The last frontier
Disclaimer: The characters used in this fic, do not belong to me. They are the property of J.K.Rowling. Lyrics quoted at the beginning belong to Bloc Party.
Ratings: Rating may increase for a variety of things, for later chapters. Warnings will be given at beginnings of appropriate chapters.
If it can be broke then it can be fixed, if it can be fused then it can be split
It's all under control
If it can be lost then it can be won, if it can be touched then it can be turned
All you need is time
We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?
A sense of purpose and a sense of skill, a sense of function but a disregard
We will not be the first, we won't
You said you were going to conquer new frontiers,
Go stick your bloody head in the jaws of the beast
We promised the world we'd tame it, what were we hoping for?
Breath in, breath out
So here we are reinventing the wheel
I'm shaking hands with a hurricane
It's a colour that I can't describe,
It's a language I can't understand
Ambition, tearing out the heart of you
Carving lines into you
Dripping down the sides of you
We will not be the last.
"Remus Julias Lupin, don't you walk away when I'm trying to talk to you!" With a sigh and an infinite sense of dread, the boy swivelled around to face his mother's red face pressed into the frame of the open car window. "That's better. Now, I will be checking with Dumbledore regularly to make sure you're getting on okay, and I'm expecting a big improvement this term. Don't do anything stupid, I mean don't... just try to... be sensible. We've fixed the problem now, right, so I don't want any more nonsense like last term. Alright?"
Yes, mother, all cured now. It's a miracle; I have seen the light. Can I get an amen? Jesus Christ...
"Yes, mum. I'll be fine. You don't have to worry about me." She eyed him suspiciously, but the attention was only cursory. If she didn't look too hard, there was nothing to see.
"Okay then. Now give me a kiss." He did so, trying to ignore the thick hanging odour of cheap perfume that saturated the air around her and avoiding being stained by the vibrant pink lipstick. "Good. What are you doing still here? You'll miss the train if you don't hurry up!" On that classically bi-polar note, she yanked her head back inside and rolled the window back up, waving him away as she pulled out of the space and was carried off by the slow tide of London traffic.
As he turned away from the road and started to push through the hordes of shoppers and commuters, into King's Cross Station. He was just edging himself and his trunk through the doors when a hand clapped on his shoulder. The impact caused him to start, releasing his slipping grip on the corner on the trunk and let it drop with a crash to the floor. He turned unamused eyes on the owner of the hand, reverting to his usual exasperated gesture of roughly scraping and hand through his long, blonde hair. "That was uncalled for." Sirius' inane grin, for once, did little to dispell the dark cloud that was working on strangling him. When his act of childish innocence seemed to be having no effect, he took another lick at a large pink ice cream he was holding and stuck his tongue out at his infuriatingly solemn friend. It was not a pleasant sight and only compounded Remus' lack of faith in the day so far.
"Must you?"
Only now did something of confusion or hurt settle on Sirius' face. He studied the blonde's expression bemusedly as he chomped his way through the remainder of the ice cream, before shaking off whatever thought was wandering slowly through his brain and reaching down to grab the handle of Remus' trunk as well as his own. Remus stepped inside the doors and stood aside to allow Sirius in after him, without a word. Once out of the awkward gap, he took the trunk back, pushing Sirius' hand away as he grasped for it. "Don't worry, I got it." And he slipped away towards the barrier with never a backwards glance, leaving Sirius to stare after him, stunned by the boy's curt, rough manner.
He caught up with him as he was about to disappear onto the platform and reached out to grab him. The hand dropped pointlessly back to his side though, as Remus vanished from beneath it. "Bloody hell, Remus, what's the matter with you today?" He ignored a few curious looks from passers-by and leant back against the barrier, casually, bracing himself for the second when he fell through the apparently solid wall.
The platform was almost empty when he got there, most of the students having piled onto the train already, fighting noisily over compartments and yelling for their friends to hurry up. He wove through a few ranks of waving or weeping parents to where he saw a head of scruffy, black hair poking out from a carriage door. James waved him over, grinning and Sirius hurried over, returning the wave. "Hey, Padfoot. Just waiting for Moony, now. He'd better hurry up or the Express'll leave without him." He continued to hang out of the train, scanning the platform for the missing Marauder.
Sirius' brow furrowed. "He isn't here? He came through the barrier just before me." James and Peter, already in his seat, ripping open a packet of every-flavour beans exchanged wondering glances.
"Well I guess I missed him, then. We'll go look for him once we get moving, if he doesn't find us first." The tallest boy ruffled bony fingers through his untamable mop of hair and went to sit down next Peter, leaning over to scoop out a handful of beans before he could be stopped. With a triumphant grin, he threw three of the sweets into his mouth, chewing gloatingly for a few moments before the victorious smile began to sicken. When he swallowed, it was obvious how much he was forcing himself to keep the things down. "Now that... was both unpleasant and ridiculously unlucky. Ear wax, vomit and dandruff, all together. I must be jinxed." He shot a sideways glare at Peter, not putting it past the boy to have done something of the sort to stop James pilfering his sweets. Peter merely laughed, wishing he had thought of jinxing people so they couldn't steal his food. Knowing his apptitude for Charms, though, he probably only succeed in blowing up himself, the unfortunate food-thief and probably the rest of the surrounding population as well. No, he'd settle for hiding anything really good and letting James snatch a few of the lesser items.
Sirius had not joined in this escapade; he was still standing in the doorway, glancing up and down the platform for head of long, almost platinum blonde hair, preferably framing a familiar smile. That didn't seem likely, though. Remus really had been in a foul mood. James looked over at him, noticing his silence and tried to catch his attention, this in the uniquely "James-esque" manner of levitating a stream of beans out of his hand to drop down the back of Sirius' t-shirt, causing him to leap into the air and scrabble at his back, squirming and whining with irritation. When the last of the things had dropped to the floor of the train and rolled away, he turned a stare of promised vengeance on his friend, menacingly drawing his own wand. It was with a yelp, however, that he found a hand gripping his wand arm and dragging him backwards, off the train.
"No magic on the train, Mr. Black! I've had to tell you and Mr. Potter a thousand times! I want to see you in my office tomorrow morning."
James and Peter ducked out of sight as they listened to Professor McGonagall's voice, raised above the whistle of the train and the voices of parents and students shouting to each other. At last, the lecture ceased and they saw her bustle away past the door, aiming for a first year who was crying in the middle of a crowd of cooing relatives.
Sirius, a wicked smirk plastered on his face hopped back onto the train, straightening the collar that the professor had scewed when she grabbed him. "That may be a record, folks. Train hasn't even left yet!" Peter shook his head, disposing of his mouthful of sugar and magical flavourings before he could speak.
"Sorry to burst your bubble, Padfoot, but she gave James a detention for turning a first year's owl purple, about half an hour before you got here." Sirius' face was outraged. Damn James for stealing his record out from under him. Humph. He narrowed his eyes at James, his superior grin firmly back in place.
"You just watch it, Potter. One day I will be victorious."
"Sirius, Sirius, Sirius, you'll need to get up a lot earlier than you do, to better me. Seriously. I've been here for bloody hours!"
Sirius dropped himself onto the seat across from James and Peter, still holding his glare on his face. He pulled out the first thing he found in his pocket and chucked it haphazardly at James' smug face. It turned out to have been his lighter and, though the look on James' face as he ducked was priceless, the effect was ruined by is frantic lunge to get it back, before James could get it together to transfigure his beloved instrument of fire-starting into a mouse or a small aubergine or something equally as useless to him.
After holding it out of his reach for a while, listening to him cursing him in every dialect known to English, James let the thing fall back into Sirius' hand and watched disapprovingly as a smile of relief spread across the boy's face. "You ought to stop smoking." He commented blandly. "It'll make your skin yellow." It said something of James' priorities in life, and in fact Sirus' as well, that this was the argument he chose to cite in his argument and, respectively, that it was the only one that concerned Sirius enough that he released the packet of Lions, he had pulled out, and left in his jacket pocket. For a while, at least.
---
Finally having found an empty compartment, Remus let his trunk fall, again with a bang, not caring that each impact left it with new scratches and scuff marks. His printed intials were fading already, he noticed as he sat down, without bothering to put his luggage up on the rack. He couldn't do it on his own, anyway.
There was never any question of his joining his fellow prefects. Particularly not this year. He didn't know if Dumbledore had told anyone, even the other teacher's about how his last term had ended, but if he had they seemed the obvious ones to know. He would have needed them to keep some kind of order, when the Gryffindor tower was in uproar. And Dumbledore always did seem so keen that people should know what was going on. Some people, the Ministry in particular, saw that as a failing. They didn't believe children could handle to know all that their Headmaster saw fit to let them in on. Remus had disagreed until now, if he had told them, that was. Perhaps he had not. Maybe Remus was worrying unnecessarily.
The third years across the corridor from his compartment had set off some small explosion that sent green sparks whizzing around the carriage. As a prefect, he probably ought to have gone and done something about them, discouraged them or something. But it just didn't seem worth it. Let them enjoy themselves while they could; it wasn't going to get any easier.
As the train began to pull out of the station, he glued his eyes to the window, flickering over everything that passed, fingers playing idly with the small penknife in his pocket. The struggling will-power, hidden by his unconcerned stare, was fighting, every second, to keep it there. Keep it in your pocket, in the dark, where it can't hurt anyone.
A/N: Thank you for reading the first chapter of "The Last Frontier", please leave a review on your way out. Thankies