The Easter holidays were nearly over and nothing of any note had really happened. Hermione had shifted into hysterical NEWT revision mode, but no one was terribly surprised by that.
So it was a surprise, when Harry was sitting on his own in the Common Room, to see Remus's head in the fire. 'Harry,' he said warmly.
'Hi, Remus.' The name was still an effort.
'How are you?'
'Fine. Remus, not that I don't like seeing you, but...'
'What am I doing?' he asked, smiling.
'Something like that,' Harry answered wryly.
'Are you doing anything?'
'I was studying a while ago. I'm done now.'
'Are you sure? This is a very important year for you.'
Harry laughed. 'Hermione told me. I've been revising all day - I should be taking a break now anyway. Are you in the school?'
'Just for the evening. Harry, can you come down to the front door? I have a surprise for you.'
'Umm...okay. I'll see you in a few minutes.'
'See you then.'
He met Remus at the base of the steps. His former professor gave him a strong hug, which Harry returned awkwardly but happily.
'It's nice to see you.'
'You too, Harry.' He looked him up and down. 'I'd like to say you've grown, but to be frank...'
Harry laughed, 'Don't talk about it! Draco's bad enough.'
'Draco...Harry, we never did talk much about that while I was here before. With everything else...'
The smile fell from Harry's face. 'Are you going to tell me not to see him?'
Remus was shocked. 'Of course I'm not, Harry. Why would I?'
'Snape still isn't very happy about it. He's only tolerating it because of whatever Professor Dumbledore said to him.'
'Harry, do I seem very much like Severus to you?' Lupin asked teasingly. 'I have a great deal of respect for him, but we often disagree. In this case, I understand his concern, but I think you should do what makes you happy. If you don't, you will regret it later.'
Remus looked upset now, and Harry tried to distract him. 'So, what's my surprise?'
'Good point.' He forced a smile. 'It's outside. Do you mind taking a walk?'
'Of course not.'
They walked towards Hagrid's hut. Harry couldn't see anything that could possibly constitute a surprise, but Lupin had never given Harry any reason to doubt him.
Remus walked over to the fence surrounding the pumpkin patch, and felt in the air for something. He turned to Harry, as if something had suddenly occurred to him. 'You can keep a secret, can't you, Harry?'
'Umm...sure? Is it a bad secret?'
'Not at all,' Lupin reassured him. 'But it might be a little bit illegal.' He found whatever he was looking for, and pressed at it.
Harry took a sharp breath. It was a shiny black motorcycle. It was obviously old, but well looked after. 'Where did you get it?' he asked.
'It was Sirius's, a long time ago. Then Hagrid had it for a while. He left it with me after Sirius was arrested. It's yours now.'
'Mine?'
'Sirius would have wanted you to have it. And I think, I hope anyway, that you're old enough now not to do yourself any damage with it.'
'Remus...I mean, I'd love it, but do you not think someone would see my riding it about the grounds?'
'Hmm? Oh, I forgot the best bit! Get on. It's okay - I'll get on behind you. I've ridden it with Sirius enough times to know how it works.'
Harry got on, and Lupin reached to the ground for a helmet. He placed it on Harry's head, and sat behind him holding the handlebars. The bike seemed bigger now than it had when it was just Harry. Lupin turned the key and the bike revved silently. When he squeezed the accelerator, it jumped into the air. Harry couldn't help giving a small yelp.
Lupin laughed. 'Like it?'
Harry always liked being in the air. Even Buckbeak had grown on him. And this, while not as smooth as a broomstick, had an appeal all of its own. He could see Sirius riding this thing. His dangerous, energetic Godfather must have adored this when he was young. He superimposed the picture of Sirius at his parents' wedding onto this. That was what he must have looked like. Grinning at the knowledge that he was breaking the law. This picture had nothing to do with anything that was to happen later, the arrest, his depression, or his death, and Harry loved it for that.
'How does it work?' he asked Remus.
'Accelerator. Brake. Invisibility. Sirius got rid of all of the bits he didn't think were important. Want to try it?'
'Now?'
'If you want. It handles like a broomstick, all you have to do is aim it in the right direction. And I put Merlin knows how many safety charms on it. If you manage to crash it, I'll be very impressed.'
'So why have I got a helmet on?'
'Because you can still fall off. Although even that should be difficult.'
'So...this is the accelerator?' He pointed.
'That's right. Don't hit it too hard.' Remus relinquished the controls to Harry, who revelled in the potential jeopardy he was putting himself in. They spent the next hour learning how to use his weight to steer it (it wasn't as instantly sensitive as his Firebolt) and the right balance of accelerator and brake (it took longer to start and longer to stop). When they landed with a slight bump, Harry patted the engine gently as he got off.
He looked over at Remus, eyes shining, to see that his adopted Godfather had tears streaming down his cheeks. 'Remus?'
'It's nothing, Harry. Don't worry.'
'Did you fly with him a lot?'
'All the time. The last few months of our seventh year I was in the air so often it felt strange walking about on the ground. We flew everywhere. I think...Harry, you can't remember, of course, but it was so strange then. Everything became serious all of a sudden. James had finally grown up, convinced your mother to marry him even then I think. And we knew, or at least I knew, that things were going to get worse before they got better. So we spent those last months pretending that they weren't. We pretended that there wasn't any danger, that we were going to able to go flying off into the night together every night for the rest of our lives. Or maybe we just pretended that we pretended that. Maybe we just wanted to play at being immortal because we knew we didn't have long left.'
'You're still here,' Harry said firmly.
'I know. The last of the Marauders. Peter doesn't count anymore.'
'Remus...'
'Listen to me, burdening you with all this!' he made himself say it cheerfully. 'It doesn't matter. I just wanted you to have it. Sirius would love the idea of you using it.'
Harry nodded. 'Thanks, I love it.'
'You're welcome. Come on, I should probably get you back inside before anyone worries about you. I'll come back and put the bike in Hagrid's lean-to. I'll make it invisible, but Hagrid knows it's there, so he won't be surprised. Okay?'
They walked back together in silence. At the bottom of the main staircase they stopped. 'How are you getting back?' Harry asked.
'I'm using the Floo in the Defence Office, don't worry. You should get back now, Ron and Hermione will worry if you don't show up.'
Harry hesitated for a moment. Making his mind up, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms tightly round Remus. 'I miss him.'
'I know,' Remus whispered against the top of Harry's head. 'I do too. So much.'
It was a month later that Harry asked Draco to meet him at the front of the school one evening after dinner. Draco made his way outside as discretely as possible and found Harry, Hermione and Ron waiting for him. 'Well?' he asked.
'Apparently we're going out,' Ron answered. He was holding Harry's broom, and had the invisibility cloak over one arm.
Draco looked at it. 'Do I need a broom?'
'No. Just Ron, which is why he's borrowing mine. Hermione's sharing with him, because she would fall off.'
Hermione glared but didn't contradict him.
'I'm not sharing your broom,' Draco said.
'Not a problem.' Harry grinned and led the way to Hagrid's hut.
When he revealed the bike, Ron's eyes nearly fell out of their sockets. 'Where did you get that!'
'Professor Lupin. It used to be Sirius's.'
'It flies?'
'Yup.'
'And he just let you have it?'
'Yup. So I thought we should take it out.'
'Harry...' Hermione began cautiously, 'we're really not meant to leave school grounds without a teacher.'
'I know.'
'So do you really think we should..?'
'Yes. Because we're doing exams in two weeks, and it's Draco's birthday in three, and I think we should celebrate before we need to be grown-ups.'
'How do you know when my birthday is?'
'Magic,' Harry shot back. His eyes were reckless, but Hermione was never particularly good at refusing Harry when she thought he needed protection. Draco had developed a similar problem, and Ron had been a lost cause as soon as he had seen the motorbike.
'Where are we going?' Hermione sighed.
Harry mounted the motorbike. 'The movies.'
'Where!' she asked incredulously.
'I found a cinema that opens late. They show old movies. And if these two haven't seen James Bond I bet they've never seen Star Wars.'
'This is mad, Harry.'
'I'm seventeen. Let me behave like it for once,' he pleaded.
She sighed again. 'You know exactly where you're going?'
'I promise.'
'You have money?'
'Yes.'
'We'll come back straight after?'
'Well I was thinking about taking them to a genuine muggle pub...kidding, Hermione, honest!'
'Hmmm...I don't suppose I have much choice then. Ron? The broom?'
Ron got on his broom and allowed Hermione to get on in front of him.
Harry looked over at Draco pointedly. With a long-suffering sigh, the blond got on the bike behind Harry. 'If you crash this thing I will kill you, have no doubts about this.'
'Trust me,' Harry shouted back as they took off, a wild smile on his face.
'So,' Ron called across, 'what's Star Wars?'
'That,' Ron was loudly proclaiming, 'was wicked.'
After the difficulty of finding somewhere it was safe to leave an enchanted motorbike, preventing Ron and Draco from insulting the muggle money, and dodging the curious looks of the teenager taking tickets at the two boys gawking at the trailers showing on the cinema's huge screen, they had a good night.
Ron and Draco had to be physically restrained from talking loudly during the film's opening, but by the end they had been watching the film in stunned silence.
Draco had sneered afterwards of course at "these muggle ideas of magic" and "the stupidity of building a giant space ship that can be taken down by one boy in a little one" but Harry had felt him jump, and seen the sudden smile when Han came to Luke's rescue. Harry had seen the film before, not in the cinema of course, but he had snuck down to watch the video one night after the Dursley's had done to bed. It was better when he could have the sound loud enough to hear it properly, and on a widescreen, but he knew it well enough to be watching Ron and Draco. Ron had been entranced by the whole experience, and was still talking when they left the screen, after even the last of the credits had stopped rolling. Hermione loved him enough for this enthusiasm that she relented and let Harry take them into the café-bar.
They couldn't drink of course, but he had bought them all coffee, and let Ron's excited babbling wash over him as he soaked this in. It seemed to take much less time to fly back. He kissed Draco goodnight at Hagrid's, letting the others go in first. Harry stood by the bike in silence. He wasn't sure if Remus had meant to encourage him to do something like this. Perhaps he didn't realise that what he had said applied to them both. Sirius and Remus had gone flying together because they both knew that once school ended they were going out to join a battle that could kill them anytime. Harry didn't even have the luxury of that time. But tonight he had been to the cinema with his best friends, and his boyfriend had kissed him goodnight at the end of it. For tonight, anyway, there would be no regrets.
A/N: According to JKR, Draco's birthday is June 5th, and I was extremely grateful to her for releasing that before I dated this chapter.
Fayet: I'm only quick with the updates in this one because I was terrible with them past time! I decided after that one that I was never posting a WIP again, especially one with no plan...Glad I'm surprising you.
wwwendy: Drawing it out definitely helped - I had little arrows and symbols all over the page, and it was pretty useful when it came to writing it.
Thanks to HecateDeMort, Cithara and Love Alchemist for reviews!