Disclaimer: While I'm flattered that someone might mistake me as owning Harry Potter, I really don't. It all belongs to other people.
Moment
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It was quiet – no, silent, the slow swirling of dust motes lit by a dull stream of sun through the window.
The floor was plush beneath his feet, his shoes leaving a slight indentation in the rug as he moved slowly, like the dust motes, across the room. There, slung over the arm of a chair, a jacket, to be searched for later by some other student. A careful stack of books on the table in the corner.
He liked it best like this, when it was silent and he had it all to himself. A few soundless moments when he could breathe in the warm, dry air and scuff his shoe against the carpeting and have it make that raspy, brushing little noise, the only one in the room. Breathless moments when everything was bigger because he was the only one doing the crowding; these moments were like the seventh note in a scale, the note before the good note, the resolution.
With these quiet moments, he knew better ones were coming. A few moments before students would clamber in the through the portrait hole and his group of laughing, boisterous friends would shove and jostle their way goodheartedly in and spot him, Sirius and James veering toward him, smiles lighting their faces as they slapped him on the back and crowded into his space to tell him, in hushed undertones, that Isabelle Waters – you remember, Remus, Sirius would say, the one with that little mole just so at the nape of her neck – and Remus would recall Isabelle, and they'd go on to exclaim, their voices growing unknowingly louder, that she had slipped Sirius a note in the middle of class and that when he'd written back, she promptly spilled her potion all over the table and Slughorn got crazy mad.
They would burst into laughter at the recent memory and Remus would smile quietly, reveling in the joy surrounding him as James and Sirius slowly gathered their wits about them, repeating a few times as they wiped at their eyes, "Bloody hilarious. Should've seen her face… bloody hilarious."
It was these moments before the laughter and friends that gave him the tingle of anticipation, waiting for the new story from Potions, the brilliant prank they would plan on pulling later, the jokes, the mirth, and the friends.
The hushed minutes, the leading tone, gave him a moment to prepare himself, so he could better remember every following detail. The memories that would define him. The memories they could chuckle over together, years from now, when they were older and out of school, older and married, older and raising a family, older and the children had gone off to Hogwarts, older and happy, still laughing with one another.
The portrait swung open across the room, and chatter filled the room. Remus turned, smiling already, and saw James, nearly doubled over with laughing, and Sirius, veering toward him.
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Fin.
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A/N: Thanks for reading – reviews/constructive criticism are appreciated. Let me know what you think.