See chapter 1 for explanations and disclaimers.
Undomiel2007 – Glad you like the chapter. It just made sense for Remus to be more sensitive than Sirius or James. I'm sure all they'd want to do would be go on the thrill rides. Too bad Space Mountain hadn't been built yet, hm? :D
5 - Quality Time Apart
Sirius insisted on playing bumper-cars while they were on Autopia ride. Each got into his own car, James slightly ahead of Sirius. When they took off, Sirius kept bumping into James and laughing maniacally. Just when James tried to hit the gas pedal to speed up out of Sirius's way, his car began to slow down. James continued to try and hit the gas pedal to make it work properly again while continuing to glare over his shoulder at Sirius. "Quit it!" he finally called to Sirius as he continued to ram into him. When the gas pedal was sure to not work, James gave up and moved onto his next attempt to speed up. He bent over the door to the car and began to push himself forward with his hands.
Sirius was laughing so hard he had tears running down his face as he once again rammed into James's car. The park attendant finally noticed what was going on, and in a trice, they were expelled from the ride. After a few minutes of bickering over whose fault that had been, James stormed off to the Skyway, entirely ignoring Sirius's pleas to come back and talk it out. Sirius jogged after him, continually trying to get James's attention, which James continued to ignore as they waited in line. After a few minutes, they ended up in a car with a couple that was giggling and snogging the entire time. Sirius, trying to distract James from his anger, rolled his eyes and nudged at his friend, but James couldn't help but think of Lily. Would she ever consent to go out with him? After all, he wasn't such a bad guy. Not like Snape. He'd never say words like the M-word, or suggest she was less intelligent or less important than him, simply because she was Muggle-born. So why wouldn't she go out with him?
This line of thought was interrupted by their car coming in for a landing in Fantasy Land. Sirius pulled him out of the car and down to the Peter Pan ride. "More pirates, mate," Sirius grinned. James sighed, but nodded, and the two headed off towards the line. The ride seemed to be a fairly popular one, and the cars were quite unusual. They were miniature pirate ships. They clamboured into one when their turn came, and it took off. James was less than impressed, until suddenly the car pulled away from the track, and they found themselves flying over the scenery. Now that was more like it.
They stumbled out of the ride, giggling. This time it was James's turn to pull Sirius along. "Let's go check out that Submarine ride."
"Aw, Prongs, we just came from Tomorrow Land. Let's see if there's anything else around here to ride."
James flicked through the tickets. "Well, pretty much all we have left are some A and B tickets, Padfoot. Maybe we should stock up."
Sirius nodded, and they moved towards the nearest ticket booth, where they ran into Remus and Peter just leaving. "Off to see the Alice in Wonderland ride," Remus grinned.
Sirius's eyes grew round. "What's that like?"
James shrugged. "I'm sure it'll be about the same speed as the Peter Pan ride, Padfoot."
At this, Sirius's interest waned. "Ah. Have fun, blokes," he grinned. The two waved, and disappeared into the crowd as James purchased a new book of tickets. He stuffed them into a pocket, and followed Sirius to their next big adventure.
Sirius and James headed over to a large tree that people could climb up. As they walked, pipe organ music played from somewhere inside the tree, which turned out to be a gigantic tree house. They looked in at all the rooms built out of the branches. It seemed like a magical place to live. Sirius wondered what it would be like to live in a tree. As he looked at the master bedroom, he imagined making love in the branches, living like Tarzan. He sighed wistfully and moved on to look at the rest of the house built into the tree.
When they had finished with the tree house, the two boys decided to go on the Haunted Mansion again. They had a bit of a wait before going inside for the ride. Sirius was feeling pretty confident as he and James took their seats in the Doombuggy except for when the bar was being lowered onto their laps. The man helping people into their seats was holding a torch and as the Doombuggy was turning around, he leaned in, flashing the torch onto his face and screamed in the boy's faces. James and Sirius jumped and screamed in surprise.
During the ride, the boys had fun laughing and joking. "Check out the wallpaper, Padfoot. Don't you think it's just like the stuff at your parents' place, mate?" James cackled in Sirius's ear.
Sirius sniggered. "Are you kidding me? They probably bought the stuff from my folks!" Sirius laughed.
Sirius grew bold after a while and leaned over the handlebar so that he could reach the Doombuggy in front of them, and began to pound on its back. He hollered and pounded, laughing when the occupants began to scream. James finally restrained him. "Come on, mate, I don't want to get kicked off another ride…"
Soon, though, Sirius had him convinced to try it. Both boys were doing this when the ride suddenly came to a halt in the middle of the graveyard. A recorded ghoulish voice came over the music and announced that some silly ghosts were messing with the ride and it should be fixed pretty soon. Then the music went back to normal, and the attraction continued to run as if nothing was wrong, though doombuggies remained rooted to the spot.
Sirius and James sat in the dark graveyard for a half hour, bored to tears before the ride started up again. When they finally got off the ride and glided up the ramp, the hologram of a wispy young ghost waved at them. "Hurry back, hurry back…be sure to bring your…death certificate," she called after the guests as they left.
"All right, it's dinnertime, where were we going to meet Remus and Peter?" Sirius asked.
James looked at him for a moment, horrified. "Um, I don't think we actually discussed that," he replied, looking concerned.
Sirius screwed up his face in annoyance. "Great. Now what are we going to do?" Sirius asked.
Remus and Peter had been having a lovely time. The Alice in Wonderland ride was much calmer than the rides James and Sirius had been taking them on, and once they disembarked from that, Peter thought that he felt brave enough to try out the flying elephants. Sure enough, it was exactly as Peter had described. Of course, the elephants were really just cars shaped like elephants with huge ears for wings, but Remus was okay with that. He wasn't sure he was up to riding a real elephant.
The two clamboured into a car and sat down, waiting for the creature to take off. Once it did, it wasn't too bad, though when they returned to solid ground, Peter did look a little green.
Remus suggested that they go and check out some of the gift shops to see if they could find anything worth taking home. Peter was in heaven. Almost everything had the picture of a giant mouse on it. And while Peter wasn't a mouse, he told Remus that that was close enough, thank you. Remus grinned, and followed him from shelf to shelf; the only thing marring his enjoyment was a diorama of the three little pigs fairytale. Though the depiction of the wolf was cartoony and laughable, he still had slavering jaws, and an evil look. It was all he could do to hold himself back from smashing it.
Once Peter had spent about half the pocket money he'd brought with him that day, they decided to try out the Peter Pan ride James had mentioned. They got in line, and were nearly to the front before the cars people were climbing into suddenly lurched to a halt.
"Sorry folks," the ticket taker called out after about ten minutes. "There seems to be something wrong with the ride. I'm afraid we're closed for the day."
Remus and Peter made their way back out to the walkway, disappointed that they wouldn't get to try the ride. "What should we do instead, Peter?" Remus asked.
"Well, you said you liked the Small World Ride. I suppose we could give that a try again."
"Are you sure? You didn't seem to be too thrilled the first time through."
"Well, you could always show me what parts you found so enjoyable, Moony."
Remus grinned and nodded, speeding up a little as they headed towards the ride. This time they sat near the back of the boat, and Remus had a great time pointing things out to Peter and explaining why he found them so fascinating. "I'm amazed that Sirius didn't notice the Cleopatra, to be quite honest," he chuckled quietly in Peter's ear.
Peter laughed. "She is pretty good looking, for a puppet at least," he replied as they departed from the ride. He looked around and patted his stomach. "Hey, it's pretty late and I'm hungry. Let's go meet the guys and get something for dinner, all right?"
Remus nodded his head and together they walked off for a few minutes before he stopped. "What's the matter?" Peter asked.
"We never actually told them where to meet us," Remus said slowly.
"Oh man, you're right! Well what should we do? We could walk around for a while to see if we run into them, or we could just go eat and assume they'll do the same thing. If we don't see them again in the park, we'll see them back at the hotel tonight," Peter said.
Remus mulled it over for a minute. "I'm hungry now, so let's just go somewhere and eat," he finally declared.
"There's this place in Frontier Land called the Golden Horseshoe Saloon. They sell food and have a show," Peter replied excitedly.
"Cool, that works for me," Remus replied, following Peter as he led them down the path to Frontier Land. After about five minutes, they came upon the saloon. The outside was painted a golden yellow colour and there was a wooden walkway around it in front of the dirt ground. When they went inside, they saw red velvet curtains in front of the stage. There were two levels of tables and chairs for people to sit in. Everything was ornately designed and intricately detailed to look like the American West in the 19th century. The show started in fifteen minutes, so they went inside and bought their meal before finding good seats for the show.
Peter and Remus had a grand time eating and watching the can-can dancers show off their legs on stage. They applauded the performers after each number but were drowned out by loud hoots and hollers coming from a few tables behind them. Peter turned to see Sirius and James shouting and stomping their feet at the dancers. He turned and grinned at Remus, "Looks like we have company," he shouted so Remus could hear him.