black coffee | remus lupin [2]

2. stuck in time

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MARLENE MCKINNON WAS met by a smiling Inez Harper as she entered the living room of Potter manor. At first she didn't understand why, but soon enough her ears perked up and she knew just why her girlfriend was smiling like a fool and was already up on her heels so that she could dance.

"Come on, Marls!" Inez exclaimed. "Dance! It's Stevie Wonder!"

"You don't have to tell me twice!" Marlene answered as she sat the plate of freshly cut strawberries down on the table, and then joined in on Inez's dancing as James Potter turned the volume of the radio up and got to his feet, dragging his wife Lily along with him.

"Brother said he's tellin' 'bout you playin' doctor with that girl!" They all sang together, dancing around like fools. But that was something they needed, for it was a moment of joy, and they had all grown to find the little things in life more important than ever before.

On the armchair right by the dancing group of people sat Peter Pettigrew. He smiled a faint little smile as he watched his friends twirl and spin around just like they always had done together when they were younger, and then his attention was caught by the person was sitting on the couch with a book in his hands as their dancing friends tried to get him to join them.

"Come on, Remus!" Inez smiled. "Dance with us!"

"I'm fine here thanks," Remus replied with a big and weirdly shy smile as he shook his head repeatedly.

"Oh, come on!" James insisted.

Remus was pondering standing up and joining them, because maybe that could make that miserable day a little more bearable. It was, after all, a day he most certainly wished never would've come.

Far away, yet not as far as one would think, Claudia Maple-Black was thinking about the exact same thing as Remus was, you see.

It had been a year since they had last seen each other; something they never would've thought in their wildest of dreams just about two years prior.

But that was the way it was. Remus found himself wondering wether Claudia had any freckles on her nose during the summer or not as he imagined or wether she had those golden specks in her eyes he seemed to see every time he thought about her face. He was, in ways, being caught up to time - and he wished that he wasn't so badly.

It was a strange thing, really, that Claudia had left such a long time ago and he still felt as if it was yesterday. In ways he knew it wasn't, of course, since he was doing better than he was the day after and since his life had changed in certain ways.

Yet, he felt stuck in time. He felt as if he was right there, asking her to marry him and hating that he was met by her silence and the sight of a packed trunk.

But, feeling stuck in time somehow also made it feel as if time was going by quickly. He was older - now 19 - and he had moved to stay with James and Lily, which was a result of every person he knew insisting that he would.