Flashback Friday: This Little Oyster
Jul. 10th, 2020 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
paulamcgIt's high time to post fic again! This one's not terribly old. (Among several others) Posted on AO3 but not on DW in January. Written last July, when I didn't know about HP Drizzle, and now that I'm writing “a fic with weather” for that fest, I felt like rereading this summery road-trip (and angsty first-war and homophobia) story – and polished it a bit by deleting some of the colons I've been addicted to.
Title: This Little Oyster
Author:paulamcg
Pairing: Sirius/Remus (and Lily/James)
Characters: Sirius, Remus, Lily, James, Peter, Albus Dumbledore, Amelia Bones
Word Count: 11000
Rating: R/Mature
Disclaimer: Sirius and his friends won’t help me make any money.
Notes: In all my fanfiction I follow only the canon of Rowling’s first five novels, and my Sirius was born in November 1957 and Remus in March 1958.
Summary: In late July 1979 there are reasons to get to an island without name.
Read here on AO3
or right here.
This Little Oyster
Life’s good. Finally I’m getting the chance to risk it! It would’ve felt more fitting to arrive on my motorbike. Pity there’s no parking on Charing Cross Road, so that the quickest way to the Leaky Cauldron is by floo.
Tom, behind the bar, shakes his head, when I greet him. I frown, but he’s probably just wanted to show his reproach of my Muggle attire – t-shirt and jeans – as he now tilts his head towards the narrow passage. “To the private parlor, young man!”
My Moony! He’s the first person I see as I open the door, and now it’s hard to see anyone else. He’s looking good, too. And even better than usual: healthy, tanned! My arm’s reaching towards him, and his face is lit up by an endearing wide smile, an invitation to…
But I never forget to glance around. And here’s who’s sent the invitations with phoenix feathers. Dumbledore gazes at me over his half-moon spectacles with an irritating, all-knowing smirk, glances at Remus, and turns his eyes back, nodding perhaps rather to himself than to me. The scheming bastard! As if he could understand anything! He’s got no right… to take over Remus’s life, claiming to help him. Still, he’s aware of nothing, can’t imagine anything beyond all the girls pining for me. And beyond all four of us, Lily included, knowing Remus’s secret since the Willow Incident – and insisting, so far in vain, that he be secured a wizard status. Now, why wouldn’t I be happy to see he’s here: being included when…
“At last we get to do our share in the war!” I say to Dumbledore, flailing my arm in the same way to the others in the parlor: Dorcas and Caradoc, Frank and Alice, and – next to Remus – Amelia, all sitting in a semicircle on straight-backed chairs, all wearing robes, looking like decent witches and wizards.
Dumbledore’s in the process of conjuring more chairs. “Patience, my young friend. We’ll get to that. Just a couple of other… Here they are! Welcome!”
James and Lily, hand in hand and in Muggle clothes, are stepping in behind me, almost pushing me forward. After quick grins to them I stride on and, both out of spite and as my bluffing strategy, I choose, out of the three new chairs, the one right next to Remus. It’s safe: I’m used to keeping my paws off him in public, and I can trust him, too. Instead, James beside me is kissing Lily full on the mouth. Is this the time and place…?
Tom’s limping through the door, carrying a large tray.
“Thank you, Tom. I’ll take it from here.” Dumbledore uses his wand simultaneously for the levitation of the tray and for the sealing of the door. “Now let me welcome you all, and offer you some traditional lemonade, made with fresh lemon juice, mind. Miss Meadowes…”
As he sends a glass of lemonade to each person in turn, I keep my eyes on James, frowning. I don’t usually care for watching him kissing Lily, but now I must refrain from looking at Remus. There’s indignation rising in me – the higher, the more I distinguish traces of envy in it. And we should all focus on the war now.
“Mr Black,” I’ve heard but not reacted to, and a glass taps me on the temple. I’ve barely managed to grip it, when…
“And finally, Miss Evans and Mr Potter, our newly-engaged couple! Congratulations!”
James lifts the hand still clasping Lily’s. Indeed, there is a wide gold band with a single red stone – a ruby it must be. And it’s in his finger, not Lily’s.
“She did it: proposed to me, just as she’d promised. I didn’t mean to make a show of it at the meeting. But she did it on our way here, and how could I have said no!”
“Yes, you can all lay the blame on me.” Lily laughs. “For tweaking the tradition, too. I’d already asked James’s mother for her consent. Though she’s not here to announce the engagement, I’m glad we can make it public like this. But I don’t want to take more of our time, so let me make this speech brief: one sentence. When I got the invitation, I knew the time had come – to stick together!”
I’m still raising my glass when Remus collides with me, rushing to hug James, then Lily.
I hug him, too – James, I mean. Careful now not to make mistakes! “A great day! Gryffindor colours, too, in your ring!” There’s no trace of envy left, just excitement, and pure joy for him – my brother.
“We’ll celebrate later.” He pushes me to sit back down, so that I barely reach to shake Lily’s hand.
“Thank you, Miss Evans, for the appropriate introduction to our meeting. There will be more of us sticking together, but I suppose this can be called the founding of the Order of the Phoenix. I’m inviting one small group at a time to gather, and starting with you, the youngest I’ve chosen. Oh, Mr Pettigrew hasn’t arrived… Yes, Mr Lupin?”
“He’s owled me saying that his grandaunt is unwell.”
There’s a poorly suppressed giggle, Alice’s, probably.
“Thank you. He can contact me when he wants to devote some time to our cause. Which is to oppose Tom Riddle and his allies, particularly his Death Eaters. I obviously can’t resist bragging that forming another elite group was my brilliant idea – and that the Ministry has agreed, and accepted me as the leader of this Order. Some of you – the Aurors, and the Auror trainees, that is Mr and Mrs Longbottom – will have double roles as fighters. Some others have different obligations to the Ministry, or Gringotts. But your first loyalty will be to me. When you sign for membership, you agree not to question my decisions concerning the war effort or any member. You must be prepared to be sent on mission without warning, and with or without your spouse or closest friends.”
I’m afraid I’m frowning, showing that I’m already questioning what he’s saying. This summer I’ve become a qualified Auror and got a permanent position at the Auror Office, and now that Death Eaters have started attacking openly, the Ministry will certainly put my skills to use. If there’s a more secret Order organising missions, I don’t want to be left outside. But despite his fame for defeating Grindelwald, I wish the leader were someone else. And what’s this now about decisions concerning members?
“Yes, Miss Bones?”
“May I ask for clarification… You certainly mean we mustn’t question your decisions concerning a member – when it concerns the member’s role in the Order.”
“Thank you, Miss Bones. I’d gladly have you as the legal advisor in the Order.” Dumbledore not only lets his eyes twinkle merrily, but actually winks. “Sadly, the Minister has just expressed the wish that I don’t recruit you.”
“Still…” Amelia looks baffled and disappointed. “You didn’t cancel the invitation, and welcomed me.”
“You will follow your superiors’ commands. And I assume they will be for you to act as a liaison officer between the Law Enforcement Department and the Order.”
“All right. And my first loyalty will be to the Minister of Magic.”
Without replying to her, Dumbledore waves his wand, Vanishing the glasses from our hands. “The rest of you can sign each your own commitment to serve the Order in defence, and when necessary in attacks against the enemy.”
Starting again with Dorcas, he conjures a roll of parchment, which falls open in the air before her face, with a quill next to her hand. “There are slight differences in wording between the commitments of those who are Aurors and those who are not…”
When the fifth roll has opened in front of Remus, and I’m already reaching for the quill appearing near me, eager to sign without bothering to read, Dumbledore adds, “Besides, I will be requiring different services – related to intelligence, I mean espionage – from one of you, due to his… strengths in language.” He’s staring at Remus with a small smile.
Remus glances at him, then continues to read, frowning. I exchange looks with James and Lily. I’ve taken it for granted that we’ll sign, and while something now starts bothering me, I don’t know how to word it.
“Excuse me!” Amelia’s found something to say again, and when Dumbledore ignores her, she goes on, “I assume you, Headmaster Dumbledore, on behalf of the Order, don’t commit yourself to anything as… compensation? Recompense, reward?”
“You are quite right. The services for the Order are, in this sense, of course, voluntary.”
Now Amelia turns her face towards me, seeking eye contact with Remus. But Remus stares at his parchment, bites his lip, and signs. I nod to James and Lily, who have both been watching Remus as well. And we all sign.
Dumbledore Summons the parchments. “Excellent. As you’ve read in your commitments, you are required to reside in London as from the beginning of August. After that you have to ask the Order for permission whenever you plan to leave London for more than forty-eight hours. I will summon you when the Order needs you. Toodle-oo!”
“Excuse me, Headmaster Dumbledore!” This time it’s Remus. “If you can spare a moment more, with these fellow members – and the liaison officer – present, I’d like to discuss something that concerns me – not directly my role in the Order.”
“Whatever can that be?”
“We could call it another one among those most brilliant ideas.”
To my surprise Dumbledore talks in a relaxed manner, not like when Amelia interrupted her. “And which one is this?” He sounds actually amused.
Remus draws a deep breath. “The idea that you recommend that I get the right to study Magic of Images at Merlin college, starting on the summer course.”
“I see.”
I doubt it. He seems to be as astonished as I am. Remus waits for a further response.
Dumbledore’s voice is soft, and he’s looking at Remus closely. “I understand this is not even supposed to concern your services for the order. But if you want to apply for a scholarship covering August… and September? Does the term for Dark Creature studies start only in October? In any case, I would rather… or let’s say that one of my ideas would be that you study more Latin and French – the knowledge of which, together with your Outstanding NEWT in Ancient Runes – has served to distinguish you in the appointment of members to different duties.”
“I have already applied for those language courses, and was denied the scholarship for the courses I’ll have in September, and wasn’t accepted for the August courses at all.” Remus smiles. “Instead, presented as a brilliant idea of yours, studies – of a particular experimental nature – in the art form considered a noble, purely human achievement will be found… interesting among some scholars who are influential – on matters of grants, too.”
Now this is getting complicated. I can hardly follow, but I’m proud of and fascinated by my Moony: reminded of his unexpected debates with Binns in History of Magic.
“In case you yourself, too, find it interesting…” Now Dumbledore’s gaze scans the whole semicircle, and I wonder if it stays a bit longer on Amelia or me. “Not even your closest friend among these members and non-member will have any reason to question my decision to act upon this idea. I trust all parties will be satisfied while also your role in the voluntary work for the Order will be secured.”
“Thank you, Headmaster. And thanks, everyone, for your support.” Remus springs to his feet and reaches to clap James on the shoulder, hitting my knee with his in the process. “Now let’s go and celebrate!”
“What was all that about?” I ask as soon as we’re stumbling out of my fireplace. “Your talk about Dumbledore’s idea…”
“My idea. A chance for me to get to study art. Painting! True, moving art! Real portraits! Now, let’s not talk about him. Congratulate me!” Moony’s beaming tanned face, framed by his golden, sun-lightened locks is finally close enough.
I lift my palm behind his neck at the same time as he lifts his behind mine. He even tastes healthy: warm and fresh, of the herbs they grow on the Cotswolds estate – sage, lemon balm, peppermint… I want my tongue deeper, and his wrestles with it. My other hand pushes his hips against mine, and we’re all entangled, my shoulders leaning on the mantelpiece, when I hear James and Lily arrive and struggle to pass us.
“All right,” James says. “My fiancée and I are going to my room. See you after a while and a shag or two!”
“Your bed?” Remus says into my mouth.
“Right here, right now!” The carpet will do, just bare floor would. “You can come on top.”
He’s pushed himself just a bit apart, and now he’s stroking my chest through the t-shirt, now under it. Letting him pull it over my head, I go down on my knees and reach under the light, soft fabric of his summer robes. He’s wearing nothing underneath, not even pants. Just his beautiful hard-on: his cock’s hot, pulsing. I’m all randy, too, and the dog in me, perhaps, can’t resist panting with tongue out, reaching to lick him. But now I need to get myself out of these tight jeans.
His hands are on my belt together with mine, and now one of them pushes me to lie on my back. He opens my fly, and I lift my hips for him to hitch the jeans down. After pulling them all off, he remains standing straight, just steps slowly forward to stay astride with his ankles touching my thighs.
Desperate to reach to touch him, at least to move the hem of his robes aside, I start pushing myself up.
But he stops me. “Pads, stay down!” With a teasing smile he lets his gaze wander over me. “I’ll make one of you.”
“Make what of me?” I barely manage to say.
He has some mercy on me: gathers his robes up to his waist and comes down on me. “A real portrait,” he says just before covering my mouth with his, my cock with his.
When the door to James’s room opens, I’m sitting on the floor, between my Moony’s legs, as he’s slouching in the black leather armchair. Luckily I’ve taken the trouble to Summon shorts for both of us. It’s too hot in the living room for wearing anything more. He, typically, insists on covering his chest and shoulder – the first scars – and has picked up my t-shirt from the floor, and I feel ridiculously happy looking at him wearing it.
James looks like he’s ridiculously happy, too: he and Lily appear in the doorway wrapped in dressing gowns and each other. Grinning, he leads her by the hand to the couch, where he settles to lie down with his head on her lap. “A great day, yes!” He sighs. “Crowned by great shags, right?”
“Consummated by perfect shags,” I manage to express my agreement.
I can still remember the first time I kissed Remus in our friends’ presence: that was only last solstice, and I was far from sober. Now I’ve drunk just lemonade, and yet, I succeed in trusting that my shags are considered equally acceptable as my brother’s – in this company. And out in the Muggle world no longer completely illegal, since Moony and I are now both twenty-one.
“Maybe we should also go out to party,” Lily suggests.
“Yes. We’ve hardly started.” I reach for my wand, which, too, I’ve left carelessly on the carpet. “Let’s kick off with some beer.”
When I’ve Summoned a bottle for each of us, Remus seems to be jerked awake by his. “Congratulations again, dear Beauty and Prongs! Sorry, I must have been dozing off a moment ago.”
“So sated…” I tap his knee. “Have you realised that our Moony, too, has a reason of his own to celebrate?”
“Yes.” James laughs. “You’re finally not ashamed that you snog and shag him.”
“Also he’s been cunning enough to get what he wants from Dumbledore,” Lily says slowly, ruffling James’s hair, then looking up at Remus. “Am I right?”
“I’ve got some luck. Without this meeting I’d hardly even have got an audience with him. And Amelia was witty – as witty as he was, and perhaps that’s why he decided – just now, I think – to keep her out, after all. I still wonder why he wants me in, maybe the better to control me. But I must be grateful. Despite the new problems that the voluntary nature of this service will cause.”
As he stops to take a long swig from his bottle, having not got to the point at all, I’m about to talk, but Lily beats me. “He informed us all on your different duties – so that there won’t be any gossiping and questioning. But why…?”
“Of course, it’s got nothing to do with language skills,” Remus now hurries to answer. “Just the fact that the beastiology experiment would suffer if their guinea-pig killed anyone in battle and lost the rest of its humanity in one go. It wasn’t the difference in our commitments that made me hesitate. And after Amelia’s second question, I realised how the new problem could be turned into a possibility. If he wants me in London as from the beginning of August, he must help me broaden my right for studies. And I think I made him understand that the best option really is Magic of Images.” Now he can’t control his grinning.
I’m happy to show I know what this means. “Our artist will finally get to learn more about real, moving art!”
“Way to go, Moony!” James raises his bottle.
“I’m so happy for you,” Lily says. “You’re taking the chance – no matter if he didn’t first mean to give you any!”
“Thanks. I hope I’ll get the grant, too, and get to rent a room for August.”
“It’s great you’ll now come back to stay in London earlier than…” But suddenly I remember what I was stupid enough not to read but only heard the bastard say. “Who does he think he is, to forbid us to leave London!”
“The leader of the Order, the Chief Warlock, the Supreme Mugwump…” James says.
“The Supreme Bastard!” I can’t forgive him for what I – and Remus himself, too – learnt only when leaving Hogwarts: that Remus had been allowed to come to school only so as to serve as an object of a long-term research project.
“But staying in London is what you like…” He’s too reconciled now. “What we all like: I like it, too, when I just get…”
“Not when he forces us,” I spit out. “All August in the city! It’s too hot for any dog. And the Auror Office has promised us three or four days off after periods of work without weekly rest.”
James frowns, then speaks too cheerfully. “At least we’ve got the right to go for forty-eight hours, and luckily that’s long enough for our furry times in Yorkshire.”
“Perhaps he made that rule because of Remus,” Lily adds and turns to him, “although he must think you just go to the Cotswolds to be locked up for the full moon and to recover in your parents’ care.”
“But just because he gives us two days and nights, I want more. I want a holiday!” I must sound like a defiant toddler. But this is not only a selfish howl for freedom. I look around at the three of them, last at Remus, turning to get up on my knees and to grip his arms. “I want to take you… somewhere else, and not only for the full moon, which you can never remember.”
James has jumped up and rushed to our record player. A bit embarrassed after my outburst, I’m glad that the three of us now focus on watching him take a record out of its sleeve, the one picturing a dressed-up couple on a car seat, him pulling on chewing gum attached to her bap. Lily’s given this record to James: such hard rock he likes, with simple lyrics, by a German band, but all in English and nothing exotic.
The music starts slow, like a ballad. “Let me take you far away/ You’d like a holiday…” The song fills the room.
We all listen, wistful. James is not making fun of me. He’s telling me: he wants to take me, as Lily’s wanted to take him, and as I want to take Remus.
Lily starts it: begins to sing along, first softly. Remus joins in, easily learning the repetitive lyrics. I’m still kneeling, facing him, and I love watching him; I love his singing. But now… Exchange your troubles for some love! Those words he didn’t catch in time: so fitting, they were sung to him, and I just wish it could have been by me; I wish I had the voice to sing like that.
Now it changes, turns into heavier rock, and this I, too, know how to sing.“Here we come… Away from home…” Somehow, anyway.
By the time it ends, I’m clinging to Remus’s arms, shaking him. “That’s what we’ll do: we’re going now! No matter if it’s far or not, just away!”
So far we’ve come only to Hampstead: now, on our trudge from Belsize Park underground station, almost to the corner of Fleet Road, where there will be some shade.
“I’m hot,” I say, sighing.
And Remus smirks. “I agree.”
I punch him on the side – more gently than it looks, I hope – but it doesn’t help: I feel like holding his hand, as sweaty as mine, I’m sure. In my scanty Muggle clothes he’s irresistible. But I mustn’t… Anyone who’d see would think I am…
Turning to walk backwards for a moment, I try to catch Lily’s attention. She and James have fallen behind – because they are holding hands and going beyond that, too.
All three of them insisted we must include Wormtail, but she’s the one who wrote the note to him. And since James’s owl soon brought back Peter’s request to meet him at the Stag, not to Apparate to the wizard side of Hampstead Heath, I don’t care if it’s because his grandaunt doesn’t want her neighbours to see our lot. I’ve at least got to travel on the tube with Remus at my side. I know it always makes him, too, think of his first time. Today again, without exchanging more than a glance, we started back up the escalator at Holborn, just like back then, that Christmas – can it really be over three years since – when on the way to see Jaws in Harringay, he found this first part of the entertainment so exciting that I offered him a second round.
“Let Wormtail wait,” I said to Remus now, when, too, the afternoon rush hour should have been easier due to holidays, but was made worse by tourists – yes, everyone on holiday – and Lily and James shook their heads at our antics. And it was almost too exciting for me to be pressed against him in the crowd, this time our bare skins touching.
Let Peter wait. In turn, I don’t hurry those lovebirds. I walk backwards in front of Remus, just staring at him intently until he must laugh. We walk ever more slowly and let the others start catching up with us when we’ve reached the shade.
“How much did you tell him in the letter?” I finally get to ask Lily.
“I described all the reasons for celebration: the Order, the art studies, the engagement. And the idea of a holiday.”
Described: just as I trusted, typical of her, she’s gone to such detail that we can proceed to plan forward.
There he is, standing by the black wall of the pub – which they all sometimes call the The Less Ancient House of Black, although it happens to be named according to Prongs. A fitting hangout for the Marauders in any case.
“How’s your grandaunt?” Remus asks immediately.
“Not better. But she’s at St Mungo’s.” Peter’s wearing a button-up shirt with his jeans, two buttons unbuttoned and the sleeves folded up above elbows, and his face is ruddy perhaps due to the heat, to sunburn, and to embarrassment.
“So now you can ask for audience with Dumbledore,” I say, “and he’ll let you sign a commitment to duties he finds suitable for you.”
James claps him on the back and saves him from responding. “Not now before… Wednesday; I think that’s the first day of August. Until then we’re celebrating!”
“Yeah…” Peter thrusts out his hand to shake James’s, “congratulations!” He reaches for Lily’s hand, then Remus’s. “To you, too. I’ve always said you should just be an artist, and if you want studies for it…”
“You can congratulate me as well,” I cut in, dislodging his hand from Remus’s, and covertly brushing the golden-brown skin of the latter, “on the double role of a soldier for the Ministry and for the Order.”
“Now no more about those roles here!” Lily pretends to scold me, but she laughs a little. “It’s supposed to be a secret group. Let’s go in. And in there, too: now only party business!”
“Yes, drinks!” James exclaims. “And today it’s all my treat. No objections allowed! My girl’s proposed to me!” He flings the pub door open and marches straight to the bar, making a fist of his left hand, and kisses the ruby on his ring before speaking to the barman in a low voice, which even cracks with emotion. “I’m engaged! I’m buying a round for the whole pub, but don’t tell them it’s me.”
It strikes me that we haven’t given proper enthusiastic attention to what he values as the greatest blessing in life. Can he possibly – perhaps unconsciously – fear that hearty congratulations from our fellow patrons would make it more painfully obvious how we have let other issues overshadow his engagement? Now we really have to concentrate first only on this at least for a while.
Now James has his arm around Lily, and the barman is shaking their hands and beaming to them. Those drinking at the bar notice, of course, and are already starting to raise their pints and bottles to them.
I help James carry our pints to a corner table by a high window, which has been opened to a blissful breeze. Yes, if life felt good this morning, now my mind should be brimming with bliss. But I feel confused – as if I weren’t used to change, and fond of change!
Peter helps me focus. “So did Lily go down on one knee?”
“Listen…” James takes a swig from his pint before launching into narration. “She came to Pads and my place early and asked me to change to Muggle clothes. She wants me to walk with her all the way to Charing Cross Road, she says. And there she goes, holding me close…” Here he grins. “Walks me south from Lincoln’s Inn Field – a detour, she says, because she’s got things to talk about.” He lowers his voice, leaning over the table. “She talks about the war, whispering, of course. How it’s now changing everything…” Kissing Lily’s hand, he turns to look at her, and I realise he’s been squeezing it all the time – whereas Remus has pressed his leg against mine.
And she’s kept smiling. But now she bites her lip, and whispers, “We don’t know everything. Those who know more have decided to get us involved. They let us now hear about attacks and disappearances. We’re told that no one’s safe. And it’s no longer enough to get trained, or seek troves, or pay their taxes and fines. Now they want from us more than gold for the war effort. We’re given the chance to join in fighting, and I doubt it’s voluntary in every sense. I might have the chance… no, it doesn’t matter. I had my chance, and I took it. You don’t mind I talk about myself, do you? This is what I told James when we were reaching Middle Temple Gardens, and I’d like you all to hear, because you’ve all been close to my heart, however far I’ve kept travelling on my curse-breaking adventures. I thought I was all grown up. But now I’m growing up again. The time for adventures is over. After this month I’ll have only office duties at Gringotts. And my first duty is at your side, no matter how we must fight.”
James suddenly speaks up again, “That’s what she’s saying, all solemn and in whisper. And I’m sitting beside her on this bench facing a fountain – a beautiful place, and she’s more beautiful, and then she’s kneeling in front of me and offering me this incredible ring. ‘Will you marry me?’ she says!” he finishes in triumph.
“Wow!” Peter stares at the ring, barely glances at the two of them, and I have to wonder if he’s only noticed the ring now, and if his praise is for James’s narration and Lily’s speech, too, or not.
James empties his pint and gets up to go and buy the next round. My gaze follows him, and I see patrons clapping him on the shoulder.
“I told him there’s no time to waste,” Lily’s saying. “You never know how much… It comforts Alice at least a bit that she had her wedding before her parents… and if we want to have babies…” Is she really talking in such an uncharacteristic way, trailing off repeatedly, or am I just not paying attention?
I keep watching James. Everything changes.
“Andromeda’s taking Nymphadora to Australia.” I’ve said it aloud.
Don’t you think you’re going a bit too far. That’s what I said when she told me, and I tried to laugh at my own joke. But nobody’s saying it now.
Now he turns back from the bar. My brother. I go to him to help with the pints again. “Do you want to have a child?” I’m asking when we reach the table.
“In this world,” Remus says, and it takes a second before I realise he’s completing my question. “Any of these worlds we live in?” Suddenly he, too, looks thoughtful and sad, lost.
“I do,” James and Lily say at the same time.
I can’t help bursting into laughter, and I laugh with tears in my eyes.
Lily’s smile looks dreamy. “That’s how there’s hope. There is.”
I can bear no more solemn talk, or I’ll shed more tears, without laughter this time. “We were supposed to get to the party business.”
“I’m getting there,” Lily says. “Even to wedding business! Remember it was only last solstice I promised to propose to James when I’m ready. And you know he’s been ready since… what: our second school year! Now with no more delay, we’ll get married in August. Early August! And that means it’s time for a stag party, doesn’t it?”
“So soon!” Peter’s frowning.
And it occurs to me that all this is worse for Peter, even though he’s not the one who shares a flat with James. Everything is bad news to him. Perhaps even in general: any news. He dislikes change. I think he’s never really learnt to enjoy shifting into his animal shape, although, as Remus reminds me – when I question including him – he was the first to succeed in changing and even the first to suggest that we should become animals. And today’s great news in particular: he envies Remus for his success in studies, and he’s a coward who definitely doesn’t want to join in fighting, and he’s afraid this marriage will be the end of the Marauders as a group where he could belong.
Only Remus looks genuinely happy now. Even James purses his lips.
Lily breaks the silence first with a smack on his mouth. “James, I’ve told you that there’s one last field trip I must make. And it’s just to Elginhaugh.”
“Where’s that?” Remus sounds truly interested, even fascinated.
“Only in Scotland, south-east of Edinburgh. There’s a new Muggle discovery of a Roman fort, no excavations yet.” Lily’s explanation now lacks any sign of the zeal I remember from two years ago, when she talked enthusiastically about her task in hoarding a treasure in ancient Palmyra, and about all things Syrian, and I found it hard not to join James in complaining. “But my goblin colleagues have already sensed the presence of gold. We must be prepared for ancient curses when we go to Summon the aurei.”
“Aurei – gold?” That’s Peter.
“Yes, aureus is an ancient Roman gold coin. Anyway, I must go there for these last four or five days of July. And I couldn’t possibly take you with me – even if it were an island without name and farther away from home.” Now she strokes James’s head and smiles. “So I suggest you make your holiday into a stag do.”
“It’ll be just the four Marauders like in the old days. That’s not bad either.” Remus kicks my foot just as I’m kicking his.
Now, it’s not as good, not for the two of us, and particularly not for James. I wonder if Lily told him about her trip only on our way here, after the joyful agreement that we’d take each other away for a while – like to an island of freedom – from all these commitments. But how could we have comfortably included Peter, as the fifth wheel – in hotel rooms, beach huts, tents, what have you? And, after all, Lily is a part of the commitments.
“All right. If you…” Now James points his finger at the three of us. “Mates, do you want to take your Prongs far away?”
“I do!” Remus and I say.
“Yes.” Peter’s perhaps a bit slower, and he adds, “How far, and for how long? And did someone say something about an island?”
Remus starts singing, “To an island many miles away from home…” and makes me dream of the Mediterranean Sea, if not the Pacific Ocean.
But James brings me back to earth. “We can’t go abroad. The Auror Office has given Pads and me a leave of four days, starting with the weekend, early tomorrow afternoon – but Aurors are not allowed to leave the country in time of war. And no more ‘who do they think they are to forbid us’! If you want…”
“All right, all right!” I know: if I want to fight for equality and freedom, joining anyone in the fight, I can’t be free.
“There’s the island resort in Essex that my grandaunt…”
I feel irritated enough to interrupt Peter with a snort. “Your grandaunt!”
But he’s resilient, our Wormtail: again not intimidated easily, now that he can feel included and secure for the next five days. “She was young and wild once… well, last century, at the time when they still used bathing machines for ladies to swim in the sea unseen – with the strictest delicacy, as she says. Anyway, even the ancient Romans came to this place for holidays… not from Rome, from Colchester, or what’s now called Colchester, and this place called Mer…”
“Don’t say it!” Remus cuts in. “It must be an island without name!”
Lily’s more practical, “How do you get to this island?”
“It’s only a Muggle place now. But it’s close to the mainland and connected to it by a causeway, and not a hundred miles from London.”
“So we can travel in the Muggle way!” James exclaims, punching my upper arm. Trust him to see the positive side. “That’s a holiday for any wizard, let alone an Auror! Especially when we can use your motorbike – in the Muggle way, mind.” And he whispers, “Not flying. That modification is not reliable yet.”
“All right,” I say again, still reluctantly.
But I can feel a new dream stirring: Remus behind me on the bike, leaning against my back, and that other pair of stags – perhaps on a rented moped – together with us, so nobody would think that I am…
As soon as a shadow falls over my Grim when I’m just about to stand up from my knees, having finished the job with the chain, I know it’s him. Perhaps in the waft of ever warmer air I can already smell the country: his herbs. And now I can hear his laughter while what I see is just a figure at the garage doorway against the glare of sunshine.
“So you’ve gone down on one knee, too,” he says, “in front of your beloved.”
Standing up, I pat the seat of the motorbike. “Yes, and I’ve already applied the lube.”
“Ready for a romantic ride?” Who wants to talk about romance: that’ll be him.
I just happen to like shagging him, who’s something special, more than human, my Moony, and since I’ve become the dog for him whenever he needs… And he’s not a real poof. Lube’s used on both of us.
When I’ve returned the can of chain lubricant to its shelf, without replying, I turn to see him – now examining the Fizzy – in better lighting. He’s wearing the Tom Robinson Band tour promotion shirt I gave him – white, with blue sleeves covering his arms just under the elbows – and rather ratty jeans shorts… oh, cut-offs he’s made of the jeans he wore a year ago in best punk style, ever more ripped and torn, and they reach barely halfway his thighs.
“All dressed up for the trip, you,” I can’t resist commenting, and my tone comes out rather tender than teasing, when I see he’s also got the shark’s tooth in the dip between his collarbones.
It’s plastic, but still the least garish of the pendants they sold when Jaws was a hit, and despite the recent Willow Incident I dared make fun of how it was named after him, although the awful middle name forced on him is a part of the gravest injustice… How childish I was! But now he’s told me that after he read how the mechanical shark that functioned and malfunctioned in the role of the beast was named Bruce, he’s called himself Bruce at gay discos, where he goes with Amelia. Indeed, he’s now wearing also the small golden hoop on his right earlobe, a birthday gift from her.
“Do you have to wear the earring, too?” Now I sound too serious.
“Why not? It doesn’t clash with the style, does it?” He’s so carefree about this issue, as if there were no risk for harassment among the Muggles when we’re legal – mind, legal only in private.
I move away from him, proceed to attach the saddlebags and – unnecessarily – to check their contents.
“You’re early,” I point out casually. Perhaps he’s arrived now in hope of a moment of intimacy. A vain hope. The doors are open to the street, and there are other motorists further in. “No problem with your parents about your leaving?”
“No, they’re happy to hear I’ll both study and work for Dumbledore as from the beginning of August. I’ve brought everything with me, so that I can stay straight after this trip.”
As I look up, I see him touch the strap crossing his chest, and now I notice the battered satchel he used to carry around some time last year.
He goes on in whisper, “Some of the things shrunken, of course, including the briefcase. I’d like to use it, but that would seriously clash with the holiday style. Anyway, my parents have got enough labour force to easily replace me: more creatures gathering on the estate. The enemy’s making it that hard for others than full humans in the Cotswolds, and perhaps it’s not only what we’ve considered the enemy.”
No wonder he sees the Muggle world as a safe haven. Besides, before Hogwarts he grew up in a community where it was all right to be any kind of a… freak. I glance up, and his calm gaze looks so steady that I feel it has been at me all the time.
Stroking the Fizzy’s saddle absentmindedly, he smiles a little. “I feel somehow guilty, escaping all that. But it’s just for these few days, to celebrate – Prongs, above all. Is this the moped you’ve rented for him?”
“Yes, a Fizzy, Yamaha FS1E. I think it’s the best and still easy enough to ride, at least for a flyer like Prongs. This thing could even go fast, but we must follow the new speed limit.”
“That’s fine – just going to make the ride last longer.” That’s James, suddenly at the door – and ready with a positive comment. “Like really travelling far away! You want to come behind me, Moony?”
They both give me a choice. Remus doesn’t hurry to reply but asks about Lily first.
“Yes, I’m sure she’d have liked to ride behind me,” James is now replying. “And yes, I got to say goodbye to her at Gringotts just now. They were about to leave for Scotland when I went there straight from work.”
No, I’m not that scared. “I think Wormtail’s going to be less scared of the Fizzy than of my Grim.”
“Who says I’m scared?” Peter strides in. “But I’d rather choose what my dad would call a hairdryer, and be a mod, not a rocker like he was, or a Ton-Up boy they called it back then, in the fifties.”
There he goes again with his family history, so as to cover up any embarrassment. Since we settled in London, he’s got talking about his Muggle-born father perhaps because that can make him appear more experienced.
Remus shows interest, once again. “You’ve talked about mods before. Is it the band you like, Jam? Those blokes wearing suits? And… you’ve said there are – again – fights between mods and rockers at seaside resorts.”
“The Jam, you’re right – about the suits, too. I’m having one tailored. But we want no fights now. That’s why I’ve chosen a resort where…”
James cuts in, “It’s all proper enough for grandaunts!”
“Yes, and for the peaceful holiday we want. And Pads, you could have chosen for Prongs and me an actual scooter that looks like a hairdryer, instead of this moped that looks like a motorbike. To be sure that together we shouldn’t provoke either gang.”
It’s been decided, then. I’ve let Peter decide, and to my surprise, actually, he’s not stepping between Remus and me. Perhaps he’s given up – having first tried to prevent intimacy even between the two canines since time before James acquired his antlers.
“That toy for sixteen-year-olds shouldn’t provoke anyone,” I reply, “and I think it suits the two of you well enough. And we won’t provoke bobbies either. I’ve conjured a license for Prongs, too, just in case. But we’ll wear helmets and ride within the speed limit, all right?”
By myself I’ve never been so cautious. I don’t want to get my friends in trouble, or perhaps I just don’t want to get in trouble with Remus on my bike.
At least these open face helmets must do, as we won’t go fast. And we won’t wear protective clothes. It’s too hot for that, today even worse than yesterday, over thirty degrees, I’m sure.
Stuffing my One Star into a saddle bag, I catch myself fantasising Remus in this jacket. Yes, that’s pure fantasy. In reality there’s now no chance of him getting cold.
Suddenly impatient, I bark an order, “Get ready! Let’s get going! Now quick before the worst rush hour. We won’t be the only ones who want out of this sweltering city.”
My nervous impatience has persisted through Old Street, Hackney Road, Cassland Road… I’ve just snapped at Peter that I know the route when he’s urged James to ride to my side at crossroads and tried to offer directions. Only after crossing the Rodling River and heading a bit too fast to the Redbridge Roundabout, sensing the weight behind me in the curves, then speeding on to continue the Eastern Avenue straight east – only now do I believe that we’re getting away.
Finally we’ve reached the Gallows Corner Roundabout. I’ve ridden the Eastern Avenue so many times without a goal or other purpose than the sense of power in my control, and of a chance for freedom, a chance I haven’t quite taken yet. Now when Grim moves on to the flyover and starts along the Southend Arterial Road, I feel I’m taking it at last, and sharing it with my Moony. In the curve he’s stayed pressed against my back, and it must have been superfluous that he’s placed a hand on my thigh. This touch contributes to the rise of another fantasy: staying like this, sharing like this until… the end, through any changes.
As the country spreads around us, I’m biting the air just as the dog does when reaching wilderness, and there’s the best music in my head – 2-4-6-8 Motorway – and in my ears the roar of Grim… and of the Fizzy, now at my side. What do they want again?
Peter, of course. “Slow down to let the gang pass!” he shouts, I think, reading on his lips and in his gestures.
Hell, I must have been going faster than the moped’s allowed. And behind that scooter which I noticed in my mirror a while ago, there are now others, but they aren’t catching up. I steer quite close to the left edge of the road and let the speed drop. The grouped scooters grow in the mirror: bright-coloured Vespas and Lambrettas, and the riders with Pudding Bowl helmets like those of their idols’ from last decade. They race past, perhaps fifteen of them, shouting. What was that: gay geezers? Or just: hey, geezers?
I slow down further, and stop at the side of the road. Remus’s hand is still there. Maybe he notices that I’m looking at it, as he now moves it away. I keep my gaze in that direction, and can’t help seeing the golden glow given by sunshine to the hairs on his leg.
“Don’t worry,” Peter says as soon as James pulls up beside me. “Don’t let them make you stop.”
I assume he’s talking to me, not to Remus about touching me.
“They didn’t make me stop. I wanted to stop to hear what you were saying,” I lie, fumbling for a fag.
“Just that you could slow down and let them pass. Anyway, no worries. They’re heading for Southend.”
Finally I’ve got the fag lit, and I take a drag before responding, “Who’s been worried? And I know where they gather. I’ve heard of mods, seen enough of them around, too. Just don’t know what their point is.” I get ever more irritated because now I can’t stick the fag into Remus’s mouth. He doesn’t like smoking so much that he’d accept one for himself. “A fashion trend!” I spit out.
“The music,” Peter responds with enthusiasm, “and the style, lifestyle. They’re mod – modern.”
“We have to admit that punk’s getting old,” Remus points out, taking off his helmet, running his fingers through his damp curls. “In the Muggle world things change too quickly.”
Trying to ignore the stab of his comment, I aim my protest at Peter. “As modern as... what: fifteen years ago! I see no point in their style. Unlike them, punks have a purpose, at least people like…” Tom fights against all social injustice, but after learning how visible he is in the gay liberation movement, I hesitate to mention him, and now TRB’s just disbanded anyway.
James saves me from revealing my confusion. “And new music you can find anywhere – at least Lily can. You don’t have to stick to a style.”
Remus’s hand brushes my back, and I turn my head to see him just reattaching his helmet while saying, “We can stick together despite our different styles, so hey, let’s move on!”
“All right. And I stopped also to say that we’ll stop for a break soon after turning away from the Southend Arterial.”
“In Wickford?” Peter asks
James has taken out the map and already found the right section. I’m glad I studied the route carefully last night.
Reaching to point at the small town, I confirm, “Yes, it’s about half-way between Holborn and Mer… our island without name. Good to see we’re all so skillful even with Muggle maps.”
Would it be good to have moving dots and labels on this map, too: labels like mod or punk, or homophobe? And what would the label be on me?
After finally swinging to the left, heading north-east, I breathe more freely… ever more freely, perhaps because there are again fields on both sides.
Until now we approach Wickford and here follow Nevendon Road northwards, and here after the River Crouch between its conrete banks, it turns into High Street at next crossroads. But I spot a pub even before it: the Duke, excellent.
Having parked the bike, I jump off quickly. “Let’s see if this one’s serving food.”
“Is it necessary…?” Remus, once again, tries to protest against eating. What’s the matter with him? At school he always ate willingly, and a lot – as he still does sometimes when he… gives up and relaxes.
“Yes, we’d better have a proper meal here. We’ll arrive late. Relax, and just let me decide.” I’ve adjured that, since I’ll be James’s best man, I’m taking care of all the arrangements and expenses of this stag do. “Remember I’m the best man.”
“You are, and always will be.” Why at any moment he manages to say something risqué?
To my relief James punches me. “That’s right. But let our mod go in first, so that the way other Londoners dress on a hot day won’t scare these good people.”
After bangers and mash and beer – just a half but still – I’m relaxed myself, too, when we hit the road again. Remus’s chest against my back is the most natural thing – and its meaning to me is hidden securely without effort, without worry.
What’s the matter been with me today! I’ve always loved secrets and risks, and what I do with Remus has always been part of that, earlier even more secret and more risky. Perhaps now when severe danger awaits us after this holiday, I wish that this part of my life could be accepted and safe – and it’s not fair the two of us never have a chance for a life like that, particularly Remus, who’s… glad to be gay.
I don’t want to get that song of Tom’s in my head. Just because it’s not a happy song at all, which should be obvious to Remus and other proud gays, too. Just… let me take you far away! After the war I will, and we’ll be free.
Now after Maldon, according to the map, we should see the first glimpse of sea on our right. Slowing down, I point it to Remus. Here the road runs right next to the shore. Is it worth a stop?
Yes! I mustn’t take anything like this or myself too seriously, so it’s all right that it doesn’t look that magnificent: just the shallow last curve of the Blackwater estuary… Blackwater! All right, let’s take this siriusly!
I’ve turned and ridden straight towards the water’s edge. Having hardly got the bike to stop, I rush off and run to the beach with my arms spread, then with hands at my fly. “Blackwater!”
I glance back to see that they’re just so much behind that they’ll see only the curve – yes, another curve – of my water, which I aim at the sand, though, since I’m going to wade in.
“The water’s not black!” James points out in mock astonishment.
“No, it’s bright and shining like our best man himself, who’s evidently not a dark wizard!” Remus passes me, kicking off his canvas shoes. With no socks to take off, he’s already striding right in.
The glimmer of sunshine reflections makes it hard to see, but no, he’s not looking at me. Still, the cock I’ve hurried to tuck in is swelling under my hands.
“Look, there’s an island!” Peter points out what nobody can miss, just in front of us. “Or is it the other shore of this sea?” He’s peeling off his socks, then carefully rolling up his trouser legs – and starting to sing. “Be welcome on the island without name!”
Did I get it wrong yesterday, not just the tune, as usual, but the lyrics, too? Here we come?
But now Remus’s voice joins his, and they start from the beginning, “Let me take you…”
By the time I’m barefoot, James balances himself with a hand on my shoulder, taking off his socks. “Come on, we can do it!”
Now in glorious disharmony all the four Marauder voices ring over the estuary, with the accompaniment of our feet splashing water.
The sand in my shoes has helped me keep only that song in my mind all the rest of the way, through the fields, under the hazy blue and huge sky. Now after that crossroads, this straight ahead must be the final stretch. Over there it’ll turn into the Strood, the causeway built by the Romans, or was it the Saxons, never mind. But…
“It’s sunk under water!” I exclaim, having stopped Grim.
James arrives beside me, staring ahead with wide eyes.
Peter laughs. “No, the water’s risen.” Of course. “We’re so lucky!” Is he serious?
“Oh yes, you told me,” James says. Why haven’t they told me, who’s responsible for the arrangements? “It’s fascinating to see. And not very frequent, rising to this level, I mean. Great coincidence!”
Remus spares me from asking, “What’s so fortunate about a flood?”
“You know, the high tide comes twice a day. But it rises high enough to cover the Strood only for about a week every month,” Peter explains smugly. “And we’re lucky to see it.”
“But how can we now get to the island?” I hope this is not a stupid question. “If you knew, you could have checked, or asked me to check when the tide’s this high.”
“Oh, the tide will be low enough in an hour or so. We’ll wait and watch.”
It does look wondrous how the water washes the paving ever closer to us, and further towards the island, all I can see of the road are the railings. And a car! Still far, and approaching slowly, cleaving a path through the sea, raising a high wave on either side.
“Yes, look!” James has noticed it, too. “There will be some daredevils to watch. Most people must know the tide times, as there’s nobody else…”
Peter interrupts him. “Pads, don’t even think about riding into the water!”
“No. Grim doesn’t like saltwater.” I’m still speaking when I register rough voices: shouting, swearing. The car on the Strood is a convertible, and there are five young men in it, laughing… some of them even pointing towards us. “I’ve just thought of something else.”
Starting the bike, I glance at Remus. “You trust me?” I rather just mouth than say aloud.
He grins and nods when Grim’s already turning under us.
“Sorry, mates! Don’t want to wait here. See you by the beach huts. It’s no use you following, you know…”
James is about to start the moped but gives up. “Pads, it’s not reliable yet!”
“At short distance it is!” I wonder if he can hear my reply since I’m speeding up.
Grim, Remus and I, we rumble back past the few houses, but before the end of the straight I slow down enough to be able to switch onto a narrow track on the edge of a field. Up on my right I can see a copse: small trees or at least shrubs tall enough to hide us. Even now I’m going to follow some rules: no magic where Muggles can see you.
“Look around: can there be anyone watching?” I’m bringing us slowly to a stop.
“No, I can see no one, and no houses.” Remus gets off, and helps when I start pushing Grim over the soft earth and long grass, heading behind a clump of young willows, and further in until…
We’re all surrounded by silvery green leaves, golden light, green shade. The air is still and sultry, filled with the buzz of insects and smells of earth. Suddenly sweating, I stop and lean on Grim, breathless.
And Remus pushes on, pushes against me from behind, with his bony hip against my buttocks. Or is it…? His arm’s snaking around my neck, and he focuses on caressing my chin – no, opening the clutch, taking off my helmet, and as he lets it fall in the grass and I turn around, his fingers slide under the damp hair plastered on my neck and up behind my skull to press my face against his. The grinning mouth opens to welcome my tongue. With our mouths attached, his hands leave me, and I sense his body jerking against mine: he must be taking off his shorts.
When he tucks at mine, I manage to mumble against his mouth, “This is not why we’ve hidden here.”
“No?” He licks my lip, completes his tucking, and turns me around, pushes me against Grim, and his cock between my buttocks.
My hard-on rubs against the seat, and that’s where I come, almost immediately, at the same time with him. I pat Grim. “We’re a fine threesome.”
His laughter tickles my ear. “That was a quick shortcut.” Detaching himself from me, he continues to explain, “Couldn’t go all the way up the dirt path. You’d applied the lube on only one of us three, I noticed.”
Acting all cool, I half straighten up and lean an elbow on the handlebars – and with the shorts at my ankles, almost stumble just when lifting my gaze to him. Why is he still so unbearably beautiful in my eyes? In the shade his face is dark, flushed, and his hair a halo. Having not properly closed his shorts, he’s digging something out of the satchel.
When he points his wand at me, his teeth and the amber of his eyes shine in a flash. “Now a retour or a detour? No, I’m doing just the cleanup. You’ve had another magic trick in mind?”
He’s Vanished my sperm from the seat, and now he’s almost too close again, with the wand tip where I’ve felt his sperm flow down, cooling, then drying – now gone.
“Baa-aa?” What I’ve come up with as a response is, of course, belated: the mating call we adopted from his flock of sheep on my first holiday in the Cotswolds.
“I love you,” he says seriously, as if correcting or translating my phrase.
I only kiss his lips, and he pulls up my shorts. While he’s picking up the helmets, I get my wand from the saddle bag.
“You can Disillusion me after I’ve done it to you and Grim,” I suggest when he’s attaching my helmet. “I think it works better than doing it to myself, even...”
“… Though I’m still hardly as good at this charm as Lily was in our fifth year. And I still agree with Peter: its name doesn’t make sense.”
“We can make it make sense.” Settling on the saddle, as if I were able to ride straight through the thicket, I’m suddenly sure that I can make any impossible thing happen. “First of all, don’t mention them. Lily’s a part of the commitments, and Peter’s… Anyway, what others have seen of us is only an illusion. Now we’ll be real, and it’ll be just the two…”
“The three of us.” My Moony’s behind me, laughing, with one hand on my hip, and his wand, ready like mine, in the other. But it seems we can’t stop babbling. “The name could come from This Illusion. But the ancient incantation means undoing the trick, the sleight, the delusion…”
I rap him on the head, which makes him shut up, and – when the incantation forms in my mind – merge into the dappled shade of silver and green. I can still hear his breath, even smell his herbs, and sense his shivers running through his hand to my body. And I can still see him, yes: his image remains beyond the chameleon disguise, because he will always be fully real to me.
I rap Grim, and in my eyes it merges into the high grass, but between my thighs it stays solid. And paradoxically, its invisibility makes me more aware of, even alarmed by what a heavy mass of metal it is. But I trust in my skills, which have just allowed me to perform voicelessly what Remus struggles to achieve by speaking the incantation.
“Ungedwimore!” he pronounces softly, carefully, and from his wand’s decisive touch on the crown of my head, several cold trickles run down to my forehead, my face, my neck – a relief in the heat, until the icy flow covers all of my skin and I tremble.
He’s succeeded excellently, and I’ve joined him in the disguise. Now sunshine pierces the two of us and binds us together. And his invisible body has regained its heat, and when it presses against me, mine warms up.
It fills me up with renewed energy and confidence. I feel my invisible wand slide along the metal of the invisible handlebars, then hear it swish just above, and I flick it to a light touch just when the words of the incantation form in my mind: Grimardium Leviosa.
And we rise up to full sunlight. Merged into the late afternoon haze, we hover high above the fields, rocked by the salty sea wind. Turning the handlebars, I manage to make us face southeast, and I can see the railings of the Strood, the paving covered by what from here looks like a negligible film of water – but the Fizzy still waiting. Beyond, the island, and beyond it, the shimmer of open sea. Towards that, yes, I have the will to move us.
This incantation I’m still – happy, too, to be – saying aloud, “Locomovera Aera!” With the words my wand has flourished forward and up, and now we are flying!
In the silence of magic Grim carries us without its usual roar, and I’ve got only the wind in my ears, and my Moony’s breathing… and now his singing. Of course, he can’t resist it. “ … You’d like a holiday.”
I join him and take us straight to the words I want to say to him, and with him I can sing them beautifully, “Exchange your troubles for some love/ wherever you are…”
Here we hush as if in agreement, and share a shuddering breath, as he hugs me.
“I’m right here with you,” I say. “We’re right here and real. Here… above an oyster. Look down!”
We’ve got a perfect view right below, since our thighs and Grim are one with it. And our island without name, lying in its flimsy bed of shallow, withdrawing sea, is the perfect shape of an oyster.
“Look, down there I’ll take you to eat oysters,” I start telling him, as I turn the handlebars so as to start following the shoreline. “I know you’ve never tasted one, of course not in the Cotswolds, and it won’t be like when I’ve had them before, at gloomy dinner parties… No, it’ll be in an oysterman’s shack on the beach, in wind and sunshine. Or maybe not. It’s not the season, sorry… But I’ll take you…”
“Why then the world's thine oyster, which thou with wand will open,” he recites in impressive diction, in contrast to my raving.
“That’s a line from theatre, your mother’s,” I’m guessing.
“A play by Shakespeare.” He’s placed his chin on my shoulder, and now he kisses my jaw. “It means… anything: that you can do – you’re free and able to do anything.”
He’s made me smile again. “Play! I’ll take you to play in the sand kissed by the sun and waves, to lie down right at the edge, between land and sea, and wait for the tide to come and cover and float us. And we’ll swim until you’re cold and I can wrap you in my Schott Perfecto One Star jacket, and we’ll stay while the sky darkens around the most fragile crescent and…”
“Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky/ On summer nights, star of stars!” he recites, and, “Homer,” he adds, between a kiss on my earlobe, “Iliad,” and a kiss at the corner of my mouth.
“And I’ll take you to one of those tiny beach huts, the… what do you call those colours?”
“Pastels.”
“The pastel blue one, or… lavender?” Now I’ve turned my head to kiss the shimmer of his face. “We’re renting two, one just for you and me, so it’ll be private enough to be legal, you and me alone, twenty-one and consenting, right?”
And we’ll step out of our hut to the beach, and have to let go of each other’s hand, and Peter will walk between us to make sure, and I must… be grateful. Though I hate that phrase you use. At restaurants I’ll sit diagonally opposite to you and hardly dare stare. And we’ll be back in London and I’ll try to focus on the blessing of fighting for freedom, still following some bastards’ orders. And you’ll find a crumby room and struggle to pay the rent, and I’ll pretend not to comprehend or remember, or I’ll even manage not to – because you don’t want me to realise and offer charity. And my brother will marry and move away, and I won’t know what I dare let change…
But for a moment more, my world is shrunken to this little oyster I’m opening and sharing with you, my Moony. Out of the blue haze, the amber of your loving gaze now shines at me, and I know to make this kiss a deep one, the last one before we’re plummeting back down to earth.
Notes: Holiday is a song by the German band Scorpions, included on the album Lovedrive, which was released in January 1979 and became the band’s breakthrough in UK. 2-4-6-8 Motorway and (Sing If You’re) Glad to Be Gay are songs by Tom Robinson Band, released in 1977 and 1978, respectively.
Why then the world's mine oyster,/ Which I with sword will open is Pistol’s reply to Falstaff’s I will not lend thee a penny in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (Act 2, scene 2, 2 – 4.)
If you want a name for the holiday resort, it’s Mersea Island.
Title: This Little Oyster
Author:
paulamcgPairing: Sirius/Remus (and Lily/James)
Characters: Sirius, Remus, Lily, James, Peter, Albus Dumbledore, Amelia Bones
Word Count: 11000
Rating: R/Mature
Disclaimer: Sirius and his friends won’t help me make any money.
Notes: In all my fanfiction I follow only the canon of Rowling’s first five novels, and my Sirius was born in November 1957 and Remus in March 1958.
Summary: In late July 1979 there are reasons to get to an island without name.
Read here on AO3
or right here.
This Little Oyster
Life’s good. Finally I’m getting the chance to risk it! It would’ve felt more fitting to arrive on my motorbike. Pity there’s no parking on Charing Cross Road, so that the quickest way to the Leaky Cauldron is by floo.
Tom, behind the bar, shakes his head, when I greet him. I frown, but he’s probably just wanted to show his reproach of my Muggle attire – t-shirt and jeans – as he now tilts his head towards the narrow passage. “To the private parlor, young man!”
My Moony! He’s the first person I see as I open the door, and now it’s hard to see anyone else. He’s looking good, too. And even better than usual: healthy, tanned! My arm’s reaching towards him, and his face is lit up by an endearing wide smile, an invitation to…
But I never forget to glance around. And here’s who’s sent the invitations with phoenix feathers. Dumbledore gazes at me over his half-moon spectacles with an irritating, all-knowing smirk, glances at Remus, and turns his eyes back, nodding perhaps rather to himself than to me. The scheming bastard! As if he could understand anything! He’s got no right… to take over Remus’s life, claiming to help him. Still, he’s aware of nothing, can’t imagine anything beyond all the girls pining for me. And beyond all four of us, Lily included, knowing Remus’s secret since the Willow Incident – and insisting, so far in vain, that he be secured a wizard status. Now, why wouldn’t I be happy to see he’s here: being included when…
“At last we get to do our share in the war!” I say to Dumbledore, flailing my arm in the same way to the others in the parlor: Dorcas and Caradoc, Frank and Alice, and – next to Remus – Amelia, all sitting in a semicircle on straight-backed chairs, all wearing robes, looking like decent witches and wizards.
Dumbledore’s in the process of conjuring more chairs. “Patience, my young friend. We’ll get to that. Just a couple of other… Here they are! Welcome!”
James and Lily, hand in hand and in Muggle clothes, are stepping in behind me, almost pushing me forward. After quick grins to them I stride on and, both out of spite and as my bluffing strategy, I choose, out of the three new chairs, the one right next to Remus. It’s safe: I’m used to keeping my paws off him in public, and I can trust him, too. Instead, James beside me is kissing Lily full on the mouth. Is this the time and place…?
Tom’s limping through the door, carrying a large tray.
“Thank you, Tom. I’ll take it from here.” Dumbledore uses his wand simultaneously for the levitation of the tray and for the sealing of the door. “Now let me welcome you all, and offer you some traditional lemonade, made with fresh lemon juice, mind. Miss Meadowes…”
As he sends a glass of lemonade to each person in turn, I keep my eyes on James, frowning. I don’t usually care for watching him kissing Lily, but now I must refrain from looking at Remus. There’s indignation rising in me – the higher, the more I distinguish traces of envy in it. And we should all focus on the war now.
“Mr Black,” I’ve heard but not reacted to, and a glass taps me on the temple. I’ve barely managed to grip it, when…
“And finally, Miss Evans and Mr Potter, our newly-engaged couple! Congratulations!”
James lifts the hand still clasping Lily’s. Indeed, there is a wide gold band with a single red stone – a ruby it must be. And it’s in his finger, not Lily’s.
“She did it: proposed to me, just as she’d promised. I didn’t mean to make a show of it at the meeting. But she did it on our way here, and how could I have said no!”
“Yes, you can all lay the blame on me.” Lily laughs. “For tweaking the tradition, too. I’d already asked James’s mother for her consent. Though she’s not here to announce the engagement, I’m glad we can make it public like this. But I don’t want to take more of our time, so let me make this speech brief: one sentence. When I got the invitation, I knew the time had come – to stick together!”
I’m still raising my glass when Remus collides with me, rushing to hug James, then Lily.
I hug him, too – James, I mean. Careful now not to make mistakes! “A great day! Gryffindor colours, too, in your ring!” There’s no trace of envy left, just excitement, and pure joy for him – my brother.
“We’ll celebrate later.” He pushes me to sit back down, so that I barely reach to shake Lily’s hand.
“Thank you, Miss Evans, for the appropriate introduction to our meeting. There will be more of us sticking together, but I suppose this can be called the founding of the Order of the Phoenix. I’m inviting one small group at a time to gather, and starting with you, the youngest I’ve chosen. Oh, Mr Pettigrew hasn’t arrived… Yes, Mr Lupin?”
“He’s owled me saying that his grandaunt is unwell.”
There’s a poorly suppressed giggle, Alice’s, probably.
“Thank you. He can contact me when he wants to devote some time to our cause. Which is to oppose Tom Riddle and his allies, particularly his Death Eaters. I obviously can’t resist bragging that forming another elite group was my brilliant idea – and that the Ministry has agreed, and accepted me as the leader of this Order. Some of you – the Aurors, and the Auror trainees, that is Mr and Mrs Longbottom – will have double roles as fighters. Some others have different obligations to the Ministry, or Gringotts. But your first loyalty will be to me. When you sign for membership, you agree not to question my decisions concerning the war effort or any member. You must be prepared to be sent on mission without warning, and with or without your spouse or closest friends.”
I’m afraid I’m frowning, showing that I’m already questioning what he’s saying. This summer I’ve become a qualified Auror and got a permanent position at the Auror Office, and now that Death Eaters have started attacking openly, the Ministry will certainly put my skills to use. If there’s a more secret Order organising missions, I don’t want to be left outside. But despite his fame for defeating Grindelwald, I wish the leader were someone else. And what’s this now about decisions concerning members?
“Yes, Miss Bones?”
“May I ask for clarification… You certainly mean we mustn’t question your decisions concerning a member – when it concerns the member’s role in the Order.”
“Thank you, Miss Bones. I’d gladly have you as the legal advisor in the Order.” Dumbledore not only lets his eyes twinkle merrily, but actually winks. “Sadly, the Minister has just expressed the wish that I don’t recruit you.”
“Still…” Amelia looks baffled and disappointed. “You didn’t cancel the invitation, and welcomed me.”
“You will follow your superiors’ commands. And I assume they will be for you to act as a liaison officer between the Law Enforcement Department and the Order.”
“All right. And my first loyalty will be to the Minister of Magic.”
Without replying to her, Dumbledore waves his wand, Vanishing the glasses from our hands. “The rest of you can sign each your own commitment to serve the Order in defence, and when necessary in attacks against the enemy.”
Starting again with Dorcas, he conjures a roll of parchment, which falls open in the air before her face, with a quill next to her hand. “There are slight differences in wording between the commitments of those who are Aurors and those who are not…”
When the fifth roll has opened in front of Remus, and I’m already reaching for the quill appearing near me, eager to sign without bothering to read, Dumbledore adds, “Besides, I will be requiring different services – related to intelligence, I mean espionage – from one of you, due to his… strengths in language.” He’s staring at Remus with a small smile.
Remus glances at him, then continues to read, frowning. I exchange looks with James and Lily. I’ve taken it for granted that we’ll sign, and while something now starts bothering me, I don’t know how to word it.
“Excuse me!” Amelia’s found something to say again, and when Dumbledore ignores her, she goes on, “I assume you, Headmaster Dumbledore, on behalf of the Order, don’t commit yourself to anything as… compensation? Recompense, reward?”
“You are quite right. The services for the Order are, in this sense, of course, voluntary.”
Now Amelia turns her face towards me, seeking eye contact with Remus. But Remus stares at his parchment, bites his lip, and signs. I nod to James and Lily, who have both been watching Remus as well. And we all sign.
Dumbledore Summons the parchments. “Excellent. As you’ve read in your commitments, you are required to reside in London as from the beginning of August. After that you have to ask the Order for permission whenever you plan to leave London for more than forty-eight hours. I will summon you when the Order needs you. Toodle-oo!”
“Excuse me, Headmaster Dumbledore!” This time it’s Remus. “If you can spare a moment more, with these fellow members – and the liaison officer – present, I’d like to discuss something that concerns me – not directly my role in the Order.”
“Whatever can that be?”
“We could call it another one among those most brilliant ideas.”
To my surprise Dumbledore talks in a relaxed manner, not like when Amelia interrupted her. “And which one is this?” He sounds actually amused.
Remus draws a deep breath. “The idea that you recommend that I get the right to study Magic of Images at Merlin college, starting on the summer course.”
“I see.”
I doubt it. He seems to be as astonished as I am. Remus waits for a further response.
Dumbledore’s voice is soft, and he’s looking at Remus closely. “I understand this is not even supposed to concern your services for the order. But if you want to apply for a scholarship covering August… and September? Does the term for Dark Creature studies start only in October? In any case, I would rather… or let’s say that one of my ideas would be that you study more Latin and French – the knowledge of which, together with your Outstanding NEWT in Ancient Runes – has served to distinguish you in the appointment of members to different duties.”
“I have already applied for those language courses, and was denied the scholarship for the courses I’ll have in September, and wasn’t accepted for the August courses at all.” Remus smiles. “Instead, presented as a brilliant idea of yours, studies – of a particular experimental nature – in the art form considered a noble, purely human achievement will be found… interesting among some scholars who are influential – on matters of grants, too.”
Now this is getting complicated. I can hardly follow, but I’m proud of and fascinated by my Moony: reminded of his unexpected debates with Binns in History of Magic.
“In case you yourself, too, find it interesting…” Now Dumbledore’s gaze scans the whole semicircle, and I wonder if it stays a bit longer on Amelia or me. “Not even your closest friend among these members and non-member will have any reason to question my decision to act upon this idea. I trust all parties will be satisfied while also your role in the voluntary work for the Order will be secured.”
“Thank you, Headmaster. And thanks, everyone, for your support.” Remus springs to his feet and reaches to clap James on the shoulder, hitting my knee with his in the process. “Now let’s go and celebrate!”
“What was all that about?” I ask as soon as we’re stumbling out of my fireplace. “Your talk about Dumbledore’s idea…”
“My idea. A chance for me to get to study art. Painting! True, moving art! Real portraits! Now, let’s not talk about him. Congratulate me!” Moony’s beaming tanned face, framed by his golden, sun-lightened locks is finally close enough.
I lift my palm behind his neck at the same time as he lifts his behind mine. He even tastes healthy: warm and fresh, of the herbs they grow on the Cotswolds estate – sage, lemon balm, peppermint… I want my tongue deeper, and his wrestles with it. My other hand pushes his hips against mine, and we’re all entangled, my shoulders leaning on the mantelpiece, when I hear James and Lily arrive and struggle to pass us.
“All right,” James says. “My fiancée and I are going to my room. See you after a while and a shag or two!”
“Your bed?” Remus says into my mouth.
“Right here, right now!” The carpet will do, just bare floor would. “You can come on top.”
He’s pushed himself just a bit apart, and now he’s stroking my chest through the t-shirt, now under it. Letting him pull it over my head, I go down on my knees and reach under the light, soft fabric of his summer robes. He’s wearing nothing underneath, not even pants. Just his beautiful hard-on: his cock’s hot, pulsing. I’m all randy, too, and the dog in me, perhaps, can’t resist panting with tongue out, reaching to lick him. But now I need to get myself out of these tight jeans.
His hands are on my belt together with mine, and now one of them pushes me to lie on my back. He opens my fly, and I lift my hips for him to hitch the jeans down. After pulling them all off, he remains standing straight, just steps slowly forward to stay astride with his ankles touching my thighs.
Desperate to reach to touch him, at least to move the hem of his robes aside, I start pushing myself up.
But he stops me. “Pads, stay down!” With a teasing smile he lets his gaze wander over me. “I’ll make one of you.”
“Make what of me?” I barely manage to say.
He has some mercy on me: gathers his robes up to his waist and comes down on me. “A real portrait,” he says just before covering my mouth with his, my cock with his.
When the door to James’s room opens, I’m sitting on the floor, between my Moony’s legs, as he’s slouching in the black leather armchair. Luckily I’ve taken the trouble to Summon shorts for both of us. It’s too hot in the living room for wearing anything more. He, typically, insists on covering his chest and shoulder – the first scars – and has picked up my t-shirt from the floor, and I feel ridiculously happy looking at him wearing it.
James looks like he’s ridiculously happy, too: he and Lily appear in the doorway wrapped in dressing gowns and each other. Grinning, he leads her by the hand to the couch, where he settles to lie down with his head on her lap. “A great day, yes!” He sighs. “Crowned by great shags, right?”
“Consummated by perfect shags,” I manage to express my agreement.
I can still remember the first time I kissed Remus in our friends’ presence: that was only last solstice, and I was far from sober. Now I’ve drunk just lemonade, and yet, I succeed in trusting that my shags are considered equally acceptable as my brother’s – in this company. And out in the Muggle world no longer completely illegal, since Moony and I are now both twenty-one.
“Maybe we should also go out to party,” Lily suggests.
“Yes. We’ve hardly started.” I reach for my wand, which, too, I’ve left carelessly on the carpet. “Let’s kick off with some beer.”
When I’ve Summoned a bottle for each of us, Remus seems to be jerked awake by his. “Congratulations again, dear Beauty and Prongs! Sorry, I must have been dozing off a moment ago.”
“So sated…” I tap his knee. “Have you realised that our Moony, too, has a reason of his own to celebrate?”
“Yes.” James laughs. “You’re finally not ashamed that you snog and shag him.”
“Also he’s been cunning enough to get what he wants from Dumbledore,” Lily says slowly, ruffling James’s hair, then looking up at Remus. “Am I right?”
“I’ve got some luck. Without this meeting I’d hardly even have got an audience with him. And Amelia was witty – as witty as he was, and perhaps that’s why he decided – just now, I think – to keep her out, after all. I still wonder why he wants me in, maybe the better to control me. But I must be grateful. Despite the new problems that the voluntary nature of this service will cause.”
As he stops to take a long swig from his bottle, having not got to the point at all, I’m about to talk, but Lily beats me. “He informed us all on your different duties – so that there won’t be any gossiping and questioning. But why…?”
“Of course, it’s got nothing to do with language skills,” Remus now hurries to answer. “Just the fact that the beastiology experiment would suffer if their guinea-pig killed anyone in battle and lost the rest of its humanity in one go. It wasn’t the difference in our commitments that made me hesitate. And after Amelia’s second question, I realised how the new problem could be turned into a possibility. If he wants me in London as from the beginning of August, he must help me broaden my right for studies. And I think I made him understand that the best option really is Magic of Images.” Now he can’t control his grinning.
I’m happy to show I know what this means. “Our artist will finally get to learn more about real, moving art!”
“Way to go, Moony!” James raises his bottle.
“I’m so happy for you,” Lily says. “You’re taking the chance – no matter if he didn’t first mean to give you any!”
“Thanks. I hope I’ll get the grant, too, and get to rent a room for August.”
“It’s great you’ll now come back to stay in London earlier than…” But suddenly I remember what I was stupid enough not to read but only heard the bastard say. “Who does he think he is, to forbid us to leave London!”
“The leader of the Order, the Chief Warlock, the Supreme Mugwump…” James says.
“The Supreme Bastard!” I can’t forgive him for what I – and Remus himself, too – learnt only when leaving Hogwarts: that Remus had been allowed to come to school only so as to serve as an object of a long-term research project.
“But staying in London is what you like…” He’s too reconciled now. “What we all like: I like it, too, when I just get…”
“Not when he forces us,” I spit out. “All August in the city! It’s too hot for any dog. And the Auror Office has promised us three or four days off after periods of work without weekly rest.”
James frowns, then speaks too cheerfully. “At least we’ve got the right to go for forty-eight hours, and luckily that’s long enough for our furry times in Yorkshire.”
“Perhaps he made that rule because of Remus,” Lily adds and turns to him, “although he must think you just go to the Cotswolds to be locked up for the full moon and to recover in your parents’ care.”
“But just because he gives us two days and nights, I want more. I want a holiday!” I must sound like a defiant toddler. But this is not only a selfish howl for freedom. I look around at the three of them, last at Remus, turning to get up on my knees and to grip his arms. “I want to take you… somewhere else, and not only for the full moon, which you can never remember.”
James has jumped up and rushed to our record player. A bit embarrassed after my outburst, I’m glad that the three of us now focus on watching him take a record out of its sleeve, the one picturing a dressed-up couple on a car seat, him pulling on chewing gum attached to her bap. Lily’s given this record to James: such hard rock he likes, with simple lyrics, by a German band, but all in English and nothing exotic.
The music starts slow, like a ballad. “Let me take you far away/ You’d like a holiday…” The song fills the room.
We all listen, wistful. James is not making fun of me. He’s telling me: he wants to take me, as Lily’s wanted to take him, and as I want to take Remus.
Lily starts it: begins to sing along, first softly. Remus joins in, easily learning the repetitive lyrics. I’m still kneeling, facing him, and I love watching him; I love his singing. But now… Exchange your troubles for some love! Those words he didn’t catch in time: so fitting, they were sung to him, and I just wish it could have been by me; I wish I had the voice to sing like that.
Now it changes, turns into heavier rock, and this I, too, know how to sing.“Here we come… Away from home…” Somehow, anyway.
By the time it ends, I’m clinging to Remus’s arms, shaking him. “That’s what we’ll do: we’re going now! No matter if it’s far or not, just away!”
So far we’ve come only to Hampstead: now, on our trudge from Belsize Park underground station, almost to the corner of Fleet Road, where there will be some shade.
“I’m hot,” I say, sighing.
And Remus smirks. “I agree.”
I punch him on the side – more gently than it looks, I hope – but it doesn’t help: I feel like holding his hand, as sweaty as mine, I’m sure. In my scanty Muggle clothes he’s irresistible. But I mustn’t… Anyone who’d see would think I am…
Turning to walk backwards for a moment, I try to catch Lily’s attention. She and James have fallen behind – because they are holding hands and going beyond that, too.
All three of them insisted we must include Wormtail, but she’s the one who wrote the note to him. And since James’s owl soon brought back Peter’s request to meet him at the Stag, not to Apparate to the wizard side of Hampstead Heath, I don’t care if it’s because his grandaunt doesn’t want her neighbours to see our lot. I’ve at least got to travel on the tube with Remus at my side. I know it always makes him, too, think of his first time. Today again, without exchanging more than a glance, we started back up the escalator at Holborn, just like back then, that Christmas – can it really be over three years since – when on the way to see Jaws in Harringay, he found this first part of the entertainment so exciting that I offered him a second round.
“Let Wormtail wait,” I said to Remus now, when, too, the afternoon rush hour should have been easier due to holidays, but was made worse by tourists – yes, everyone on holiday – and Lily and James shook their heads at our antics. And it was almost too exciting for me to be pressed against him in the crowd, this time our bare skins touching.
Let Peter wait. In turn, I don’t hurry those lovebirds. I walk backwards in front of Remus, just staring at him intently until he must laugh. We walk ever more slowly and let the others start catching up with us when we’ve reached the shade.
“How much did you tell him in the letter?” I finally get to ask Lily.
“I described all the reasons for celebration: the Order, the art studies, the engagement. And the idea of a holiday.”
Described: just as I trusted, typical of her, she’s gone to such detail that we can proceed to plan forward.
There he is, standing by the black wall of the pub – which they all sometimes call the The Less Ancient House of Black, although it happens to be named according to Prongs. A fitting hangout for the Marauders in any case.
“How’s your grandaunt?” Remus asks immediately.
“Not better. But she’s at St Mungo’s.” Peter’s wearing a button-up shirt with his jeans, two buttons unbuttoned and the sleeves folded up above elbows, and his face is ruddy perhaps due to the heat, to sunburn, and to embarrassment.
“So now you can ask for audience with Dumbledore,” I say, “and he’ll let you sign a commitment to duties he finds suitable for you.”
James claps him on the back and saves him from responding. “Not now before… Wednesday; I think that’s the first day of August. Until then we’re celebrating!”
“Yeah…” Peter thrusts out his hand to shake James’s, “congratulations!” He reaches for Lily’s hand, then Remus’s. “To you, too. I’ve always said you should just be an artist, and if you want studies for it…”
“You can congratulate me as well,” I cut in, dislodging his hand from Remus’s, and covertly brushing the golden-brown skin of the latter, “on the double role of a soldier for the Ministry and for the Order.”
“Now no more about those roles here!” Lily pretends to scold me, but she laughs a little. “It’s supposed to be a secret group. Let’s go in. And in there, too: now only party business!”
“Yes, drinks!” James exclaims. “And today it’s all my treat. No objections allowed! My girl’s proposed to me!” He flings the pub door open and marches straight to the bar, making a fist of his left hand, and kisses the ruby on his ring before speaking to the barman in a low voice, which even cracks with emotion. “I’m engaged! I’m buying a round for the whole pub, but don’t tell them it’s me.”
It strikes me that we haven’t given proper enthusiastic attention to what he values as the greatest blessing in life. Can he possibly – perhaps unconsciously – fear that hearty congratulations from our fellow patrons would make it more painfully obvious how we have let other issues overshadow his engagement? Now we really have to concentrate first only on this at least for a while.
Now James has his arm around Lily, and the barman is shaking their hands and beaming to them. Those drinking at the bar notice, of course, and are already starting to raise their pints and bottles to them.
I help James carry our pints to a corner table by a high window, which has been opened to a blissful breeze. Yes, if life felt good this morning, now my mind should be brimming with bliss. But I feel confused – as if I weren’t used to change, and fond of change!
Peter helps me focus. “So did Lily go down on one knee?”
“Listen…” James takes a swig from his pint before launching into narration. “She came to Pads and my place early and asked me to change to Muggle clothes. She wants me to walk with her all the way to Charing Cross Road, she says. And there she goes, holding me close…” Here he grins. “Walks me south from Lincoln’s Inn Field – a detour, she says, because she’s got things to talk about.” He lowers his voice, leaning over the table. “She talks about the war, whispering, of course. How it’s now changing everything…” Kissing Lily’s hand, he turns to look at her, and I realise he’s been squeezing it all the time – whereas Remus has pressed his leg against mine.
And she’s kept smiling. But now she bites her lip, and whispers, “We don’t know everything. Those who know more have decided to get us involved. They let us now hear about attacks and disappearances. We’re told that no one’s safe. And it’s no longer enough to get trained, or seek troves, or pay their taxes and fines. Now they want from us more than gold for the war effort. We’re given the chance to join in fighting, and I doubt it’s voluntary in every sense. I might have the chance… no, it doesn’t matter. I had my chance, and I took it. You don’t mind I talk about myself, do you? This is what I told James when we were reaching Middle Temple Gardens, and I’d like you all to hear, because you’ve all been close to my heart, however far I’ve kept travelling on my curse-breaking adventures. I thought I was all grown up. But now I’m growing up again. The time for adventures is over. After this month I’ll have only office duties at Gringotts. And my first duty is at your side, no matter how we must fight.”
James suddenly speaks up again, “That’s what she’s saying, all solemn and in whisper. And I’m sitting beside her on this bench facing a fountain – a beautiful place, and she’s more beautiful, and then she’s kneeling in front of me and offering me this incredible ring. ‘Will you marry me?’ she says!” he finishes in triumph.
“Wow!” Peter stares at the ring, barely glances at the two of them, and I have to wonder if he’s only noticed the ring now, and if his praise is for James’s narration and Lily’s speech, too, or not.
James empties his pint and gets up to go and buy the next round. My gaze follows him, and I see patrons clapping him on the shoulder.
“I told him there’s no time to waste,” Lily’s saying. “You never know how much… It comforts Alice at least a bit that she had her wedding before her parents… and if we want to have babies…” Is she really talking in such an uncharacteristic way, trailing off repeatedly, or am I just not paying attention?
I keep watching James. Everything changes.
“Andromeda’s taking Nymphadora to Australia.” I’ve said it aloud.
Don’t you think you’re going a bit too far. That’s what I said when she told me, and I tried to laugh at my own joke. But nobody’s saying it now.
Now he turns back from the bar. My brother. I go to him to help with the pints again. “Do you want to have a child?” I’m asking when we reach the table.
“In this world,” Remus says, and it takes a second before I realise he’s completing my question. “Any of these worlds we live in?” Suddenly he, too, looks thoughtful and sad, lost.
“I do,” James and Lily say at the same time.
I can’t help bursting into laughter, and I laugh with tears in my eyes.
Lily’s smile looks dreamy. “That’s how there’s hope. There is.”
I can bear no more solemn talk, or I’ll shed more tears, without laughter this time. “We were supposed to get to the party business.”
“I’m getting there,” Lily says. “Even to wedding business! Remember it was only last solstice I promised to propose to James when I’m ready. And you know he’s been ready since… what: our second school year! Now with no more delay, we’ll get married in August. Early August! And that means it’s time for a stag party, doesn’t it?”
“So soon!” Peter’s frowning.
And it occurs to me that all this is worse for Peter, even though he’s not the one who shares a flat with James. Everything is bad news to him. Perhaps even in general: any news. He dislikes change. I think he’s never really learnt to enjoy shifting into his animal shape, although, as Remus reminds me – when I question including him – he was the first to succeed in changing and even the first to suggest that we should become animals. And today’s great news in particular: he envies Remus for his success in studies, and he’s a coward who definitely doesn’t want to join in fighting, and he’s afraid this marriage will be the end of the Marauders as a group where he could belong.
Only Remus looks genuinely happy now. Even James purses his lips.
Lily breaks the silence first with a smack on his mouth. “James, I’ve told you that there’s one last field trip I must make. And it’s just to Elginhaugh.”
“Where’s that?” Remus sounds truly interested, even fascinated.
“Only in Scotland, south-east of Edinburgh. There’s a new Muggle discovery of a Roman fort, no excavations yet.” Lily’s explanation now lacks any sign of the zeal I remember from two years ago, when she talked enthusiastically about her task in hoarding a treasure in ancient Palmyra, and about all things Syrian, and I found it hard not to join James in complaining. “But my goblin colleagues have already sensed the presence of gold. We must be prepared for ancient curses when we go to Summon the aurei.”
“Aurei – gold?” That’s Peter.
“Yes, aureus is an ancient Roman gold coin. Anyway, I must go there for these last four or five days of July. And I couldn’t possibly take you with me – even if it were an island without name and farther away from home.” Now she strokes James’s head and smiles. “So I suggest you make your holiday into a stag do.”
“It’ll be just the four Marauders like in the old days. That’s not bad either.” Remus kicks my foot just as I’m kicking his.
Now, it’s not as good, not for the two of us, and particularly not for James. I wonder if Lily told him about her trip only on our way here, after the joyful agreement that we’d take each other away for a while – like to an island of freedom – from all these commitments. But how could we have comfortably included Peter, as the fifth wheel – in hotel rooms, beach huts, tents, what have you? And, after all, Lily is a part of the commitments.
“All right. If you…” Now James points his finger at the three of us. “Mates, do you want to take your Prongs far away?”
“I do!” Remus and I say.
“Yes.” Peter’s perhaps a bit slower, and he adds, “How far, and for how long? And did someone say something about an island?”
Remus starts singing, “To an island many miles away from home…” and makes me dream of the Mediterranean Sea, if not the Pacific Ocean.
But James brings me back to earth. “We can’t go abroad. The Auror Office has given Pads and me a leave of four days, starting with the weekend, early tomorrow afternoon – but Aurors are not allowed to leave the country in time of war. And no more ‘who do they think they are to forbid us’! If you want…”
“All right, all right!” I know: if I want to fight for equality and freedom, joining anyone in the fight, I can’t be free.
“There’s the island resort in Essex that my grandaunt…”
I feel irritated enough to interrupt Peter with a snort. “Your grandaunt!”
But he’s resilient, our Wormtail: again not intimidated easily, now that he can feel included and secure for the next five days. “She was young and wild once… well, last century, at the time when they still used bathing machines for ladies to swim in the sea unseen – with the strictest delicacy, as she says. Anyway, even the ancient Romans came to this place for holidays… not from Rome, from Colchester, or what’s now called Colchester, and this place called Mer…”
“Don’t say it!” Remus cuts in. “It must be an island without name!”
Lily’s more practical, “How do you get to this island?”
“It’s only a Muggle place now. But it’s close to the mainland and connected to it by a causeway, and not a hundred miles from London.”
“So we can travel in the Muggle way!” James exclaims, punching my upper arm. Trust him to see the positive side. “That’s a holiday for any wizard, let alone an Auror! Especially when we can use your motorbike – in the Muggle way, mind.” And he whispers, “Not flying. That modification is not reliable yet.”
“All right,” I say again, still reluctantly.
But I can feel a new dream stirring: Remus behind me on the bike, leaning against my back, and that other pair of stags – perhaps on a rented moped – together with us, so nobody would think that I am…
As soon as a shadow falls over my Grim when I’m just about to stand up from my knees, having finished the job with the chain, I know it’s him. Perhaps in the waft of ever warmer air I can already smell the country: his herbs. And now I can hear his laughter while what I see is just a figure at the garage doorway against the glare of sunshine.
“So you’ve gone down on one knee, too,” he says, “in front of your beloved.”
Standing up, I pat the seat of the motorbike. “Yes, and I’ve already applied the lube.”
“Ready for a romantic ride?” Who wants to talk about romance: that’ll be him.
I just happen to like shagging him, who’s something special, more than human, my Moony, and since I’ve become the dog for him whenever he needs… And he’s not a real poof. Lube’s used on both of us.
When I’ve returned the can of chain lubricant to its shelf, without replying, I turn to see him – now examining the Fizzy – in better lighting. He’s wearing the Tom Robinson Band tour promotion shirt I gave him – white, with blue sleeves covering his arms just under the elbows – and rather ratty jeans shorts… oh, cut-offs he’s made of the jeans he wore a year ago in best punk style, ever more ripped and torn, and they reach barely halfway his thighs.
“All dressed up for the trip, you,” I can’t resist commenting, and my tone comes out rather tender than teasing, when I see he’s also got the shark’s tooth in the dip between his collarbones.
It’s plastic, but still the least garish of the pendants they sold when Jaws was a hit, and despite the recent Willow Incident I dared make fun of how it was named after him, although the awful middle name forced on him is a part of the gravest injustice… How childish I was! But now he’s told me that after he read how the mechanical shark that functioned and malfunctioned in the role of the beast was named Bruce, he’s called himself Bruce at gay discos, where he goes with Amelia. Indeed, he’s now wearing also the small golden hoop on his right earlobe, a birthday gift from her.
“Do you have to wear the earring, too?” Now I sound too serious.
“Why not? It doesn’t clash with the style, does it?” He’s so carefree about this issue, as if there were no risk for harassment among the Muggles when we’re legal – mind, legal only in private.
I move away from him, proceed to attach the saddlebags and – unnecessarily – to check their contents.
“You’re early,” I point out casually. Perhaps he’s arrived now in hope of a moment of intimacy. A vain hope. The doors are open to the street, and there are other motorists further in. “No problem with your parents about your leaving?”
“No, they’re happy to hear I’ll both study and work for Dumbledore as from the beginning of August. I’ve brought everything with me, so that I can stay straight after this trip.”
As I look up, I see him touch the strap crossing his chest, and now I notice the battered satchel he used to carry around some time last year.
He goes on in whisper, “Some of the things shrunken, of course, including the briefcase. I’d like to use it, but that would seriously clash with the holiday style. Anyway, my parents have got enough labour force to easily replace me: more creatures gathering on the estate. The enemy’s making it that hard for others than full humans in the Cotswolds, and perhaps it’s not only what we’ve considered the enemy.”
No wonder he sees the Muggle world as a safe haven. Besides, before Hogwarts he grew up in a community where it was all right to be any kind of a… freak. I glance up, and his calm gaze looks so steady that I feel it has been at me all the time.
Stroking the Fizzy’s saddle absentmindedly, he smiles a little. “I feel somehow guilty, escaping all that. But it’s just for these few days, to celebrate – Prongs, above all. Is this the moped you’ve rented for him?”
“Yes, a Fizzy, Yamaha FS1E. I think it’s the best and still easy enough to ride, at least for a flyer like Prongs. This thing could even go fast, but we must follow the new speed limit.”
“That’s fine – just going to make the ride last longer.” That’s James, suddenly at the door – and ready with a positive comment. “Like really travelling far away! You want to come behind me, Moony?”
They both give me a choice. Remus doesn’t hurry to reply but asks about Lily first.
“Yes, I’m sure she’d have liked to ride behind me,” James is now replying. “And yes, I got to say goodbye to her at Gringotts just now. They were about to leave for Scotland when I went there straight from work.”
No, I’m not that scared. “I think Wormtail’s going to be less scared of the Fizzy than of my Grim.”
“Who says I’m scared?” Peter strides in. “But I’d rather choose what my dad would call a hairdryer, and be a mod, not a rocker like he was, or a Ton-Up boy they called it back then, in the fifties.”
There he goes again with his family history, so as to cover up any embarrassment. Since we settled in London, he’s got talking about his Muggle-born father perhaps because that can make him appear more experienced.
Remus shows interest, once again. “You’ve talked about mods before. Is it the band you like, Jam? Those blokes wearing suits? And… you’ve said there are – again – fights between mods and rockers at seaside resorts.”
“The Jam, you’re right – about the suits, too. I’m having one tailored. But we want no fights now. That’s why I’ve chosen a resort where…”
James cuts in, “It’s all proper enough for grandaunts!”
“Yes, and for the peaceful holiday we want. And Pads, you could have chosen for Prongs and me an actual scooter that looks like a hairdryer, instead of this moped that looks like a motorbike. To be sure that together we shouldn’t provoke either gang.”
It’s been decided, then. I’ve let Peter decide, and to my surprise, actually, he’s not stepping between Remus and me. Perhaps he’s given up – having first tried to prevent intimacy even between the two canines since time before James acquired his antlers.
“That toy for sixteen-year-olds shouldn’t provoke anyone,” I reply, “and I think it suits the two of you well enough. And we won’t provoke bobbies either. I’ve conjured a license for Prongs, too, just in case. But we’ll wear helmets and ride within the speed limit, all right?”
By myself I’ve never been so cautious. I don’t want to get my friends in trouble, or perhaps I just don’t want to get in trouble with Remus on my bike.
At least these open face helmets must do, as we won’t go fast. And we won’t wear protective clothes. It’s too hot for that, today even worse than yesterday, over thirty degrees, I’m sure.
Stuffing my One Star into a saddle bag, I catch myself fantasising Remus in this jacket. Yes, that’s pure fantasy. In reality there’s now no chance of him getting cold.
Suddenly impatient, I bark an order, “Get ready! Let’s get going! Now quick before the worst rush hour. We won’t be the only ones who want out of this sweltering city.”
My nervous impatience has persisted through Old Street, Hackney Road, Cassland Road… I’ve just snapped at Peter that I know the route when he’s urged James to ride to my side at crossroads and tried to offer directions. Only after crossing the Rodling River and heading a bit too fast to the Redbridge Roundabout, sensing the weight behind me in the curves, then speeding on to continue the Eastern Avenue straight east – only now do I believe that we’re getting away.
Finally we’ve reached the Gallows Corner Roundabout. I’ve ridden the Eastern Avenue so many times without a goal or other purpose than the sense of power in my control, and of a chance for freedom, a chance I haven’t quite taken yet. Now when Grim moves on to the flyover and starts along the Southend Arterial Road, I feel I’m taking it at last, and sharing it with my Moony. In the curve he’s stayed pressed against my back, and it must have been superfluous that he’s placed a hand on my thigh. This touch contributes to the rise of another fantasy: staying like this, sharing like this until… the end, through any changes.
As the country spreads around us, I’m biting the air just as the dog does when reaching wilderness, and there’s the best music in my head – 2-4-6-8 Motorway – and in my ears the roar of Grim… and of the Fizzy, now at my side. What do they want again?
Peter, of course. “Slow down to let the gang pass!” he shouts, I think, reading on his lips and in his gestures.
Hell, I must have been going faster than the moped’s allowed. And behind that scooter which I noticed in my mirror a while ago, there are now others, but they aren’t catching up. I steer quite close to the left edge of the road and let the speed drop. The grouped scooters grow in the mirror: bright-coloured Vespas and Lambrettas, and the riders with Pudding Bowl helmets like those of their idols’ from last decade. They race past, perhaps fifteen of them, shouting. What was that: gay geezers? Or just: hey, geezers?
I slow down further, and stop at the side of the road. Remus’s hand is still there. Maybe he notices that I’m looking at it, as he now moves it away. I keep my gaze in that direction, and can’t help seeing the golden glow given by sunshine to the hairs on his leg.
“Don’t worry,” Peter says as soon as James pulls up beside me. “Don’t let them make you stop.”
I assume he’s talking to me, not to Remus about touching me.
“They didn’t make me stop. I wanted to stop to hear what you were saying,” I lie, fumbling for a fag.
“Just that you could slow down and let them pass. Anyway, no worries. They’re heading for Southend.”
Finally I’ve got the fag lit, and I take a drag before responding, “Who’s been worried? And I know where they gather. I’ve heard of mods, seen enough of them around, too. Just don’t know what their point is.” I get ever more irritated because now I can’t stick the fag into Remus’s mouth. He doesn’t like smoking so much that he’d accept one for himself. “A fashion trend!” I spit out.
“The music,” Peter responds with enthusiasm, “and the style, lifestyle. They’re mod – modern.”
“We have to admit that punk’s getting old,” Remus points out, taking off his helmet, running his fingers through his damp curls. “In the Muggle world things change too quickly.”
Trying to ignore the stab of his comment, I aim my protest at Peter. “As modern as... what: fifteen years ago! I see no point in their style. Unlike them, punks have a purpose, at least people like…” Tom fights against all social injustice, but after learning how visible he is in the gay liberation movement, I hesitate to mention him, and now TRB’s just disbanded anyway.
James saves me from revealing my confusion. “And new music you can find anywhere – at least Lily can. You don’t have to stick to a style.”
Remus’s hand brushes my back, and I turn my head to see him just reattaching his helmet while saying, “We can stick together despite our different styles, so hey, let’s move on!”
“All right. And I stopped also to say that we’ll stop for a break soon after turning away from the Southend Arterial.”
“In Wickford?” Peter asks
James has taken out the map and already found the right section. I’m glad I studied the route carefully last night.
Reaching to point at the small town, I confirm, “Yes, it’s about half-way between Holborn and Mer… our island without name. Good to see we’re all so skillful even with Muggle maps.”
Would it be good to have moving dots and labels on this map, too: labels like mod or punk, or homophobe? And what would the label be on me?
After finally swinging to the left, heading north-east, I breathe more freely… ever more freely, perhaps because there are again fields on both sides.
Until now we approach Wickford and here follow Nevendon Road northwards, and here after the River Crouch between its conrete banks, it turns into High Street at next crossroads. But I spot a pub even before it: the Duke, excellent.
Having parked the bike, I jump off quickly. “Let’s see if this one’s serving food.”
“Is it necessary…?” Remus, once again, tries to protest against eating. What’s the matter with him? At school he always ate willingly, and a lot – as he still does sometimes when he… gives up and relaxes.
“Yes, we’d better have a proper meal here. We’ll arrive late. Relax, and just let me decide.” I’ve adjured that, since I’ll be James’s best man, I’m taking care of all the arrangements and expenses of this stag do. “Remember I’m the best man.”
“You are, and always will be.” Why at any moment he manages to say something risqué?
To my relief James punches me. “That’s right. But let our mod go in first, so that the way other Londoners dress on a hot day won’t scare these good people.”
After bangers and mash and beer – just a half but still – I’m relaxed myself, too, when we hit the road again. Remus’s chest against my back is the most natural thing – and its meaning to me is hidden securely without effort, without worry.
What’s the matter been with me today! I’ve always loved secrets and risks, and what I do with Remus has always been part of that, earlier even more secret and more risky. Perhaps now when severe danger awaits us after this holiday, I wish that this part of my life could be accepted and safe – and it’s not fair the two of us never have a chance for a life like that, particularly Remus, who’s… glad to be gay.
I don’t want to get that song of Tom’s in my head. Just because it’s not a happy song at all, which should be obvious to Remus and other proud gays, too. Just… let me take you far away! After the war I will, and we’ll be free.
Now after Maldon, according to the map, we should see the first glimpse of sea on our right. Slowing down, I point it to Remus. Here the road runs right next to the shore. Is it worth a stop?
Yes! I mustn’t take anything like this or myself too seriously, so it’s all right that it doesn’t look that magnificent: just the shallow last curve of the Blackwater estuary… Blackwater! All right, let’s take this siriusly!
I’ve turned and ridden straight towards the water’s edge. Having hardly got the bike to stop, I rush off and run to the beach with my arms spread, then with hands at my fly. “Blackwater!”
I glance back to see that they’re just so much behind that they’ll see only the curve – yes, another curve – of my water, which I aim at the sand, though, since I’m going to wade in.
“The water’s not black!” James points out in mock astonishment.
“No, it’s bright and shining like our best man himself, who’s evidently not a dark wizard!” Remus passes me, kicking off his canvas shoes. With no socks to take off, he’s already striding right in.
The glimmer of sunshine reflections makes it hard to see, but no, he’s not looking at me. Still, the cock I’ve hurried to tuck in is swelling under my hands.
“Look, there’s an island!” Peter points out what nobody can miss, just in front of us. “Or is it the other shore of this sea?” He’s peeling off his socks, then carefully rolling up his trouser legs – and starting to sing. “Be welcome on the island without name!”
Did I get it wrong yesterday, not just the tune, as usual, but the lyrics, too? Here we come?
But now Remus’s voice joins his, and they start from the beginning, “Let me take you…”
By the time I’m barefoot, James balances himself with a hand on my shoulder, taking off his socks. “Come on, we can do it!”
Now in glorious disharmony all the four Marauder voices ring over the estuary, with the accompaniment of our feet splashing water.
The sand in my shoes has helped me keep only that song in my mind all the rest of the way, through the fields, under the hazy blue and huge sky. Now after that crossroads, this straight ahead must be the final stretch. Over there it’ll turn into the Strood, the causeway built by the Romans, or was it the Saxons, never mind. But…
“It’s sunk under water!” I exclaim, having stopped Grim.
James arrives beside me, staring ahead with wide eyes.
Peter laughs. “No, the water’s risen.” Of course. “We’re so lucky!” Is he serious?
“Oh yes, you told me,” James says. Why haven’t they told me, who’s responsible for the arrangements? “It’s fascinating to see. And not very frequent, rising to this level, I mean. Great coincidence!”
Remus spares me from asking, “What’s so fortunate about a flood?”
“You know, the high tide comes twice a day. But it rises high enough to cover the Strood only for about a week every month,” Peter explains smugly. “And we’re lucky to see it.”
“But how can we now get to the island?” I hope this is not a stupid question. “If you knew, you could have checked, or asked me to check when the tide’s this high.”
“Oh, the tide will be low enough in an hour or so. We’ll wait and watch.”
It does look wondrous how the water washes the paving ever closer to us, and further towards the island, all I can see of the road are the railings. And a car! Still far, and approaching slowly, cleaving a path through the sea, raising a high wave on either side.
“Yes, look!” James has noticed it, too. “There will be some daredevils to watch. Most people must know the tide times, as there’s nobody else…”
Peter interrupts him. “Pads, don’t even think about riding into the water!”
“No. Grim doesn’t like saltwater.” I’m still speaking when I register rough voices: shouting, swearing. The car on the Strood is a convertible, and there are five young men in it, laughing… some of them even pointing towards us. “I’ve just thought of something else.”
Starting the bike, I glance at Remus. “You trust me?” I rather just mouth than say aloud.
He grins and nods when Grim’s already turning under us.
“Sorry, mates! Don’t want to wait here. See you by the beach huts. It’s no use you following, you know…”
James is about to start the moped but gives up. “Pads, it’s not reliable yet!”
“At short distance it is!” I wonder if he can hear my reply since I’m speeding up.
Grim, Remus and I, we rumble back past the few houses, but before the end of the straight I slow down enough to be able to switch onto a narrow track on the edge of a field. Up on my right I can see a copse: small trees or at least shrubs tall enough to hide us. Even now I’m going to follow some rules: no magic where Muggles can see you.
“Look around: can there be anyone watching?” I’m bringing us slowly to a stop.
“No, I can see no one, and no houses.” Remus gets off, and helps when I start pushing Grim over the soft earth and long grass, heading behind a clump of young willows, and further in until…
We’re all surrounded by silvery green leaves, golden light, green shade. The air is still and sultry, filled with the buzz of insects and smells of earth. Suddenly sweating, I stop and lean on Grim, breathless.
And Remus pushes on, pushes against me from behind, with his bony hip against my buttocks. Or is it…? His arm’s snaking around my neck, and he focuses on caressing my chin – no, opening the clutch, taking off my helmet, and as he lets it fall in the grass and I turn around, his fingers slide under the damp hair plastered on my neck and up behind my skull to press my face against his. The grinning mouth opens to welcome my tongue. With our mouths attached, his hands leave me, and I sense his body jerking against mine: he must be taking off his shorts.
When he tucks at mine, I manage to mumble against his mouth, “This is not why we’ve hidden here.”
“No?” He licks my lip, completes his tucking, and turns me around, pushes me against Grim, and his cock between my buttocks.
My hard-on rubs against the seat, and that’s where I come, almost immediately, at the same time with him. I pat Grim. “We’re a fine threesome.”
His laughter tickles my ear. “That was a quick shortcut.” Detaching himself from me, he continues to explain, “Couldn’t go all the way up the dirt path. You’d applied the lube on only one of us three, I noticed.”
Acting all cool, I half straighten up and lean an elbow on the handlebars – and with the shorts at my ankles, almost stumble just when lifting my gaze to him. Why is he still so unbearably beautiful in my eyes? In the shade his face is dark, flushed, and his hair a halo. Having not properly closed his shorts, he’s digging something out of the satchel.
When he points his wand at me, his teeth and the amber of his eyes shine in a flash. “Now a retour or a detour? No, I’m doing just the cleanup. You’ve had another magic trick in mind?”
He’s Vanished my sperm from the seat, and now he’s almost too close again, with the wand tip where I’ve felt his sperm flow down, cooling, then drying – now gone.
“Baa-aa?” What I’ve come up with as a response is, of course, belated: the mating call we adopted from his flock of sheep on my first holiday in the Cotswolds.
“I love you,” he says seriously, as if correcting or translating my phrase.
I only kiss his lips, and he pulls up my shorts. While he’s picking up the helmets, I get my wand from the saddle bag.
“You can Disillusion me after I’ve done it to you and Grim,” I suggest when he’s attaching my helmet. “I think it works better than doing it to myself, even...”
“… Though I’m still hardly as good at this charm as Lily was in our fifth year. And I still agree with Peter: its name doesn’t make sense.”
“We can make it make sense.” Settling on the saddle, as if I were able to ride straight through the thicket, I’m suddenly sure that I can make any impossible thing happen. “First of all, don’t mention them. Lily’s a part of the commitments, and Peter’s… Anyway, what others have seen of us is only an illusion. Now we’ll be real, and it’ll be just the two…”
“The three of us.” My Moony’s behind me, laughing, with one hand on my hip, and his wand, ready like mine, in the other. But it seems we can’t stop babbling. “The name could come from This Illusion. But the ancient incantation means undoing the trick, the sleight, the delusion…”
I rap him on the head, which makes him shut up, and – when the incantation forms in my mind – merge into the dappled shade of silver and green. I can still hear his breath, even smell his herbs, and sense his shivers running through his hand to my body. And I can still see him, yes: his image remains beyond the chameleon disguise, because he will always be fully real to me.
I rap Grim, and in my eyes it merges into the high grass, but between my thighs it stays solid. And paradoxically, its invisibility makes me more aware of, even alarmed by what a heavy mass of metal it is. But I trust in my skills, which have just allowed me to perform voicelessly what Remus struggles to achieve by speaking the incantation.
“Ungedwimore!” he pronounces softly, carefully, and from his wand’s decisive touch on the crown of my head, several cold trickles run down to my forehead, my face, my neck – a relief in the heat, until the icy flow covers all of my skin and I tremble.
He’s succeeded excellently, and I’ve joined him in the disguise. Now sunshine pierces the two of us and binds us together. And his invisible body has regained its heat, and when it presses against me, mine warms up.
It fills me up with renewed energy and confidence. I feel my invisible wand slide along the metal of the invisible handlebars, then hear it swish just above, and I flick it to a light touch just when the words of the incantation form in my mind: Grimardium Leviosa.
And we rise up to full sunlight. Merged into the late afternoon haze, we hover high above the fields, rocked by the salty sea wind. Turning the handlebars, I manage to make us face southeast, and I can see the railings of the Strood, the paving covered by what from here looks like a negligible film of water – but the Fizzy still waiting. Beyond, the island, and beyond it, the shimmer of open sea. Towards that, yes, I have the will to move us.
This incantation I’m still – happy, too, to be – saying aloud, “Locomovera Aera!” With the words my wand has flourished forward and up, and now we are flying!
In the silence of magic Grim carries us without its usual roar, and I’ve got only the wind in my ears, and my Moony’s breathing… and now his singing. Of course, he can’t resist it. “ … You’d like a holiday.”
I join him and take us straight to the words I want to say to him, and with him I can sing them beautifully, “Exchange your troubles for some love/ wherever you are…”
Here we hush as if in agreement, and share a shuddering breath, as he hugs me.
“I’m right here with you,” I say. “We’re right here and real. Here… above an oyster. Look down!”
We’ve got a perfect view right below, since our thighs and Grim are one with it. And our island without name, lying in its flimsy bed of shallow, withdrawing sea, is the perfect shape of an oyster.
“Look, down there I’ll take you to eat oysters,” I start telling him, as I turn the handlebars so as to start following the shoreline. “I know you’ve never tasted one, of course not in the Cotswolds, and it won’t be like when I’ve had them before, at gloomy dinner parties… No, it’ll be in an oysterman’s shack on the beach, in wind and sunshine. Or maybe not. It’s not the season, sorry… But I’ll take you…”
“Why then the world's thine oyster, which thou with wand will open,” he recites in impressive diction, in contrast to my raving.
“That’s a line from theatre, your mother’s,” I’m guessing.
“A play by Shakespeare.” He’s placed his chin on my shoulder, and now he kisses my jaw. “It means… anything: that you can do – you’re free and able to do anything.”
He’s made me smile again. “Play! I’ll take you to play in the sand kissed by the sun and waves, to lie down right at the edge, between land and sea, and wait for the tide to come and cover and float us. And we’ll swim until you’re cold and I can wrap you in my Schott Perfecto One Star jacket, and we’ll stay while the sky darkens around the most fragile crescent and…”
“Sirius rises late in the dark, liquid sky/ On summer nights, star of stars!” he recites, and, “Homer,” he adds, between a kiss on my earlobe, “Iliad,” and a kiss at the corner of my mouth.
“And I’ll take you to one of those tiny beach huts, the… what do you call those colours?”
“Pastels.”
“The pastel blue one, or… lavender?” Now I’ve turned my head to kiss the shimmer of his face. “We’re renting two, one just for you and me, so it’ll be private enough to be legal, you and me alone, twenty-one and consenting, right?”
And we’ll step out of our hut to the beach, and have to let go of each other’s hand, and Peter will walk between us to make sure, and I must… be grateful. Though I hate that phrase you use. At restaurants I’ll sit diagonally opposite to you and hardly dare stare. And we’ll be back in London and I’ll try to focus on the blessing of fighting for freedom, still following some bastards’ orders. And you’ll find a crumby room and struggle to pay the rent, and I’ll pretend not to comprehend or remember, or I’ll even manage not to – because you don’t want me to realise and offer charity. And my brother will marry and move away, and I won’t know what I dare let change…
But for a moment more, my world is shrunken to this little oyster I’m opening and sharing with you, my Moony. Out of the blue haze, the amber of your loving gaze now shines at me, and I know to make this kiss a deep one, the last one before we’re plummeting back down to earth.
Notes: Holiday is a song by the German band Scorpions, included on the album Lovedrive, which was released in January 1979 and became the band’s breakthrough in UK. 2-4-6-8 Motorway and (Sing If You’re) Glad to Be Gay are songs by Tom Robinson Band, released in 1977 and 1978, respectively.
Why then the world's mine oyster,/ Which I with sword will open is Pistol’s reply to Falstaff’s I will not lend thee a penny in Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor (Act 2, scene 2, 2 – 4.)
If you want a name for the holiday resort, it’s Mersea Island.
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Date: 2020-07-10 01:33 pm (UTC)Suffice to say, I loved this. Very well written. The ending is beautiful.
Thank you for allowing me to spend my morning with the Marauders, even if I am now very behind on chores. :)
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Date: 2020-07-10 04:13 pm (UTC)Your lovely words mean a lot, and I'm so glad I've now got some feedback on this particular fic. Until now I haven't known if anyone besides me has ever read it. This was written when, after my hiatus, I had still not found my way where the fandom interaction had moved, and I didn't even have a beta. (The fic has gathered some views on AO3, but I suspect people have not finished reading it.) I admit I'm dying to hear at least something about what you said in that review eaten by DW. If you ever want to procrastinate from some chores, perhaps leave a few words on AO3, please?
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Date: 2020-09-20 09:51 am (UTC)This is hardly a very major criticism, but London is rarely so hot in August that people would be yearning to leave it! That's changing with global warming, of course.
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Date: 2020-09-20 10:52 am (UTC)When I got back to writing, at first surprising myself with how I wanted to add to my Remus's story by writing fic after fic about him and his Pads and other friends in the 1970s, and including something explicit, too, I posted the fics on LJ without any prospects of feedback. I've kept wondering if these sex scenes (half-arsed, I've called them) really work, as they are hardly the focus or conclusion in my stories. Atmosphere is a stronger suit for me, I guess.
And yay, I love your spelling out your interpretation of how Sirius sees his sexuality. It's wonderful to know that it can be read as a subtext for the reader to interpret. Besides replying that you've definitely not interpreted anything wrongly, I can't resist telling you that problems with understanding and accepting one's sexuality is a major theme in my fic, and Sirius's struggle with this is a recurring element in these R/S stories.
Thank you for the criticism related to weather, too! I've actually checked all dates and weather conditions for my fic (after Almost Dignified, in which the weather is wrong). This story is set on the 25th and 26th of July 1979, and I found this information online: During the last week it became temporarily hot with the temperature rising above 30 C on the 27th. In any case, perhaps I should have referred to how exceptional such hot days were in London.
EDIT Edited. Oh, now I've remembered there's Sirius saying, "All August in the city! It’s too hot for any dog." Well, it's Sirius protesting against Dumbledore giving them orders. And he could refer to the hotness of that day... But thanks to you, I realise I can add something to James's reply – like, There aren't too many hot days in London – ever!