James was due at eleven, but Remus was already having tea in the kitchen when he arrived that afternoon. Ignoring the doorknocker, James rapped on the kitchen window and motioned frantically for Remus to open the door. He was drenched, the rain having arrived as expected. His hair was matted down, his bangs criss-crossing his forehead at weird angles, while his glasses were practically opaque with beaded droplets.
"Thanks, mate. It's a mess out there! I tried to Floo, but my Dad said you weren't connected to the network," said James all at once, as he dropped his sopping rucksack to the floor. "Why's that? Anyways, I wasn't going to give up the chance to take the train up by myself. I stopped in Blackpool for a bit," he grinned, "that's why I'm a tad late."
"You came up by yourself?" Remus asked, trying to hide how impressed he was.
"Yeah, mostly. I mean, my dad dropped me at the station in Devon. He didn't think I'd figure out the whole Muggle system on my own. Isn't that rubbish?"
Remus nodded.
"I showed him. D'you know he thought the trolley girl would take half-crowns? Old people don't know anything about the world, honestly." James ran a hand through his hair, scattering a shower of droplets onto the photograph framed on the wall behind him.
"D'you want to come upstairs? Put away your stuff?" Remus offered, glancing toward the ladder. He had a feeling James would appreciate climbing a ladder rather than steps; it was just the sort of inconvenience he went for.
"Hello, you must be freezing. Remus, why don't you offer your friend some tea?" Mrs. Lupin emerged from the den, having removed her galoshes. In her bare feet and patched jeans, she seemed hardly old enough to be Remus' mother, but for the crow's feet and dark circles beneath her eyes. "James, isn't it?"
"That's the one. You're Mrs. Lupin?" James raised his eyebrows. His parents, Remus knew, were quite a bit older than the Lupins.
"Oh, that makes me feel so old! You can call me Hope," she said. "Go put the kettle on, fy gariad," she told Remus. "I'll take your things and hang them up to dry. Maybe Remus can lend you something to wear until your clothes—"
"How was the Tornadoes game?" Remus interrupted loudly. "Wish I could have gone." He shot his mother a pointed look and she took James' rucksack and hurried into the kitchen.
"It was amazing! For the Tornadoes, I mean. I don't think the Wasps felt that way," said James sympathetically. "They won four-hundred and ninety to a hundred fifty. Stempleton practically let the Wasps get the Snitch. I think he felt bad enough. I got a poster at the game, I'll bring it to school this fall." He glanced at the ladder descending from the opening in the ceiling. "What's that? Have you got an attic? Do you have a ghoul?" he asked, sounding excited.
"It's sort of an attic—my room's up there. We don't have a ghoul, though..."
"You might," James encouraged him. "I can check. If there is one, we can try to persuade it into a trunk...I'll sic it on Sirius when I'm in London next month." Remus laughed.
James shed his muddy shoes and left them in the middle of the hall. He followed Remus up the ladder, his wet sock feet slipping across the rungs. Remus skipped the last rung, hoisting himself up through the opening out of unconscious habit. James took this for a challenge, and skipped the top three rungs, bouncing off the lower run and grabbing the edge of the opening with the tips of his fingers. The ladder fell down with a clatter but before Remus could offer a hand, James had heaved his stomach onto the bedroom's floor. Grinning up at Remus, he pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
"This is so cool," he said. "Wish I could get rid of the stairs in my house. For some reason, my parents think everywhere should be so easy to get to."
Remus smirked, though he was beaming inside. He sat down on the floor and watched James wander around the room, picking up various objects and inspecting the books on his shelf with unabashed curiosity.
"Is this a Sneakoscope?" he asked Remus, holding up a plastic toy.
"No. It's just a spinning top...it's not magic." He blushed. "I should throw that away, it's ancient."
"Can I have it?" James pocketed it before Remus could answer. "Looks enough like the real thing for some purposes. I can charm it anyways." He went to the window at the back of the bedroom and gazed out over the garden outside. Behind the wrought-iron lawn table and chairs was a vegetable patch, which marked the boundary between the Lupins' yard and the woods. The rain was still pouring, pushing down on the thick tangle of leaves in the woods. A solid stream of water dripped down from the eaves and over Remus's window.
"Boys?" called Mrs. Lupin from downstairs. Remus went over to the opening in the floor. His mother was standing under it, replacing the ladder against the wall. "Do you want to come finish tea? Help yourselves. There's extra jam in the top cupboard if you need. I'm afraid Remus goes through it rather quickly."
"Food?" James whipped around. "This is like a proper hotel. My mum's elf's so old he can't even be bothered to chase me out of the kitchen anymore; he just locks the pantry and Lindy won't touch the stove before six o'clock." He was at the opening in the floor faster than Remus could mentally register that James had more than one house-elf. James ignored the ladder and merely jumped all the way to the lower floor, bending his knees with feline grace as he landed on two feet. Remus followed him.
Mrs. Lupin headed to the study so they could eat by themselves in the kitchen. James took a heaping portion of yoghurt and blackberries before shoving half a scone into his mouth with one bite while Remus poured himself a cup of orange squash. He was digging into his food as if he hadn't eaten in several weeks, though Remus knew from experience that a week in James' perception generally translated to an hour in the rest of the world. The silence between them as they ate was uncanny. Usually, Sirius and Peter were there to fill the gaps in conversation with an unrelenting stream of jokes and teasing and conspiratorial whispers. Without them, the tapping of the rain and sighing of the wind in the trees engaged in an ersatz repartee. Remus found himself wondering whether he had ever spent times alone with James before.
Outside, the rain was gradually slowed. The heavy stream running down the kitchen window was coming from the sopping thatched roof of the house, rather than the rain itself. James cocked his head to the side, noticing way the sound of the storm was dying down.
"So, what are we going to do?"
"Well, I thought we might play Exploding Snap. I have a new pack somewhere," said Remus.
"Sure," said James loudly. Then he leaned closer and said under his breath, "But I mean, what are we really going to do?"
"Er—" He paused and felt his hands dampen with sweat. This was the sort of thing that he should have considered earlier—should have known, really, that of course James hadn't come all the way to Northumbria to play card games they'd played when they were eight. He fiddled with the pocket of his shorts nervously and felt the solid metal of the coin.
"I thought we could go into town," Remus shrugged. "I've got some money."
"Cool. Muggle money or real money?"
"Muggle money. But it's really a Muggle area, so—"
"So we can go to the Muggle shops? I spent all my Muggle money at Blackpool" said James, grinning. Remus recognized the gleam in his eye and felt the beginnings of a smile tug at his own lips.
"Yep."
"Good, I can get something eclectical to prank Sirius' brother. Sirius said he doesn't know anything about Muggle stuff so he'll be scared out of his mind. Do you have any ideas?"
"I'll think about it," said Remus, trying to remember what a pound's equivalent value in Sickles was. James may have handled Muggle money earlier that day but Remus knew his understanding of relative value and purchasing power was fuzzy, especially since his pockets were always so heavy.
They got up from the table and Remus took both their plates to the sink. He rinsed them and scrubbed off the congealing jam and yoghurt smears with a moulding orange sponge.
"Grounded?" James asked knowingly. "I was too, when I first got home. McGonagall sent another owl."
"What?"
"My dad made me do the dishes without magic, and clear the table, and clean out the owlery." He shuddered at the memory. "But it was either that or miss the Tornadoes so obviously I'd rather not miss going to the game."
"Oh. No, I just clean up so the kitchen doesn't get smelly. My dad's getting home late tonight."
"Just let your mum do it, then," James said casually, as he climbed onto the counter and sat down. "It's ten times faster with a wand." He swung his legs out with a jovial kick.
"My mum can't do it that way. She's not magic, remember?"
James looked mildly surprised. "Your mum's not magic? I thought she was just a Muggle-born. Weird. But you're so good at—I mean, you're really natural with, y'know, Defense and Charms and stuff."
"So..." Remus said gently.
"So, sometimes it's just like—hermetitary, when you're good at something, right?"
"You mean hereditary?"
"Yeah," said James with enthusiasm, "that's what I said. Like how my mum is really good at flying so I'm best at Quidditch. Anyways. You know what I mean; you always do," he said, flashing Remus with the sweet smile that always, always got him out of trouble at the last minute. The sun itself seemed to swim out from behind the stormclouds and radiate from the lenses of James' glasses and through the twin buttonhole dimples that appeared when he smiled.
"My mum likes to garden," said Remus. "She's really good with plants. I don't know why I'm rubbish at Herbology, though."
"Yeah, but we're all rubbish at Herbology. It's like Care of Magical Creatures but nothing moves," scoffed James, with all the distaste of someone for whom stillness was a cardinal sin.
His legs dangled several inches over the lineoleum floor. When Remus would sit on the counter—which he was not supposed to do anymore—his feet reached the floor. He took in this recent change in their relative heights with some satisfaction.
"So are we going now, or what?" James slipped off the counter and ran to the hallway to get his rucksack, which was still soaked all the way through. "I want to leave before the rain stops so we can go mud sliding."
" I thought you wanted to go to town, though."
"I do," said James, as he wiped his glasses clean with the hem of the window's lace curtains. "But we can't wait for the ground to dry up, can we? Let's just go after."
"Alright. I'll run upstairs and get macs. Also, the Omnioculars."
Remus was already up the ladder and rummaging through his trunk when he heard James call out from downstairs, "What do I need a macintosh for? I'm waterproof, aren't I?"
Remus whipped a bundle of socks down at his head affectionately. The thing about James-logic was that if you thought about it, your mind would get tired running in circles; but as soon as it was spoken aloud, instantly it became objective truth, retroactively passed down in secret through the ages until James Potter finally deigned to announce it to the mortals in plain English. After that, the universe would rearrange itself in order to conform to the laws of James-logic. Remus had been one of the first amateur logicians at Hogwarts to make this discovery and as such, had been unexpectedly pulled into the inner orbit of his hot, swirling ball of pure energy; James, the star that answered to no call of gravity but that of Sirius, brightest light in the black night sky.
" 'Evenin' to you, Remus," said Hagrid with a jovial grin. "Or should I say, Professor?"
"Remus suits me perfectly, thank you."
"Not forgetting 'bout your position, but I remember when you were jus' this high," Hagrid held a hand up to hip; the Professor had actually not reached that height as an adult and never would.
"Come in, come in. Make yerself at home. Kettle's on, sorry 'bout the cakes but they're no' done quite yet. If I'd known you was comin', I'd have started them earlier."
"Thank you, Hagrid," said Professor Lupin as limped into the hut. He closed the door and sat down at the table, setting his briefcase down on the floor. Fang wandered over and sniffed at the battered leather. His mouth opened and tough rope of saliva dripped down like slow molasses.
"Fangy! No! Bad pup," chastised Hagrid. He lifted Fang away from the briefcase and settled him on his lap like a small lapdog. Fang happily drooled into his lap as Hagrid reached for a well-mangled bone on a shelf. "So, how's teachin' treating ye? I've heard loads o' good stuff 'bout yer lessons from the kids." He leaned forward and looked Professor Lupin in the eye and said, "And no' jus' from the Gryffindors neither."
"Teaching is going well, actually. The students are quite eager to learn, particularly since they've had a—a turbulent couple of years, in my subject," Professor Lupin said and held his tin mug out for Hagrid to pour the hot water.
"You can say tha'." He filled Professor Lupin's cup right to the brim. "Not that I'm criticizing Professor Dumbledore's hirin' or anything," Hagrid added hastily. "He's go' his reasons, I reckon."
"That he does," agreed Lupin drily, thinking of an office storeroom filled with cork-stoppered bottles glimmering in the torchlight.
"Brilliant man, tha' Dumbledore. Gave me a promotion this year—still hard to think of myself as a professor," Hagrid said, beaming. He stuck his long arm directly into the fireplace and retrieved a red-hot iron skillet from the flames barehanded. "Rock cakes. Want one?"
Professor Lupin did not particularly want one, but accepted one anyways. Pretending to bite into its unbreakable surface, he gave Hagrid an encouraging nod. He pretended to swallow and briskly said, "Delicious. Thank you."
"My famous recipe, tha' is. Pomona taught me that about ten years back."
"I'll be sure to give her my thanks," said Lupin. "How are your classes going?"
"They're goin'...along," said Hagrid uncertainly.
"Something wrong?"
"Jus' had spot of trouble with that Slytherin kid an' there's going to be a whole inquiry now." His smile dissolved into a look of bitterness. He stroked Fang's ears and said, "Don' know wha' I'd do withou' Dumbledore. He's helpin' me to fight the case."
"Was anyone hurt?" asked Lupin.
Hagrid shook his head, his beard whipping Fang across the face. "Ah, not really. I wcas doin' Hippogriffs with the third-years an' the kid got disrespectful towards 'em, and you know they don't take well..."
Lupin cringed inwardly. Hippogriffs? With third years? He could only imagine how his friends would have fared with creatures as proud and as quick to provoke as—as James, really, he realized with a hollow twinge.
"Well, if there's anything I can do to help prepare for the inquiry, Hagrid, don't hesitate," Lupin said kindly. "You know where my office is?"
"Yup. Back o' the Defense classroom." Hagrid said, his facial expression returning to a smile. "Still can't believe how grown up ye've gotten. Guess it's just me gettin' older though, seein' as it's been, what? Twenty, twenty-five years?"
"Fifteen since I graduated," said Lupin. He sipped his tea in order to hide the melancholy sweeping through his smile."Though I don't look it, I know."
"Don' we all, though," Hagrid said good-naturedly. "Kids will do tha' to ye." He laughed. "Though it's hard no' to miss 'em when they grow up." He looked down into his teacup, smiling with nostalgia. Lupin quietly hoped that he was not about to bring up what was probably bound to come up at some point.
"Lucky I never had to grow up, really. Got to stay around Hogwarts and run around the grounds for a livin'," said Hagrid. "Never saw meself gettin' on in the Ministry in some office, ye know. Doubt I could fit under the ceiling," he added as an afterthought.
Lupin laughed. Relieved, he raised his mug and proposed a toast. "To eternal adolescence!"
"To maternal, er odali—"
Remus quickly clinked mugs with him before he could complete the sentence. They drained their mugs. A sludge of soggy tea leaves rested on the cup's bottom, forming a sort-of crescent, with a blob in the middle.
"Say, Lupin," Hagrid said all of a sudden. "Ye've had to meet Harry by now, haven't ye?"
Lupin was silent for roughly two seconds. Then he said, "Yes. He is one of my students."
"I met him when he was jus' a wee firs' year. Had to get him from those ruddy Muggles and give him his letter meself," Hagrid grumbled, failing to disguise his pride. "He's grown like climbin' ivy since then, I'll tell ye tha'."
"Has he?" said Lupin politely.
"Oh, yeah." Hagrid bit into a rock cake with a resounding crack, like a bullet shattering glass, but he didn't seem to notice the sound, for he crunched it deafeningly and then swallowed it, wiping his beard with a tiny calico handkerchief. "Tha' family wasn't feedin' him half o' what he gets here, but I recognized him, alright. Don't he look like his dad?"
Lupin swallowed. "He resembles—yes, yes."
"I had a double take when I saw him, wearin' those glasses an' all. An' las' time I saw Harry he was a wee thing in a nappy an' blanket!"
"You'd met Harry as a baby?" Professor Lupin cut in sharply. "But J—they were in hiding the whole time...you didn't know..." he trailed off. There was no way Hagrid could have seen him at the funeral; he distinctly remembered noticing Harry's absence then. Many other people had too; it seemed as though half of Wizarding Britain had showed up to the ceremony in Godric's Hollow, and the other half had joined them at the burial, most of them craning their necks to and fro, trying to catch a glimpse of the newly famous baby, whose name was splattered across the newspaper, though a photograph never appeared.
"Oh, yeah. Professor Dumbledore go' me to take him to St. Mungo's and up to tha' Muggle family of his, night after You-Know-Who disappeared," said Hagrid nostalgically. "Wasn't even cryin' when I go' him outta the cot...just sat there lookin' at me."
Lupin reached for a napkin to wipe his mouth, not noticing the way his fingers were trembling, but apparently Hagrid did, for he clapped one enormous hand to his mouth, looking embarassed.
"Sorry," he said gruffly. "You were friends with the Potters, weren't ye? I forgot."
Lupin smiled gently. "It's quite alright, Hagrid. That was a long time ago. "
"It's jus' that You-Know-Who gettin' defeated an' all, people want to celebrate—can't say as I didn't get meself a Moonmead or two, but it was real sad, wha' happened to Harry's—"
"I understand. Would you please pour me some more tea?" asked Lupin. He handed Hagrid his mug. Hagrid reached for the iron kettle, which was hanging from a hook over the fire. It looked like it weighed more than some small children.
"There ye go. Careful now, lad, it's nice and hot."
"Thank you." Lupin stared down into the cup as steam spiralled towards his nose. He sprinkled the tea leaves inside and watched them sink down and disappear into the water like snow falling on the sea. Like boots in quicksand.
Hagrid passed him the milk boat. Lupin nodded at him. "It has gotten so cold outside that I have been asking the house elves for some potatoes I can charm to stay hot in my pockets. They have been very helpful."
"Oh, yeah. All the students used to be sneakin' down there after hours to get cakes and pies or whatnot, 'till Professor Dumbledore said to stop talkin' bout the elves in front o' the kids."
"Yes. I remember that. We used to have to thank them after supper each day. I wonder if they miss it now..." pondered Lupin, who remembered most everything. He picked up a spoon and put it down again, studying the balloon-like reflection of his upside down face.
For once, Remus was glad he'd decided to ignore James' bravado and brought a mac to wear. The drizzle was cold and insistent, droplets sliding down his bangs and dripping onto his eyelashes. James, who looked as though he'd gone swimming in his t-shirt and gym shorts, was following Remus unsteadily down the narrow pathway through the forest. He bumped into a tree or tripped over a root occasionally, his glasses having fogged over entirely. If Remus had been half-blind and drenched in a classic English summer storm, tripping every few feet and smearing his knees in the mud, he's be in a pretty foul mood. However, it was James who was half-blind, drenched and muddy, and as usual, James seemed like the luckiest bespectacled lunatic in the world.
"The whole idea was brilliant. Props to you, Remus. I honestly didn't think you had it in you." James was smiling from ear to ear as rain trickled down the trough of his philtrum and into his mouth. He licked his upper lip. "We'll probably get lost in this forest and then we'll have to stay overnight, and nobody can say anything because it was your mum who told you to come to into town."
"Well, I doubt we'll get lost. The path leads directly to the church, and that's near the village square," said Remus, pushing a branch away right before it smacked him in the eyes.
"Yeah, but we're going mudsliding first, and that could be anywhere. We just have to find a hill. A hill in the forest."
"James, we can't mudslide in the forest. We'll get devoured by mosquitoes and brutally assaulted by thorny branches." Remus winced as a spiky bush scraped his arm. "Ow. That was one there."
"Don't be a girl, I brought a machete. We can cut away the branches, or—
"You brought a what? What in Merlin's name did you think we were going to do here that merited bringing a machete?" Remus spun around to look James in the eye. James walked right into him. The frames of his tortoiseshell glasses knocked against Remus's cheekbone painfully.
"Watch it," complained James. "And it's not really a machete. It's just a—a really big knife with spikes on one end that's enchanted to cut through anything."
"Well, that is comforting," said Remus drolly. "Did you think I lived in a jungle?"
"Well, you do, don't you?" James scrunched up his nose in a sarcastic pout. It was an expression he usually directed at Peter when Peter was being so irascibly Peter and Remus felt uncomfortable to be on its receiving end. He, Sirius, Peter and James liked to believe they were all on equal footing, a solid steel square, all sharp corners and slick diagonals, but the truth was that their group was somewhat more of a shifting quadrangle. Remus and Peter seemed to take turns occupying the farthest corner from the others, and nobody was more grateful for Peter Pettigrew's existence than Remus.
"This is a forest, not a jungle."
"Same thing," said James, kicking up a splash of muddy water at Remus' ankles.
"A jungle is quite a bit denser than a forest, not to mention hotter and filled with bloody monkeys."
"Are you saying jungles are not forests? 'Cause I'm pretty sure all jungles are—"
"That isn't what I said. A forest is a broader geographical category which includes but is not limited to jungles—"
"A forest is not a geographical category, stupid," said James stubbornly, as he followed Remus up a slope littered with broken sticks and crisscrossed with prickly vines. "Geography is about the earth."
"I'm pretty sure geography is the study of the physical features of the planet Earth, not literal sodding dirt." He heard James stomp on and break a very thick branch lying across the path. "Also, I meant that the word 'forest'—"
"—for all intents and purposes means the same thing as jungle when we're talking about trees that are trying to eat me and/or urinate on my face. Also, these mosquitoes."
"That's why I said the mud sliding wasn't a good idea here," Remus said airily.
"There'll be mosquitoes everywhere. I'm not passing up a decent storm just because your jungle is actually a human buff-it table."
Remus laughed. "I think you mean buffet, and this is a deciduous forest." He turned to shoot James a knowing smirk and got hit in the face by a gloppy handful of mud. Luckily, James was far too pleased with himself to realize that no foul deed went unrewarded, for Remus manage to nail his glasses with a more solid chunk of earthy mud, thus blinding him in an unambiguous declaration of war.
"THAT WAS OUT OF BOUNDS AND YOU KNEW IT!" James shouted gleefully, scrambling to find a large enough broken branch to yield as a weapon. "THIS MEANS WAR, YOU SKIVING WEREW-"
"Hush!" he hissed back. "Don't say that so loud, prat!" James looked hurt and Remus immediately felt warm and flushed with guilt. "I mean—don't, y'know..."
James responded diplomatically by jabbing Remus in the bum with a crooked branch. When he jumped in surprise, a glob of mud hit him in the shoulder, staining his striped t-shirt reddish brown. Remus looked down at the mud dripping towards his shorts, unimpressed.
"Wow, what aim. You're a regular sharpshooter for a blind midget, you are."
"How very Slytherin of you. Go for the handicap, of course," James said, wiping his muddy glasses against his t-shirt. "Take advantage of my visual impairment to win the fight. Salazar himself would be so proud." He put his glasses back on; they were still streaked with mud and spotted with fingerprints, but now his shirt was soiled with a giant brown smear. As per usual when it came to dirt, James cared precisely not at all.
"Your handicap?" Remus said mildly. "I'll keep that in mind next time you refuse to take notes for me when I have to stay in the hospital wing. Or perhaps, next time you have to stay in the hospital wing."
"Remus, my friend, I wouldn't wish notes History of Magic notes on Snivellus Snape, never mind you. I may have a gruff exterior, but my heart is pure marshmallow fluff," said James, casting Remus the blindingly sweet smile that turned on the sun. Sometimes, his expression resembled Sirius so acutely that he had to remind himself that they actually were related through the tangled spider's web that was pureblood genealogy. "A person does need to get fresh air every once in a while, even if they are some sort of hybrid fifty-year-old man-child who wears a reindeer jumper to the shower."
"I was not wearing it! I was merely attempting to wash out the peanut butter and Stinksap that Peter managed to explode all over the—"
"Are you quite sure that it was Peter?" James asked, raising a mud-caked eyebrow with a genteel expression that didn't quite cover the smirk. Remus merely threw a clump of mud into his hair and shrugged. In fact, he was quite sure that it was Peter, for the peanut butter Stinksap had washed out with only soap and water, and that was not James or Sirius's style.
Remus guided his half-blind friend to the top of the hill. James surveyed the slope into the forested valley with one hand held above his eyes, as if to block the sun (which was entirely concealed behind clouds). Remus fiddled with the muddy stick he had used to poke James, nervously twirling it around like a baton.
"Right, then," said James. "Last one to the bottom's got to kiss Moaning Myrtle." With that, he took off, jumping onto his stomach and gleefully sliding down through the muck, his rucksack sliding down his back so that its contents narrowly avoiding banging into his skull. He whooped with joy.
Remus cringed, watching him gain speed as he approached a cluster of knotted oak trees. "James! James, you're going to—"
"Aargh! Bloody Merlin's effing gym shorts, you bastard! Why didn't you warn me there was a ruddy wall of trees?" He looked up at Remus, squinting into the light of the clearing. "Are you trying to kill me?" He rubbed his head.
"I tried," said Remus, who was suppressing a grin now that he knew James wasn't dead.
"Well," huffed James. "Not much of a warning, then, was it?"
"Tried to kill you, I mean. It breaks my heart, but I just can't take the snoring any longer, love" he replied, a twinge unsettling his stomach as soon as he said it. Was it funny? Was it funny to James, who was covered entirely in mud, his glasses cracked and his shoulders and forearms bruising before him?
James heaved out a dramatic sigh that lasted long enough to raise concerns about his oxygen intake. Then he said forlornly, "It's not the snoring, is it, my darling? You've been...you've been unfaithful. You've been with another man."
"Another woman," he corrected with a faint smile.
James looked up, his face painted with theatrical shock. "An all-witch affair? How terribly scandalous! Is she at least from a reputable pureblood family?"
"She most certainly—" Remus began, then realized his mistake far too late. James was already grinning far to widely and running a hand through his unruly hair. Remus grinned and shrugged his defeat.
"Hah!" spouted James, propping himself up onto his elbows gingerly. "Sharp, but not quite sharp enough, eh? Come 'ere and help me up. I'm bloody starving and I want to get to town."
"Yes, that was the general idea," said Remus. He picked his way down the hill with care, avoiding the broken branches and prickly vines that grabbed for his shins. His jeans were already too short on him, though it had been less than a year since his dad purchased them at the rummage shop. A ring of mosquito bites encircled his ankles right where his trousers failed to meet his socks. Both ankles were swollen, bloody and bruised from the full moon; transformed, Remus had no ability to restrain the urge to itch, and the smell of blood made his wolf form even more ferocious.
He reached James and pulled him up by the forearms. James grabbed at his bony shoulders to steady himself upright. He seemed somewhat dizzy, probably from hitting his head.
"Alright, mate?"
"Yeah. Just got my glasses all smeared up, but I guess we'll find a loo in Lambstail to wash up at."
"D'you want a hand?" asked Remus.
"Nah, I'm fine. Let's go. D'you think they'll let us get Dragontamers if you say we're sixteen?
It was Remus' opinion that James Potter, at little over five foot two, drenched in mud, his hair standing up as if he'd just been struck by lightning, in broken spectacles and wearing an electric green canvas rucksack which definitely weighed more than he did, certainly did not look as if he could pass for his actual age (thirteen and a half, thank you very much), never mind sixteen. But Remus decided to go for tact on this one, and merely said, "It's a Muggle village. They won't have Dragontamers." Noticing James' disappointment, he added, "But there's a book shop with dirty comics in the back!"
Jame' smile in reply was warm. Then, a flash of an idea burst across his grin, sly and mischievous enough to twist something in Remus' chest so strongly he felt its bittersweet ache in his heart and then his stomach and then, twenty years later, prickling through his arthritic knuckles as he handed Harry the Butterbeer he suspected was not Harry's first.