There were some bittersweet goodbyes on platform nine and three quarters, particularly from Sirius. Remus saw his face fall as soon as he spotted his parents, standing as stoically and expressionless as ever; Remus felt for sure that if he were to walk over to them, a chill of cold air would settle over him. He gave Sirius an extra tight hug as an attempt at some form of consolation, with a firm promise that he would write, or at least, he'd tell James everything that was happening so James could pass it on— Remus assumed the no-writing-unless-you're-pureblood rule still stood.

Remus waved goodbye to the rest of his classmates and joined his parents beside the barrier, a significantly warmer welcome than Sirius's which actually made him grateful to see his parents in the first place. They were smiling, in a more expectant way than anything, like they were hiding something. Not that Remus had any idea what. Had they suddenly got back together in the two weeks he'd been away? Unlikely. He didn't know what could've happened in two weeks that would have been able to make up for ten years of arguing.

But he didn't have to wait long to find out what all the smiles were about.

Remus had assumed his summer holiday would be like every other, but worse this time round, because his dad would be in London, and they may not even visit his grandparents at all so his parents wouldn't have to lie about their current relationship status.

In the car ride home, however, his mum and dad revealed that not only were they going to visit Hope's parents (only for a week though, in a few days), but that they were going to travel down to Blackpool for a proper holiday, as well as to visit Aunt Selene, who lived just on the outskirts.

Remus lit up at this information, remembering that Peter was going to be in Blackpool as well.

"He's staying in a wizarding community," he explained.

"Well we're staying near your aunt, so don't get too excited. You might not get to see him." Remus would still write to him about it though, and it was at least something to look forward to, since he knew what his parents were doing. He wasn't stupid. They were keeping up a façade in front of their family, or else trying to keep things as normal as possible for Remus's sake, bribing him with holidays. Which was fine, he didn't care, as long as they weren't arguing in front of him he didn't care what they did. But something about them pretending everything was normal when it really wasn't got under his skin for some reason. Made him itchy, metaphorically. Then again, the full moon was tomorrow, so that could have explained any irritation.

Holidays always had to be planned around the full moon, which was why proper holidays to anywhere outside of Wales was usually off the table, so Remus was surprised his parents were bothering to make this sort of effort. They usually went to his grandparents for just under a month, before the full moon, and then maybe a few outings to beaches or city centres; Cardiff if they were willing to stay in a hotel for a few days. Sometimes they went to London, using the floo network attached to the Leaky Cauldron, but his mother hated that method of travel, and the car or train took too long, not to mention how expensive hotels in London were. It wasn't worth it. So journeys outside Wales were rare. Therefore, whatever the motive, Remus couldn't help but be excited for the upcoming trip.

He had to go to his grandparents first though, but it was just after the full moon, so he had nothing to worry about. As for telling his grandparents that he was now taking a potion that made his body more male— something that would eventually become too hard to hide— they decided not to say anything unless his grandparents asked. While Remus wasn't keen on the idea of hiding his transition from his grandparents (making him feel like he was hiding more of his identity from them), he couldn't be bothered to argue. Besides, on the off-chance his grandparents decided to negatively comment on the decision, Remus was keen to avoid that for the sake of his mood.

Incidentally, they didn't ask. They didn't even notice the difference, which left him feeling a little hopeless. In fact, he was pretty much in a bad mood the entire stay, sometimes inexplicably so, because there was nothing depressing about walking Seren across the hills or counting sheep with his grandfather like he'd always done when he was a kid. His grandparents lived on a farm and sheep were always going missing, usually for only a few hours, getting lost in the acres of fields. When Remus was young, really young, his grandfather would carry him on his shoulders and count the sheep with him, deliberately counting wrong so that Remus could correct him and feel very clever indeed.

Obviously, he was much too old for that now, but he still clambered up on the fence and shouted out "un, dau, tri, pedwar, pump..." reaching all the way to dauddeg tri until he finally lost count. It was fun watching Seren run rings around the sheep, herding them into the fenced off area they stayed in during the night.

But all in all, Remus just felt off the entire time. Maybe being around his family just felt too stifling now, like everything was staged, and nothing felt real. His parents weren't really getting along, and his father wasn't really happy to be there (Lyall had never much been a farm person. He spent most of his time sitting in front of the fire reading his books, which Remus found odd considering it was summer. Wales wasn't that cold). Truthfully, Remus was looking forward to leaving, which he felt bad about, since he'd always loved his grandparents' house.

He loved his room, which overlooked the fields and offered a fantastic view of the night sky. Remus could see constellations of stars for miles, and his grandmother had taught him all the different names growing up. He loved the kitchen too, where his paintings were stuck up on the fridge and rocks he'd painted as a six year old were still lined up in a row on the windowsill, all faded now. And the dining room with the old oak table that Remus used to help lay when his grandparents ran the house as a B&B, before his grandfather had a hip replacement and decided to retire that particular business; he didn't want people staying in his house anymore when he wanted to relax instead and use the dining table for himself. Remus couldn't help but agree. He'd been there once or twice when other people were staying and he'd had to tiptoe around them, hiding away in the kitchen or the garden when he wanted to sit in the living room and play, or watch TV.

Remus was staring at the night sky now, and it looked the same as ever. His curtains were open, so he could see it from his bed. Naming the constellations was as good as counting sheep, and he fell asleep within minutes, the light from the new moon illuminating his bedsheets.

Saying goodbye to his grandparents a week later still didn't do much to improve his mood, however. Now that he was leaving, he was reluctant to go, regretting how he'd felt the whole time despite him not really having a choice in that matter. He already missed them, which couldn't be more typical, he thought.

The journey down to Blackpool was over three hours long in Hope's car, and Lyall was pissed off the whole time because he insisted they should have taken the floo network into Selene's flat instead, but Hope said that a road trip was all part of the fun, seeing the sites and stopping off in cafés along the way.

Remus didn't see anything fun about using the bathrooms in dirty petrol stations, but crossing the Severn Bridge was fun, even if he did have to swallow a slight fear of the bridge breaking and falling into the water— an irrational fear given his father was a wizard and could probably magic themselves out of the river if that were to happen.

Selene lived in Fleetwood, a town twenty minutes from Blackpool with a tiny magical community hidden away by charms from the surrounding muggle residents. She lived in a flat— which was still a generous label considering the kitchen was in the only bedroom, and the ground floor was a pub, owned by Selene herself— near the sea, so the air always tasted like salt and you couldn't hear yourself think from all the screeching of the seagulls overhead.

Remus and his parents couldn't stay in Selene's flat even if they wanted to, because there simply wasn't room. She wasn't very rich, despite her background as an auror. She had saved up enough money from her job in the ministry to set up a pub, and now she was semi-retired in order to spend more time running it. A one bedroom flat atop it was all she could afford. Her family weren't very approving of her life choices, especially since she was already in her thirties and apparently had no intention of marrying or starting a family. But she was happy, and Remus thought her lifestyle was unbelievably cool, whatever the rest of his family thought.

Unfortunately, Fleetwood itself wasn't very interesting. At least compared to Blackpool. Remus's parents tried to get him enthusiastic about the Fleetwood Mound, with an old pavilion on top of it, which was pretty, but it was also someone's house, so they couldn't go inside. According to Selene, the Mound was the most popular tourist destination. It was certainly no Blackpool Pleasure Beach that was for sure. Unfortunately, he soon found out that his parents were reluctant to go down to Blackpool at all because the attractions were too expensive for them, which Remus thought was a cheat considering they had promised Blackpool in the first place. It also brought up some rather unsavoury home truths about their financial situation: Blackpool was the holiday destination for those who couldn't afford a holiday abroad. If his parents couldn't even afford Blackpool, then they were in a worse situation than he thought, and as a result, he was stuck with Fleetwood, the knock-off version of its neighbouring city. How was he supposed to get interested in the pier, or the old railroad that was currently under construction because it was being turned into a dock? The town was nice, and it was surrounded by the sea, but Remus was bored. He wanted to go down to Blackpool and hopefully run into Peter.

Selene seemed to sense his boredom and vague despair, and swooped in to the rescue by convincing his parents to go out on a dinner date together at the local restaurant, which Remus couldn't help but laugh at considering she had no idea his parents weren't together anymore, and therefore couldn't have come up with a worse idea. Regardless, Selene's suggestion worked. Whether they went to a restaurant or not, Remus didn't know, but it got his parents out of the house, and Selene took him down into the pub during evening hours, which his parents had expressly forbidden.

It was quite busy, it being one of the only wizarding bars in the area. Remus sat on a stool behind the bar being taught how to mix drinks together, or at least, he was set the task of cleaning out the glasses, which wasn't so bad. He had full view of the entire pub as his entertainment for the night, and it was an interesting place to say the least.

He didn't know much about pubs, never really having been in one himself, except once with his grandfather, and that had been in the daytime, where he'd eaten crisps and ordered an orange juice. It was muggle too and much emptier; the only form of entertainment being a tinny radio blasting the racing scores, which only his grandfather cared about.

What he did know about pubs from the occasional adult book he'd picked up and read from his mother's bedside table, he expected a lot of drunken fights and men trying to flirt with the bartender, which in this case happened to be his aunt. As the night wore on, however, and Remus observed the growing number of customers, he didn't see anyone get into a fight, which in his opinion was a little disappointing. He did see people getting a bit drunk, and he heard the music being constantly changed by anyone who felt like waving their wand around, until the general sound of the pub became rather disorientating.

Selene encouraged him to make conversation with some of the customers, saying it was an important part of the job, as if Remus was genuinely training as a bartender (which didn't seem like a bad option at all, especially considering his limited career options anyway). By the end of the night, Remus had learnt a lot about the patrons.

There was Agnes Butterworth, a very old witch who came here at five pm every evening to listen to Madame Bletchley on Selene's personal record player that she kept behind the bar (the main music was enchanted to play all round the room, with no visible source, so patrons could change it however they pleased, with few exceptions). Agnes didn't have a record player at home, but she loved Madame Bletchley.

"Such a shame they don't play her on WWN anymore," she sighed. "It's all vampires and Americans and Celestina Warbeck nowadays." Remus shared the sentiment; he wasn't keen on Celestina Warbeck either. She was much too soppy and boring.

Selene placed an enchantment on the record player each day so that Agnes could hear it over the noise of the other music, but without disturbing anyone else. Remus sat near enough so he too was in the little bubble of Madame Bletchley. Her voice was nice, and he liked how music from the 40s sounded. It reminded him of the records his grandparents had of Glenn Miller and John McCormack.

Once Agnes had left an hour later, Remus moved onto a much younger witch named Rosie, who looked around his aunt's age. She was a black lady who wore a leather jacket over her robes, which must have been a little hot but Remus thought she looked really cool, especially with her painted nails and high heeled boots. She looked like she'd be some sort of rockstar and Remus decided she must have been a "punk"— his aunt had told him what the word meant, that it was a new style that had come from music, and punk people were all about anarchy and looking cool. Rosie looked like she fit the bill, although she was much friendlier than he imagined anarchists to be, but then again, Remus hadn't met any punks before, except for his aunt, and she was relatively tame— she wore cardigans instead of leather jackets, but she dyed her hair sometimes, and her nose was pierced.

Rosie turned out to be an artist, who painted both moving and non-moving pictures to sell to anyone who wanted them, wizards or muggles. Selene piped up then and pointed out a picture behind the bar that Remus had been admiring for a while; it was rather abstract, in that Remus couldn't make out a clear image of what had been painted. It looked a little like a person, but it was very pattern-y (the only word he could think to describe it). What he liked about it, though, was that the patterns moved and changed, morphing into pools of paint and colour. Perhaps it was punk, because according to Selene, Rosie had painted it.

"Did you buy it?" He asked his aunt. She shook her head.

"I gave it to her," continued Rosie, sipping her glass of Firewhiskey. Remus looked at it again.

"You must really like her," he decided. The painting was lovely, and he didn't know why anyone would just give it away for free. "Are you two friends?"

"You could say that," said Rosie. Remus didn't notice the shared smirk between her and his aunt, but he did notice how much they spent the evening in each other's company, talking and laughing. Remus suspected that Rosie was hardly buying her own drinks, but he didn't think much of it, and besides, he was bored now. Rosie was distracted by Selene, and no one else was sitting at the bar for him to talk to, so he jumped down from the stool he was sitting on and wandered around.

It was more interesting now, later at night, with more younger people milling around and having fun. Selene said the best time was after 10 pm, but unfortunately, Remus had to be in bed by then, if only to avoid bumping into his parents in case they returned early and saw their twelve year old son serving drinks to punks from behind a bar.

As the clock neared ten, the pub's atmosphere started to shift. Not in so much that it became rowdy or drunk, it just seemed to attract a different sort of people to those like Agnes. Young and hip and people who were more like Selene than anyone else he'd met so far. Remus had never come across people like this before, and he wanted to talk to all of them.

He found a friend of Rosie's, who had come up with her from London.

"How come you came so far?" he asked, sitting at her table where she was smoking something that looked like a cigarette, but the smoke seemed to suggest otherwise. It swirled around like it was dancing, and the strings of smoke were tinged with colours, reds and blues. It was odd. Selene only smoked muggle cigarettes, said she preferred the taste, so this was a new sight to him.

"Rosie wanted to visit Selene, and I'm going down to Blackpool with her and some other friends in the morning." She pointed to two other girls near the bar who were ordering drinks and joining in with Rosie and Selene's conversation. They weren't dressed as punk as Rosie, but their styles were still pretty unique. The lady Remus was talking to was called Rolanda, and she had amazingly long braids running all down her back. Her robes shimmered under the dim lights of the bar and her makeup was all glittery. Remus thought she looked like one of the constellations in the sky outside his grandparents' house, something he decided was complimentary enough to tell her. She smiled.

"You're sweet," she said, making Remus blush a little. She was very pretty. He asked her more questions, and he found out that she had been a Gryffindor head girl when she was at Hogwarts, and now she lived on her own with a roommate named Lydia and a cat named Alistair.

"Lydia's the girl with the green hair," she nodded back over towards the bar to a girl who hadn't been there last time Remus had looked, but now became the most intriguing one of all. The green hair was hard to miss, as were all the piercings and the sleeve of tattoos. If he thought Rosie was punk, it was nothing compared to Lydia.

"She's crazy," continued Rolanda. "She barely went to Hogwarts, bunked off all the time. When she was there she caused complete chaos. Drove the teachers mad."

"Why didn't they expel her?"

"Expelling a witch or wizard is a little taboo. Hardly ever happens because learning to control your magic is so crucial. In fact, the only expulsion I know about is Hagrid. He's only a little older than me, but I didn't quite attend Hogwarts yet to see it." This was certainly news to Remus. He didn't know Hagrid had been expelled, and if expulsion was supposedly rare, then he must have done something very bad indeed.

"Why was he expelled?"

"Oh, Merlin knows. There were lots of rumours flying about, all of them linking him to the death of that first year girl, Myrtle something. She haunts one of the girls' toilets now."

"He killed someone?!"

"Probably not, just kids being kids. If he had murdered anyone I doubt Dumbledore would have kept him on as groundskeeper."

"Yeah, I suppose..." Hagrid had seemed so nice every time Remus had interacted with him, so he really did hope that these rumours were just that: rumours. He quickly changed the subject.

"What do you do, then?" If Rosie was an artist, then perhaps all her friends had similarly interesting jobs.

"I'm a writer. Or at least, I'm trying to be."

"What do you write?"

"Fiction mostly, which is very hard to do as a witch considering half the world thinks my entire existence is fictional in the first place."

"So are you writing for wizards or muggles then?"

"Well see, I'm actually trying to do both. Because what could be more interesting than a story that's fictional for both muggles and wizards? It's bloody hard though."

"Can't be anything worse than the stuff Beatrix Bloxam writes." Remus had read some of her stories when he was really young, and he'd absolutely hated them. So did his father, who had the misfortune of reading them to him. He'd thrown the book out immediately and they'd settled on Beedle the Bard instead.

It was getting late, and it was only a matter of time before Selene forced him upstairs into bed. But she was still distracted over at the bar, and Remus wasn't about to remind her of the time, so he avoided the bar entirely and went off to the other side of the room, where the music was quietest, and where a young-looking man was sitting on his own reading The Daily Prophet. It was a weird time and place to be reading the paper, thought Remus, so he sat down next to him and asked what he was doing, and luckily for Remus than man turned out to be very nice indeed.

His name was Ezra Konisberg, and he was sitting on his own because he was waiting for his boyfriend. This news alone was enough to peak Remus's interest.

"You have a boyfriend?" Ezra nodded, and Remus struggled not to stare. He'd never met a homosexual before— which he assumed Ezra had to be if he had a boyfriend— he'd never even read about them in books, nor seen them on TV, except in a few sketch shows that made them out to be like women, so this was entirely new territory. He wasn't completely ignorant, he knew the insults used against them and he knew that a lot of them would probably be directed at himself for being trans, so he was certainly in no place to judge. Instead, he was interested.

"Yeah, his name's Silas. And if anyone asks, we're just roommates." He winked a knowing wink that Remus was apparently supposed to understand, but he wasn't sure he did. He guessed Ezra meant that if anyone asked who Silas was, and Ezra replied back with "boyfriend", then a lot of people wouldn't be too happy to hear that, and therefore "roommate" was a much safer option. Remus was curious as to why Ezra had trusted him with this information, therefore, so much so that he asked him outright.

"Well, you're in this pub aren't you? I assume you know what sort of place this is." Remus had no idea what he was talking about, but before he could ask, his aunt came over, finally having detached herself away from Rosie.

"Come on, young'un. It's ten o'clock. Bedtime." Remus looked at her despairingly.

"Mam and dad said they wouldn't back till eleven, why can't I stay another hour?"

"Absolutely not, you don't want to be around here after ten."

"Why not?"

"Oh, you know... everyone's drunk and stuff. No place for a child." Remus was fiddling around with the newspaper that had now been discarded on the wooden table, absentmindedly reading the headlines about muggle attacks in the east as he scowled down at it stubbornly. He wasn't tired yet, and he hadn't finished talking to people. He wanted to meet Ezra's boyfriend.

But Selene was insistent, and she led him up the creaky wooden stairs to the front door of her flat. Remus had been allowed to stay there tonight so his parents didn't have to wake him up at eleven to take him back to their motel. He certainly preferred his aunt's place to any seedy accommodation where he had to share a bed with his mother. Selene's place had posters of rock bands, some moving if they were bands from the Wizarding World, others still if they were muggle. She had a giant record collection to go with it that he decided he'd explore when she returned back to the bar instead of going to bed. He could make as much noise as he pleased since there was a silencing charm around her flat, so he wouldn't be disturbed by downstairs and vice versa. He'd play her Beatles records as loud as possible, and if she happened to catch him? Who cared. She was about as lenient as an adult guardian could get, as long as he was careful not to scratch any of her records.

In the end, Remus didn't listen to Selene's Beatles albums because she only had two and his mother had them at home anyway. Instead, he listened to Pink Floyd, the band Tobin had suggested. Selene had an album called Atom Heart Mother Suite and Remus liked the name so much that he put it on immediately. Within five minutes of it starting, he felt like he had to lay on the floor in order to listen to it properly. One of the songs was around twenty minutes long and it was like nothing he'd ever heard before. None of it was. By the time it had finished, around an hour later, Remus decided it was the greatest thing he'd ever heard.

He was definitely going to show it to Sirius as soon as he returned to Hogwarts.