Monday 1st September 1975
Hey, hey mama said the way you move -
Gon' make you sweat, gon' make you groove.
Ah ah child way ya shake that thing -
Gon' make you burn, gon' make you sting.
Hey, hey baby when you walk that way -
Watch your honey drip, I can't keep away…
Remus shifted uncomfortably as he waited for a quiet moment to run at the ticket barrier. He was glad Matron hadn’t come with him this year. Glad to have had the time alone to prepare himself. Grant had wanted to come, but Matron said no, and wouldn’t give him the fare anyway.
They’d managed a quick goodbye locked inside a bathroom at St. Edmund’s – one of their many hiding places. Neither of them had said any of the things they’d wanted to say – actually, they’d hardly spoken at all – but with minutes left, Remus promised he’d try to write.
“I’m crap at writing,” Grant complained, “Can’t you give me the phone number?”
“Er… it’s a really old fashioned school. We don’t get to use the phone much.” Remus blagged. He thought there might be a phone box in Hogsmeade, or maybe the next village over, which was non-magical. He could try.
Now, as he took aim at the grey ticket barrier and started forward, he had that usual sensation of leaving the muggle world – and everyone in it – behind for another year. Grant did not exist on this side of the platform. Grant had never happened, and Remus was the same old Remus.
Nothing has changed, he told himself. Nothing is different. Matron hadn’t insisted he cut his hair this time, so he wasn’t beginning the term looking like an oik. He was taller, again – he wondered if he’d ever stop growing sometimes – but other than these silly, superficial things, everything was as it had been. As it should be.
No one would notice, because there was nothing to notice, Remus told himself, firmly. Nothing at all. He rubbed the back of his head, absent-mindedly, then – remembering Grant’s fingers having been there only hours before, wiped his lips self-consciously. Shit.
“All right you tosser?!” James slapped him on the back out of nowhere.
“James, really!” Mrs Potter chastised her son, standing beside him. She beamed up at Remus, “Just look at you! You’ve grown inches!” She pulled him into a hug, “Still far too skinny for my liking!” She began to straighten his clothes, peppering him with questions – did he have something to eat for the journey? Had he come alone? Did he want help getting his things aboard?
By the end of this motherly assault, Remus was grinning from ear to ear, relaxed in the knowledge that everything was, indeed, fine. Nothing was different at all. He cheerfully boarded the train with James and Peter, chattering about their summers and their excitement for the year ahead. James had a silver pin on his chest, emblazoned with a large ‘C’ (Remus could smell it the second James came close, an irritating sting in his nostrils) he had got his dearest wish and was now quidditch captain.
They sat in their usual compartment and Remus pulled his book from his bag, settling in with a satisfied sigh.
Then Sirius walked in, and Remus’s stomach dropped through the floor.
He was almost the same as ever – height-wise he had nearly caught up with James now, and he was broader about the chest. His jaw had squared, and perhaps his nose had lengthened – but he had the same glossy black hair, the same arresting eyes and high cheekbones.
He was still Sirius, but he was somehow… other. As if Remus was seeing him through new eyes. The heat of desire flared up in his chest out of nowhere, settling in his cheeks as a heavy blush. He looked away, quickly, before anyone noticed.
