Fourteen: Photograph

Aug 21, 2007 22:39




August 14th, 1976

That afternoon, the three of them show up on Remus Lupin’s front porch in the rain, dripping wet. In their swim trunks. This, Remus thinks, cannot end well.

Sirius watches Remus carefully, and thinks he looks a little cornered. They’ve been avoiding each other, and Sirius jumps a little every time anybody mentions Remus. James has noticed, but Sirius has refused to tell him anything. He doesn’t want to reason it out with anybody, though he’s done nothing else with himself. He doesn’t want to think about why Remus kissed him, all he wants to think about is the fact that he did.

It was James’ idea, when Peter mentioned the pond up the hill from Remus’ house. The rain would not deter him, nor would Sirius’ argument that they ought not to disturb Remus. “What else are friends for?” James replied. So here they are.

“What-” Remus clears his throat. “What are you lot doing here?”

“Wanted a swim,” James answers. “Came to drag you with us.”

Remus very carefully avoids looking straight at Sirius. He’s not sure he wants to know what he’d see if he did. “You have noticed it’s raining?”

“That’s half the fun. Honestly, haven’t any of you ever gone swimming in the rain?” They all stare at him.

“Prongs, we’re not all bonkers like you,” Peter says.

“Actually, I think we might be. It’s not just him that’s half dressed and sopping.” Sirius’ voice sounds ever so slightly forced. Remus wonders if it actually sounds forced or if he’s just imagining it. He isn’t sure which option he would prefer.

“Oh, all right,” Remus says.

-

By the time they reach the pond, they look like they’ve already been in it. It is raining in the careless, abandoned way it sometimes does in summer, and it smells of rain. Smells like warm cleanliness and sodden grass, and a little of the August dust the rain is beating off the ground. A little, Sirius thinks, like Remus after he has spent an entire Sunday in the library with his books.

There’s a little wooden dock jutting out into the pond. Sirius races to the end of it and skids the last few feet, stopping just in time. Remus comes slowly behind him, ambling up and peering over the edge into the water, which reflects the clouded sky. “Jump with me, Moony,” Sirius says.

-

Ages ago, Peter was unanimously elected their photographer. Sirius was adamant that they should remember everything, and pass it on for posterity, because, really, “we are important and fabulous and handsome, and people jolly well ought to know it.” So he has a camera in a converted grey schoolbag, spelled to keep off everything from dust to wet to raspberry jam. They trust him to know when the time for photographs is ripe.

He pulls out the camera, and presses the shutter button before the moment is lost.

Later, they will go through the photos, tossing aside the ones that show Sirius with a half-chewed sandwich in his mouth, and James from behind bending over to tie his shoes. But they save this one, and it travels between walls and frames and shoeboxes and school trunks, back and forth, until it is at last retired, years later, after being saturated in grape juice, and sent to photographic heaven.

For some reason, this roll of film is developed without the usual peculiarity of Wizarding photography. Nobody moves.

Sirius and Remus take the jump. They are suspended in mid air, limbs flailing, the picture of motion sans the animation of it. The back of James’ head, his hair sticking up even while wet, is in the lower right-hand corner, which Peter laments as spoiling the picture. But the others like it, and think the picture better for it. The sky is a mass of clouds behind them, and they are almost silhouettes.

“Jump with me, Moony,” Sirius says.

Day Fifteen

timeline: hp: 1976, challenge: barefootboys, relationship: remus/sirius

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