re going to spend this whole time advertising James Potter to me I will make your life miserable.”
“Yeh. I know you could. But do you want to hear about the time he laughed so hard at something you said soup came out of his nose?”
But it turned out that it was just James who Lily was a threat to.
-
“You have a
“You have a crush on Remus.”
“What?”
“You do. You’re staring at him all the time.”
Sirius couldn’t quite talk about why he was looking at Remus rather than being with him; or about how every new day he still felt like guilt was being kneaded into him like dough. “Am I, not allowed to look at my friend?”
“You don’t stare at Peter like that, do you. Not even James.”
“Yeah well, what’s there to stare at?”
Lily laughed. “Sure.”
“It’s not like— I want to kiss him or anything.” Sirius said lamely.
“Oh come on. You think that’s the only symptom of having a crush? And it’s not like you have to want to kiss them to have a crush on them.”
“Nope Evans. You’re making no sense.” Sirius decided, “what does it even mean to have a crush, huh? Can you tell me that?”
Lily rolled her eyes “can’t talk to you when you’re like this.”
-
It was quite unlucky the way Lily planted the idea in his head. It was quite unlucky the way he was noticing how much he noticed Remus. Remus, who sang Joni Mitchell in the shower and talked in his sleep. Who liked David Bowie way too much and gave the best cuddles. Who Sirius would clearly do anything for,
And he wondered.
-
The answer came on an unremarkable afternoon in the common room. Remus was playing chess with Peter, and when Sirius approached them, Remus looked up towards him, and unhesitatingly smiled. It was open and careless, a smile Sirius hadn’t seen directed at him for months. Then Sirius suddenly knew that they were okay. So much more than okay.
Remus, however, quickly went back to scowling at the game between him and Peter. He was so clearly losing.
Instead of directing his next play with his voice, Remus took out his wand, and started poking at his tragically few remaining pieces.
“Remus, hey, what are you doing?” Peter immediately tried to grab at Remus’ wand, almost upsetting the board.
Remus showed no sign of relenting. Peter grabbed the board to take it away, a suddenly movement that badly startled some of the chess pieces. They started pointing their tiny arrows and canons towards Peter, firing at him.
“Ow! Alright.” Peter put his hand up. Remus smirked.
He stabbed at his remaining pawns until they looked like queens— with crooked crowns and third-handed gowns. But they apparently didn’t mind
“Queen to D4, queen to E5, queen to F4.” Remus said triumphantly, tapping at each of the transfigured pawns, “Oh hell yeh. Checkmate, Pete!”
Peter groaned. “I hate you!”
“I didn’t know you could be so blatant with cheating.” Sirius said breezily
“Sorry buddy,” Remus said, grinning, not sounding sorry at all. As Peter’s king has been felled, he waved a finite over the board, then stood to give his seat up. “Go on then, Pads.”
And he sat serenely with a book, watching Sirius getting absolutely destroyed by a still-fuming Peter three games in a row. And Sirius could hardly pay enough attention to mind, because he’d just gotten Moony back, who was smiling and grinning and smirking at him, and all was alright in the world.
—
It was a sunny weekend afternoon. The common room, albeit bright and warm and cosier than ever, was abandoned as expected. Except.
Sirius caught Remus sitting at the piano, stumbling through the chords of Starman, while singing along under his breath. Sirius grinned widely, creeped over, lightly pushing Remus till he budged over, and plopped himself down right by him.
“Want me to teach you?” He doesn’t wait for an affirmative, “Like this, see—” he wound an arm around Remus to place his own hands over Remus’.
He shuffled their hands to correct Remus’ awkward finger positions, one chord at a time through the whole song, then back to the start and again. It was slow and awkward, punctuated by intermittent laughs, huffs of frustration, Sirius playfully slapping Remus’ wrist when he got it wrong, again.
“You are literally breathing down my neck.”
“This isn’t fair. You could be so good at this, your hands are so big. You barely need to spread your fingers for the octave.”
“What’s that got to do with the timing? My brain is literally trying to split apart—”
After another suppressed grunt that escaped as a squeak, Remus laughed softly and shuffled away from Sirius.
“Alright you, go on.” At Sirius’ raised eyebrow, he added, “You’re clearly itching to play yourself.”
“Well, alright.”
Sirius dramatically cleared his throat, wiggled his fingers in the air. Slowly, he lowered his hands to the keys, and then he was off. The familiar chords filled the room, ringing more crisp and delicate than the twangy guitar of the original song. His fingers raced up and down the keys, at times leaning close into Remus to reach the keys. Remus leaned back into him. As the chorus came up, he turned his head to look at Remus, grinning madly as he belted about starmen and children losing it. Remus had the crinkle by his eyes, head nodding in beat as he softly hummed along. His eyes flitted between Sirius’ eyes and the way his fingers flitted over keys, adding flourish between lines of lyrics almost by instinct.
Finishing on a glorious glissando, Sirius let out a long happy sigh. He took a moment to ponder almost in amazement at the way his hands were poised on the piano. This was the most fun he’d had playing the instrument perhaps ever.
Sirius turned his head, and it was to catch Remus with a small smile again.
“What?” Sirius said, his own grin softening.
“Show-off.” Remus said fondly, shoving at him.
Sirius laughed brightly, “Hey, here, let me teach you a couple more—”
That’s how Lily found them, huddled close over the piano. Low laughs between them underscoring melodies that edged between rock and classical.
Remus was the first to see her, a curtain of sunlight away, standing near the common room entrance. “Lily! Come here!” he called her over.
Sirius wondered how long she’d been standing there watching them.
-
“Sooo are you in a relationship?”
“Who?”
She gave him an unimpressed look.
“Alright, alright.” Sirius laughed, “But no, obviously not. Remus doesn’t even want a relationship.”
“How dare you decide what he wants or not?”
“No, I’m Serious,” he said— Lily glared at him, daring him to make the joke, so he had to let it pass— “Moony doesn’t care about girls— or boys. Moony cares about books.”
Lily rolled her eyes, “well he could change, couldn’t he?”
Sirius rose to retort, but snapped his mouth shut at Lily’s single raised finger.
“And this isn’t really about Remus. I’m asking you, Sirius. Would you want to stand and watch Remus in a relationship with someone else?”
The thought left a funny feeling in his stomach, though decidedly unpleasant.
“… No.”
“I thought as much. So you want to be in a relationship with him.”
“I mean— not really, not like that.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno, like James wants with you?”
“God. You just had to bring him up.”
“As is my duty.”
Lily sighed. “But think about it, won’t you? About what you feel about or want with Remus. You’ve got to at some point.”
-
It all came out in a rush, when the two of them were alone under their tree by the lake.
“I am in love with you, I think.” Sirius said into the sun.
Remus lifted an eyebrow. “You think?”
“I— think. Yeah.”
“But what does that mean? That you’re in love with me? Rather than plain old loving?”
“I don’t know. Just, more. Possibly.”
“How exactly?” Remus asked in a murmur.
“I… don’t know.”
This wasn’t how Sirius thought it was going to go at all.
“You love me, Moony, don’t you?”
“‘Course I do.”
“But in the same way you’d love James and Pete.”
“Obviously not,” Remus closed his eyes against the sun, “you’re not James and Pete.”
“But I mean like—”
“I know what you—”
“— As a friend. You love me as a friend.”
Remus opened his eyes, turned to look at him. He pushed himself up onto his elbows.
“Well, what’s the difference between your closest best friend and your boyfriend or girlfriend?”
“Pft. Boyfriends and girlfriends are so much sillier.”
“What about, say, soulmates?”
Sirius didn’t answer for a very long time.
“There’s no difference, is there?”
Then Sirisu saw. It’s what Remus has been trying to show him. Remus has been trying to show him for years. Every act of trust and loyalty and forgiveness and tenderness, though Sirius didn’t realise, they had been talking with their souls.
And Sirius saw in Remus what Padfoot, as a dog, had known since he laid eyes on Moony the very first time.
The realisation hits him with the weight of the entirety of the blue sky. Bright light and white clouds stood as witness.
The sun was on his neck, the wind was in his face. And Sirius felt so high like he was sailing.
“Moony?”
“Yeah?”
“I think you are my soulmate.”
The shock of a smile that emerged on Moony’s face— so careful and tender and subtly making his entire face glow up from his crinkled eye to his lifted cheeks. It made Sirius want to bottle it and hold it forever. It made Sirius feel so proud to have been its cause.
“James? Where are you?” Lily called from the hallway, spelling her red hair into a bun and picking up the lime green Mungo’s robes.
“Out here! Garage!”
Through the garage door, Lily found James laid out under their car, struggling to poke around the underside with his wand.
“Are you a wizard or not,” Lily sighed, motioning to levitate the car onto conjured stands.
“Wait, wait no—” James gestured frantically, but it was too late. With a soft bang, something blew up and James’ arms flew up to shield his face from the tiny shower of sparks. “Yeah. That didn’t sound good.”
Lily winced, “Oh godric’s. Sorry dear.”
“Charms react with chemicals, apparently.”
“Ah. I should have remembered.” Lily said, holding in a laugh and not at all sounding sorry. She crouched down to pull up her husband from the ground. “What were you even trying to do?”
“Well, you know what Sirius said about how muggle machinery isn’t safe for direct apparation? Because magic fucks up electrical conduction or whatever,” James said while patting dirt off his jeans, wiping his glasses on his shirt, “I was hoping to tinker it enough so we could send it waiting for you in Hope’s garage. Then you won’t have to drive the whole way there and back?”
“Oh,” Lily smiled, wiping dirt from his nose, “That’s considerate of you.”
“Would have been if it worked.”
She gave him a short kiss and a pat on the cheek, “Then make it work. Listen, I’ve got to go check in on Mungo’s, they’ve just called. I’ll be back by noon but it means I’ll actually need this trick of yours—”
James groaned. “Not today, Lily! How long’s it been since your last proper day off?”
Lily immediately started to sound impatient, “Oh come on James. We’ve talked about this—”
“It’s not that! Of course I respect and admire your choices in career, but— you’ve got to take time off! And especially today—”
“Do you see Remus taking today off? Exactly. And I’m nowhere close to workaholism am I? Living up to being a responsible senior healer is not mutually exclusive with a well-adjusted and healthy work schedule. Are you trying to say that I—”
“Nothing! I’m not trying to say anything! Not in general, but you could just take it easy today?”
“Oh for Godric—”
“Mum! Dad! What is happening?” Harry poked his head through the open garage door. Sirius was close behind, carrying Teddy on his shoulders.
“Oh hello Harry!” Lily moved in for a quick hug from her son.
He spied the robes on his mother’s arms and quickly caught up. “Oh. Well, dad, quit it. You know you aren’t going to convince her.”
“Yeah James,” Sirius chimed in gleefully, “should have learnt about twenty years ago, no?”
James sighed, Lily chuckled. “Well, at least some of you’ve got your head the right side up today. Hello Teddy, how are you doing?”
“Dada cake!” The toddler exclaimed, excitedly tugging on Sirius’ hair and earning a wince from him.
“Well aren’t you a handful.” Sirius carefully reached up to untangle tiny fists from his hair, “James, what have you done with the car?”
“It’s four against one this morning, is it?” James crossed his arms.
Lily snorted. “Careful there, Black. Push his buttons and you’ll make him go stag.”
“Stag!” Teddy shouted, and James was only too happy to oblige. Some might say transforming to avoid confrontations is a family trait. And really, Harry still could not take seriously having a giant deer for a father. Though seeing Teddy laugh delightedly as Sirius put him on the back of James’ stag form brought back only fond memories.
“Alright well, you boys sort yourselves out.” Lily said as she started to leave. “I’ll see you for lunch.”
“Bye mum!”
“Bye-bye!”
“Love you—” they all chorused.
-
Sirius examined inside the car’s open front lid, while James stood besides him, sheepishly pushing a hand through his hair.
“Nope.” Sirius said simply as a verdict. Harry snorted from where he was bouncing Teddy in his arms at the back of the garage, letting him grab at different trinkets along the walls.
“Was I at least on the right track?”
“I mean,” Sirius teasingly tilted his head from side to side, “one day it’s gotta either become sentient or blow itself up, so I say you’re doing good work.”
“That Ford Anglia could do with a brother,” James shrugged, “but can you fix it?”
“Sure. You’ll just have to go pick up Remus’ cake with Harry.”
“Dada cake!” Teddy yelled again, throwing the garden glove into Harry’s face.
“Ah I see!” James grinned, turning to Harry, “some quality father-son time it is! Sirius, reckon you could keep Teddy around?”
“I think we should bring him along, no?” Harry said hurriedly, batting Teddy’s hands away from reaching for a screwdriver.
Sirius waved a hand dismissively. He was already hunching over the engine, brows drawn in concentration and the tip of his tongue sticking out the corner of his lips. “Go on, you three. Clear out of here.”
so much fluff coming your way. spoiler alert: EVERYONE lives
who said he never lived past forty?
March 10th, 2000.
“Oh come on you old thing—” Harry muttered at the ancient bike squeaking its way up the hill— why did they have to live on a hill? At least, Harry thought, the weather was nice. It was a glorious March day, the sun finally starting to grace England amidst the spring buds just about to bloom.
Panting as he jumped off the bike at the front porch, Harry wasted no time in starting to pound their front door, “Sirius! Sirius get out of here— if we don’t go get the cake by noon we’ll have to put Fred and George on Teddy duty and they’ve threatened to feed him the—”
The door opened with Remus looking exasperatedly bemused.
Harry gaped at him with one fist still raised in the air, “Remus! Ugh— hi!” he said intelligently, “aren’t you— supposed to be at Hogwarts? It’s a Friday.”
“For sure, I was just about to floo up. Harry, is everything alright?”
Darn it, Harry thought, Remus had been back living with Sirius ever since Teddy was born. It’s been two bloody years, how could he have forgotten? “Um, yeah. Everything’s great.”
“Did I hear something about Teddy and a cake?”
“No! Nothing of the sort.” Harry tried an oblivious look, which only turned into a shit-eating kind of grin at Remus’ raised eyebrow.
“Hmm. Try to keep your dad and Sirius in check, won’t you? Merlin forbid they strain themselves at this age.”
“Hey, I heard that—” Sirius called groggily from inside the house.
Remus sighed, fond and exasperated (in Harry’s memory Remus constantly seemed to be exasperated), and said “Do you want to come in?” and when Harry moved forward, unblocking the bike from Remus’ view, “Harry, is that— that bike on the ground used to belong to my mother!” he said laughingly.
“No offence to Nana Hope but Remus, that bike is now a pile of junk.”
-
“A very good morning to you, Prongslet,” Sirius’ hand, even after so many years, magnetically veered towards ruffling Harry’s hair in greeting.
“Ay stop it.” Harry half heartedly tried batting his hand away, “is Teddy still sleeping?”
“Mhm. I’ll just check on him before I go.” Remus said, making his way towards the stairs.
“Sirius—” Harry started whispering aggressively, the moment Remus moved out of earshot, “we’re on cake duty, turns out Nana Hope’s train got cancelled— fucking British trains— now Mum has to go pick her up, so we’ll also have to find someone to babysit Teddy, because no, the twins are not an option—”
“We could leave him with Molly?”
“No! This is Teddy, Molly can’t keep up!” Harry followed Sirius as he walked through to the kitchen, flicking on kettles and hobs, taking his wand out of his hair (let it be said that this never got old) to send breakfast ingredients flying across the air. He added a single sugar to a hot cup of tea, and sent the mug sailing out to find Remus.
“Eggs, Harry?”
“Oh yes, and have you got one of those blueberry muffins— oh hell yeah! Cheers, Sirius.”
“Anything for you, pup. Now what about Ginny, shouldn’t she be free?”
“Godric’s sake, Sirius. You were the one who kept telling me about having to stop Dad from throwing me around like a quaffle. We don’t trust toddlers with professional chasers.”
Sirius laughed, “You’re right, you’re right. Well, Ron and Hermione?”
“Have you even been paying attention? Ron and Hermione are setting up the—”
Remus appeared at the kitchen door, and smiled, indulgently suspicious, eyes narrowed just, at the way Harry had abruptly cut himself off. Sirius, completely unfazed, chuckled to himself.
“Thank you for the tea, love,” Remus said, setting his mug down on the counter.
Sirius immediately made his way across, and they shared a short kiss. “You’re heading off?”
“Yeah.”
“Well go on,” they share a honey-wine kind of smile, mellowed by three decades of life together, “go blow some children away.”
“I’ll see you both tonight? At Lily and James’?” Remus said on the threshold of the fireplace.
Harry turned to Sirius. They shared an identical grin.
“Hey Remus,” Harry called out. Remus raised a single eyebrow. “Happy birthday.”
Remus breathed a laugh like he’s finally heard the stone he’d been waiting to drop. “Thank you Harry. But I’ll have you know, these two words have somehow filled me with so much fear.” he said, before stepping away into the green flames.
-
As Remus sat down at the head table next to Regulus, he pushed towards him a book-shaped package, neatly wrapped in parchment.
“Happy birthday, old man.” Regulus said between sips of tea, eyes not leaving the Prophet page.
“Regulus— thank you.” Remus said heartily, “What book is it this year?”
“A niche thing about pseudo-reactive potions in identifying dark artefacts. I think you’ll appreciate it.”
Remus laughed, “One of these days you’ll quit trying to get me into potions.”
“One of these days you’ll quit pretending you don’t enjoy them.”
“Oh, it’s a day for baring our hearts, is it?”
“If there ever was one.”
“You know, Reg. You might need to admit how much thought you’ve put into the gift, and I’ll admit how much I appreciate it.”
Regulus chuckled, “Keep talking and you’ll sound like Dumbledore.”
Remus shook his head, “Could I ever.”
As they spent breakfast in each other’s comfortable companionship, familiar sharp banter, Remus allowed himself just one moment of sentimentally feeling his age. His eyes scanned the hall-full of children and marvelled. Seven years he’s been here now. He’d watched most of his friends’ children grow into brilliant young people, been witness to all the wonderful little moments of their growth, and not just through their letters on parchment. Inadvertently, embarrassingly, he’d been right there for Harry’s first detention, first crush, first break-up; picked up on too many quarrels between Ron and Hermione or the Weasley siblings; laughed his way through every time one of them slipped up during a practical lesson and called him Moony or Remus. (He always thought those occasions were more of an embarrassment for the children than himself, though Regulus thought otherwise. He heard about how he went livid the time Harry slipped up and called him Uncle Reg.)
Now, every child in the seats below Remus had known since they were eleven— the thought filled him with inexplicable warmth. This, this was worth all of it. It was worth every day of wrestling with teenagers, worth the grey lining his hair. Really, he couldn’t believe his luck. His younger self— sitting in this same hall at a much darker time— would never have fathomed being this happy, being loved and accepted in this big a place as Hogwarts, despite his lycanthropy. Would he have imagined even living to see this age?
“You know,” Regulus said suddenly, breaking him from his thoughts, “I overheard the Wilkins talking about certain— plans. I think you can look forward to an eventful day.”
“Oh dear,” Remus groaned, “I was hoping they’d forgotten now that the last Weasley’s gone.”
“Their influences stretch far and wide, that hoard of yours.”
“Mine? You mean ours, dear brother in law?”
“Oh please, imagine. The sole heir of the house of black, consorting with blood traitors and half-breeds.” He mocked, with a completely straight face.
Remus laughed in surprise, at Regulus’ accent deliberately turned up about five notches. The posh roundness was wearing thinner by the day, so it never failed to throw him back a decade or two hearing it again, even if their voices were now lower and rougher with age.
“So,” Remus asked, “you’ve any idea what that lot are up to?”
“I have no idea who you mean by that.”
A snort, “our one and only family, of course.”
Regulus smiled then, rare and soft. “For sure. Though no, you know I’m not lying when I tell you I don’t know what they’re up to. I just leave it up to them.”
“You don’t deny they’re up to something?”
Regulus put down his teacup, turned to look at him, “Remus. They’ve always been up to something. Every single day since they turned eleven.”
When Severus saw his memories flashing before him and those green bright eyes looking at him, her eyes looking at him, he welcomed death like an old friend.
Lily waited until Petunia was near enough to have a clear view, then held out her palm. The flower sat there, opening and closing its petals, like some bizarre, many-lipped oyster.
