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tartanfics2007-08-27 07:49 pm
Nineteen: Snapshots of a Time
Rating: PG
Prompt: # 19 at
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barefootboysWord Count: 920
Summary: It's a funny thing, time.
Remus spends the last two weeks of summer in a constant state of nervous excitement. His parents look happier than they have in a long time, so proud are they that their son, a werewolf, is going to Hogwarts. He marks off the days on the calendar, half willing time to move faster, half wanting it to slow down, so that he can savour this excitement before it is too much tinged with anxiety.
It’s a funny thing, time.
The first time Sirius comes to Remus’ house, they play scrabble. It seems a harmless game enough, at first. Sirius has never played it, of course, since his family’s idea of a harmless board game closely approximates Jumanji. They are sitting on the front porch, drinking Mrs. Lupin’s famous lemonade, and Sirius is bored with the game, at first. Until he realizes that he can spell out dirty words with the scrabble tiles.
This, to a thirteen year old boy, will make anything interesting.
It’s late afternoon when Remus gets home, exhausted and sweaty, and ready to sleep for the next ten years. He greets his parents (“Are you hungry, darling?” and “How was the fishing?”) and goes upstairs to shower. Because Merlin knows he needs it.
He’s standing at the bathroom sink before he has a chance to really pause and think. A blank and somewhat mind-numbing panic sets in. Oh, god. I got kissed by Sirius Black. Somehow, it doesn’t quite register that he kissed Sirius first. Precedents, Mr. Moony, Sirius would say. Oh, to have a time-turner, Remus thinks.
But then, he can’t help wondering. And somehow, suddenly, he doesn’t want that time-turner so much anymore. Unless it’s to go through the whole thing over again.
They relearn themselves and each other. How to joke, poke fun, touch each other without jumping three feet and spending the next four hours stumbling over their words. It will take time to go back, to go forward. They both know this, yet they are both impatient.
“How’s good old Oscar?” Sirius asks, flopping down on the grass next to Remus.
Remus closes The Importance of Being Earnest on his bookmark. “Better, before you got here.”
Sirius knows that Remus only sounds angry when he isn’t.
The summer Lily Evans marries James Potter (finally), she spends a lot of time watching people. She’s so happy in her own love that she looks for signs of it in everyone else. A more unsubtle woman would have tried her hand at matchmaking. (James’ second cousin Ella would be simply perfect for Gideon Prewett.) But Lily only watches and smiles.
It’s Remus and Sirius she finds herself watching most. She remembers noticing Remus at school, and being surprised by how often she saw shades of herself in a friend of James Potter and Sirius Black. He would be following behind, usually with a lot of books, and Lily would see, suddenly, how protective Sirius always was of his friend. Now, they come over for dinner, and she sees how Sirius’ hand rests easily on Remus’ thigh as they eat, and how Remus’ fingers brush across the back of Sirius’ neck as he leans across to grab a book off the coffee table.
Remus watches as the folded and rather battered road map of
After exactly seven minutes, Sirius pulls the paper out of the solution with a sterilized pair of tongs. They must not touch it. Peter’s old camera, a bit battered and worn, is sitting on Remus’ kitchen table next to the paper, which no longer looks like a map. The lines have faded entirely away, and the colours run together so that it is a dull and ugly grey.
Sirius moves to stand behind Remus, a hand on his left shoulder, lending strength and warmth. Remus sets the tip of his wand to the camera, and begins, after a breath, to intone a string of Latin. Sirius, whose Latin is rustier than Remus’ but who understands the gist of the spell, hears once or twice the name: Peter Pettigrew. It gives him shivers. Presently, Remus stops speaking, and something begins to seep out of the camera. It moves like the contents of a Pensieve, but is pale brown in colour. The colour of Wormtail’s fur.
An address appears on the paper in deep blue ink. Remus wonders whose handwriting it is. It looks a little like Lily’s.
The Kitchen
Little Whinging,
Remus breathes out.
When Professor McGonagall mentions in a letter to Remus that Hermione Granger will be given a time-turner to help her get to all her classes, he starts thinking about time-turners. The pranks they could have pulled with a time-turner in hand when they were at school—Remus doesn’t like to think. They were idiots, then. Time is dangerous business. But he still remembers it fondly.
It’s been a long time. Some things have changed, and others—not. A long time, since Remus himself was going to Hogwarts…. One hundred ninety-two thousand, seven hundred and twenty turns should do the trick.
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Thank you for sharing these beautiful snapshots of a wonderful time.
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That made me cry. Gah. ♥