You always thought you loved the idea of leaving Hogwarts, being an adult, having a job and freedom and all that. But when it gets to it, and you've only got a month left, you suddenly realise that you're fucking terrified. Funny how people's minds change when they're facing reality, not the perfect ideas in their heads.
You sit on the top of the Astronomy tower; take a deep drag on the cigarette between your fingers, look out over the grounds of what you consider your first home. It's hours past curfew, but you're Sirius Black, above petty rules and best friends with the Head Boy, so you don't care about that.
You're not surprised at the confession James made last night, if anything you were expecting it. He's been in love with Lily since first year, really, and everyone knows they're made for each other. The idea of being married so young would be crazy if it were anybody else. Pete was the only one who asked questions, checking James wasn't just doing it because of what the papers are saying about Voldemort. He had a point – this fucking war is making people worry, do things spontaneously because nobody knows how long they've got. But it's James, and Lily, and you know they'll make it work. He's got her a ring, a simple golden band with a deep blue oval-shaped sapphire. He'll do it in a week or so, he said, once he's worked out what he's going to say because it has to be perfect, he told you, something she'll remember for her whole life. Of course, you, Rem and Pete agreed to help him with his little speech. Of the three of you, James isn't the best with words. His parents offered to pay for everything – they've got more money than they know what to do with – but he wants to do it himself, he says, and they'll probably wait a bit, maybe until Christmas, to actually get married. Until then, they're moving into a little flat near St. Mungo's, so Lily doesn't have to travel too far to work. James is still toying with the idea of Magical Law, and Pete's got himself an apprenticeship with a broom maker.
You've got it all planned, the four of you, how this adult thing is going to work. Moony's moving into the flat you've had since you turned seventeen, because it makes no sense for him to find a place of his own when he practically lives there already. You've got a meeting with Alastor Moody on Saturday, because your application to the Auror Office was exemplary but he wants to check you're the 'right kind of person for the job'. Neither you nor Remus believed that, and you're pretty sure Rem got it right when he said the real reason was that nobody in the Auror Office could believe a Black would want to hunt Dark wizards. He was angry at that, the fact that people would judge you by your name, but you're so used to it that it doesn't hurt any more. Still, you enjoyed watching his indignation on your behalf. He's bloody sexy when he's angry. And when he smiles, and when he's concentrating. Beautiful, beautiful man.
You know you'll be fine, really, it's just stupidity that's making you freak out, but you aren't so sure about Remus. He's strong, you know that – probably the strongest person you know – but the number of jobs he's been rejected from is getting to him. And what gets to him, gets to you. You don't understand why anyone would reject him. He's bloody perfect. Eleven Os in his OWLs, and everyone (except Rem, model of modesty) is certain he'll get 6 Os when his NEWT results come. He works so hard, trying to prove the stereotypes wrong. You tease him for it all the time – make him stop and dance because that song you both love is on the radio, distract him by kissing the mole on the back of his neck, tell him his head will explode with all the knowledge he crams in. He just hits you with whatever's closest, which could be a satsuma or one of those huge dusty tomes he lugs out of the library for 'light reading', and tells you to shut up, that he needs the grades so that he's not completely unemployable. Sometimes, though, you like to watch him study. It's like he forgets the rest of the world is there, he's so absorbed in reading about the Statute of Secrecy or the fifty-seventh war between Urg the Ugly and Fladrad the Filthy. Goblins are so bloody unoriginal with their names. Last night he was really stressed, though, and you had to make a quick trip with James' cloak to get him a little something from Honeydukes. He's got quite a temper on him, Rem has, and it's worse close to full moon, but chocolate helps calm him down. There's the tiniest hint of it on his breath when he talks, you can taste the faintest trace of it when you kiss him.
Hogwarts holds so many memories – the first time you and James pulled a prank on Snape, the time Pete got so excited about his E in Transfiguration that he fell down the stairs and landed on Amanda Vine, who asked him to Hogsmeade, endless hours spent down on the Quidditch pitch, you and James drilling whilst Pete and Rem sat in the stands, the evenings Remus forced the three of you to study in the library, Exploding Snap games in the common room, epic snowball fights which became more and more elaborate each year, the time in fourth-year Remus got so annoyed with your teasing about Mary MacDonald that he threw you into the lake, the day you discovered where the kitchens were, full-moon nights spent wandering around the grounds – perhaps too reckless, even by Marauder standards, but then you and James are so huge when you transform that it's easy enough to control Moony. It's the memories, you realise, that you don't want to leave behind. You can say you'll remember, but when you haven't seen something for years it's easy to forget, which is probably why James has spent the last month taking photographs of everything and everyone, everywhere he goes, and putting them in his album. You should ask him for copies. Reminiscing is something the four of you have started spending evenings doing, usually only after a bit of Firewhisky, but the fact that you're doing it makes you feel old, You're only eighteen – except Pete, bless his cotton socks, seventeen till July – that's way too young to be getting nostalgic over things, surely.
There are other memories, too, ones you can't share with Pete or James. Not because they wouldn't want to hear, more because they're special and you want to keep them between you and Moony. Things like that clear, bright evening last summer, when James and Peter had detention for hexing Avery, and you were alone in the room for the first time since you had acknowledged the change, the growth in your relationship. Things like your clumsy kisses, how Rem's hands shook as he undid the buttons on your shirt, the feel of his jaw against your lips. The feel of skin on skin, Moony's gentle, quiet moans, how it was the scariest and best thing ever. You couldn't explain things like that to anyone else, because you can't put them into words. It's like, you can't keep away from him; you have to be around Remus. It's like, when you feel like everyone's against you, or that you really are a no-good worthless piece of traitorous filth, when your fucking parents are getting into your head and making you think awful things, it's only Rem who can bring you back and remind you who you are. It's like, Moony knows you, in the deep way only lovers can. It's like, of all the different Siriuses you can be – the Sirius full of arrogance and quick retorts, the Sirius who never does any work, the Sirius who likes to sketch charcoal portraits when nobody's looking, the Sirius who makes laddish jokes and winks at girls – when you're around Remus, you like who you are; you're a better person. It's like, when you're around him, the world's bigger. Remus makes you feel so fucking alive. He's made you happier than you've ever been in your life. Sometimes you think it was worth it, the painful upbringing, the bloody messed up family, because you ended up finding Rem. And you're nearly free of them, their curses and Howlers and the dreams you have don't have such an affect on you any more because he's so patient with you, doesn't leave you when you're in a dark mood, doesn't tell you to 'man up', he stays with you and tells you that you're his Padfoot, that he loves you, that you're the best person he knows, and he holds you until you stop crying, and he makes you eat chocolate because that's his answer to everything, and then he kisses you and then you feel better.