All our times have come
Here but now they're gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain,
(We can be like they are)
Come on baby, (don't fear the reaper)
Baby take my hand, (don't fear the reaper)
We'll be able to fly, (don't fear the reaper)
Baby I'm your man.
Sunday 2nd July 1978
“Hurry up , Potter!” Remus hammered on the glass in the door of the phone box. “Other people need to make phonecalls y’know!”
James rather rudely turned his back, hunching his shoulders and speaking furtively into the receiver.
“Leave him be, Moony,” Sirius murmured, leaning heavily on the fence. He was wearing very dark sunglasses and looked paler than normal. “And stop all the banging, will you?!”
“Take another painkilling draught,” Remus tutted, “You’re just hungover, it’s your own fault for getting so smashed.”
“I was the life and soul, I’ll have you know.” Sirius retorted, folding his arms as Remus came to sit beside him.
The Potters had hosted the end of school party the night before, for all Hogwarts leavers and their friends. Yaz and Chris had come, even though they both had another year to go. A few members of the Order of the Phoenix were there too - no Dumbledore, but Ferox and Moody and Frank Longbottom and his pretty blonde girlfriend (now fiance, apparently). Moody had called Remus over to them a few times, only to be intercepted by Mrs Potter.
“It's his school leavers party, Alastor!” She hissed, after the fourth time. “Let him enjoy himself for five minutes before forming a flipping war council!”
She said this so sharply that they desisted - Remus was a bit shocked too. That was the closest he’d ever heard Mrs Potter come to swearing.
The rest of the party had felt just like the Gryffindor common room - while at the same time feeling nothing like the Gryffindor common room. Remus tried not to be so sad. He tried to imagine that one day he would find somewhere else that felt as much like home as Hogwarts had.
Lily, Mary and Marlene all had to leave at midnight - they’d promised their parents they’d spend the night at Lily’s. Apparently their families felt that after seven years of boarding school, enough was enough.
Which brought Remus back the the present, watching James through the phone box door, talking to his girlfriend. Who he had literally said goodbye to eight hours earlier.
“So unfair, him making us race down here - as if I could ever beat James ‘hangover free since ‘73’ Potter.” Remus grumbled. “ And it was unsportsmanlike. He knows I have a handicap.”
“I thought your hip was better since you got that stuff off Marls?” Sirius frowned, making his sunglasses slip down his nose.
“It is.” Remus replied. “I meant my smoking.”
There was a low rumble somewhere in the distance. Sirius sat up, suddenly, ripping off his glasses.
“Is that?!”
Remus sighed.
“Sounds like it, yeah…”
In a few moments, the neighbour’s motorbike came streaking through the village, growling all the way. Sirius gazed after it, starstruck. Once it was nothing but a shiny chrome dot in the distance, he leaned back, smiling to himself.
