Chapter Seven: Displays of Affection

Bold italics means flashbacks.

Italics with single quotes mean Animagi dialogue.

Someone (sorry, I don't recall your name…) noted that James was the one to come up with the idea of the marauders map. –shrugs- I don't know. Maybe. For the purposes of my story, I made it Sirius. Thanks, though, for bringing that up. I'll look into it one day.

Also, I'm going to separate scenes with the phrase 'et puis,' meaning 'and then,' because when I edit in my original separations are missing and I often skip over them.

"I, JAMES G. POTTER, HAVE AN ANNOUNCEMENT TO MAKE." James stood on the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, his beloved broom in hand. It was shortly after dinner had officially finished, and the professors had already left. Waiting until he had the attention of everyone remaining in the room, he cleared his throat and continued. "IN LIGHT OF A PREVIOUS EVENT THAT OCCURRED PREVIOUSLY, I AM MAKING A PUBLIC APOLOGY TO ONE LILY F. EVANS."

Remus reached for the pitcher of pumpkin juice near James' shoe and poured himself a cup. After, he set it down on the opposite side of the table. Lily was muttering under her breath, blushing furiously with her arms crossed. Peter simply watched while Sirius' expression was one of slowly dawning horror. Whatever the dark-haired marauder knew that Remus didn't, was anyone's guess, but it seemed that he was the only one who was taken aback by the demonstration.

"He's actually going to do it," Sirius said numbly, buttering his soup absently. "I can't believe it." James shot him a look that shut him up.

"THOUGH I CAN'T APOLOGISE ENOUGH FOR BEING INSENSITIVE TO HER NEEDS AND FOR BEING A LITTLE SELF-CENTERED, I HOPE THIS WILL BE ENOUGH PROOF THAT I AM SORRY AND WILL TRY TO AMEND THESE TRAITS."

Sirius had stopped watching; something that was quite the opposite of everyone else in the hall. "Hesgonnadoithesgonnadoithesgonnadoit!" He babbled. Remus and Peter clamped their hands over Sirius' mouth just as he was shouting, 'no - she's not worth it, Prongs!'

The entire hall watched with fixated fascination as Quidditch Captain James G. Potter lifted his broom, recited the personalized spell that removed the magic from it, pulled out a lighter, and set fire to the sparkling Skylark 380.

There was a collective gasp from the students – Quidditch players and people who knew James, alike – as they watched James watch his broom fall to cinders. The ashes fell onto the table, covering the food and drinks in the area.

"I THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME," James stepped down from the table and looked directly at Lily. "I'm sorry, Lily. Please forgive me." He brushed off the ash from his hands and left the hall. Lily stared after him, completely in shock, and dipped her broccoli in her ketchup.

"He actually did it," Lily said, stunned.

"I know," Sirius said, utterly gobsmacked.

-et puis-

For Sirius' birthday James was planning something big and impressive, which Remus didn't want to know about till the last moment when his prefect duties were of little use to him. Instead he took a trip down Hogsmeade to buy something for Sirius. Looking in the windows, he thought about each item and then rejected them for various reasons.

Socks. No. Boring.

Jewelry. No. Too regular.

Shirt. No. He's got weird tastes lately.

A book? …right. A book. For Sirius. Ha.

A dusty old shop tucked between the doors of its neighboring stores caught Remus' eye as he wandered past. He stopped, examining the contents of the window with a glimmer in his eye. It reminded him of a Muggle Studies Class that he had with Sirius a few weeks back…

Sirius was examining the pictures in the textbook with extreme curiosity, shoving the pages in front of Remus whenever he found something particularly interesting. He had been fascinated with the toaster until Remus explained that one did not present bread as an offering to the appliance and receive toast in return, but rather that the machine simply toasted the bread to make toast.

"Well, what fun is that?" Sirius grumbled, flipping through the chapter and looking at the pictures in the next unit. His eyes grew wide, and his mouth fell open a little, as he stared at the brilliant photography on the page. He shoved it at Remus, grinning stupidly, babbling, "Look. At. That. Merlin's socks, I want one!"

Remus examined it briefly, reading the caption at the bottom. "It's a motorbike, Sirius."

"It's beautiful," Sirius purred, touching the picture with his fingertips. "Does it fly?"

"No, Sirius. It doesn't."

"I bet I could charm it so that-"

"No, you couldn't." Remus hurried to head off this train of thought, not liking where it was heading. "The machine's too big to be held up by one spell alone – you'd have to take it apart and charm every piece before the entire thing could be made airborne," Remus saw a familiar look rise in Sirius' expression. "Sirius, you—"

"I'll make it work, one day." Sirius turned loving eyes away from the motorbike on the page, winking at Remus. "And when I do, you'll be the first to ride it with me."

Remus sputtered for a moment, touched and horrified at the idea. "Sirius—"

"Just you wait, Moony," Sirius turned his attention back to the picture. "It will be great."

Remus smiled, pushing open the door to the shop. "It'll be great," he murmured. If you couldn't distract Sirius from something, you could only make sure he didn't somehow kill himself in the process.

-et puis-

Sirius' owl was sleeping on the stand, hooting faintly in the weak rays of the moonlight. The poor bird had brought a large amount of mail from Sirius' other admirers that morning, and parcels from various family members as well. Sitting in a pile on the floor was a set of black and silver dress robes from Sirius' mother and father, and a rather hefty book about manners and etiquette from his aunt and uncle (parents to the three Black sisters). An obligatory gift, that was a silver watch, came from Bellatrix and Narcissa; Sirius had growled at it and promptly tossed it out the window. A parcel from Sirius' brother had been brought in by an Eton owl and contained a spelled quill that didn't need ink – it wrote on paper in green without dipping it into a well. Andromeda had popped into the dorm to present him with a rather intricate and difficultly braided platinum-thread hairpiece. It was fourteen inches long and curled around Sirius' hair twice. Andromeda told him that it was from a Quidditch shop, and that it was supposed to keep his hair out of his face. Sirius grinned, put it in his hair and was once more reminded why Andromeda was his favorite cousin.

As it was a James Potter tradition, each year he would give a new nickname to each of the marauders on their birthday. The first year name for Sirius was Mister Black. Second it was Sibak (James decided to get creative and mush his name together). Third was Padfoot. Fourth was Snuffles (a codename for his animagi form, though he didn't need one). And this year, the fifth year, was Pads. Because sometimes you just don't have the time to say the second syllable in Padfoot.

"Pads, Pads, Pads," James sang loudly, dumping letters onto Sirius' bed. "I would serenade you, but my rhyming is so baaaad."

"So's your singing," Sirius noted, shifting through his birthday mail carefully. The glitter from the cards was spreading over his sheets, and the knees of his leather pants.

"Better than yours," James replied. He fished out a bright purple envelope with sparkly orange glitter. "Open this one!"

Sirius read it aloud,

"Sirius Black, with hair so long

For your birthday I compose a song

You glittering eyes, they glitter so truuuuue.

Go out with me, and I'll glitter tooooo."

James made a face, "Ew…that was gushy. Next one!"

"Sirius, Sirius, Siriusly

It's your birthday – you're now sixteen

You've grown so tall

You've been so nice

You're better than Fall

When you skate on ice."

"Pads," James observed, "that didn't even make sense."

Sirius shrugged, "Hey – I didn't write it. Oh, here's another." He held up a plain envelope with his name written neatly on the front.

"Oh, almost didn't see that." The seeker squinted at it, reaching out to brush off the clinging glitter from the other cards. "It's not sparkly and colorful like the others."

"Good. Maybe it's a normal type card."

"Well? Open it!"

Sirius scanned it curiously first, and then became motionless as he read it through. James made to grab for it, but Sirius pulled away and rose from the bed. He read it through twice then stopped in front of the mirror. Looking absently into the reflective glass, Sirius smiled lightly.

James snatched the letter from him and read it out loud.

"I have dreamed so intensely of you,

Walked so much, spoken so much,

Loved your shadow so much that

Nothing more remains to me of you.

It remains for me to be the shadow among shadows,

To be a hundred times more shadow than the shadow,

To be the shadow which will come and come again

Into your sunny life."

James skipped down the rest of the otherwise-blank manila page and read the closing, "'My present is at the Moon's Tree at a quarter past nine. Happy Birthday, dear Sirius.'" The seeker paused thoughtfully, tapping the letter against the side of his chin. "It's not signed," he noticed. He looked at his best friend curiously. "Pads – you're blushing?"

"It doesn't have to be signed." He touched his reflection in the mirror's glass, as if he had never seen himself blush before. "It's from Remus," Sirius said, his tone strangely breathless, "I can't believe that he wrote that for me…" Sirius turned, seized back his letter, and read it again. "Damn, it's almost nine…" He folded it and stuck it back into the envelope it had come in. He swept all the other letters onto the floor with the presents from his family, and pulled the dress robes out of the mess. Sirius put the letter into a drawer in his night table and examined the robes critically.

"Are you sure that it's from Moony?" James asked softly, watching his friend with great amusement. Sirius pointed his wand at the ruff around the collar and it severed itself from the rest of the robe. He tore the silver buttons off and tossed them out of the window to join the watch. He quickly transfigured a set of Black family heirloom opals into clasps that attached to the robe.

"Of course it's from Moony," Sirius said. He waved his hand at the sleeve and the fabric sliced to the elbow. Another wave gave the rip an embroidered blue hem, and two more did the same to the other sleeve. Sirius added a matching blue embroidered swirl on either side of the neck, dripping to the first clasp and down the back of the robe. "Hah," he said, admiring his handiwork on the once-boring robe.

James shook his head and leaned on Sirius' shoulder. "But really, what makes you think that it's from Remus?'

Sirius shook out the robe and examined it critically, "You mean besides the fact it's in his handwriting?" He shook off the seeker and shrugged into the long robe. He fastened the opal clasps. "It talked of the Moon's Tree." The Moon's Tree was the name the marauders had given to the great gangly tree in the Forbidden Forest that the wolf always, for some random reason, seemed to make a point of visiting at some time during the full moon. "C'mon, Prongs. Who else would it be?"

James darkened one of Remus' remaining ripped curtains, spelling it so that it was smaller and that it was hemmed properly. He picked up the black clasps that were usually reserved for keeping a bandage around one of his various Quidditch injuries and fastened the curtain around Sirius' belly and waist like a sash. "There. All spiffy for Moony."

"So you agree, then?"

"It's in his handwriting, isn't it?" James said wryly. He shook his head. "Geez, Padfoot."

Sirius gave him a look, "Stuff it, Prongs."

"Trussed up to please the lover, are you?"

"Don't you talk!" Sirius shoved James into the pile of glittery envelopes, "I saw you put on your good shoes – Lily took you back, didn't she?"

"Can't a man wear his clean shoes?"

"She did - didn't she!"

James flailed about, getting up, and scattering bright sparkles. "So? She's a gorgeous and forgiving woman!"

"I knew it!"

James pushed him towards the dorm door. "Go! It's five past nine, you great git!"

Sirius grinned at him and stopped at the door. "If you get a chance, come down and see what he got me, 'kay?"

"Fine, fine, get out of here, you flowery wanker."

"I am not!"

"What – flowery or a wanker?"

-et puis-

In the sparse light of the two lanterns the boys had brought, an unfinished motorbike was propped against the trunk of the Moon's Tree. The skeleton was polished and missing pieces, and the wheels were without air. It was a mess, honestly, but it was a start. Remus waited anxiously for his friend to say something.

"Beautiful…" Sirius said softly.

Remus shrugged, "Well, it's just the skeleton, really, but it'll be 'beautiful' after you finish it."

"Yes, but…" Sirius said in that same soft tone. He turned to Remus. "I meant you."

"Tease," Remus murmured, at a loss for any other response. He scribbled nonsense in the dirt with the toe of his shoe.

"Remus…about the poem…"

"Horrible, I know." Remus cut him off as Sirius moved toward him. I knew I should have just written a letter…

"It was brilliant." Sirius said abruptly. "Really. I loved it."

At a loss for something to say, again, Remus responded with, "Flatterer."

Sirius embraced Remus warmly, pulling the other boy close to him. He rested his head against the shorter one's, and carefully ran his fingers through the tousled russet hair. "I can't believe…" He stuttered to a stop and then tried again. "How could you afford--?"

Remus made a dismissing sound, biting his lower lip in concealed nervousness. "Not too pricey, I'll admit. The mechanic said it was a piece of junk. Practically gave it to me."

Sirius nodded, but judging from the condition of most of the parts, Remus was lying. He decided to let it pass. "Thank you," he said quietly. He paused for a heartbeat. "Remus…I lo--"

"PADS! MOONY!" James' voice echoed in the trees and made Remus involuntarily jerk. Sirius' mouth brushed across Remus' jaw, and they both stilled. Off in the trees, James was whistling, but they didn't seem to notice anymore.

"Remus," Sirius tried to say quickly, "I want you to know that I-"

"Oh! Is that a motorauto or whatever?" James popped out of the bushes and immediately spotted the motorbike. He examined it thoughtfully while Sirius sighed into Remus' shirt collar. He withdrew from the shorter marauder, who was blankly staring at a spot somewhere random while he blushed terribly.

"Sorry," Sirius explained, "but Prongs was there when I read the card… I kinda regret inviting him to see my present-"

"How the hell do you expect to ride this thing?" James demanded to know, back still turned, "There's metal sticking out all over the place!"

Sirius ran his fingers through Remus' hair briefly in an affectionate manner, and went over to where James was poking the motorbike's engine. "Don't touch that!"

-et puis-

Easter holidays swept up on the Marauders, seeing their transition from the halls of Hogwarts to the comfortable rooms of the Potter place in Godric's Hallow. Before they left, they played one more prank on Snape and Lucius, which was arranged entirely by James, as a sort of gift to Sirius. There was a lot of Easter eggs involved, as well as one rather large, chocolate, magicked bunny rabbit.

On the night of the full moon, the four boys moved from the Potter's house to a small cabin in the woods, away from the small community. James told his parents that they wanted to 'rough it in the woods' at least once, and Mr. & Mrs. Potter bore no objection to the idea. Their only bywords for their son was – as it always was- 'don't do anything stupid.'

James looked out the dusty cabin window, hands in his pockets. "Well, gentlemen. I'd like to take a flight before the moon rises. How about you?"

"But…" Peter said in a confused tone, "You burned...your broom…"

James nodded, expression tinted with remote regret. "Yes, I did do that, didn't I?"

"Memory lapse," Sirius whispered to Remus, from his place near the door, "happens a lot with people who experience a traumatic episode."

"Seems to me," Remus whispered back, "that you were more traumatized by it than he was."

James ignored their whisperings as he dug in a trunk that was under the window. Turning around with a dramatic flair, he opened a long narrow case, to reveal a long narrow broom. It was engraved on the handle with the lettering, 'Mercury 316' in blue detail.

Sirius gaped at him, slowly standing. "But – how?"

"Grandmum bought it for me for Easter," James said with a grin.

"I THOUGHT YOU BURNED-BURNED IT, YOU WANKER!" Sirius roared suddenly, a slight twitch in his cheek. "You were talking about doing it and all along you had another broom wrapped up in nice paper somewhere!"

James raised his hands in a gesture of truce. "Padfoot, please, I got this afterwards… I didn't know I was getting another broom."

Jerking to a standstill, Sirius sent him a suspicious glare. "Really?"

"Really," James said firmly, admiring his new broom. "I meant what I said in the hall. This just makes the whole episode hurt a little less."

Remus raised an eyebrow, "Only a little less?"

The seeker shot him a pained look, "It was a Skylark 280, Moony, not some twig for sweeping… I mean, really…"

The boys went on an elaborate – albeit short – jaunt on the shiny new Mercury model, zooming through the trees and back to the cabin. After, they hiked deeper in the forest to where a large rock face was perched among narrow cliff sides.

The Animagi boys waited outside the cave that they had earlier found, transformed and waiting for the wolf to exit into the forest. For a reason that Peter and James didn't understand, Remus wanted to be alone while he transformed. Not even Sirius watched, and the tall, dark boy had glared at anyone who tried to ask why.

They waited for a little while, uncontiously staring up into the sky. When they heard the quiet sobbing and a single loud scream, the three instantly slipped into their other forms. They then heard a low snuffling sound, and the wolf emerged slowly from the cave.

'Does he look different to anyone else?' Peter flitted about nervously, skittering around James' legs. 'I don't like this, lads…'

Padfoot moved forward to sniff the wolf. Peter was right. He was larger, longer, and wound more tightly than he had been the previous moon.

It happened quickly, without warning, and Moony was tearing through the trees towards the row of houses.

'Moony!' Prongs cried, dashing in front of the lean werewolf. 'Not that way!'

Moony snarled without words and tried to get around him. Prongs blocked him.

'NO! Moony – you can't!'

Again there was only a glutteral reply.

It took the boys a long struggle, but they got the wolf cornered in a small area of rock. They stayed there for the night, wrestling and play fighting. When the morning came, the change came with it, dragging the wolf back into the subconscious of the young wizard boy.

Remus let out a sob and Padfoot shimmered back into Sirius before the fur had even fully left Remus' body. He caught the writhing boy as he fell, and swiftly pulled off his robe and wrapped it around Remus.

"Shh," Sirius said soothingly, bending to pick up Remus. He swayed under the full weight of another person for a moment, but shook his head at an offer of help from James. It took a second for them to realize that Remus was muttering something repeatedly, sobbing.

"Please…into the trees…into the trees…"

The poem that Remus wrote is actually a translation of a French poem by Robert Desnos. It's missing the accents and such, but here's the actual French version:

Le Dernier Poeme (The Last Poem)

J'ai reve tellement fort de toi,

J'ai tellement marche, tellement parle,

Tellement aime ton ombre,

Qu'il ne me reste plus rien de toi.

Il me reste d'etre l'ombre parmi les ombres

D'etre cent foir plus ombre que l'ombre

D'etre l'ombre qui viendra et reviendra

Dans ta vie ensoleillee.