Would one review make me happy? Yes. Yes it would.

A/N: Hello! I'm TheOliveFairy, your author of this story. The Language of Human Memory is rated M for a reason, so if mature boy on boy sexual activity does not appeal to you, please leave. This story is a spin-off of A Separate Peace and yes this is my first decent published story.

Disclaimer: Harry Potter® is copyright J.K. Rowling. HARRY POTTER, characters, names and related indicia are trademarks belonging to her. This fan fiction is provided for entertainment purposes and in respect to J.K. Rowling.

In this chapter introductions are established in a sense and the Marauders are up to no good.

Thanks to pinksailboat for editing!

The Language of Human Memory

Chapter 1

Remus went back to Hogwarts not long ago, and found it looking oddly newer than when he was a teacher there fifteen years before. It seemed more anesthetized than he remembered it; more horizontal and strait-laced, with narrower windows and innovative brick workings, as though a coat of varnish had been put over everything for better preservation. But, of course, fifteen years before, there had been no war, no need for renovations. Perhaps the school wasn't as well kept in those days before it was rebuilt; perhaps varnish, along with everything else had gone to war.

He didn't entirely like this glossy new surface, because it made the school look like a museum- what Remus did not want it to be. In the deep, tacit way in which feeling becomes stronger than thought, Remus had always felt that Hogwarts had come into existence the day he entered it, was vibrantly real while he was a student there, and then blinked out like a candle the day he left it.

Now here the school was after all, preserved by some considerate hand with varnish and wax. Sealed along with Hogwarts was the well known fear which had surrounded his own school day as well as his days at a teacher- so much of it that he hadn't even known it was there. Maybe because -unfamiliar with the absence of fear and what that was like- Remus had not been able to identify its presence. He had had friends, high marks in classes, and a place to call his own for the first time. And as a teacher he had students to teach and protect- not the coming war to think about- a war that he thought would never happen because the man that had caused the first war in his days at Hogwarts had been killed by an infant.

Looking back fifteen years, when he was once a teacher, Remus could see with great clarity now the fear he had experienced had lived on, which must mean that in the interval between student and teacher he had succeeded in a very important under taking: Remus must have made his escape from it.

Remus felt fear's echo, and along with that he felt the unhinged, uncontrollable joy which had been its accompaniment and opposite face, joy which had broken out sometimes in those days like Northern Lights across black sky. He had never felt so alive until had entered Hogwarts, and so scared of the outside world.

There were a couple of places that Remus wanted to see. Both were fearful sites, but that was why he wanted to see them. So after lunch at the Hog's Head Inn, Remus walked back toward the school. It was raw, nondescript time of year, toward the end of November, and today was the kind of wet, self-pitying November, the day when every speck of dirt stood out clearly. Hogwarts luckily had very little of such weather- the icy clamp of winter, or the radiant summers of Ireland were more characteristic of it- but this day it blew wet, moody gusts around Remus.

He walked along the trail toward the gates. The homes he passed were handsome and as unusual as he remembered. They were clever wizard modernizations of old Colonial mansions ending in extensions of Victorian wood as impressive and just as forbidding as ever. Remus had rarely seen any student perturb them- for fear of professors that might catch them. But, now that he thought of it, Remus had never seen anyone go into one of them, or anyone out on the lawn, or even open a window. Today, with their failing ivy and stripped, moaning trees the houses looked both more elegant and more lifeless than ever.

Like all old, good schools, Hogwarts stood isolated behind walls and gates, but partially emerged naturally from the surrounding Forbidden Forest which had helped produce it. There was no sudden moment of encounter as Remus approached it; the houses along the way hade began to dissipate and grow fewer and farther apart, until stopping all together, which meant that Remus was near the gates, and he became suddenly exhausted, which meant that he had passed through the wards barricading the school from any unwanted guests.

It was early afternoon and the grounds and castle towers and squat brick buildings were deserted since everyone was in class. There was nothing to distract Remus as he made his way across a wide field that housed the pitch far off in the distance up to a wide red brick building, made of the same materials as the other buildings, but with a large cupola and a bell and a clock and Latin over the door way-draco dormiens nunquam titillandus- the entry way into the court yard.

Remus walked through the arch into a tunnel that led to tall gray swinging doors. He reached the marble foyer and stopped at the foot of a long white marble flight of stairs. Although they were old stairs, the worn moons in the middle of each step was not very deep. The marble must have been unusually hard. That seemed very likely, only too likely, although with all of Remus' thoughts about these stairs this exceptional hardness had not occurred to him. It was surprising that he had overlooked that crucial fact, especially since he and Sirius had spent an extraordinary amount of time on these stairs, and also in the room that they led to.

There was nothing else to notice; they of course were the same stairs. And Remus? Well, he naturally felt older- he had begun at that point the emotional examination to not how far his convalescence had gone- He was taller, broader generally in relation to these stairs. He had more galleons and success and "security" than in the days when ghosts seemed to go up and down them with him.

He left the stairs and continued on into the courtyard, which was still empty. He walked alone down a wide gravel path with large elms that were charmed to grow out of the bordering murals along the walls with plaques beginning with "In memory of…" at the base of the trunks and away from the bubbling fountain in the courtyard, toward the far side of the school.

Hogwarts was sometimes considered the most beautiful school among Wizard standards, and even on this dismal afternoon its power was asserted. Remus thought of the beauty of small areas order- a large yard, a group of trees, a few spiraling towers, four dormitory house entrances, a circle of old buildings, high roofs of pure grandeur, halls with entrances big enough for giants- living together in continuous harmony. He felt that an argument might begin any time about which school lived in higher regards; in fact it had, between the proud Headmistress of Hogwarts and the pompous Headmistress of Beauxbatons. Everything at Hogwarts slowly changed and slowly harmonized with what had gone before. So it was logical to hope that since the buildings and towers and the curriculum could achieve this, he could achieve, perhaps unknowingly already had achieved, this growth and harmony himself.

Remus would know more about that when he had seen the second place he had come to see- the first being the stairs, though not really. He was more interested in the room that was connected to the steps with its happier memories, but he couldn't bring himself to climb those stairs- so he roamed on past the balanced red brick dormitory entrance to Hufflepuff house with webs of leafless ivy clinging to them that flicked and curled like cat tails, through a ramshackle of a garden that for a hundred yards had supplied both Herbology with basic magical plants and Potions with needed ingredients for the curriculum, past the solid Greenhouse filled with students mulling about inside past the Care of Magical Creatures designated area and he reached the huge open sweep of ground known as the Pitch.

Hogwarts was both scholarly in the Magical department for training young Witches and Wizards as well as athletic in the Quidditch department- so the Pitch was vast and well kept by the grounds keeper, and, except at such a time of year before the Winter Holiday, constantly in use. Now the field reached soggily and emptily away, the tall stands covered with old tarps to prevent tearing and putrefaction, the Forbidden forest on the right, and at the far end the now bare Whomping Willow, detectable only by its huge silhouette cast through the fog. It was such a gray, misty day that Remus could not see the top of the shrieking shack from where he stood.

Remus started the long trudge across the Pitch and had gone some distance before he paid any attention to the soft and muddy ground, which was dooming his city shoes. He didn't stop. Near the center of the pitch where thin lakes of muddy water which Remus had to make his way around, his unrecognizable shoes making obscene noises as he lifted them out of the mire. With nothing to block it the wind flung wet gusts at him; at any other time, Remus would have felt like a fool slogging through mud and rain, only to look at a tree.

A little fog hung over the hills so that as Remus neared it he felt himself becoming isolated from everything but the looming tree. The wind was blowing more steadily here, and Remus was beginning to feel the cold. He never wore a hat, he had forgotten gloves. There were several trees at a safe distance from the Willow that reached bleakly into the fog. Remus studied the knurled roots that expanded outward from the seemingly dormant tree until he found the small indistinct one he was looking for. The tree had loomed in Remus' memory as a huge lone spike dominating the small hillside, forbidding as an artillery piece, high as the beanstalk.

The Whomping Willow seemed to Remus standing there to resemble those men, the giants of your childhood, whom you encounter years later and find that they are not merely smaller in relation to your growth, but they are absolutely smaller, shrunken by age. In this double demotion the old giants have become pixies while you were looking elsewhere.

The tree was not only stripped by the fall season, it seemed weary from age, from experience, enfeebled, dry. Remus was thankful that the tree was sleeping and very thankful he had come to see it. He came, he saw, he conquered. Veni, Vidi, Vici. Nothing endures, not a tree, not love, not even death a by violence.

Changed, Remus sloshed back through the mud. He was drenched; anybody could see it was time to come in out of the rain.

The Whomping Willow was tremendous, an irate, steely black steeple presiding before the start of the hillside that lead to the foreboding shack Remus had spent many a fateful nights in for the past year. Remus was damned if he attempt to cross the field in which the tree was planted; it was hard enough already for Dumbledore to stun it so Remus could gain access to the tunnel that led to the Shrieking Shack. The hell with it. Only Sirius could think up such a crazy idea.

Sirius of course saw nothing the slightest bit intimidating about it. He wouldn't, or he wouldn't admit it if he did. Not Sirius.

"What I like best about this tree," Sirius started in that voice of his, the equivalent in sound of a hypnotist's eyes, "what I like is that it will be a cinch to conquer it!" He opened his dark eyes wider and gave the three of his friends a manic look, and only the smirk on his wide mouth with its droll, slightly protruding upper lip reassured them that he wasn't completely nutters.

"Is that what you like best?" James asked sarcastically. He said a lot of thing sarcastically this summer.

"Aye," he said. This weird improper Irish affirmative always made James, Remus, and Peter laugh, as Sirius knew, James had to laugh, which made him seem less satirical.

The three boys stood looking with masked apprehension from Sirius to the tree. Its soaring black trunk was abundant with watery bark leading up to substantial branches that whisked out into long fist-like ends with many smaller branches- which almost acted as a wide assortment of fingers. If Sirius was quick enough, he could avoid the hard slamming branches. If he was agile enough, he could dodge the swinging limbs. If he were smart enough, he could strategically maneuver himself through the tree's blind spots. But really, all Sirius needed was luck. Lots of luck. The group's upperclassmen had supposedly done this before, or so they had heard. At least a few fourth years could do it, barely; but they had a crucial two years advantage over the four. No Second year had ever tried. Naturally, the Marauders, their group's given name thanks to Remus' cleverness last spring their first year, were going to be the first Second years to try, and just as naturally, Sirius would be the first to attempt it, and then inveigle others, Remus included, into trying it with him.

They weren't even Second years exactly. For this was the Summer Session, just established to keep up with the pace of the war, which had began the past year, 1970, and was now in full swing. They were in shaky transit that summer from the groveling First years to the near-respectable Second years. The Seventh years, seniors, practically soldiers, rushed ahead of their lowerclassmen to the war. They were caught up in Auror-based programs and Healer classes and a physical hardening regimen, which so happened to include running through the Whomping Willow's area of attack. The Marauders were still calmly reading The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 and playing hide and go seek in Gryffindor Tower. Until Sirius thought of the tree.

Remus stood looking up at it, a look of consternation rivaling Sirius' look of excitement. "Do you want to go first?" Sirius asked the three, rhetorically. James and Peter swapped tense looks and Remus just looked at Sirius quietly, a silent, Really? went unspoken between them. And so Sirius ventured stealthily away from their hiding spot in the Gryffindor stands of the Pitch towards the tree, which ruffled its long hanging oval shaped leaves as Sirius drew nearer. Sirius was such an energetic athlete and sure to be beater on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. He was taller than Remus by one and one half inches, at five feet one inch (Remus had claimed he was also that height when he turned twelve, but Sirius had stated publicly with that simple, shocking, self-acceptance of his, "No you're at least an inch shorter than me. I'm tall for twelve. You, though, are average." James of course had agreed with Sirius. That git. He was as tall as Sirius. Peter had nodded enthusiastically at James). Sirius weighed one hundred and twenty pounds, a galling eleven pounds more than Remus, which flowed from his legs to torso around shoulders to arms and developing strong neck in an uninterrupted, unemphatic unity of strength; Sirius was only a shadow of the short, solid boy that Remus had met on the Hogwart's Express. Remus, on the other hand, was all planes and angles, a thin and long nose and a slightly narrow chin, a wide mouth with a slim upper lip and a plush lower one. There were scars on his face of the battles that raged beneath the full moon. He was whipcord thin, lean lanky limbs and had a pale chest covered with wiry emergent muscles and countless scars.

When Sirius reached the area just outside of the branches reach, the tree snapped forward with surprising force and used its entire trunk to slam down on the ground near Sirius, who sprang away from it and began running and dodging, trying to make his way to the opposite side where he would be able to traverse one of the many small hills that made up a larger prominence which stretched down to Hogsmede. To Remus' left, Peter was shouting, "Go right! Go right!" and James was cursing Sirius' stupidity seven ways from Sunday. Sirius was dodging branches left and right, until finally he crossed over one of the enormous roots and yelled "This one's for my contribution to the war effort!" and he dove onto safer grounds, scrambling madly uphill until he made it to the top, the willow below him striking out in his direction.

"Great!" he exclaimed, standing up with self-righteousness, fists promptly going to his hips as he stood over the still thrashing Willow. Sirius' bangs were plastered to his face with sweat and his shoulder length hair was in disarray. "That's the most fun I've had this week! Who's next?"

Remus was. The tree flooded him with a sensation of alarm all the way to his tingling fingers. He had done this before, though, the tree was normally stunned, writhing against the invisible restraints. Remus made his way from the James and Peter towards the tree which was still madly attempting to get to Sirius' taunting form. He stood at the edge of the clearing, looking skeptically between the branches and roots, trying to map out the safest path to Sirius. It was nearly impossible to make it without encountering something difficult, something that might draw the attention of the Whomping Willow away from Sirius and back to Remus. "Come on," drawled Sirius from above the clearing, "stop standing there. You can't anticipate what the tree will do." Remus recognized with automatic tenseness that the view was very impressive from there, or at least that's what Sirius thought. "When You-Know-Who has his wand pointed at you," he shouted, "you can't stand around admiring the view. You've got to act quickly!"

What was he doing, anyway? Remus idly wondered. Why did he let Sirius talk him into stupid things like this? Is he trying to show off? It was an unspoken rule amongst the Marauders: James was their leader. Remus was the intelligence, though quiet and reserved, mainly due to his condition. Sirius was their bravery, the first to act and a great schemer- his own form of brilliance. Peter was the humor. The Marauders enjoyed his company and he could be a real wit sometimes.

"Run!"

With the sensation that Remus was throwing his life away, He ran off into the clearest space. Some tips of twigs snapped at his face and robes, but none big enough to neither disturb the tree nor cause any harm to him. He rolled beneath a low hanging branch and then dove over a large arching root, only to end on the left side of the tree. He quickly clambered up next to Sirius, the tree shaking with rage when it realized what Remus had done.

"I think that was better than Sirius'!" James yelled from across the clearing.

"All right mate," Sirius shouted back to James in his cordial, penetrating voice, that reverberant instrument in his chest, "don't start awarding prizes until you've passed the test. The tree is waiting."

James closed his mouth and marched dutifully forward. He didn't back away, and when he got close enough, he dashed past the tree, accidentally tripping over a root and landing heavily on the ground. He crawled forward quickly and stood when the tree snapped around and swung a thin whip-like branch at James, which caught him in the calf, though lightly. He exclaimed his discomfort and dashed onward to the top of the hill.

"Are you alright James?" Remus asked, bending down to aid a groveling James. The back of his black pant leg was torn and an open slice was bleeding.

"Ow. Sirius you prat, why'd you make me do it?" James said, though no real rage was in his voice.

"Hey, don't point fingers, now," Sirius amended.

Remus sighed and removed his wand from his robe. He muttered Episkey and then Tergeo and James' wound was mostly healed, excluding a small faint pink line. Remus was still trying to get the gist of healing spells, so they weren't always fully effective.

"Aw, what about me, Doctor Lupin," Sirius pouted. Remus rose and looked over at Sirius who had a few bloody scratches on his face. He took Sirius face in his hand and performed the same spells he achieved on James, carefully turning Sirius' jaw as he worked. Sirius thanked him and then reached past him to help James up.

Turning back towards where Peter was hidden, Sirius yelled, "It's just you pal!"

Peter strode nervously toward the tree, which was shaking lightly, still slightly inclined towards the boys. The Whomping Willow must have felt Peter's clumsy misstep onto one of its many roots, and it swung around, only to hit Peter directly on the arm he was using in an attempt to shield himself and he was promptly sent sprawling a good fifteen feet away. Remus was first to react. He ran down the farside of the hill and made a wide arc around the tree towards Peter, who was groaning on the ground, hunched up over his injured arm.

When he reached Peter, Remus bent down and laid a hand on his back. "I think it's broken," Peter said through his tears. "Okay, let's take you to Madam Pomfrey," Remus opted, helping a trembling Peter to his feet. James and Sirius joined them and helped Peter back toward the castle. James had one arm around Peter's waist and was mumbling to Peter softly, while Remus was trying to get Peter to stop touching his damaged arm. Sirius walked serenely next to him.

"You were very good," said Sirius good-humoredly, "once I shamed you into it." Remus could detect the barest hint of guilt in his voice.

"You didn't shame anybody into anything."

"Oh yes I did," Sirius replied, his tone changing to something akin to smugness, " I'm good for you that way. You have a tendency to back away from things otherwise."

"I've never backed away from anything in my life!" James called out proudly from the other side of Peter.

Sirius just smirked and walked on, or rather flowed on, rolling forward in his black loafers, with such unthinking unity of movement that "walk" didn't describe it.

The other three were led by James to the infirmary across the enormous fields toward the Great Hall. Underfoot, the healthy green turf was brushed with dew and ahead of him Remus could see a faint green haze hanging above the grass, shot through with twilight sun. James and Sirius stopped talking for once and Peter continued to cry not as severely whilst cradling his damaged arm. Remus could hear cricket chirping and bird twittering of dusk, a carriage, the rumbling of Flich's carriage gunning along an empty road to Hogsmede a quarter of a mile away, a burst of faint, isolated laughter carried to them from the back door of the Herbology Greenhouse, and then over all, cool and matriarchal, the six o'clock bell from the Dinner Hall behind the Great Hall, the calmest most carrying bell toll in the world, civilized, calm, invincible, and final.

The toll ended when the boys entered through the main entrance archway, the doors open and greeting from the courtyard and they took the left hall down into a square shaped corner where the small- in comparison to the Great Hall's entrance- arched doors of the infirmary stood. Sirius knocked twice, and, a few moments later, was met by a bustling Madam Pomfrey who was chewing her dinner thoughtfully. She swallowed and spoke.

"What did you boys do this time?"

Remus wasn't expecting that. Then again, he figured that James, Sirius, and Peter were in here more often than other First and Second years combined.

"My friend fell from the stairs in our dorm and hurt his arm," James lied easily. Pomfrey opened the doors wider and ushered them inside with a loud, audible sigh. She maneuvered Peter from James' arm and sat him down on one of the white washed Infirmary beds. After much coaxing, Pomfrey was able to gently pry Peter's unharmed hand from his broken arms and lifted his robe sleeve to inspect the damage. She rushed away to retrieve some potions and set them by the bed and then removed her wand from her waist pocket and set the bone with a flick and a spell Remus couldn't quite catch. Peter yelped and immediately withdrew his arm from her hold.

"It was a clean break, though it seems more like some two hundred pound something or another landed on his arm with a lot of force," she said, skeptically looking from James to Sirius, and then, surprisingly to Remus. "You're pretty good with healing spells, Mr. Lupin," she said, handing Peter a potion in a white bottle with the design of what might have been a skeleton's torso, which he downed quickly and then another, orange-ish looking one which caused him to nod off to sleep. She walked over to Sirius and admired the faint partially healed cuts on his face. Remus had the modesty to flush and then asked, "How did you know that?" Pomfrey laughed and responded, "You're the only one I've ever seen with a healer's book in your lap. I figured you were more studious than your mischief making friends here."

Remus looked down and James smiled knowingly at Sirius. "Your friend will need to stay here over night so the Skele-Gro can take effect and I can bind his arm," Pomfrey said airily, and then went over to a tall cabinet and retrieved something, a small object. She returned with a flat cylinder of salve and said, "For the scars, Mr. Lupin." Remus couldn't tell if she was talking about the scars on Sirius' neck and chin or the ones left over from his monthly transformation.

The three boys left, once they were sure dinner was over so they could sneak into the kitchens and have the house elves whip them up a meal. They headed for their dormitory, passing the transfiguration classroom, which was dark and silent, and a portrait of an old robust man that inquired about their cooling food. There were only two hundred student's remaining at Hogwarts in the summer, not enough to fill most of the school. They passed the spiraling Headmaster's staircase- the office above them empty, he was doing something for the Minister in London; past the crumbling chapel that had been there even before Dumbledore had attended Hogwarts; past the large potion apothecary that supplied half of the potions found in the Hogsmede apothecary, where there were some dim lights shining from a few of its many windows, Slughorn at work in their Potions classroom; down a short slope into the broad and well clipped gardens, on which light fell from the big surrounding towers and buildings. A dozen or so Ravenclaws were loafing on the grass, a mixture of boys and girls, and the kitchen from where the three just came rattled from below the wing of the Dinner Hall and accompanied the Ravenclaws' talk. The sky was darkening steadily, which brought up the lights in the dormitories and the old houses; a loud turntable a long way off from the Hufflepuff building played a The Who record starting with Going Mobile, rejected that and played Behind Blue Eyes and then grew more ambitious with Wont Get Fooled Again.

James, Sirius, and Remus entered the West Wing and climbed the Moving Stairs until they reached the hall with the portrait of The Fat Lady, who amicably welcomed them home. They supplied her the password and she swung open, granting them access to the Gryffindor Common Room, where a few students were mulling about. James led the way up the stairs to their dorm and into the warm welcoming room of red and gold, they each simultaneously flopped into their individual beds upon arrival.

Under the yellow study lights, Remus was halfway through The Commitments while his two counterparts finished the assigned potions introduction in their newest text book. Their illegal radio, tuned into the War update channel, turned too low to be intelligible, was broadcasting the latest news. Outside there was a rustling early summer movement of the wind; the Seventh years allowed out later then the lowerclassmen, came fairly quietly back as the bell sounded ten stately times. Boys of Gryffindor ambled past their open door toward the bathroom, and there was a period of steadily pouring shower water. Then, from his view through the window, Remus watched lights snap out all over school. He undressed and put some pajama bottoms on, as did James, but Sirius, who had heard they were unmilitary, didn't; they turned out the lights and sprawled on top of their sheets in the summer air, and then that last Summer Session day came to an end.

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