Sirius watches Remus not fidget. He's taken his book out to the garden, Sirius trailing after, and now he's seated, neatly cross-legged (Sirius sprawls) in the scanty shade allowed by the July sun on the young willow he's leaning against.
It's sticky and terrible out, the air feels too thick for breathing, and Sirius – whose hair hangs in lank clumps that get in his eyes, whose back itches from the trails of slowly dripping sweat, whose feet won't stay still in the tickling grass – doesn't know how Moony can stand it, why he's still the poised and proper Prefect even at the bottom of his family's garden at the height of summer.
"Moooooneeee," he whines, "I'm bored."
Remus's eyes flick briefly up from the book. "Take a nap, then."
"'M not tired, I'm bored." Confident in his attractiveness even when petulant, Sirius rearranges his sprawl so that his head is on Moony's lap, covering the stupid book, and he's looking at Moony's fondly irritated upside-down face. "Let's do something."
"I am doing something: revising for my History of Magic N.E.W.T." Remus drums his fingers on the book a bit impatiently.
"I meant something fun."
Remus puts on his best poker face, the one that can sometimes even fool McGonagall (but never fools Sirius, not for a minute) and says, "I can assure you, Pads, that the history of Roman magic simply oozes fun."
"Only compared to the Goblin Wars," Sirius mutters. "Why're you doing a History of Magic N.E.W.T. anyway? 'S bloody useless."
"Some of us need all the N.E.W.T.s we can get, even the useless ones. Now kindly get your fat head off my book."
"Beg pardon?" Sirius smirks. "I believe you have me confused with a certain swell-headed git of our acquaintance, goes by the name of Prongs? My head is not the least bit fat."
"Well then, get your normal-sized head off my book," Remus calmly retorts.
"Give us a kiss first?"
Remus's eyes dart left and right, looking for parents unexpectedly back form work. "Oh, all right."
And he does lean down and kiss Sirius, but only a peck, really, and then he's sitting up again, trying to lift the book in a not-so-subtle attempt to shift Sirius, who obligingly rolls off to sprawl in the grass again.
Sirius silently counts to ten, then: "I'm still bored."
Remus snaps the book shut with a sigh. "I am going to fail, Sirius, and so when I'm living in an alley and eating out of skips, I just want you to know it'll be your fault."
"I'm certain I'll be appropriately remorseful," Sirius replies. "I'll be sure to bring my best rubbish to your skip."
He grins, but Remus doesn't, only grumbles "D'you have to be so bloody flip?" and reaches for the book again, and Sirius knows Moony's actually worried about his History of Magic N.E.W.T., for whatever daft reason, and suddenly he scrambles to his feet.
"I have a brilliant idea," he announces.
"Oh," Remus says. Sirius watches him expectantly.
"Oh," he repeats. "Is this a brilliant idea that involves me?"
"Of course, Moony, all my brilliantest ideas involve you and besides, this brilliant idea is about how you can study and we can both have fun."
"Ah. Is this going to be like that time—"
Sirius shudders. "Nothing like that time in the library; I've learnt my lesson. No, this is going to be brilliant, honest, so put down that book and c'mon!" He extends a hand, as if to help Moony up, but then—
Remus blinks in the light of a subtly changed sun. "This doesn't look like England," he calmly notes. "Or Wales. Pads, you didn't—"
"Apparate us internationally without a permit? No need to thank me, Moony."
Since they're in public, Remus doesn't cuff Sirius on the back of the head. Or give him a lecture on the dangers of international Apparition, the possible repercussions from the Ministry, and why Remus J. Lupin, teenaged werewolf, doesn't really want to face those repercussions.
Instead, he looks around; they're at one end of a narrow street, practically an alley, where it opens out onto a large square (a piazza, he supposes) full of buses and trams and exhaust fumes. There's a statue in the middle, somebody on a horse, but it doesn't do much (or anything, really) to remedy the piazza's complete lack of picturesque charm.
"So," he ventures, "this is Rome?"
Sirius makes a derogatory noise, as though anyone could illegally Apparate his boyfriend who was studying for his History of Magic N.E.W.T. to Rome. "Better! This is Naples!" He beams at Remus.
"How is that better?"
"Well, there's the sea, for one thing." Sirius makes a vague, sweeping gesture to his right, where, for all Remus can see, there may very well be sea, past several blocks of dingy buildings. A beach seems unlikely, judging by the cranes, and if there is one, he's not sure he'd want to swim at it. So far his general impression of Naples is one of intense grunginess.
"And perhaps," Sirius continues, "that book you had your nose buried in mentioned a little place by the name of Pompeii? Chock full of vivid, well-preserved evidence for the nature of Roman magic?"
Remus is suddenly pretty glad he didn't cuff Sirius on the head, after all.
It seems Moony is sure the Aurors are on their tail after their arrival in Italy by means of dubious legality, and Sirius doesn't think it'd help to explain to him the rather lackadaisical attitude towards law enforcement to be found here in Naples, with the end result that Remus won't let him just Apparate them both direct to Pompeii.
They take the train instead, but Moony wouldn't let him transfigure anything into money or tickets, either (that's counterfeiting, Sirius). Sirius really doesn't understand how fare-jumping is any better, but he's willing to follow Moony's lead. It's his surprise holiday, after all.
The train they need is called the Circumvesuviana, which Sirius thinks is much more interesting than the Circle Line. Nothing on the Tube is named after an active volcano, and that's a real shame.
"Hey Moony," he asks, "after we see Pompeii, can we climb Vesuvius?"
Moony rolls his eyes and continues to study the station map.
"Mooooony, I wanna climb the volcano." More attractive petulance.
"Sirius. I want you to look at that mountain." Remus points to the silhouette on the horizon. "D'you see how steep that is?"
"But, but—Volcano!"
"There's not any lava up there or anything, Pads. It's just like a normal mountain."
"A normal mountain that sometimes violently explodes," Sirius replies, but he doesn't ask to climb it again. What sort of a volcano is it without lava? He and Prongs could probably conjure a better volcano than that. Correction—he and Prongs should conjure a better volcano than that, preferably in the dungeons near the Slytherin common room.
"We want Pompeii Scavi," Remus tells him, just as squeaks and creaks announce the approach of the train.
"Right."
The train is sweltering and covered in graffiti and smells funny and the floor is sticky. It reminds Sirius of everything else in Naples.
All in all, the visit to Pompeii went better than Remus had expected. He actually had managed to learn more about Roman magic, enough to justify the excursion and to allow him to forgive Sirius's rash impulse. There's always something.
Not that Sirius hadn't had his fun, too. The wizarding section of the dig is best known for its early examples of animated paintings, and Remus of course hadn't wanted to miss them. Leave it up to Pads, though, to head straight for the obscene animated wall paintings, as if by unerring instinct. The educational portion of the day had quite gone downhill from there.
Well, maybe it depends on what one considers educational.
Now it's almost dusk, and though Remus suspects they should be returning to England now, since they didn't leave a note for his parents and they'll start worrying soon, still they're waiting back at the deserted station for another train.
Remus is about to, reluctantly, broach the topic of "home" with Sirius, when seemingly without warning they're surrounded by a noisy group of strangers. One is playing a fiddle, not badly; one carries a bucket of roses. They all seem to be chattering, or singing, or shouting. As Sirius and Remus are the only other people in the station, they immediately descend upon them.
If Remus carried a wallet in the first place, he'd reach for it, to make sure it was still there, but they seem to have taken no notice of him, his gift of fading into the background working even here.
Or perhaps it's Sirius's gift for becoming the center of attention; Remus doesn't know if he doesn't recognize the group for the pickpockets and beggars they likely are, or if he just doesn't care, but he's laughing and smiling with them, improvising a song to the fiddle tune and soon even dancing a few quick steps with one of the younger women.
He's completely in his element, the scamp, and until he opens his mouth to shout "Get over here, Moony!" in those posh tones of his one would never suspect he's the erstwhile scion of nobility. Remus cringes slightly, but Sirius dances a jig over to him and extends a hand, so that soon Remus finds himself dragged to the center of the group, dancing with as much enthusiasm and as little awkwardness as he can muster.
When the fiddler stops they're both a little out of breath, and as they stand there panting, Remus wondering whether Sirius will have the presence of mind to conjure up some coins for their new friends before the fickle mood shifts, the man with the bucket of roses approaches Sirius and offers him a flower, gesturing towards Remus with a knowing smile.
Sure enough, Sirius hands over coins that didn't exist a moment ago, then presents the rose to Remus with a flourish, causing a few giggles, squeals and encouraging shouts from their companions, cries which abruptly fall into silence.
A stooped old woman, a bright blue scarf on her head, silver bracelets up both arms, is shuffling towards them, the others respectfully clearing a path for her. When she reaches Sirius she peers up at him and nods. "Vast," she says, and one of the men explains: "She wants your palm. To read."
"Oh." Sirius shuffles a bit, and Remus thinks of how uncomfortable he is with Divination, not just the joke of a class at Hogwarts, which Sirius refused to take, but the astrological chart his proud parents commissioned at his birth, full of strange forebodings.
"Could you do his?" he asks, suddenly, pointing to Remus. The old woman turns, and Remus gamely begins to extend his hand, palm up, but when she looks him in the eye, instead of nodding, she recoils.
"Ruv amriya," she growls, voice cracking, "Ruv amriya." She puts up her hand before her face, like a shield, holding it in a fist with her thumb stuck out the middle.
The mood changes in an instant; the men suddenly look menacing, the other women back away, each of them extending that fist towards Remus. As quickly as they had arrived, they're gone, leaving just Sirius and Remus, hand still sadly extended and open, on the platform.
"What the bloody hell was that about?" Sirius asks, breaking the silence. He looks uncomfortable, though, not confused; he at least has a suspicion of what it was about.
"I think that old woman recognized a dark creature when she saw one. Werewolves, you know, you can't take us anywhere," Remus tries to joke, but too shaken up to put his heart into it. They're so lucky the group decided to flee in terror; what if they had turned violent, spat on him, thrown rocks? He stares sightlessly at the tracks (no train in sight for all this time), brooding.
He expects Sirius to argue, or at least to make some statement about how that's rubbish and Remus isn't a monster at all. He doesn't, though. Instead he holds out his own hand. "C'mon," he says, "let's get out of here."
Remus grasps his hand, thinking of his parents' garden and a light on in the kitchen; it's not as comforting as he expects.
Remus looks appropriately surprised when they appear in yet another alley off yet another Italian piazza (this one much more picturesque, and much less grimy), and so Sirius crows, "Fooled you twice in one day with that one, Moony!"
One Apparition doesn't solve all problems, though, and Remus just smiles back a bit weakly and says, "Now what?" but he doesn't sound upset, just … forlorn.
"I said there was sea, didn't I? Welcome to the isle of Capri." Sirius gestures at the piazza in front of them, just beginning to be lit by lamps and candles, and open on one side to a breathtaking view from the hillside (well, more of a cliffside) to the sea and Naples in the distance, ringing the bay.
"Oh," Remus says, and now he really does smile, a real smile, and Sirius feels like dancing another little jig to see it.
He'd planned, to the extent that he had plans, to drag Moony down to the rocky shore so they can wade in the ocean – "The water's so blue, Moony, you won't believe it." – but Remus says it's evening now and they'll break their necks trying to make their way down a cliff face in the dark and anyway, he's starving, and wouldn't Sirius rather stay up here and eat?
"It's just as well," Sirius says as the head towards the nearest café, "'s so dark you couldn't really tell the water's blue, anyway."
He's never quite worked out how Moony manages to convey tolerant affection with a snort, but he does.
The waiter at the café looks askance at their denim cut-offs and steers them away from all the best tables out on the piazza, guiding them towards the back corner near the kitchen door, so finally Moony convinces him to sell them some antipasto, bread and fruit and prosciutto, (and a bottle of wine) to take away.
They find an out-of-the-way corner of the piazza, where they can face the sea. Their nook is unlit by the piazza's lamps and Sirius looks forward to a bit of snogging later, but for now they simply sit and eat (devour, more like) in companionable silence.
"Why here?" Remus finally asks as they pass the wine bottle between them. "I mean, Roman magic, sea, yes yes, but how did you know how to get here? Please do not tell me you Apparated internationally blind in addition to without a Ministry permit, or I may have a heart attack."
"Nah," Sirius admits. "I've been here before. My fam—the Blacks have a villa here on Capri. Have done since Roman times, or at least that's the story. We used to come here on holiday when I was a kid, see some of the collateral European relatives, that sort of thing."
"Sounds nice."
"It's a rather dull holiday, for a kid I mean, with no proper beach and third cousins whose names you can't keep straight everywhere. I like it better here with you."
"Mmmm." Moony turns and snuggles in closer to him, brushing his nose against Sirius's neck. "I'm glad we came."
"Despite the illicit international Apparition?"
"Well, the Aurors don't seem to have tracked us down yet."
"I don't think they're coming," Sirius murmurs, leaning in for a gentle kiss.
Over the next few minutes Sirius decides that nothing is better than the combination of wine, and good food, and kissing Remus by the sea. As they pause the last for more of the first two, Remus gazes out across the bay and says, "You know, it's really quite beautiful at night."
"Naples?" Remus nods. "Yeah, Moony, in the dark you can't see the dirt." They laugh.
"We have to go back soon, don't we."
"Not just yet, Moony o' mine." Sirius reaches out for Remus's left hand, turns it palm up.
"What're you doing, Pads?"
"Bet I can tell your fortune better than that old crone, anyway, Moony," Sirius says, running a finger lightly along the creases of Remus's palm and imagining the little shivers he can't see. "For instance, here's a little spot—"
"Pads, it's dark, how can you see my palm to read it? And my hands are not spotty."
"Here's a little spot," Sirius repeats, "which clearly means that you are destined to get a History of Magic N.E.W.T., and in fact you will do so well that your examiner will fall hopelessly in love with your keen and penetrating mind—"
"The History of Magic examiner is always Griselda Marchbanks, Pads, don't even joke about that—"
"—and you will never ever have to eat dinner out of a skip."