Author: Anney
Pairing: James/Remus/Sirius
Warnings: Possible sadness for Remus. But who knows? Maybe there won't be. The time frame after the boys get to school isn't clear. They start out as first years and then I skip a bit, but I don't say how much because I'm not sure how far it is exactly. You can assume where you want them to be, but one hopes it's at least the age of consent.
A/N: Okay, I don't mention Peter at all in the end, and while it's not because I don't like Peter or that I think he's a poon or anything it's just that he didn't fit. Let's pretend that it took him longer to master turning into a rat than the other boys and leave it at that. Also did not give it the constant read over like I normally do. Feel free to tell me about any mistakes that I need to fix. I can be reached at anneykun2 at yahoo dot com, or thru my live journal,that informatiois in my profile.
Summary: Summer is the best and worst time of the year.
Leaving Home
Summer is the best and worst time of the year. It's all sweaty hot, body slick warmth with what sometimes feels like never ending heat. He knows it's not as bad as it could be, as it sometimes has been, but the current one is always the worst one because he can't remember anything more. He loves summer because it means the end of heat, and he hates it because it means the start of coldness. His seasons are hot and cold and he hates both with equal passion of not wanting when they are present.
He remembers warm nights of firefly hunts and rolling in grass wet with early morning dew. He loves the glow of the sun as it sets across the ocean, with it's beautiful colors of incoming dark. His favorite color is the dark of night and his most hated is the glow of a moon. He wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up, so he could fly to the moon and see what was so special about it that it made him change and grow and burn with needs he didn't understand.
He can't remember not changing, just like he can't remember a time before his parents rage at each other for not being good enough at something he doesn't quite understand. He's so smart, with his books and his learning, but he still doesn't understand the grown-up world of blame and arrogance. He can't wait to grow up because he thinks that it'll hurt less as it happens.
He can remember being held down because he would fight against the cage; it's too small, there's not enough space. He wants to be free to roam across the country and find something to have and to hold and to tear. His mother says she loves him but she's safe on the other side of bars. He can't reach her for comfort, he can't reach her for pain. She stands on the outside and cries for him, or so she says, but she doesn't give him what he wants. She only holds her hands up to her eyes in a desperate need for cover.
He yells, and howls, and yanks. There's scars all over his chest, and his thighs; he's colored red and pink, blue black rings of bruises. His mother cooks his meat just on the other side of rare and flinches away when he asks for more. He has the same eyes of his father and yet he's never seen them on the other man.
He turns eleven when it's windy and he's by himself because none of the other kids are allowed to play with him. He could slip and bite, or he could fall into some insanity and they would be sprawled out victims of horror. His mother only thinks him capable of pain and death, it's the only thing he can see in her eyes when she looks at him. Even when he's not full of wolf-fur and wolf-smiles it lingers in her gaze as she walks around him. She holds his letter against her chest as his father locks him down. He turns eleven in the full moon glow of forever, it's painful and it's bloody. He smells fear and resignation as his parents watch him tear himself into bloody parts of rage for freedom. He wants more than they can give or allow.
His mother holds his hand as they walk through a world he's never seen before. There are new sights and sounds and smells and she holds him so tightly it hurts; she drags him from shop to shop in a hurry to get back to where she feels safe. She keeps him tied to her side, and she avoids talking to people that are unnecessary distractions. He's not allowed to question or ask for anything here. She doesn't trust him to not give away the most important secret she's ever had.
It was a long, loud fight of 'We have to send him' and 'No, he could hurt someone' and accusations flying back and forth between mother and father while he was curled up in his room covered in bandages sloppily applied because his mother couldn't see through all her tears. His father wants him out, away but his mother is scared that he'll be killed because he can't keep himself under control. The Headmaster has promised to keep him safe, that there are precautions taken and he tells his mother that everyone needs an education, regardless of what they might turn into once a month.
It's refreshing how he's treated like a normal boy, looked at without fear or disgust, but it hurts that it's not his parents that give him that look. He can't remember ever being normal and he can't remember being loved. It's okay, he thinks, not everyone is meant for family.
He decides on his last night at home that school will be the best thing he ever does. It can't get much better after all. He knows that once he's grown life will be nothing but responsibility and little else. He can't be relied on like other wizards, he won't have a family or friends or a future. He's accepted the fact that he's bound to be dead before he gets close to thirty. It's not as painful a realization as he had thought death to be. Death hints at a freedom he's never known. He goes to school with no other goal than to experience what it's like to be separated from his parents. He doesn't think he'll last too long after his nineteenth birthday.
His mother holds his hand just as tight as when they were shopping for his supplies while his father handles his luggage. He's the only boy whose mother has such a strong grip on his hand and he can hear the laughter at his back; he doesn't care though, it's not how she shows she cares but he like to pretend that she does. His father avoids his eyes when he tells him to be good, and his mother makes a show of smoothing down his hair as she tells him the same. He knows that by 'be good' they really mean 'stay caged' and when they say 'don't do anything bad' they mean 'don't get yourself killed for being this thing'. He acts like it's because they care, but he's not sure if they really do. The fear outshines everything, especially this close to the full moon.
He holds himself aloof and away from the other students, like his mother does when she's surrounded by people in town. He can see her in his head, the slight smile on her lips as she tilts her head so she's looking down on everyone. He sits on the edge of his seat and stares out the window at where his parents stand, he knows that they can see him but unlike the other parents they aren't waving smiles or yelling out dire warnings of punishment for misbehavior. They know that he will be on his best behavior because one step out of line means more than detention, or howlers; it means Dark Creature Destruction, fines and time spent in Azkaban before his death at the hands of the Ministry. The next seven years of his life will be well-kept secrets and study.
The train is over run with children and right before the train leaves his compartment is taken over by two boys that are bouncing laughter and smiles. Both are dark haired, big grins, and leggy youth. He shoves himself into the corner and keeps his eyes on the window in hopes that his presence will be ignored. It is and he's secure in his self-imposed exile.
Dinner is huge and loud, he's surrounded by boys and clapped on his back as the older ones make their way around in introductions. He finds out that Gryffindors are the bravest of the brave and the boy on his left declares himself the best looking of the first years. His name is Sirius, 'like the star!' he yells to anyone that will listen, and is like no other boy he's ever come across. He curls up in sheets that look like the blood he knows he'll be covered in soon and dreams of flying to the moon on broomsticks and finding out that he's been dead for years and years and years. School fades into that ever changing schedule of normalcy. He falls in love with the Dog Star two months after his arrival.
Everyone loves Sirius though, even the people that hate him. He's as captivating as the stars in the sky, and he clings to those around him like the leech that he claims not to be. Remus is caught up in the whirlwind of everything the other boy does and couldn't escape if he tried. Sirius tells him that his appeal is how he holds himself away. Sirius loves mysteries and that's all that Remus is. One day, out of the blue, Sirius tells all the boys in his dorm that he wants to be a dog and that's when he badgers James into being one too. James is too good for dogs though, he becomes a stag. Remus puts his nose in the air and tells Sirius that wolves are better, and what does anyone want with a smelly old dog anyway? Then he goes to the shack and is red blood and new scars in the morning.
He knows that Sirius is determination personified and James is one of the smartest boys in their year but he doesn't really expect them to pull off becoming animangus so on the next full moon he's all panic and fear when the other boys show up in the shack right on the verge of his change, it's too late for them to leave so he's resigned to death and horror come morning. Then it's too late for anything and he's surrounded by dog and stag and for once in his life the morning doesn't bring blood and scars but warmth and bones. He's in a pile of flesh surrounded by something he had never thought to have.
It rolls over into open mouth kisses, and small shallow thrusts against each the others belly. James is naked warmth against his back and Sirius is burning life against his front. There are murmurs and teasing nips against his neck and hands cupping his hips. He's surrounded by warm living bodies and it's like nothing he had ever thought of.
(end)