Saturday 15th September 1972
“Pack your cloak, James.”
“Why?”
“You never know, do you?”
“Fine, but I doubt we’ll want it.”
“Don’t forget you owe me a galleon on that bet we had.”
“I haven’t,” James returned, patiently, “Just relax for a minute, will you?”
“Never.” Sirius grinned back, “You do realise that this is the most excitement I’ve had in months? I wasn’t even allowed to go to Diagon Alley this summer.”
“You had more going on than I did,” James replied, resentfully, “You at least had all that betrothal drama. My family’s so boring.”
“Shut up, Potter, your family’s amazing and you know it. I definitely had the worst summer.”
“I had a great time in France.” Peter piped up, but no one paid him much attention.
“What about you, Moony?” James asked, as they wended their way down the stairs into the common room. A gang of excited third years was waiting, ready for their first trip to the village. They were watched over with a fond sort of nostalgia by the older students.
“What about me?” Remus asked, pushing away flashbacks to the summer, the memory of wriggling through a tiny bathroom window and landing hard on his knees on the tile below.
“How was your summer? You haven’t told us anything.”
“Nothing to tell.” Remus said. “More boring than both of yours – no magic. I just read.”
“Well you’re all coming to mine for Christmas.” James said, cheerfully. They began to file out of the common room and head towards the front entrance. “Same as last year, yeah? Moon’s on the tenth of December, so we don’t even have to worry about that.”
Remus gaped,
“How do you know when it is?” He hadn’t even looked that far ahead yet.
“Told you, we were bored other the summer,” Sirius elbowed him, “We looked it up, for the next few years.”
“But… why?!” Remus was torn between feeling very touched, and somewhat violated. It wasn’t for them to worry about. It was his own private problem, and always had been.
“It’s like quidditch.” James said – whenever anything was important to him he compared it to quidditch -- “You’ve got to know your team’s weaknesses in order to work to their strengths.”
“If you say so.” Remus replied, glumly, not wanting to talk about it much more. He had hoped that once they knew about his condition there would be no more researching it behind his back. That they could all just get on with things in the way he preferred – which was to ignore the problem completely.
The trouble was, nothing was private when it came to James and Sirius – your whole life was up for grabs. Remus still wasn’t used to this – as hard as he tried to keep up, there were just some things he would never want to share. It was all very well if you were James, and had open parents who talked to you and listened to you in return. Or Sirius, who was so outgoing and almost entirely shameless.
“Look who it is,” Sirius nudged James, pointing at a dark figure waiting in the archway entrance. Lily pushed past the marauders and went to meet him. Snape.
“Why are they even friends?!” James ran his hands through his hair distractedly.
“They grew up in the same town,” Remus said, as they carried on, watching the couple ahead, talking animatedly; one red head, one black.
