First Year
Eleven-year-old Remus Lupin arrives early at platform nine-and-three-quarters. His mother and father wait with him for a while as the train prepares and gradually students - mostly alone, Remus notices (perhaps only those who come alone manage to arrive a good three hours before the scheduled departure time) - begin to filter through the barrier. When the train whistles and the doors swing open, he says he will go and find a carriage, they can go. Mrs Lupin asks quietly if he would like them to stay? But he shakes his head. He would rather face this alone, and he knows his mother would rather leave. His father has to get to work and staying without him would be even scarier for her than her son. So they hug him tight, smile as wide as they can - one tremulous and nearly tearful, one grim but hopeful - and go, holding each others' hands tightly.
Little Remus drags his suitcase up a step onto the train and finds an empty carriage to sit and stare out of the window. He didn't sleep last night, but he can't sleep now. His stomach hurts a little, panic and anticipation and fear of the unknown.
The platform fills up, the noise levels rise. The train begins to fill too, students run up and down the carriages, call to each other. Everyone is excited, everyone has friends.
At ten to eleven someone very grown-up and scary sticks her head into the carriage and smiles and asks if it is ok if her friends come and sit in, as there is no space for them all anywhere else. Of course Remus ducks his head in a acquiescent nod - and only when they pour in to fill the carriage like water, chattering and laughing and catching up with summer news, does he realise that of course this means there is no possibility of any other first years chancing to come in so he could meet them. He resigns himself to a train ride alone and stares out of the window and bites his lip very very hard, and tries to imagine that in six years' time he will ride the train with a carriage-full of laughing friends and six years' worth of in-jokes to build on. It seems a long way away.
Second Year
Twelve-year-old Remus Lupin is - impossibly - even earlier for the train than his eleven-year-old self. He is no less organised, no less precise, and he must leave the house no later if he wishes to Floo with his father before work, but this year he has excitement pushing his legs a little faster and his experience holds them a little surer, and doesn't pause to check the station platform signs - he knows exactly where he is going. He has been waiting for this all summer.
He is still alone on the train, though. Twelve-year-old girls write excessive amounts of letters and make excessive amounts of plans about meeting by this column or in this carriage and find each other, if not quite as smoothly as they thought they would, with relative precision and speed. Twelve-year-old boys do not. Twelve-year-old boys manage to organise only two sleepovers over a two-and-a-half-month summer, and with James away with his parents for most of August, plans made extend to "CAN'T WIAT FOR 1ST SEPTEMBER, SEE YOU ON THE TRIAN!" scribbled at the end of the very few very short letters they manage to actually finish and send, good intentions notwithstanding. (It is something of a wonder that even with two of his own in his name, it should take Sirius so long to learn the proper relationship between 'I's and the rest of the alphabet. Mrs Lupin thinks that probably, had Sirius been in the muggle system, he would have been diagnosed with dyslexia a long time ago, and in Remus' private opinion this only makes his friend's achievements, in grades and everything else, all the more brilliant).
Remus hugs his father goodbye (his mother, poorly again, wished her son well at home at 7:30, the trek into wizarding London too momentous a prospect. Remus understands) and finds an empty carriage from which he waves as his father turns towards a long shift at St Mungo's, smiling to himself at the excitement in his son's face. He remembers that excitement, and he thanks Merlin, Dumbledore and the God his muggle wife worships that despite all the odds stacked against him his only son has been able to experience it too.
Eleven-year-old Remus could not sleep through the spare three hours because of the unpleasant swirling in his gut. Twelve-year-old Remus does not want to sleep in case he misses the boys, but he was up all night packing and repacking and reading his new books. At around the twentieth page of The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2, it slips from his fingers onto the seat, and he closes his eyes.
At 11:02, the carriage is filled with giggles and whispers and suddenly plunged in darkness. Remus comes awake yelling as he is deluged in a rush of freezing cold water that smells like roses and lilies, and he stumbles to the window to open it and as the darkness streams out and dissipates in the bright chilly air he spins about and falls over and the laughter redoubles as the gloom fades and he is face-to-face with laughing white teeth in a face brown from two weeks on a French beach, and bright hazel eyes behind round glasses. Naturally he punches his friend in the chest and behind James Potter, Sirius Black and Peter Pettigrew, already on the floor splitting their sides, roar even louder with mirth. James jumps up again and gives his friend a hug, uncaring of the soaking wet robes, and Peter waves his wand to produce a warming spell. Sirius wipes his eyes and demands what his friend thinks of the new darkness-maker which James bought in France?
It is the best awakening Remus has had in months.
Sixth Year
Sixteen-year-old Remus Lupin wakes on a camp bed in James Potter's bedroom after the Last Day Of The Holidays Sleepover (Or The Warm-Up Rave, as Sirius calls it), tradition since third year, when James realised he was the only one whose parents really enjoy (Or, in Sirius' case, give the slightest damn about) seeing him off to the Hogwarts Express. Remus wakes first - also a tradition - and bags the first shower. When he returns, James and Peter are awake, talking in low sleep-gravelly voices as James fumbles for his glasses, but Sirius is still fast asleep, snoring. Remus reaches to yank away the duvet but Peter gives a weird little barking cough "Don't!" and James sits up, blinking and grinning. "Pants?" he elaborates to Remus' questioning look at Peter. Remus nods "Good point-" and changes tack.
"Augumenti!" - Sirius comes to life splattering and roaring. Remus makes a run for it, down the stairs to the kitchen where the smell of pancakes drifts towards him. Mrs Potter is making breakfast for her sons. Later they will drag each others' bags - filled with a jumbled mix of clothing and possessions whose true origins and first ownership are old jokes and fights and no-one is sure of - out the front door and into Mrs Potter's car. Sirius will attempt to smuggle alcohol which she will find and confiscate and James will have forgotten something Very Important and Peter's shirt will be buttoned wrong - "For Merlin's sake, Wormtail, you are SIXTEEN-" and Mrs Potter will shake her head at him and say "honestly, Remus, you are the only full head you've got between you".
They will reach the barrier at five to eleven and dash through, James and Sirius yelling at the tops of their voices and Mrs Potter trailing behind with things they have dropped in the car which she will hand to Peter through the carriage window and demand very firmly that James come back and kiss her - he will, with 20 seconds to spare and the conductor blowing a whistle furiously.
This year, Remus finds an almost-empty carriage - at this late hour, miracle of miracles! - and as he walks in he realises he does not recognise the little girl with her knees up to her chin by the window, and as he smiles at her the smile she returns is a little tight-lipped.
When he calls his friends in, the group has grown along the platform and through the corridor to include Adam and Ian, Marlene and Mary and Lily Evans sporting a glowing tan and seeming determined to be civil to James if nothing else (wonderful, as he will be quidditch captain this year, that will make prefect meetings a lot easier) and Donna and Celia and some seventh years, Alice and Frank and Rowan. As the carriage fills up the little girl - he swears the new ones get smaller every year - seems to shrink even further. Suddenly he remembers his first day and the horrible feeling of being surrounded by people who know each other well. "One is never so alone as in a crowd"... who said that?
"Marley?" he murmurs to the girl he has ended up next to in the tightly squeezed laughing throng of upper-school-students. She stops laughing at Frank attempting to catch a chocolate frog which has escaped and swivels her neck to look at him without shifting her body. "Remus. How lovely to see you so close after all these months apart. How have you been?"
"Your sister's starting today, isn't she?"
"Well remembered. I think she's found a Prewitt cousin, at least I hope she has, or she didn't get on the train, haven't seen her since I ran into Mary and she told me about -"
"be quiet for a blessed minute, Marlene?"
"sorry, sorry, what...?"
Remus nods at the little girl opposite him with a sympathetic grimace. 'I remember my first train ride. Grimmest thing, didn't know anyone, pack of sixth years invaded my carriage, do you think...?"
"Remus, my dear boy, you are the closest thing to a saint I have ever -" with Marlene, thought as good as said and said as good as done. Within a second she leans forward and addresses the girl, within a minute she has offered to take her - her name, it seems, is Sophie - to find her sister, and by extension, other first-years. Sophie, seeming a little petrified, points out her bag to Frank "come on, my lad, earn that badge now-" closest to the door, and he heaves it into the corridor - "he's the Head boy, be sure'n say thank you - don't look so scared i'm only teasing, he's lovely really even though he's so offensively tall - I'm sorry, I'm trying to find this girl some friends, here let us squeeze past - hold it up HIGH Frank, we've chased enough chocolate frogs today -" and the sound of her apologies to the trolley witch fade as the carriage door swings shut. In a few minutes they're back and Marlene plops herself down and drops one arm around Remus and kisses him thoroughly on the cheek and repeats loudly her protestations about his undeniable sainthood. When she explains to the carriage the resettlement of the tiny Sophie in a carriage of first years playing some odd mix up of muggle cards and exploding snap, Remus meets first James's eye and then Lily's, but both give him smiles of such identical approval and affection that he blinks as he refocuses on the new topic and laughter breaks out again, Sirius' booming above the rest.
Five years ago, eleven-year-old Remus thought it far off that he would begin his sixth year with such companionship, such comfortable laughter. Now, sixteen-year-old Remus can imagine no different.
Seventh Year
This year, the Warm-Up Rave is taken up in large part by three boys wondering loudly why in the world here is a little black-and-gold 'H' badge lying James' desk, and one seventeen-year-old Remus keeping his own council and remarking infrequently that he has no idea why they are all so surprised. None of them listen to him, of course. (Some time around three a.m. Sirius sits bolt upright into a finally- quiet room and demands to know whether this means he can be Quidditch captain. Two expertly-aimed pillows hit him in the mouth, and James says "dunno. Guess we'll find out.") An obligatory and contractually limited 5% of the evening is given over to James declaring that this year, this final year ("your last chance" "shut up, Padfoot") the year of years - this will be the year that Lily Evans finally falls in love with him - but he actually only declares it twice, so it's probably more like 2%. When Sirius asks why, James shrugs and says "I don't know. Guess it's up to her, isn't it?" and Remus and Peter share a smile. The rest of the night is devoted to plans to make their final year the Best Year Ever, "No one will ever forget the Marauders!"
When they wake, Remus first, pancakes, packing, final forgetfulness and then screeching up the barrier at 10:55, everything is the same and yet in all their minds is the unspoken thought that this will be the last time, for them. They will never ride the Hogwarts Express north again - they have already decided that this year, their last opportunity, they will stay at school for Christmas. They have had six amazing years, they have ruled the world, none has held a candle to The Marauders - and this year will be the last.
They don't say it, though, it's not until Lily and Mary and Marlene and Donna come and invade their carriage that someone - Mary? - says mournfully "Last year, chaps". Everybody shushes her, but they talk about it anyway, and laugh and reminisce and plan the future - their final year and beyond, until suddenly Donna demands "What is THAT?" and points at the corner of James' robes. Lily jumps up in something she later vigorously denies is consternation, and the mournful "final year" talk is forgotten, for which Remus is thankful.
This year, he doesn't have to leave his friends to go to the prefects' carriage. James and Lily rise with him, and as they pass down the corridor towards the front of the train, Remus glances to the right and sees a group of first-years in a carriage, with their heads held together over a collection of wands. Some will be muggleborns, many will have met today. Their adventures are only just beginning, and part of him envies them.
Seventeen-year-old Remus opens the door to the final carriage, steps inside and watches the Slytherins' faces carefully as James follows him in. The way that Severus's jaw drops and the tiny smile playing at the corners' of Lily's mouth as she strides to the head of the table is all he needs. Remus Lupin turns and closes the door behind him, moving to sit to the right of his oldest friend.
He is riding the Hogwarts Express, and it's his favourite ride to take.
1993
Remus Lupin, thirty-three years old, boards the Hogwarts Express on the 1st of September early and alone, as he has not done since he was twelve. He finds an empty carriage and pulls his cloak over his shoulder, a book of defensive theory in hand. It used to be Gideon's, he thinks. He can't remember. So many of his possessions - books, especially - once belonged to others, who could afford to buy books of theory and history and places to keep them. Half of Remus' trunk is books, many of them Lily's. Now - for this year, at least - he will have a place where he can be sure his books will be safe and dry and close at hand. For this year. For the last twelve years, Remus has put more stock by prophecies and curses and rumours and whispers than his teenage self ever used to, and who knows where he will be next year? But he has also learned, these last twelve years, to live each day, each month, each year as it comes, and he is happier about the prospect of this year ahead than he has been since his seventeen-year-old self strode into a carriage identical to this.
A whistle blows somewhere in the distance, and he realises he has been staring at the same sentence for ten minutes. No good, he thinks, his brain is too full of memories. In a seat just like this sat a first year named Sophie, a muggle-born who knew no-one. She became a Ravenclaw, if memory served him right, and Helen McKinnon became her best friend. There, by that column, fifteen-year-old Remus bit back a smile and fifteen-year-old James made no attempt to bite back any smile - or raucous laughter - as Sirius Black received a resounding slap from Sarah Johnson "For my best friend, you arrogant prick!" Here, in a carriage like this on the way home for Christmas, Peter, sixteen, collapsed, wiping his brow dramatically before announcing "She said 'Alright!'" His "relationship" with Alanna Fenchurch lasted a couple of weeks into the new year, Remus remembered. No-one was terribly upset when it broke down, least of all Alanna, who started going out with a Ravenclaw sixth year who was, Mary and Marlene and Lily assured Peter massively under his league. Or under Alanna's. Or both, or something.
Here, thirteen-year-old Remus demanded to know whether his friends had done the reading set for their new transfiguration year, and registering their predictably blank faces, rolled his eyes and pulled his notes from his pocket. "I love you, Moony." In a carriage just like this twelve-year-old Remus fell asleep and woke up soaking wet and yelling, and spent the rest of the ride playing gobstones until an officious new prefet told them to stop because of the smell.
In a seat just like this, Remus Lupin, eleven years old, sat and watched the crowds of students hurrying past and fought his anxiety and wondered what the future would bring. Thirty-three-year-old Remus Lupin feels closer to this child than to any of his in-between selves. The future, the responsibility, the grief swirl round him and he feels a familiar tightening in his chest. The in-between selves crowd on him and the frightened eleven-year-old, laughing and throwing cards and gobstones to the shadows of his friends. Each of them is over, past, dead, dead, traitor, gone, dead, over… One is never so alone as in a crowd.
He takes a bottle from his cloak and drinks, bites a piece of chocolate, and the demons of his childhood and his mistakes back away, slip out of the door and run away down the corridor, calling to each other. Their voices fading, Remus leans against the glass window and rubs his hands over the the dark shadows under his eyes. "Just you and me then, I guess." he murmurs to his eleven-year-old self - but he's gone, now, too. Remus is alone. He lifts his feet to rest them on the seat under him and closes his eyes. It's warmer in the carriage than he's been in a few days.
No one comes into the carriage of a strange man in a tattered cloak - not a first year looking for a friend, not a crowd of laughing sixth years, not a prefect with authority to prove. Not until the train has steamed out of the station do three third years realise that there really is nowhere else free, and creep in.
"Who d'you reckon he is?"
"Professor R. J. Lupin"
"How d'you know that?"
Thirty-three-year-old Remus sleeps on as the train winds north. It is not until the train is nearly at Hogwarts that his grey dreams turn to nightmares and he wakes with a start to a dark carriage, a cold, creeping horror he knows all too well, and, reaching for fire to illuminate and warm, a face, staring up at him, twisted in fear - the face of his oldest friend, far too familiar and far too young.
He gives James's son chocolate and goes for the driver, but the dementors are gone, and soon the train is coming in to the station. He will go and find Dumbledore, report about the Dementors and receive thanks and confidence he feels entirely unworthy of. He will go the feast and watch the sorting and as soon as possible, begin his lessons.
He has ridden the Hogwarts Express for the last time.
First Year
Teddy Lupin, eleven years old, comes with his grandmother and his godfather to platform nine-and-three-quarters. They arrive with time to spare, but not too much time. Andromeda Tonks is sensible like that. She embraces her grandson and his godfather squeezes his hand and says "good luck!" Teddy takes a deep breath and it seems like the air floods an extra deeper layer of blue right up to the tips of his hair before he grasps his trunk with both hands and steps up into the carriage. He turns and waves, hesitates, then leans out and hugs Harry tightly, briefly.
Then he turns around and walks down the carriages until he bumps into someone coming the other way. She's wearing pigtails and looks as nervous as he feels so on impulse sticks his hand out and asks "are you a first year?" she nods. "I'm Emily." "Teddy." "Shall we go in here? It's empty." "Ok."
Two minutes later, they stick a sign on the door "If you don't know anyone, come in here!" and two minutes after that, two minutes before the train is due to depart, a kid with a bright smile and curly black hair sticks his head through the door and says "can I come in? I have no idea what is going on but my uncle brought me and he gave this AMAZING thing look at this chocolate frog it HOPS" and when the train pulls out of the station there are six of them and one of them has a pack of cards. A fourth-year passes and laughs softly, pointing to the paper stuck to the door. "Hufflepuff" she calls back to a friend. "I'd bet you a galleon if I knew who it was -" then in response to an answer she sticks her head into the carriage and says "Excuse me, who wrote that sign?" and when Teddy and Emily wave, a little confused, she nods to herself. Later, when they are sorted into Hufflepuff, she will collect a galleon from her friend and clap as Teddy joins her house table.
Teddy is happy with Hufflepuff; he knows it was his mothers' house. He will enjoy the gentle warm common room and he will wear yellow and black which clash horribly with his hair on pink days, and make him look like a children's toy on blue days. He will learn to count Emily among his best friends, and the boy with the chocolate frog will share his dorm room for seven years and become in that time like a brother. He will learn to love Charms and Potions and Herbology and Defence Against the Dark Arts and put up with the others. He will make friends across the houses and he will fall in love with a girl he has known most of his life. He will do well. In six years time, seventeen-year-old Teddy will ride the train again with a shiny gold 'H' badge on the lapel of his robes.
But for now, eleven-year-old Teddy Lupin rides the Hogwarts Express and plays cards, moving towards a new adventure.