Remus woke up the next morning with a hangover and an enormous sense of relief. He’d had to be drunk to do it, but it was done. No more jealousy, no more worrying, no more anxious questioning. The key now, he decided, was maintaining a distance, and building barriers.
By the time he had finished his shower on the morning after his seventeenth birthday, Remus had a plan of action. He would close the door on whatever his relationship with Sirius had been - it was fine to look upon Christmas as a fond memory, or to feel a little bit lonelier, a little less whole - but this was entirely necessary, both for his health and his sanity.
Sirius was not the whole world, as much as he might seem it sometimes.
Remus had demonstrated this almost immediately. Upon exiting the bathroom, he bumped into James - who looked as though he hadn’t touched a drop of liquor the night before, despite having had just as much as everyone else. That infuriating Potter good fortune apparently applied to hangovers, too.
“Morning, Moony!” He grinned, rosy cheeked in his quidditch robes. Today was not a practice day, but why should that stop James? He raised his broom, “Fancy a spin around the pitch?” This was an old joke - he always asked, and Remus always pulled a face.
Remus glanced at the two made beds, and the two with the curtains still closed, where (presumably) Peter and Sirius were still fast asleep.
“Yeah.” Remus said. “Go on, then.”
“Eh?!” James stopped in his tracks.
Remus nodded, casually,
“I’ll go with you. I ought to get better at flying, might be useful when we finish school. I’ve got your old broom somewhere, let me dig it out…”
Credit to James, after his initial surprise he was all for the idea, and even held his tongue when he saw the state of Remus’s dusty, neglected broomstick. He simply offered to polish it, then led Remus down to the quidditch pitch jabbering about simple, basic exercises to ‘get your confidence up’.
And it wasn’t awful. James was a very patient teacher, and Remus felt in safe hands - the bespectacled boy didn’t even laugh after the third time he fell off. Afterwards, Remus felt he even understood James a little better. It was a very wholesome feeling, walking back to breakfast, hungry and aching and full of energy. This first experiment had gone so well, in fact, that Remus decided he would say yes to anything his friends asked of him from now on. In this way, he would keep himself busy until Sirius went back to being whatever he’d been before.
At breakfast they were greeted by a row of red eyed, sickly-faced Gryffindors, all leaning sleepily on their elbows, Mary and Marlene sitting back to back, propping each other up.
“Christ,” Mary squinted at James and Remus, “You’ve not been exercising?! Bloody lunatics.”
“You went, Moony?!” Sirius looked up, wincing and rubbing his apparently sore neck.
Remus just gave him a small shrug, then looked away. Sirius didn’t try to talk to him again.
They were halfway through the meal - Remus as usual eating half his bodyweight in fried bread, eggs, baked beans and bacon; everyone else picking at their own plate with faintly nauseous expressions or else nursing a large mug of black coffee - when Lily straightened up, eyes wide suddenly, as if electrified.
“Oh shit!” she said, then kicked James under the table, “Potter!” She hissed, “We never gave Remus his present!”
James smirked at her, and Remus raised an eyebrow,
“You and James got me a present? Together?”
“We all did,” James laughed, “And there’s no need to beat me up, Evans, I’ve got it right here,” he withdrew a brown leather box from his robes. It was about the size of his hand, smooth and expensive looking, with a gold embossed border. It looked like the sort of thing girls kept their pricier jewellery in.
