And James makes his appearance! Not so much of an eventful chapter, but friendships had to be built in order to continue. Hope you like it, and remember, reviews are better than chocolate! XD

Snow Globe

By: Nekare

Remus wakes up for the second time of the day with wrongness weighting heavy on his mind, slipping with dirty socks and empty bottles in his way to the bathroom. He falls just when he is about to enter, the guilty criminal being Sirius' shirt (which is just highly fitting, Remus thinks), and he just lays there, halfway in and halfway out, the same way he feels about life and joy and sex (and Sirius). He laughs, a little, out of desperation and of irony and something else that feels like swallowing back tears but he doesn't quite want to name.

He flees the room when Peter and James come back from breakfast, which Remus avoided in favor of his sick stomach and his somewhat forsaken dignity, muttering and fidgeting and avoiding everybody's eyes. He strolls by the lake, wishing it was frozen so he could skate the way he used to do with his mother when he was eight.

(When he actually understood life).

In winter, everything in Hogwarts goes white, trapped in time and covered in snow as long as the eye can see, pristine and pure and alive with the anxious whispers of teenagers in classes waiting to go out after the first frost. Remus walks, slowly, and stares in wonder at a lonely flower buried in a pile of snow, vibrant and contradictory with its bright pink petals. Remus wants to think of a metaphor for it, something about beauty transcending time and hope in the worst times, but he's not really in the mood.

Instead, he classifies it as living poetry, and leaves it at that.

"Are you done sulking?" says James behind him, and Remus is so startled that he squeals a bit in a quite undignified way. He doesn't wait for an answer before settling himself on a semi-dry rock just on the edge of the lake, motioning for Remus to sit with him. Remus goes, but he can't stop his thumbs from moving in that nervous way that always gives him away.

"So, care to enlighten me in last night's events?" says James again, and Remus bites his lower lip after a long sigh.

"…No?"

"All right, then I'll just put my marvelous brain to use and try to explain them myself. Just nod if I'm on the right track, okay?" Remus sighs again, but he knows better than trying to make James forget an idea. "So, um, you and Sirius got the hots for each other, I can at least see that, uh, I think, but-"

"It's not like that," Remus interrupts, feeling awkward and bare while talking about this. "It's more like, I don't know, um, I- shit, I've no idea what's going on." He holds his knees close to his chest, resting his chin on top of them.

James looks as confused as he is. "Um, but you two looked, quite, er, friendly –if you catch my drift – yesterday, and well, one would guess you two would care for each other in that special, special way I care for dear Lily the queen of my heart." His speech is slightly ruined by the faraway look his eyes take as he speaks of the red-haired girl that's just starting to warm up to him. "You do, right? like like him, I mean. And don't you dare lie to me, Remus Lupin." He says a moment later when he gets his bearings back.

James pokes him in his stomach, repeatedly, until he squeaks a barely audible "Yes, all right? Wait, stop it !" Remus looks ahead in protest, blushing red and feeling too uncomfortable with the idea of having spilled the last secret he had tried keeping for himself.

"Well then, you like him, he seemed to like you back - if his tongue in your mouth is any kind of indication, so well, you and him, - fuck, but this is going to be so odd when it comes to pronouns."

Remus laughs against his will, and James laughs along with him, too loud for a comment that isn't really that funny in the end. James grabs a handful of snow and throws it to Remus' face, and soon they're mock-fighting with snow dripping inside of their clothes, laughing and breathing in the easy air between them and the ice up their noses.

They end up laying flat on their backs, James wriggling desperately from the snowball that had got inside his shirt. "Nice to know you haven't gone all nancy-boy, huh?"

"You wish Potter, I could make you plead for mercy anytime I wanted," says Remus with a slight smile, still looking up at the dark skies, clouds forming a thick blanket for the sun, snow getting ready to fall dream-white to the ground and accepting their gray future deaths in the form of muddy slush. They stay still for some minutes, and then Remus goes back to their earlier conversation. "It's not as easy as that, James, but I appreciate the fact that you're willing to accept it."

"I know," James says in his serious tone, the one he ever hardly uses. "God, everything's gone mad in one day. Yesterday, everything was clear: You wanted to hate Padfoot forever, he was alternating between acting indifferent and begging for forgiveness and no one was trying to shove their tongues down a mate's throat." He sighs. "I miss those days. They were simple."

"Tell me about it. I don't even know if he means it, or if it was some kind of trick on his part to get me to lower my defenses."

James sits up, shaking his head. "It pains me that you think so low of him, Moony. He was far too drunk to fake anything, you dimwit."

"Has he given me a reason to think better of him?" Remus starts moving his arms in the snow, making a featherless snow angel that is screaming Forget and forgive into his ear. He wants to give him horns and a tail, just so it won't contradict him. "I'm trying James, I am, I fucking want to trust him again. But he's not making it exactly easy for me."

"Well do it then, trust him. You won't gain anything if you don't risk it all, Remus."

"I do think that sounded quite mature, Mister Potter," Remus smiles up at him, and James smiles back, shaking snow out of the mess he likes to call hair.

"Well someone needs to be mature around, with you two acting so damn childish and having this sudden and yucky urges to meet in enclosed spaces, and Peter being desperate about that Marcia girl in Ravenclaw, which he's trying to get under old mistletoe right now, by the way. He hasn't got the idea that it's only accepted in Christmas, the old chap."

Remus goes quiet again, not knowing exactly what to say. "James, seriously, thanks for not running away with this whole gay business. Hell, I'm not completely comfortable with it yet, but you're acting bloody decent."

James chuckles, and helps Remus to his feet, after he cleans his glasses in one of the only dry spots of his cloak. "Look mate, if I was going to be squeamish about things, I would've run away back in the day when I found out you're supposedly a blood-thirsty Dark creature, wouldn't I?"

"Good point," says Remus as they walk slowly back to the castle, his humor somewhat better than before.

"Thought so. Just don't ever try something with me, please. I don't think my poor heart could take it."

"Ah, so you wouldn't like a threesome?" James pushes him, and Remus ends up sinking in a spectacularly big snow pile.

(The laughter dies in his throat some minutes later, when he enters the Common Room and Sirius turns to him from his place by the window across the room, and the air leaves his lungs when the gray eyes stay focused on him every step up the way to the dorm. Sirius takes a snowflake out of his hair with a shrug when he finally comes up, and Remus feels so faint he might disappear.)