Summary: I'll be home tonight I promise, just later. I'm taking the last train out of Hogsmeade.
Other Notes: written for barefootboys summer 08 prompt #3: last train home
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, any of its characters, including and especially Sirius and Remus, or any of its settings.
x
You,
I missed the train. Sorry. Can't be helped now I suppose. I'll be home tonight I promise, just later. I'm taking the last train out of Hogsmeade.
Me
Remus, who has checked (doublechecked) the train schedules and written and sent his letter and who is sure that all of his papers are safe in his unassuming suitcase and who doesn't need to check those, no, not in these last shreds of daylight anyway, and people still on the platform, sits down out of the way to wait. He thinks about ghosts. Sirius says that he sees them, in Grimmauld Place, and that's just one reason he can't stay there anymore, but Remus isn't sure he believes him. Sirius is known to make up stories. He has also, since Azkaban, been known to suffer from the occasional hallucination.
But then, who has not.
Remus sees them now, the four, running across the platform, securing their places on the train. How they were. James would buy them all Chocolate Frogs and they would let the creatures jump against the seats and the windows. Peter recounted the stories of the year's most impressive Marauder feats, and Sirius teased James about that Lily Evans, and James pretended not to understand, and when they were almost home, Remus took out his camera, and snapped pictures so that over the summer, he wouldn't, as he sometimes does, convince himself that they were dreams.
Remus's stomach grumbles, a sound he can feel more than hear. There aren't many trains left and the station isn't busy. He could go into the village, but he's tired, doesn't feel like walking. He thinks of Grimmauld Place. The beds. Sirius hates them. Carved wood headboards, thick feather pillows, ancient heavy quilts. He'd rather sleep on the ground, he says, than on these beds, won't listen to Remus's arguments about comforts or appreciation. I was in prison, he answers. I know about 'appreciation.' Sometimes, Remus comes home late and the house is dark and by the light of a candle he leads himself upstairs, and Sirius is curled up in blankets on the floor, and Remus can't tell if it's stubborness or habit, but he joins him anyway.
And am I with him, he asks himself now, out of stubborness or habit? Somehow, the question seems familiar, from those days when they threw around words like addiction, and bit out accusations, when quite suddenly, Sirius asked him,
could I leave you if I wanted to?,
while the summer countryside slipped past the train window in greens and golds. He remembers they were wearing suits. Muggle clothing. But the suits were much nicer than the clothes Sirius chose to wore, jeans and t-shirts and earrings and big black Muggle boots, and so this trip could only be one of Business. What they called then and what Remus calls now Business.
It's June now. Remus keeps one hand carefully on his suitcase. Fenrir, he thinks, was almost reasonable this time. A good show. But he's getting nowhere with the wolves. Barring some great change of heart, he thinks, he'll be asking Dumbledore for a change of assignment. The Order does not benefit from needless sacrifice.
Could you leave me? Remus answered. No. I wouldn't let you. He'd meant it to be joking but Sirius only looked at him and then, quite suddenly, looked away.
No, he answered. I don't suppose you would. And reached out the tips of his fingers to touch the glass.
Sirius, Remus knows, will be quite angry when he gets the letter. When Remus gets home he'll be waiting, all set to say, What are you doing? You know I hate every second in this house but it's not quite as bad with you about. All set to say, This isn't fair, like a little boy, and stomp his feet.
Remus smiles, thinking about it.
Once, years ago now and it feels every second of it and more, he wrote another letter, to tell Sirius the same thing he must tell him now. That was in July. They were barely out of school, but already James was using words like marriage and kids and forever. Remus, though, lay claim only to a mattress, a briefcase, the three volumes of the Fifth Edition of the Encylcopedia of Dark Creatures, and the right to change himself like the moon changes her faces. He kept his sundry possessions in a square and dingy flat five stories above gray streets. Some days Sirius climbed up the metal fire escape steps and banged through the window and caught at Remus's hips and bit into his neck, Moony. You silly, stupid dog. Leave this place and come away with me.
The train pulls into the station now, the last train for the day. Only a few people left on the platform waiting, and Remus gets a compartment to himself. This notalgia, he thinks, is for nothing. He refuses to live in the past.
At Grimmauld Place, rattling around watching for the ghosts he swears he sees, Sirius Black is waiting for him.
Yet he remembers, how July ebbed away. How he got tired of sleeping with his heels over the edge of the mattress. And went to visit his parents. Saw the tomatoes in their back yard, heard their rumors: potions, cures, or at least a way to alleviate it, something at least, finally. And in the morning of the last day of his visit, with the sun burning around the edges of the closed white curtains, he turned over and over and went back to sleep and when he pulled himself up, the train was already leaving.
Remus gets off the train in London, carrying his suitcase, which says Professor RJ Lupin, which has (almost) always been a lying suitcase, but he's never minded. Sirius doesn't sleep well anymore. Sirius will be up, probably down in the kitchen, probably making tea by candlight and reviewing Order papers or writing to Harry, letters that will never reach Petunia Dursley's house. Remus thinks of these things. Of Sirius, of eating Chocolate Frogs on the Hogwarts Express, of Muggle suits and Muggle boots and earrings, of the tattoos he sometimes traces with the tips of his fingers though he knows Sirius hates him to. He's still thinking of these things when he gets back to the ancient Black home and lets himself in.
Years ago and he feels every second of them, he wrote
You silly dog, the name seems to fit you better doesn't it?, I'm afraid shall be late. Overslept and missed my train; a first. But don't worry (you'll go gray). I'm coming home now. M.
Sirius is in the kitchen. No papers scattered about him but he's drinking tea, and Remus says, "Well I was half right," as he sets his things down and comes to sit next to him. Sirius looks at him, puzzled.
So you're back in town. How are your parents? Come on Moony, I'm trying to be polite here. Don't look at me like that.
"You've gone crazier than I have," Sirius says. "Here. Made you tea. It's one thing I'm good for."
I'm not just 'back in town,' Pads. I'm home.
"Not crazy. Just thinking out loud. Anyway, the trip was—"
Moony, stop being mysterious. And step inside properly; you're letting all the warm in.
"Moony."
"But I guess I can tell you about it later. How have you been in my absence?"
Padfoot, you're dense sometimes. I'm trying to tell you something.
"Miserable."
I must be glad to see you if I don't care about these insults. Come here. This is ridiculous.
"And how are you now?"
"Slightly less so."
I'm trying to tell you—I'm home, Sirius.
"Only slightly?"
Sirius pauses, then—"It's better than nothing"—the truth. Sometimes everything Remus does is small. He puts his arms around Sirius, a quiet and slight gesture, something, now, at least.
With you. I'm home.