Don't Write

It was an early summer evening, and four friends sat and talked of the future even as it unraveled before their eyes.

It was an early summer evening, and four friends sat and talked of the future.

—

"Mum's trying for another baby. At her age—"

"Augh!"

"We didn't need that picture, Prongs!"

The wiry young man in glasses leaned back in his chair helplessly. He threw up his arms. "Well, she is!" he reasserted. "And how do you think I feel, with her and Dad going at…" He shuddered as his friends groaned. "Never mind. But really, they never wanted another kid until I made it through Auror training. Now all Mum talks about is having a nice little girl who will make grandbabies and not get herself killed!" He swiped the bottle of mead, forewent the empty thin-stemmed glass, and swigged. Swallowing, he lamented, "What's worse, fella's? That they think I'm a goner, or that they figure I'm expendable? Pump out James Junior"—someone kicked him under the table—"and everything's right as rain."

James went to take a second chug, but a hand plucked the bottle away from him. "'ey! Save the drink, you boozer," scolded the mead's rescuer before he promptly knocked it back. After gulping, he shook his free hand at the rest of them. "Now don't you look at me like that! I've got problems too, you know. Me poor mother's just died." He pouted. "I—I think I might just shed a tear."

He sniffed in the astonished silence that followed, and then cackled, "Hah! Tears of joy!" He stood and held aloft the bottle like a victory trophy. "The old witch is dead and the Tapestry can hang because I'm the only Black male left and I"—he grinned, his head waggling—"just inherited one Hell of a fortune." He started pouring the mead into the glasses on the table, sloshing half of it onto the tablecloth in the process. "A toast!" he cried, heaving the fullest glass into the air and losing half the contents. "Here's to having a filthy rich friend to loaf off of!"

"No complaints!"

"I'll drink to that!

"Hell, I'll drink to anything, right now."

"I heard that, James!"

"Shove it, Sirius."

Sirius Black grinned. "Sure thing," he chirped and threw the remaining contents of his glass in James's face.

Dripping, James sprang from his seat. "Damn it, Padfoot!"

"What? Think you can take me, little, scrawny, Momma's dead-boy?"

James grinned darkly. "You forget that I just went through Auror training." He shrugged off his outer robe, revealing nothing but an undershirt, standard issue combat breeches, boots, and a heap-load of muscles that had never been there before.

Sirius closed his eyes. "Shit."

—

And then they were off, Sirius with a slight lead as they dashed across the lawn, then back, zigzagging like a flight-challenged Seeker chasing an oversized Snitch who knew it was about to get snatched and hard. Back at the table, Remus and Peter sighed and muttered, "Children," for perhaps the five-millionth time. They did turn and watch, though, when James caught hold of his prey by the collar. Sirius wormed out of it by squirming out of the robes and dashing out into the night in his boxers.

James stared a moment, then snickered and waved the robes around. "Forget something, Snivellus?" he called.

Sirius stopped dead.

—

The two sane friends in the group shook their heads as, in the distance, a stag fled from a rather vengeful looking dog. Remus sipped a bit of mead before asking, "So how is life treating you?"

Peter nodded eagerly. "Good! Good. My apprenticeship's in the field, just through the summer. It was murder to get picked. Me and Arthur Weasley—you remember him?—we barely scraped through the requirements. It's going to be hard, but it'll be worth it to start at the Ministry on full pay and order people around two years older." He ducked his head and smiled. "Mmm, and you?"

Remus twitched. "…and what are you apprenticing for again? Sorry."

"Muggle Studies," Peter prompted. "It was always my best subject. I'm the only thing that kept you lot from failing the O.W.L. on it, remember?"

"Thank Merlin for that," Remus smiled. "Muggles are, by far, the world's most bizarre creatures."

"But wasn't your father a—?"

"Exactly." Remus threw up his hands. "Muggles. I'll never understand them."

"Well, that's what this field assignment is for: to understand them." A gleam entered Peter's eyes. "They really are bizarre, Remus. They been given so little—Squibs are better off than them—but look at all they've managed. Merlin, Moony, they've—they've walked on the Moon! No wizard's done that!" He caught Remus's slightly glazed look and slumped a little. "Sorry. There I go off about boring things." He blinked. "So, what did you say you were doing again? Some private bodyguard agency in London?"

Remus twisted his glass's stem in his fingertips. "What does it matter?" he asked bitterly, putting down his drink. "I'm not doing it anymore. And the next thing I try, there'll just be another background check…" he trailed off and smiled at Sirius as the half-naked man stumbled back to the table, panting.

Black slumped into a chair. He ignored the prancing stag taunting him back on the lawn. He picked at the tangle called his robes, trying to sort them out so he could put them on again. Every now and then, his gaze flicked to Remus, whose eyes were permanently downcast.

Peter bit his lip with his front teeth. "I'll just…be back," he mumbled and walked awkwardly into the house, leaving the pair alone.

—

"Well…"

Peter looked up from his packing at the sound of James' voice.

The sweat-streaked young man stood in the bedroom door with a tense look on his face. His eyes looked past Peter at a window that overlooked the back lawn. The curtains had been drawn shut. He dropped his gaze and spied the open trunk on the bed. "Packing?" he asked lightly and leaned his weight on the doorframe.

Peter nodded and picked up another shirt to fold.

"School clothes?"

He smiled, ducking his head slightly at the confused sound of his friend's voice. "They pass for Muggle clothes without the outer robes. They'll do until I can get my hands on the real thing."

"Doesn't seem that hard. Go into the nearest dress shop—"

"Muggles don't have dress shops," Peter chided. "Not many, anyway."

James folded his bare arms over his chest. He had left his robes at the table where Sirius and Remus were. "What do they do, then? Make everything from scratch?"

"No. They use their machine things." There was a low sound from outside, and Peter slammed the trunk shut. He was silent for a tense moment before he pressed on in a pleasant tone. "I don't know how they get the clothes. Something about hunting for the right size."

"Oh," sad James emotionlessly.

The forced conversation petered out. James Potter, heir of one of the Wizarding world's oldest families had never been interested in Muggles much. He didn't understand his friend's fascination with them. Yes, it was mystifying that they'd survived this long without magic, but they hardly seemed as remarkable as Peter made them out to be.

Peter was looking at the drawn window curtains. His hands gripped the front edge of his trunk. He bit his lip and turned to his friend. "James? I'll be out of touch for most of the summer. Can't have owls flying around; the Muggles will get suspicious. Don't write, but…" He glanced at the window. "When I get back, tell me if there's anything I should know."

James nodded with his eyes closed. "I'll do that."

"Thank you."

"No problem."

But there was.

—

Peter was packing his socks when Sirius appeared in the doorway. James was sprawled on the bed, staring at the ceiling blankly. Sirius cleared his throat, but they were too lost in their own thoughts. "Prongs? …Peter?"

Their eyes jerked to him, and he backed away slightly. One of his hands pressed into the outside wall, trying to jettison him back further. "Moony isn't feeling well." There was a slight hitch to his voice. "I'm going to take him home," he added.

Peter's hands, out of sight inside the trunk, twtiched. He steadied them and turned the bundle of brown socks around in them. He squinted in the faint darkness, wondering if they really were a pair or if one was a little too black. "When can we expect you back?" he asked Sirius softly.

Sirius eased out of the room another few inches. "No—no. I think I'll just stay home, too."

"Oh." Peter pulled the socks apart with a sharp tug and placed them on the bed with the trunk between them.

"I'll—write you, then." Sirius pushed himself away and strode down the hall.

Peter reached for the next pair of socks from his drawer. He stopped halfway. His fingers curled into a weak, pensive fist. "Write. He can't write," he muttered and strode out the door. He stopped at banister that overlooked the foyer. "Si—" He recoiled.

Sirius's dark, half-buttoned robes curled around Remus's scruffy, brown ones. His sleeved arms wrapped about Moony's back tightly. With one hand, he pressed the man's limp head into his chest. "My place, then," he said gently, kissed Remus's crown, and apparated the pair of them away, leaving their eavesdropper clutching at the railing.

In Peter's reeling mind, he saw the mismatched socks that had been paired together. Mistakenly paired.

—

Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs—childhood friends. Now it was just Padfoot and Moony, with Prongs evermore distant and distracted, and—

And Wormtail. "Wormtail. Wormtail? …Peter?"

He turned sharply to see Prongs standing in the hall. The man smiled ruefully. "You really don't answer to Wormtail anymore, do you?"

He looked down. "I don't think of myself as him anymore, James," he sighed.

"Well, you're still one of the Marauders."

His hand slid along the banister railing, leaning. The wood creaked under his weight. "Am I?" he asked. "Are we still the Marauders? It looks to me like Remus and Sirius…" He sighed and turned to James even as he sagged and bowed his head. "I want them to be happy," he asserted. "Remus needs someone. He deserves it. And I don't even mind that—" He looked up, lost. "But Padfoot?"

James's eyes fell out of focus.

With a touch of building anger, Peter went on, "It's been driving me mad. I don't know if I'm seeing things or if"—he paused—"or if they're playing an elaborate joke."

James cracked a smile. "It's something Padfoot would pull."

"Yes. That must be it."

There was too much hope in their words. Peter's mask of smiling relief crumbled, revealing a dark expression. "Why couldn't they have just told us?" he demanded suddenly. "Do they think we're stupid!" His teeth clenched after that.

"Maybe they're scared."

He turned his back to James.

The man pressed on, words stumbling. "I mean, it's always been the four of us…even ground, never separated by anything…always there for... And they don't want to lose that, even when they've… They're afraid what you would…what we would think." He sighed. "I mean, what if Sirius had showed up here with one of his old girlfriends and said they were…getting married? Would you feel abandoned? Or would—"

"Don't you work this around to be about Lily," Peter warned, voice low, as his hands gripped the banister.

Haltingly, James asked, "Worm…er, Peter?"

"And don't think I'm stupid, Potter. If you do, then get out of this house."

There was a silence after that. Peter could picture exactly how James was standing behind him. The man had his forearm raised above his bowed head and pressed into the wall for support as he sagged under the weight of everything. It was his weakness, this need to express every trivial emotion with his entire body. When joyful, he jumped. When angry, he would forego his wand for a tackle. One day he would get himself killed mid-leap, Peter was sure.

And when feeling like he had no one he could depend on, James leaned on anything he could get his hands on.

Peter leaned heavily on the banister.

He closed his eyes as he said goodbye.

"Don't write."