Title: Just Like Photographs
Author: Theo Bringadinger
Summary: Remus and James have many significant moments in their lives, mostly picture perfect but sometimes not so. Slash.
Disclaimer: Despite the fact that they are so AU it's not even funny, and I could probably make this an original story if I weren't so lazy, these characters are not mine. Enjoy them anyway.
Remus Lupin had been a werewolf for precisely one year, seven months, two weeks and a day. In that time, his mother and father had gotten divorced, back together, and divorced again. His mother believed that Remus was just the same, and that he should be treated as such. His father believed Remus had died the day he had been bitten, and been replaced by a monster.
Eventually, his mother, Maya, had simply filed a restraining order, packed up everything and moved. This was her back-up plan for everything, pack up and move. Whenever something went wrong, she simply left. This was precisely why in that same one year, seven months, two weeks and a day that Remus had been bitten, he had moved eleven times. It was also why when they moved to Godric's Hollow and Maya told Remus that they were staying for good this time, neither believed it.
It was late May when they were finally finished packing all their belongings into their small but cozy house. They were renting, but that hadn't seemed to matter to the other occupants of Godric's Hollow. Theirs was a small, friendly town that didn't need an excuse to throw a party, but looked for one anyway. In this case, two new neighbors was more than enough reason for the town-wide block party.
Maya and Remus almost didn't go to the celebration. Maya was essentially a loner by nature, and Remus was only six, and did what his mother told him. In fact, it was all James Potter's fault that they did not have a nice, quiet dinner followed by a black and white classic movie and bedtime. Later on, it would become all his fault that they did not have a nice, quiet life followed by a nice, quiet burial.
James Potter was pale, thin, and petite. That was the first thing that Maya noticed when the boy rang her doorbell at seven fourteen in the evening. The second thing she noticed was the fact that despite his rather wraith-like appearance, James Potter practically radiated life. He greeted her cordially, in that horridly adorable way children get when they try to act like grown-ups. Then he invited himself in.
Maya, having lived her entire life dealing only with shy, impressionable Remus, was quite overwhelmed when confronted with this petite whirlwind of energy. Remus, thankfully, was not, or else things would have definitely gone very much differently. Indeed, when a slightly put-out Mrs. Potter and a near full blown panicked Mr. Potter rang her doorbell and hour and a half later to collect their son, Remus had already proclaimed him his "bestest friend in the history of EVER".
Maya collected herself mentally for the time when she would have to take herself and her son from this happy suburb. No one liked werewolves, she told herself, and it was too much to hope for that anyone would.
To Maya's eternal surprise, however, James Potter did not mind her son. In fact, the two became quite inseparable. The affect it had on Remus was astounding. When before, the golden eyed brunet had been shy and inverted, he grew more outgoing. And more mischievous, if the constant influx of pranks and tricks and just out right boyish humor said anything about it.
James himself became a bit…if not calmer, at least more contained. Instead of bouncing off the walls and talking everyone's ears off, as he had been wont to do before, he found a new outlet for his energy in painting. By the time he was eight, he had dragged Remus, and by default Maya and Mr. and Mrs. Potter, to every art show, art class or exhibition within logical limits.
Maya found friendship in Mrs. Potter as well. Aurora Potter was laid back, calm, and unruffled. She had the utmost control over her son, but rarely used it, instead finding just as much humor in his antics as he did. She was the perfect counterpoint to her overly anxious, uptight husband Richard, who seemed to believe James might break if anything so much as touched him. They were very much in love, and although Maya wished them the best, she was often bitter towards Richard.
Not only did she miss what she had thought she had with her own husband, but Richard was the only dark spot on her new life. Maya had no doubt that if Richard found out Remus was a werewolf, he would waste no time in whisking his precious son far away.
However, Maya tried her best to ignore what was wrong, and focus on what was right. Due to the proximity between the Potter's townhouse and Maya's small one story, one of the boy's was always at the other's house, regardless of previous engagements or convenience. Maya ended up answering the door so many times, that eventually she took both boys out and showed them where the spare key was, and left the door unlocked whenever she remembered.
James would come over to her house every weekday morning, escorted by his father when Richard went down to the main town floo in order to get a cup of coffee before he went to his work as an auror. James and Remus would eat breakfast and chatter until it was time for Maya to take them to Sanderson Elementary, which not only taught children basic magical theories and history, but also etiquette, family lineage, and how to behave around muggles. Most importantly, it gave children a basic grounding in muggle education, in case one of them decided to pursue a career as a muggle.
Then Aurora Potter would pick them up and take them back to James' house for the afternoon, where they would explore the woods or the attic, add grey hairs to the neighbors, and somehow always end up somewhere they shouldn't. On weekends, they spent their days either doing exactly that, or in a public place of amusement, left alone when their parents got sick of them.
The situation worked out just fine for the two families. Just fine, until Remus walked up to his mother one Tuesday afternoon, sans James for once, and said that James had been wanting to know why they could never meet around full moons, and that Remus had told him that he was a werewolf, and that now James had gotten in trouble for yelling at the teacher when he made derogatory comments towards magical creatures during class, and could she please go pick him up from detention and tell Aurora that they had been over at their house the entire time, because James didn't want his mother to be mad at him.
Maya froze internally. She did not thaw until after James had been picked up and both boys had been dropped off at the Potter's, and she herself had made it back into her easy chair. James knew. Of course he did. She should've expected this. After all, she had never told Remus not to tell anyone, she had simply expected him not to have the chance. And James had gotten detention for yelling about it, which meant that everyone knew. They would have to move. She would have to leave Aurora, who was quite possibly her best friend. Remus would have to leave James. He'd be heartbroken.
She slid down onto the floor, and began categorizing knick-knacks on the coffee table for packing, not trusting herself to stand and get the boxes from the garage.
Remus was mad at her. Of course, she had expected him to be. He'd come home, having eaten dinner at the Potter's, to unmistakable signs of packing. He'd yelled. Her sweet tempered eight year old boy had yelled. It was not his fault, of course he'd yell in such a situation, but she'd had to send him up to his room. To be consistent.
She knew he had gained a sense of confidence from living with James, from living in Godric's Hollow, which was such a tight knit community that Maya thought nothing of sending two eight year old boys to the library alone and expecting them to come back in one piece. However, she hadn't thought, no matter how mad or confident he got, that he'd run away. But he had.
Of course, there was no doubt in her mind where he'd gone. She was expecting the doorbell to ring any moment, with Aurora and Richard and James on her doorstep demanding to know why they were leaving, or even worse, demanding that she take Remus and get out, and never let a half breed darken their sunny town again. So she was taken utterly by surprise when Aurora Potter walked up behind her, alone, took the bag of linens she had been packing, and dumped them out.
Maya sat down on her easy chair and watched James' mother sweep around their home, putting things back in their places and opening boxes, talking all the while. It seemed she had been there when James had asked and Remus had told. She had told Remus and James that it was a secret, and that they weren't to talk about it. She hadn't known whether or not Maya had wanted to talk about it, and had misjudged Remus willingness to follow orders. She had thought he would run home and tell her what had happened immediately. She didn't care what Remus was, just so long as he made James happy.
Further, she said that the principal of Sanderson Elementary had floo'ed her about James' yelling. He had simply told the teacher that said teacher was an arse, not anything specific. When the principal inquired about the reason for James' outburst, she had named a cousin who was married to a vampire. And when Aurora ran out of pressing news, she talked about her uncle that was remarrying, and the begonias she had wanted to plant, and the weather.
Maya fell asleep listening to Aurora talk and bustle about the house. When she awoke the next day, Remus and James were standing in front of her. Remus crawled up into her lap, apologized for running away, and made her promise they weren't ever going to leave. James made a valiant oath to protect Remus from "the bad people forever and ever and ever, so there".
On February seventh, James got his acceptance to Hogwarts. He held off replying until Remus' birthday on April twenty-third. Although they spent the entire day waiting by the window, no letter arrived. James went home after Remus locked himself in his room.
Once there, he climbed over the couch back and landed himself firmly in his mother's embroidery. He didn't say anything until Richard went up to bed as his father still did not know about Remus being a werewolf, but as soon as the upper floorboards stopped creaking, the entire story spilled out. James looked up expectantly at his mother from his place sprawled over her lap, still at the age where mother knows best and can fix everything.
Aurora suggested that perhaps James write the new Headmaster a letter, inquiring about whether Remus could go. What resulted was a month long correspondence with Albus Dumbledore that would flower into a very good friendship with the eccentric old man and a crash course in wizarding politics as James fought to prove that Remus not only should be allowed to go to Hogwarts, but that he had a right to, unaware that Dumbledore had only passed over Remus as an accident, and the only thing James was achieving was proving the depths of his friendship.
Unfortunately, James neglected to inform Remus of his plans, deeming it much more exciting to surprise the other boy. Remus instead closely examined their friendship, every second of it, and the month long disappearance of his friend, and took it to mean that James was going to Hogwarts without him and was cutting his ties now instead of later.
It took a week and several extremely creative apologies to make Remus forgive him when he figured out what James was doing. Eventually, James swore not to try to do a favor for Remus without informing him again, and they were off to Hogwarts.
Once at Hogwarts, James met Sirius Black, and they hit it off. The two explosive personalities combined with a strong sense of competitiveness had the two striving to get one up on each other even when they claimed to hate each other. Remus took the safer route, and made a tentative reach at friendship with Lily Evans, who was almost exactly like James in that both were protective, fiery, and intelligent. He inadvertently saved her from Peter Pettigrew, who even at that age had all the makings of a stalker. Peter, instead of being crushed, simply transferred his affections to James, who was more than happy to have someone to fawn over him.
James, Sirius, and Peter often went off, goofing around and playing pranks. Out of direct contact with his mother, James allowed himself a bit more freedom, and so often let his homework until the class before it was due, although he was careful to maintain a decent score. Remus and Lily made the library a constant place to be, and soon became known for being top of the class, Remus because he was afraid he would get thrown out if he wasn't, and Lily because her competitive nature hardly allowed her to let Remus have the highest grades.
Despite the differences in pathways that the two took, James and Remus always managed to find plenty of time in which it was simply JamesandRemus, terror twins. They would explore the castle, or go bother Hagrid into taking them into the forest to see the animals, or simply sit and paint and read.
Remus prided himself in knowing James better than anyone else. He knew that, although he pretended the opposite, James was very insecure about his effeminate looks. He knew that James had no real reason for keeping his hair longer, even if cutting it would help assuage his masculinity. He knew that the other boy was moody and unpredictable at best, although constantly hiding behind his uber-hyper mask. And he knew that James was utter crap at any sort of truth concealment, whether that was lying or simply just not saying anything.
This was especially helpful at situations such as now, when James was attempting to hide the purpose of his asking after Lily Evans. Somehow, it did not make Remus feel any better when he found out James liked her, possibly even liked her. He wondered why.
Sirius and Peter found out about Remus in third year. They took it rather well, and James took the opportunity to mention animaguses. He had wanted to find some way of helping his friend out almost since he had found out Remus was a werewolf, and that was the only way he could find. But, cocky as he may be, James knew he could not manage the transformation alone, and Remus would never help him attempt something so…if not dangerous, at least uncertain, and especially not for him, as Remus still felt he was insignificant in the grand scheme of things.
Sirius and Peter agreed to the deal. They decided on their animals quickly, and James pushed them all into working as quickly as possible. He didn't want Remus finding out and putting a stop to it all, and he knew he was a rotten liar. Still, it took two years before they were finished.
Thankfully, when James transformed back from his stag form (he'd thought becoming a wolf was too obvious, so he'd left the canine form to Sirius. Still, he sometimes wondered what Remus would've done, if he had gone ahead with wolf. He was so oblivious to everything else James did…) Remus was too overjoyed to be mad with him for breaking their promise.
Nevertheless, Remus spent noticeably more time with Lily. Since he never confronted James, the black haired teen had no idea how to go about apologizing. So he simply spent loads of time in the library with Lily and Remus, flirting outrageously with the former in order to exercise his brain in friendly banter, and trying to get on the latter's good terms again without being horribly obvious about it.
He was always a bad actor, and Remus cornered him after Charms twelve days later to tell him to knock it off, he was forgiven.
The first day that Remus realized something was different and actively chose to ignore it was May seventeenth. It was raining that day, and James had had the bright idea to go dancing in the rain, totally disregarding the fact that it was frigid outside. Remus went with him for no better reason than to make sure he didn't trip and break his neck.
James and Remus went to Hogsmeade, where it was less likely that a teacher would poke their head out and yell at you, and danced up and down the street, yelling until they were hoarse. James had so much fun, he forgot he had a low tolerance for cold. In fact, it was only when they ducked into the Shrieking Shack for a breather that he realized how very correct the word frigid was.
He practically leapt into Remus' arms, the other boy being not only nearly six inches taller than him, but about fifty pounds heavier, and thus able to withstand James' weight impacting him at very high speeds. Remus chuckled and pulled James into a sort of bear hug, telling him that he had told him he would be cold, and did he listen?
James mumbled something about being much too warm for any single person anyway, and wriggled his way deeper into Remus' embrace. The wriggling and unintentional moan/sighs that were escaping James did something very odd to Remus, and he went rigid.
It was James' turn to sigh, and he pulled away very briefly to frown at Remus, before tucking his sodden head back onto the golden eyed boy's shoulder and saying "For Merlin's sake Rem, loosen up. It's not as if anyone's around to see or care anyway."
Unfortunately, the vibrations from James talking coupled with the feel of the much-too-effeminate boy's body, made certain parts of Remus positively melt, and other parts stand at attention. And it only took James shifting once for the other boy to know about it too. He pulled away, not so far as to actually leave Remus' arms, but to be far enough that further contact was uncertain, instead of constant.
"Is…Is that because of..me? Or 'cause of me wiggling?" He asked hesitantly. Remus, who had absolutely no idea what was happening, jumped at the chance to explain it away logically. The feeling of loss that came from James pulling away completely dampened his feeling of triumph at putting a cause before the effect.
Remus and James sat in the Shrieking Shack until the rains died down. Remus watched James shiver with the distinct feeling that he had made the other boy upset, and he shivered himself when he realized, for the first time, that perhaps he did not know James so well after all.
Richard and Aurora died the summer of James and Remus' fifth year. Before James went to go live with relatives who lived near Sirius, he spent a week with Maya and Remus. He had a spare bed in Remus' room, but always ended up curled up next to the werewolf, tear tracks dried on his face and fists buried in the oversized Quidditch jerseys that sufficed as Remus' pajamas.
Remus would never admit it, but when James left, he was struck with a sudden bout of insomnia, in which he could just barely feel a phantom 5'6", hundred-pound fifteen year old slip under the covers next to him.
James and Lily went out for exactly a month, from the first of October to the first of November, in their sixth year. They broke up for two different reasons, depending on who you asked. James said it was because he wasn't ready to have a relationship so soon after his parents' deaths. Lily said it was because he clung to Remus like a baby opossum. Somehow, their friendship survived.
During that month, Remus got moody and snappish. He told himself it was because Peter was now following him around, having gotten terrified of Lily and not willing to face her down, even to stalk James.
Sirius got moody too, but that was simply because he was Sirius.
In seventh year, several things happened. The first was that James became Head Boy, and was moved into his own private room. This made it very hard for him to creep over to sneak in bed with Remus, whether this was so they could talk, or because James had had another nightmare about his mother in the hospital and his father shooting himself. Remus told himself they were too old to do things like that anyway. Phantom James and insomnia returned.
The second thing was the Halloween Ball. For the first, and last, time ever, Hogwarts was hosting a Halloween Ball, where one could dress up and dance and get very drunk on the spiked punch that teachers knew nothing about. Sirius and Lily collaborated to get Remus to go. He decided to dress up as a wolf, as he figured he could do that very well, thank you very much.
About a week before the Ball, the Gryffindors went out as a group to get their outfits for the Ball. James disappeared off with Lily, returning hours later with a bag each. The only thing Remus could get out of him was that they were "fulfilling a bet" and that he had better show up at the Halloween Ball, or else James was never showing him another piece of artwork. Remus, who caught James staring at him constantly and was sure that the other boy had drawn him, and who loved James' art anyway, swore he'd show up.
The week passed swiftly enough, and when the day of the Ball itself dawned, Remus saw James only once at breakfast, before Lily rushed him off to the Heads room and locked the door. Sirius joked several times that she was going to come out pregnant, but when Remus nearly decapitated him with a flying book, he went off to get ready too.
As for Remus, he waited until a half hour before the Ball before throwing on his fake ears and tail and drawing in whiskers with ink. Then he spent the first hour of the Ball waiting outside the Head rooms before he deduced James and Lily had already gone down to the Great Hall.
Feeling rather abandoned, he stalked downstairs angrily, only to have a fifth year girl in a red cloak jump him and attach herself to his arm right outside the doors. Professor Flitwick, who was checking to make sure everyone had a costume said "Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf" and waved them through.
Remus had had just about enough when the girl leaned up and whispered "Thought you were going to bow out on me for a while there, Rem." He just about died. James was wearing a dress. James looked like a girl. What. The. Fuck.
Giggling in a very disturbing fashion, James explained that Lily had been ragging on his long hair, and said that she bet he could go an entire day pretending to be a girl, and no one would notice. Remus pulled away from his friend to get a good look.
James was wearing a very short, hooded red cloak, and underneath a simple white smock that, nonetheless, went only to about mid thigh. He had curled his black hair, and put on the slightest bit of make-up, neither of which served to hide his tongue piercing or the ornate dog collar he'd put around his neck. He was wearing a lacy garter and knee high black leather high-heeled boots.
"So, was Little Red a hooker then? Wonder how I missed that." James shrugged.
"Lily kept insisting I'd make an ugly girl. I wanted to prove to her that I made a prettier girl than she did, which, now that I consider, is not exactly a badge of honor."
Remus had to admit that James did make a extremely pretty girl, but it didn't look right to him, seeing a pretty (although slightly prostitute-ish) girl and knowing it was his best friend.
Much, much later, after too many glasses of spiked punch, when Remus had James pinned up against the wall and was very slowly inching his hand up his thigh, he admitted to himself that at least the skirt made for convenience.
El Fin