Like Leaves and Kings
Nov. 7th, 2020 09:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
starfishstarLIKE LEAVES AND KINGS
Summary: The leaves are falling, the seasons are changing, and adult life is rushing towards them. But the Marauders will always find time for one last hurrah.
Characters: Marauders, with perhaps a hint of Remus/Sirius
Words: 1200 (4 x 300)
Notes: This set of triple drabbles came about in part as my submission for hp_halloween... But in the process of trying to write one (triple) drabble, I accidentally wrote four. :-) Thank you to rachelindeed for betareading!
Read here below or on AO3.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
i. autumn leaves
“A cycling tour? On a bicycle?” Sirius managed to imbue the word with an impressive degree of scorn, a tone honed by nearly nineteen years of aristocratic upbringing.
“Yes, you know,” Remus said, marking a leg of their route on the Ordnance Survey map he’d spread across James and Lily’s kitchen table and determinedly not looking up at Sirius. “Two-wheeled transport, carries one quite conveniently round the countryside.”
“I’m a wizard,” Sirius complained. “I can go anywhere I want with no wheels at all.” But he was leaning closer to peer at the map, getting in Remus’ personal space.
Lily came and slung one arm round Sirius’ shoulders. Remus saw how he glanced with alarm at her engagement ring as it entered his line of sight. But Sirius grinned at Lily herself. No matter how transparently he feared that marriage would mean James would be lost to him in some irrevocable way, Sirius couldn’t seem to hate Lily.
“You’ve no obligation to join us, Sirius,” James pointed out, setting aside the pencil he’d been using to point out picturesque locations along the coast of Scotland, and instead leaning in to muss Sirius’ hair as Sirius squawked in indignation. “But we’ve been working non-stop for the Order from the second we left Hogwarts, and we’re going to continue working for the Order for pretty much forever after this, so Lily, Remus, Pete and I are going on holiday.”
“Which,” Lily added, stepping aside with a roll of her eyes as Sirius and James tussled, “is the sort of holiday Muggles take. A nice Muggle cycling holiday.”
Sirius’ head popped up from beneath James’ elbow. “I do like Muggle things.” As they all well knew, Sirius loved anything his parents would disapprove of. “A cycling tour, you say? When do we leave?”
ii. changing seasons
Sirius kept pulling ahead of the rest of them on the cycle path, some excess of wild energy driving him forward. Much of that first morning, he was a smudge of colour up ahead, disappearing round a bend then reappearing further on. His dark hair and jacket stood out starkly against the muted russets and browns of the landscape and the steely blue of the surf that surged and retreated against the pebble beaches they rode alongside.
But as James and Lily and Peter dawdled and joked, Remus pedalled steadily and found himself gaining on Sirius. Sirius tossed Remus a grin when he saw him coming up behind. Sirius’ hair was a wind-tossed mess and he looked happier than Remus had seen him in ages, except perhaps at duelling practices for the Order.
“This is the best idea we’ve ever had,” Sirius declared, as Remus’ handlebars pulled level with his own, the path wide enough for the two of them to ride abreast.
“You didn’t even want to come on this trip!” Remus protested, laughing. The wide sky and crisp air were lifting his spirits too, reminding him to breathe.
Since they’d left Hogwarts in June, they’d subsumed themselves in learning to survive their new reality, as members of the Order of the Phoenix, in a war whose pace and fever pitch were ever increasing. Remus hadn’t realised how badly they all needed a break until James had suggested this trip. And now here they were on the Scottish coast, for once with no worries beyond where to stop for lunch.
“I haven’t the foggiest notion what you’re talking about, Moony,” Sirius said loftily. But he couldn’t keep a straight face at that for long. Soon both of them dissolved into giggles far more suited to schoolboys than to warriors.
iii. fog
“Moooony!” came James’ voice from Remus’ left.
“Moooony!” called Sirius from up ahead.
“Oh for Merlin’s sake,” said Lily, from somewhere between them.
There was a thump, then an “Ouch!” from Peter, and a bit more shuffling about, before Lily said:
“Seriously, will you all stand still for a minute? You’re like a herd of cats.”
“I’m not –” James began, but then must have barked his shins on a rock in the fog, because he yelped, “Prospero’s nose!”
“Like I was saying... Remus, are you still near that cairn?”
Remus groped through damp air until his hands found the rough edges of the rock pile that marked the path. “Yes, got it!”
“All right, now one of us moves forward until we find the next one. And the rest of us stay put.”
“I’ll go!” James and Sirius declared at the same moment. Then they both laughed.
Footsteps moved away; before Sirius and James had collected themselves, Lily’s voice called: “I’ve found the next one!”
“We’ll come join you,” Remus called back.
“Lily, make some noise so we can find you,” Sirius added.
There was a pause, then Lily’s warm alto burst forth with one of Sirius’ favourite bawdy drinking songs:
“O, there once was a selkie in a silk top hat, sing tralalala lalalala lo…”
Laughing, they followed the sound of Lily’s voice.
“Brilliant,” James proclaimed when they reached her. In the murk Remus caught sight of him pressing a kiss to Lily’s cheek.
“Ergh,” said Sirius, because protesting James and Lily’s romance was his role, even if it was one he was no longer particularly invested in. “Less snogging, more singing, please.”
Down the mountain they went, all five of them belting out:
“O, there once was a merman in a moleskin mac, sing tralalala lalalala lo…”
iv. bonfire
The last night of their holiday, on the rocky coast outside a small fishing village, they built a bonfire on the beach.
They cooked potatoes wrapped in foil and toasted marshmallows by levitating them over the flames. James and Peter made it a competition, battling to knock one another’s marshmallows to the ground, whilst Lily and Sirius warbled the lyrics of “Wuthering Heights” complete with dramatic arm movements.
As the night grew darker, the chill in the air drew them closer to the fire and closer together. Lily leant against James’ shoulder, his arm wrapped tightly round her waist. Sirius regaled them once again with the tale, almost certainly exaggerated, of the time he’d met a Veela. Peter built a fragile, teetering tower of pebbles and driftwood, but laughed good-naturedly when a gust of wind from the sea knocked it down.
It was a happy scene. Yet as he watched his friends’ camaraderie and good cheer, Remus felt melancholy creeping in. They’d allowed themselves this carefree week, but tomorrow they would leave here to return to London and the Order, to a life where death lurked round every corner. It was hard not to feel this was the end of something.
Remus hadn’t noticed when Sirius circled round the fire to join him, but suddenly there he was, squeezing onto the log where Remus sat.
“Don’t mope, Moony,” Sirius murmured, his voice pitched low under the crackling fire and Peter’s laughter at one of James’ jokes. “See? Everything is good.”
Many things in the world were not good, as they both well knew. Much of what awaited them in London was not good. But Sirius’ eyes were wide and hopeful, his smile bright in the light of the fire.
Maybe this was not only the end, but also a beginning.
.
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Date: 2020-11-07 06:24 pm (UTC)(And I am cackling so hard at "Prospero's nose!" as your chosen cuss words for James -- how perfect!!)
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Date: 2020-11-08 05:04 pm (UTC)And thank you again for all your thoughtful, detailed comments. It was delightful working with you, as I knew it would be. :D