the cadence of part time poets

Chapter 96: The Great Last Day

Two of us wearing raincoats,
Standing solo in the sun;
You and me chasing paper,
Getting nowhere on our way back home;
We're on our way home,
We're on our way home,
We're going home...

- "Two of Us" The Beatles, 1970

He was far too drunk. How could he not be? It was the eve of their last day at school ever.

Ever.

The thought hit him like a train. Once he would've killed to say as much; back when he was younger, angrier. Back when all he wanted was to live in The End with Tomny and be anyone else. It'd been easier then, in some ways. Less rules, less people to disappoint. Less friends to hold him when he was feeling ill. And he had been ill, for a long time. Wouldn't find out how ill for a long time yet, but still... they made things easier.

After they'd buried the time capsule and christened the earth with their empty bottles, all eight of them set themselves to Sirius' plot of insanity. It took nearly all night, but when they were finished Remus and the boys shambled back to their dorm with their hearts thrumming in anticipation. It was an unspoken truth that they'd be alone; that the girls would depart on their own for a few precious hours longer in the room they'd grown up in. There'd be plenty of opportunities to fall together in a drunken pile later on, for now everyone had their own memories to say farwell to.

"Goodbye bed," James blubbered, pressing his face into the maroon curtains. "Goodbye side table, goodbye lamp. Goodbye mysterious piece of gum that's shaped like Winston Churchill."

"Go on, Pot," Sirius said, swaying dubiously as he helped his friend into bed. "There'll be other beds."

"Not like these," James whimpered, still clinging to the curtains.

"Here, then."

Sirius peeled the stale wad of gum from the bedpost and handed it to James. At first the expression on his face had read as horror—the gum had been an unspoken companion for as long as they'd lived in the room—but then James simply started crying again.

"Sirius, you're so nice!" He wailed, as Sirius nodded mechanically and brought the covers up over him. "I love you, man. Really!"

"Yeah, yeah. You too, mate."

"Sirius, will you tuck me in too?" Peter moaned, legs half hanging off of his own bed.

"Bloody christ... Do I have to do everything around here?"

As Sirius wobbled drunkenly toward Peter's bed, Remus sat crouched beneath his own. He had his mother's case open again, and was gently moving the last of his belongings from his bedside into it for safe-keeping. He hadn't meant to leave things to the last moment, but life had just been so busy lately. As he packed away the tapes boxes and the cigarette boxes—some of them empty—he eventually came across the final photo in his collection, still rumpled and creased from the days it'd spent living in his pocket, and all the lives it'd lived before that.

Finished with Peter, Sirius turned around and gently nudged Remus' thigh with his foot.

"What about you? Need tucking in?"

"I'm okay."

Sirius crossed his arms. "Well? Aren't you gonna ask me if I need tucking in?"

Remus shook his head, regretting it only when the room began to spin. "Be there in a tick."

Sirius retreated genially, and Remus turned back to the tiny white trunk and the photograph in his hand. April 23rd 1954, it read. They smiled at him, the same way they had the first time he'd ever held it. It'd almost burned him back then. It didn't anymore. Yes, the ache was still there, but like most hurts, it'd grown dull over time. Perhaps eventually it wouldn't bother him at all.