dead poets society
Youth, large, lusty, loving - youth full of grace, force, fascination,
Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace,
force, fascination?
Long after curfew on a cold October night, Remus Lupin, Sirius Black, James Potter, and Peter Pettigrew met in the Gryffindor common room.
Sirius and James were already there, lounging on a couch and immersed in some quiet conversation, when Remus and Peter arrived. Peter was nervous, and doing a terrible job of hiding it as he practically bounced on his feet on the way over. Remus himself was on edge as well. Introducing the Shrieking Shack to two more students was not exactly the most responsible decision, and he was already beginning to regret it. Sirius, he was fairly confident he could trust with the secret, but James was more of a wild card. Remus had never really spoken to the boy extensively and was simply banking on the fact that Sirius had good taste in friends, despite the fact that he had really never seen any behavior from James to suggest that there was any depth or thoughtfulness to him. If he decided to go off and tell the entire class about the Shrieking Shack, Remus could do nothing to stop him.
Remus tried not to think about it. It was too late to back out now.
Peter, meanwhile, didn’t seem to have given the issue that much thought. He almost never discussed Remus’s affliction. Though he hadn’t said anything about it, Remus could tell that there was some hero-worship aspect to Peter’s nerves. James and Sirius were the most popular boys in the class, and Peter had always held a certain respect for social standings that Remus just didn’t have. Sirius and James had done nothing to earn any special treatment. They were only ordinary boys- and quite idiotic ones, at that.
At their entrance, James and Sirius stood up from their couch and motioned for Peter and Remus to follow them, index fingers pressed to their lips in simultaneous shushing motions. Peter and Remus exchanged an unsure glance and followed the boys through the hallway back to their room.
When they were all through the doorway, James shut the door behind him, turned to Peter, and smiled brightly. “I don’t believe we’ve met,” he said.
“Right,” Peter squeaked, then cleared his throat. “Er- I mean, right, we haven’t. Met, I mean.”
The black eye and bruise on James’s face did nothing to dim his affability. His expression seemed almost overly friendly, as if he had sensed Peter’s nerves and was trying to soothe them. “James Potter,” he said cheerfully, sticking his hand out for Peter to shake.
Peter wiped his hand off on his robes before shaking James’s. “Peter Pettigrew,” he stammered.
“Good to meet you!” James said. He turned away before Peter could return the sentiment, settling his gaze on Remus, and just a tiny bit of friendliness seemed to dim from his expression. “Hello, there,” he said.
Remus smiled tightly. “Hello, James,” he said.
In truth, Remus suspected that James still held some resentment for him over the yelling incident in the hallway. Upsetting Sirius Black, in James Potter’s world, seemed an unforgivable offense. Either that, or James wasn’t happy to see Sirius forming a friendship with someone else. He wasn’t particularly bothered by it. He had no need, nor desire, to be liked by James Potter. He only needed James to keep his secret.
Remus turned to face Sirius, who had moved back and pushed himself up onto his bed. Remus opened his mouth to speak, but froze momentarily. The scene looked strange, Sirius perched atop his bed before a mostly red background, and it took Remus a moment to realize that most of the lewd posters that had adorned Sirius’s walls were gone, leaving behind only chipped red paint and one solitary David Bowie poster. He wondered what the reason for the change could have been.
“So,” he said, the question directed at Sirius. “How exactly are you sneaking us outside?”
James and Sirius turned to each other simultaneously and exchanged near-identical grins. Merlin, these two. If they didn’t look completely different, Remus would have thought them twins.
“Go ahead and show ‘em, Prongs,” said Sirius.
James scampered over to his bed and knelt before it, pulling a box out from underneath it. He placed the box on top of his bed so that his companions could see it, and slowly, dramatically, pulled out a large clump of velvety black fabric. It was huge, at least as long as James was tall, and when the whole thing was out of the box the boy held it up next to him, black fabric pooling beside his feet. He grinned proudly, staring at Remus and Peter as if he expected them to be as excited about it as he was.
Remus blinked.
“A cloak,” he said lamely. “Genius. How did we not think of that?”
James’s smile didn’t falter. “Not just any cloak,” he said.
Sirius rushed over to James’s side and threw his arms out by his sides. “Cloak me, Prongs,” he said.
James, rather unceremoniously, threw the entire cloak on top of Sirius’s head with a bit more force than Sirius must have expected. He let out a surprised yelp, and there was the distinct sound of his hands and knees hitting the floor as he buckled under the sudden weight of it. Remus probably would have laughed at him in any other situation. At the moment, he was more distracted by the fact that Sirius had disappeared from view completely.
“An invisibility cloak!” he blurted.
“Yup!” James chirped.
Sirius threw the cloak off on himself, reappearing suddenly on his knees with his hair mussed and sticking out in all directions. The cloak fell in a velvety heap behind him. “Merlin, that bloody thing’s heavy,” he huffed, shaking head out like a wet dog. His sleek black waves fell right back into place.
“Wait a minute,” Peter cut in suddenly. “You two have an invisibility cloak, and you’re using it to… what, play pranks on Sytherins and sneak out of the castle?”
Remus was shocked, and rather impressed, actually, that Peter had expressed such a thought. He seemed to shrink back after saying it, though, as if James and Sirius were going to be angry at the question. The two of them, however, only exchanged confused glances.
“What else would we be using it for?” James asked, bewildered.
“I- er- nevermind,” Peter said, shaking his head.
“Wait, Potter,” Remus said, relieving Peter of the spotlight. “How are all four of us supposed to sneak out under one cloak?”
James frowned.
Remus resisted the urge to slap his face with his palm. “Don’t tell me you hadn’t considered this.”
“Well, it always works with Sirius and I,” James said defensively.
“That’s two people. We’re four people!”
James glanced down sheepishly, clicking his tongue, “Well…” he began, then trailed off into silence.
After a few seconds had elapsed, Remus decided that James was going nowhere with that sentence and cut back in. “Are you serious?”
“I’m always Sirius!” Sirius interjected.
“I wasn’t even talking to you!”
Remus turned back to James, who was too busy laughing at his friends’ pun that he had undoubtedly heard a thousand times before to pay any attention to him. “Hello? Potter? How are we supposed to all sneak out in this? Our legs will be sticking out!”
James schooled his expression back into a serious one and looked up at the ceiling, stroking his bare chin like some kind of philosopher. He clicked his tongue a few times again. “Well, I don’t suppose anyone will notice,” he said finally.
“No one will notice?”
“Well, why should they?” he said. “Everybody looks up when they’re walking around. They don't look down. A few pairs of legs shouldn’t be too noticeable.”
“I’d think four pairs of disembodied legs would be more noticeable than a group of people just walking normally,” said Remus.
“Well, if you have a better idea, we’d love to hear it,” Sirius said, stepping in in defense of his friend.
“My idea was the location! You two were in charge of sneaking out of the castle, remember?”
“Hold on, hold on, guys,” Peter stepped in. “It’s fine. Let’s just- let’s just try it, huh? Maybe it’ll work.”
There was absolutely no way it was going to work, but Remus wasn’t going to put Peter down in front of James and Sirius, so he only nodded. “Alright,” he said. “We can try.”
Five minutes of uncomfortable scrambling and bickering later, all four boys were underneath the cloak, Peter and James on the outsides, Remus and Sirius sandwiched in the middle, each bookended by their respective friend. Stretched out like this, the cloak only dangled a little past their waists, not nearly covering their entire bodies.
“See? It worked!” James said, voice muffled by the cloak’s fabric.
“Not so fast,” Remus said. “We should look in the mirror.”
It was an unnecessarily long, uncomfortable process, shuffling over to the mirror, trying to keep all of their steps simultaneous so they didn’t trip each other or fall out from the cover of the cloak. Finally, they stood in front of the full-length mirror attached to the back of James and Sirius’s door, four pairs of disembodied legs.
“See?” James said, though the tone of his voice conveyed some awareness with the weakness of his argument. “Not even noticeable.”
“Yeah, I see,” said Remus. “That’s the problem, I see.”
“Guys, guys, don’t panic,” said Sirius. “This is fine. It’s passable.”
“Is it, though?” That came from Peter, and again, Remus felt a little proud of him for putting himself into the conversation.
“It totally is!” James said. “Let’s just go. We can link arms so nobody falls over.”
“Merlin, it’s like we’re in Wizard of Oz.” Sirius said.
“Who’s that?”
“Okay, nevermind. Let’s just link arms.”
Remus, oddly enough, was very familiar with Wizard of Oz . It was one of his mother’s favorite movies, and he’d watched it with her countless times throughout his childhood. He wondered how Sirius knew of it. Given what Remus had learned about his mother in the past few days, he doubted that she would be a fan.
He looked at Sirius only to find him staring at Remus expectantly. He had reached his arm out in an offer to Remus.
Remus linked his elbow in Sirius’s, shrugging. “Screw it,” he said. “Let’s just go.”
“Yes! Remember to- er-” James paused. “What was it again? Carpet…”
“Carpe diem!” Sirius supplied enthusiastically.
“Yeah, that!”
With that, they began their slow shuffle toward the door and into the hallway. Remus couldn’t resist smiling as they meandered along at a comically slow pace. If it weren’t for the cloak hiding their torsos, Remus was sure they would make the most ridiculous sight. Arms linked together in a line, taking tiny steps down the hallway like a much lamer, much slower version of Wizard of Oz . Although, he supposed, they probably made quite a ridiculous sight like this, too, four disembodied pairs of legs. He spared a glance over at Sirius, who seemed to be fighting back a smile as well. Under his breath, and tilting his head to the side so only Sirius could hear it, Remus whisper-sang, “We’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of Oz…”
Sirius stopped dead in his tracks, his head whipping to face Remus so quickly that a few strands of black hair whacked Remus in the face. After a moment of shock, he resumed the shuffle-walking, but stayed facing Remus, his eyes lit up and jaw dropped in a wide-open smile. He only closed his mouth to add in, under his breath, “We hear he is a wiz of a wiz if ever a wiz there was…”
Simultaneously, now: “If ever oh ever-”
“Are you guys fucking singing over there?” came James’s hissing voice.
“You’re just jealous that you have no musical taste, Prongs,” Sirius whispered.
“I’m not jealous, you just need to keep quiet or Filch is going to hear.”
Remus found the statement rather ironic, as James’s idea of a “whisper” was far louder than Sirius and Remus’s barely-there singing had been.
“Filch is going to notice us anyway with our legs sticking out like this,” Sirius whispered.
“I think Filch will notice a full-on musical number before he notices a couple of teensy little legs.”
“Oh, I’ll show you a full-on musical-”
“Guys?” Peter squeaked from the other side of Sirius. “Maybe we should not?”
“ Thank you , Pete,” James said. “‘Least someone’s got some common sense around here.”
Remus couldn’t see Peter’s face, but he could safely assume that the boy was blushing furiously at the compliment from James Potter. He tried very hard not to be charmed by James’s obvious attempts to make Peter feel included.
They shuffled on for the next few minutes, the silence only broken a couple of times when someone stepped on another’s foot or nearly tripped, or the occasional moment where one of them would begin randomly chuckling for no reason, causing the rest of them to hold in their laughter and chastise the offender with hissed whispers. Just when it was beginning to seem that they were going to make it out- only some meters away from the castle’s nearest exit- a distinct meow sounded from down the hallway.
They all froze in their tracks, James sticking his arm out across the group to stop everyone like some sort of leader despite the fact that they’d all stopped already.
“Mrs. Norris!” he hissed.
“Fuck, we’re fucked,” Sirius whispered. “It’s been an honor fighting with you, gentlemen. I do wish we’d gotten to read at least one poem, but alas-”
“Sirius, shut up!”
Mrs. Norris rounded the corner, human footsteps echoing in the hallway behind her. Remus observed with some amusement that the entire group, in lieu of running, had simply frozen on the spot and were now all staring at each other with wide, deer-in-headlights expressions. Merlin, they all had terrible survival instincts.
“Everyone drop the floor,” Peter hissed suddenly.
“What?”
From his spot on the edge of the group, Peter threw himself on top of the lot of them, fully tackling Remus and sending the rest of them to the floor like dominos with a chorus of groans and “oof”s. They fell like a pile, Peter on top, Remus and Sirius squeezed together in the middle, and James crushed by their collective weight at the bottom. The cloak fell on top of them with a whump .
Filch rounded the corner.
James, who had somehow landed faceup and whose expression was therefore visible to the entire group, seemed to have been hit by a fit of uncontrollable giggles when they all hit the floor. His mouth and eyes were squeezed shut, but his chest shook from holding it in, sending trembles of restrained laughter through the entire pile of bodies.
Mrs. Norris, ahead of Filch, walked right up to them, her nose nearly touching James’s robe, and stopped as if to wait for Filch to catch up.
A tiny whimper of laughter, barely noticeable, escaped James’s lips. Mrs. Norris’s ears perked up, eyes darting about. Sirius, sandwiched between James and Remus, threw his free hand out to press it against James’s mouth, muffling any further laughter. James’s eyes flew open at the contact, wide like a deer in headlights, and unfortunately, made direct contact with Remus’s gaze. There were tears gathering beneath James’s brown pupils.
Shit. Now Remus wanted to laugh, too. He repositioned so that his mouth was hidden in Sirius’s shirt.
Filch approached Mrs. Norris and looked down at her. She still had a sort of frantic expression, almost like she knew something was there that she couldn’t see.
“You hear something, girl?” Filch groveled, and shit , Filch’s voice was so funny . How had Remus never noticed how funny it was?
He felt a silent tremble of laughter beneath him, and made the mistake of meeting Sirius’s wide-eyed gaze, so close their noses were nearly touching. Remus nearly lost it at his red cheeks and tear-filled silver eyes. He tucked his face back into the shirt, feeling Sirius’s chest shake more with restrained laughter beneath him.
After what felt like an eternity, Filch said, “come on,” to the cat, sending another bubble of hysteria into Remus’s chest, and the footsteps began to recede, as Filch continued down the hallway. When Filch had finally rounded the corner, the footsteps completely disappearing, there was a long, tense silence, everyone seemingly afraid to be the first to move.
It was James who broke it with a short snort that he likely just couldn’t hold back anymore. The snort set off another round of restrained laughter within the group, and they began to squirm out of their places in the pile, disentangling their limbs so they could properly cover their mouths to hide their laughter. Unfortunately, they were still stuck in the hallway, and even with Filch gone, they couldn’t laugh freely until they were outside the castle’s walls.
With red faces and shaking shoulders, they pushed themselves to their feet and reassumed their awkward stances from before, preparing to shuffle the rest of the way out. The door was only a few meters away.
After two steps, another snort broke free from James’s lips. Each of them were in hysterical tears at this point, trying desperately to maintain control. James was the first to completely break. As his snort echoed about the walls of the hallway, he let out another short, halted laugh, threw the cloak off of himself, and took off down the hall in a frantic sprint for the door.
For a moment, Sirius, Peter, and Remus stood there in bewildered silence.
Sirius was next, throwing a hand over his own mouth and taking off after his best friend. Remus didn’t know who was next, him or Peter, all he really knew was that moments later, all four of them had abandoned all attempts to stay beneath the cloak and were beelining for the door. Restraining his laughter until they stepped outside of Hogwarts’s doors was perhaps that hardest challenge Remus had ever faced in his life.
The moment the doors burst open, James collapsed to the grass, clutching his chest and absolutely howling with laughter. Sirius was right behind him, falling dramatically to the ground beside him in a fit of explosive giggles, rapidly kicking his feet up in the air like a schoolgirl. Remus found himself down there with him, doubled over with his knees digging into the grass, arms braced over his stomach, which was clenching painfully from the simple force of his laughter. He was vaguely aware of Peter on the ground next to him, his chittery laughs in Remus’s right ear.
They stayed there for an embarrassingly long time, the four teenagers giggling uncontrollably like schoolgirls at a sleepover. When Remus’s own laughter began to subside, he wiped his eyes and lifted his head to check on the states of his companions. James and Sirius were right next to each other, and seemed to be catching their own breaths as well, though their faces were about as red and tear-stained as Remus suspected his own was. Peter looked most composed of all of them, sitting beside Remus, grinning, but not quite at their level of hysteria.
Remus drew in a deep, stuttering breath.
“ ‘You hear something girl?’ ” James suddenly choked out.
Just like that, Remus lost it again. It was a downright awful, over-the-top impression of Filch’s gravelly voice, making him sound more like a house-elf than a person, but the inaccuracy of the impression only made it funnier. The muscles around his mouth and cheeks were growing sore with each laugh that escaped him, but he couldn’t stop, especially not with Sirius in similar hysterics by his side.
He was able to catch his breath after another moment or so of laughter and rubbed a hand down his face in an attempt to compose himself before taking in the states of his companions. James had, at some point, rolled over in the grass to press his face into Sirius’s abdomen, the fabric of his band t-shirt muffling his best friend's laughs. Sirius himself was a bit more composed and had pushed himself up onto his elbows so he could face the rest of his companions.
“Bloody hell,” he breathed, wiping his eyes. “That was so funny.”
Remus nodded, not opening his mouth for fear that more laughter would escape it. James’s shoulders shook again. Sirius glanced down at the back of his friend’s head, smiling fondly. “You alright there, Prongs?”
“Mmhm,” James hummed loudly, face still hidden in Sirius’s shirt.
Ruffling a bony hand through James’s chestnut curls, Sirius directed his gaze back to Remus. “So, Remus, where’s this-”
James leapt up from Sirius’s chest abruptly, looking around with unruly hair and crazed eyes, glasses barely hanging onto his ears. “The cloak!” he cried.
In the commotion of the hallway, Remus realized, they had all simply thrown the cloak off and made for the doorway without a second thought for it. His and Sirius’s eyes met, each silently searching the other to see if they’d happened to grab it as they ran. Neither had. Sirius took on a guilty expression.
“Here, I’ve got it,” Peter said. Both Remus and Sirius looked over in shock to find Peter holding up the velvety black bundle in his arms.
“Oh, thank Merlin , Pete,” James breathed. “You’re a lifesaver.” He inched over toward a flustered looking Peter and took the cloak from his outstretched hand, hugging it to his chest.
“You shouldn’t have dropped it like a right idiot,” Sirius chastised.
“I promise I’ll never do it again,” James said, seemingly talking to the cloak, which was still wrapped in his arms.
Sirius stood up first, brushing himself off and taking a few steps toward Remus to look down at him. “So anyways, Remus, where’s this secret spot?”
“I’ll show you,” Remus said. He made to push himself up to his feet, but Sirius beat him to it, taking another step to him and bending down a bit to stretch his arm out to Remus. Sirius’s hand was softer than Remus would have expected, smooth skin wrapped around bony fingers, but before he could make any more observations, Sirius had hauled him to his feet and released it.
He looked up at Remus with a furrowed brow. “Merlin, there’s sticks in your hair,” he mumbled. He reached up to swat at Remus’s hair. A few twigs and leaves fell out. Sirius gave his hair another pat and then took a step back as if to admire his work.
“Is there anything in mine?” he asked.
Remus stared, feeling a bit bitter. Sirius’s hair was perfect, falling around his face in a wavy curtain, the sleek black completely undisturbed by his stint in the grass. “No,” he said. “You’re fine.”
“Great!” Sirius chirped, and turned around to pull James up in the same way he had Remus. “On your feet, Prongsy. We’ve got poetry to read!”
Once the group were on their feet and ready to walk, Sirius shoved Remus forward lightly. “Lead the way, Remus!” he said brightly.
Remus tuned out James and Sirius’s chatter on the walk over, too consumed with nerves. They had hit him all at once when his laughing stint had ended, and that feeling of dread, the familiar pit in his stomach that formed every time he made this walk had made a sudden appearance. Every tree he passed, every stone he stepped on, was only a reminder of each terrible night spent making this walk. He just wanted to arrive already. The anticipation was worse.
When they finally did reach the familiar twisting brown roots, the branches that stood up like the back of a porcupine, he turned around to face the rest of the group.
Sirius’s brows furrowed into confusion, some of his enthusiasm seeming to have faded.
“Er, Remus,” Sirius said. “Your spot is the Whomping Willow?”
“It’s inside the Whomping Willow,” he said.
“Inside?” James repeated incredulously. He took a cautious step towards the tree, past where Remus stood. Instantly, the tree stirred at James’s presence, apparently just a step too close. One of the branches moved forward, as if making to hit him.
“James!” Sirius shrieked, rushing forward to grab James’s arm and yank him backwards. “It’ll attack you if you get too close, bloody idiot!”
“Well then how are we supposed to go inside it?” James asked.
Both James and Sirius’s bewildered expressions fell on Remus, who smirked a bit. The nerves were beginning to disappear.
“Watch this,” he said, rather smugly.
Spotting the knot he was looking for, the bottom left side at the base of the tree, right next to the curly root, he pulled his wand out. “Wingardium leviosa,” he said.
A small twig by his feet rose shakily into the air, and Remus levitated it over to press the right spot in the direct middle of the knot. He turned back to the boys, smiling.
“Er,” said James. “Did that, like… do something?”
“You tell me,” Remus said, placed a firm hand on James’s back, and shoved him forward into the tree’s vicinity. James stumbled to the ground with a startled yelp.
It was a bit mean, Remus had to admit. But the boy had been an idiot for trying to step near the tree anyways.
“James!” Sirius gasped, rushing forward to help his friend, only to halt by his side when he noticed that the tree hadn’t made a movement. He turned to face Remus. “What’d you do?” he asked.
“If you touch a spot on the tree, it’ll freeze,” said Remus.
“Could’ve shown that without pushing me to my death,” James grumbled as Sirius pulled him to his feet.
Remus felt a sudden surge of confidence, knowing all of this information that they didn’t. If the Gryffindor common room was James and Sirius’s territory, this was his. He knew this place. It was so different being here with a group of students rather than just Madam Pomfry, not so upsetting. He actually felt rather energized. “Come on,” he told the group.
He only made it a few strides closer to the tree before he noticed that there was absolutely no movement behind him. He stopped and turned around to find Sirius, Peter, and James rooted to the same spots, watching him with uncertain expressions.
“What?” he said.
They exchanged apprehensive glances with each other.
“Merlin’s sake, the tree isn’t going to attack you,” Remus sighed. He waved his hand in the air for effect. “See, it’s not attacking me!”
Sirius was the first to step forward. “Some Gryffindors we are,” he said bitterly. He strode over to Remus’s side, and with his movement, James and Peter deemed it safe to follow. They trailed Remus like a pack of dogs as he hiked around roots until he found the secret passage that led to the Shrieking Shack. “Here,” he said. “Who’s first?”
Sirius, predictably, took a step forward. “Do I just go in?”
“Yup,” he said. “Right through those roots. There’s a little slide, then you’re there.”
“Alright,” Sirius said with a shrug, and without a moment’s hesitation, climbed through the roots. Remus had to admire his willingness.
James- who did not seem pleased that his friend had gone in before him- went next, followed by Peter. Remus allowed himself to stand before the roots for a moment once Peter disappeared through the spot. He hated this bit.
It’s not a full moon, he told himself, before slipping through the secret passageway.
His stomach flipped a few times through the dizzying slide before he was spit out
Some part of Remus had feared that he would simply transform on the spot when he landed on those creaky hardwood floors and the distinct musty smell filled his nostrils, that he would be unable to separate this place from his monstrous form. In reality, he found the Shrieking Shack to be rather underwhelming when experienced on a normal night. It just seemed like a regular hovel, small and charmless, dirty walls, dust everywhere. He felt startlingly ordinary standing there, surrounded by Sirius, Peter, and James. If not for the walls- a patchwork of scratches that bore a striking resemblance to rough skin of Remus’s face- this could almost be a normal shack. He could almost be a normal boy.
“How’d you find this place, Remus?” Sirius asked.
Remus definitely should have been ready for the question- he’d known it was coming- but he found himself only shrugging mysteriously.
Peter, who knew damn well how Remus had found the place, jumped in helpfully. “Fine, you just keep your secrets,” he said, tone tinged with fake bitterness.
“Yeah,” Sirius said. “We’ll figure you out eventually.”
Damn well hope you don’t, Remus thought.
“But anyway!” Sirius added, tone brightening. “Let’s get started.”
They ended up sitting cross-legged on the floor, the three of them forming a sort of semi-circle around Sirius, who had automatically assumed the leadership position. “James,” Sirius said, nodding towards him.
“Oh! Almost forgot.” James opened the folds of his robe and procured a handful of items: a variety of candy, wrinkled pack of Gauloise cigarettes, and an old-looking, dusty book, tossing them into the middle unceremoniously. Remus’s eyes were immediately drawn to the cigarettes.
“Careful with the book!” Sirius chided, reaching out to grab it and blowing on the cover, brushing it off with a rough hand. Remus, who was sitting right across from him, ended up with a face full of dust. He blinked harshly and rubbed his eyes.
Sirius reached back into the middle of the circle to retrieve the pack of Gauloises with James’s gaze following him intently. James clicked his tongue and shook his head like a disapproving mother. “Anybody want a fag?” Sirius asked cheerfully.
“I’ll take one,” said Remus.
Sirius broke out into a grin. “Yes!” he said. “I knew you were cool, Remus!”
“No!” James cried. “No, not cool!”
Sirius pulled a fag out of the pack and stuck it between his lips.
“Swear to Merlin, all of you smokers are going to get cancer and die,” James said haughtily. “Have fun with that. I intend to live till I’m old and grey.”
“Here’s your cancer stick, Remus,” Sirius said in a sing-songy tone, passing a cigarette across the circle to him. “Use it in good health, mate.”
“That is so not funny,” James said.
“Shut up and give us a light, Prongs.”
James dutifully tossed Sirius a lighter, his anti-smoking rant continuing through the movement. “I’m telling you, Pads, one day you’ll regret it. Both of you! Right, Pete?”
He nudged Peter, who looked flustered to have been acknowledged. “Er, sure,” he said.
“Pete and I will be out living great lives while you two are rotting on your deathbeds with tar in your lungs. And we’ll just laugh.”
Sirius finished lighting his fag and took a drag. His words came out with a puff of smoke. “Really, you’ll be laughing at me while I’m on my deathbed?”
He tossed the lighter to Remus.
“Yes, I will,” James said, smiling smugly. “We both will. Right, Pete?”
“Yeah,” Peter said.
Remus took his first drag, savoring the tingling burn in the back of his throat and the slight rush of dizziness to his head. Merlin, he hadn’t had a smoke in forever.
“Well, I look forward to seeing that,” said Sirius. “In the meantime…” he took the fag out of his mouth and picked the book back up, brushing some more dust off of the cover. “I hereby reconvene the Dead Poets Society.” Sticking the cigarette back into his mouth for a hands-free drag, he held the book in both his hands and flipped through the pages until he seemed to find what he was looking for. Remus found himself marveling at how effortlessly cool he managed to look, balancing a book in both of his hands, black hair framing his face, cigarette cherry illuminating his skin with a deep red glow. He took the fag out of his mouth and let it burn freely between his fingers where they gripped the side of the book. “I will now read the traditional opening message by society member Henry David Thoreau.
“I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately; I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”
“I’ll second that,” James said, rather idiotically.
“To put to rout all that was not life, and not when I had come to die, discover that I had not lived.”
There was a thoughtful silence.
“Wow,” said James, through a mouthful of chocolate frog. “That’s pretty deep.”
Peter whacked James on the arm, an uncharacteristically familiar gesture. His face went red after he did it, like he’d forgotten just who he was with- forgotten that James Potter may not take kindly to being whacked in such a chastising way- but James only laughed and grinned at him.
Sirius, meanwhile, had placed the fag back in his mouth so he could use both hands to flip through the book, dust flying up at every turn of the page. “Keating’s marked a couple other pages…” he mumbled through the unoccupied side of his mouth.
“Hold on,” said Remus. “ Keating? That’s his book?”
Sirius shrugged, smirking. “I may have done some digging around his office.”
“You stole it from him?”
“Well, it’s not like he was using it!” Sirius pulled the fag out of this mouth to exclaim. “Besides, I bet he’d be happy to know we were reconvening his club.”
“Your funeral when he figures it out,” Remus said with a shrug. He ground the butt of his cigarette into the hardwood floor beside him. “You might not pass the class if you steal from the professor.”
“I’d like to see him fail me!” Sirius said. “I’m the only one in that class who reads any poetry aloud anyways. Speaking of, let’s- hello?” He leaned forward to snap his fingers in front of James and Peter’s faces. They looked up simultaneously from where they were bent over a box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans. “You can eat beans later. Poetry time!”
James smiled wryly and popped a bean into his mouth, while Peter had the generosity to look slightly guilty.
“Go on, then,” James said. “I’ve still not heard you read any of this poetry stuff you’ve been all over.”
“Just a moment,” Sirius mumbled. He was flipping through the book, apparently looking for a particular page, but couldn’t get a good hold on the side of it without letting the fag slip from his fingers.
Remus watched him struggle for a moment, then sighed, “Merlin’s sake,” and plucked the fag right from his fingers. It was nearly burned down to the filter, only one or two drags left in it.
“Ah,” Sirius said, smiling. “Thank you, Remus. Anyway– here it is!”
He cleared his throat, looked up as if to ensure that everyone was listening, and smiled slightly before he began to read.
“Come, my friends,
‘Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
…For my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset.
And though we are not now that strength which in old days
Moved Earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
James was watching Sirius with a fond smile, his gaze soft. “That was cool, Pads,” he said.
“Why, thank you.”
“Did you write it?”
Sirius blanched, seeming oddly horrified by the implication. He shook his head rapidly and scoffed. “No! No! Bloody hell, no. It was, er…” he squinted down at the page. “Lord Alfred Tennyson.”
“Lord?” said Peter. “Merlin, that must be old.”
“It says it’s from the 1800s,” said Sirius.
“1800s?” James stiffened, taking on a posh, medieval tone to his voice. He raised an invisible drinking glass in an impression of a toast. “Huzzah, Lord Tennyson.”
Peter laughed beside him. “Lord Alfred Tennyson,” he said.
“Huzzah, Lord Alfred Tennyson!”
As Peter and James chattered, Sirius scooched over to sit beside Remus, still clutching the book in his hands.
“Could I have my fag back?” he asked.
“Er-” Remus held up the cigarette, barely a nub at this point. There was only one drag left, if even that. “I suppose.” He moved to hand it to him, but both Sirius’s hands were still clutched tightly around the book. Instead, Sirius stuck his neck out and plucked the tiny cigarette from Remus’s fingers with his mouth, his lips brushing against Remus’s finger. The impression of them clung to his skin, warm and wet, for a few fleeting moments, and for some reason Remus didn’t want to wipe it away.
Sirius took the final drag and then flicked the butt away towards the corner of the room. “So, Remus,” he said. “Are you going to read a poem?”
“Oh, no,” Remus said instantly. “I’m fine to just listen.”
“Why not?” Sirius whined. “There’s only four of us down here.”
“Why did you act like that about writing poetry?” Remus asked, the question popping into his head all of a sudden.
Sirius seemed taken aback by the sudden line of questioning. “Huh?”
“When James asked if you wrote the poem, you got all flustered and said no, like, a million times.”
“Because I didn’t.”
“Right, but why did you get all upset that he thought you could write a poem?”
“I didn’t- I wasn’t-” Sirius paused with an exasperated sigh. “Remus, I’m not a poet. I read poetry.”
“If you can read it, you can write it.”
“That is so not true. And anyways, that’s not what we’re talking about, we’re talking about you , reading a poem aloud!”
“Well, there’s no bloody way I’m doing that, so keep dreaming,” Remus said bluntly.
Sirius frowned. “Swear to Merlin, I’ll get you to read one day.”
Remus shrugged. “And maybe I’ll get you to write.”
“That is never-”
“Pads!” James’s voice suddenly carried over the conversation. “Peter and I were wondering about that thing you were talking about earlier…”
Sirius turned away from Remus to sit closer to Peter and James, and Remus stayed on the outskirts, a bit awkwardly. He wasn’t sure exactly why he was so shy about the whole reading thing. In front of the entire class it was a justifiable fear: there was a reason that hardly any students volunteered to read. Sirius was the odd one out in that respect, so constantly bold and uncaring about the world’s opinions, so unapologetically Sirius Black. But in this group, he had less of an excuse. It was no different, really, than speaking normally, and Remus had done plenty of that. But it felt different. To have the undivided attention of everyone in a room, even as small a group as this, was not a situation that Remus was suited to.
Remus Lupin preferred to blend in. It was a near impossible task when one looked like him, standing at nearly six feet tall with huge, ugly scratches all over his face- he stood out in a crowd, no matter how much he tried to shrink and hide himself. Sirius was the pure opposite. He was beautiful, yes, but with his height and his dark hair, he could easily blend in. He could just be another student, but he chose not to. He chose to dress himself in Doc Martens and leather jackets and silver jewelry, chose to saunter around the hallways with that haughty confidence and charming smile. He thrived on undivided attention, needed it like a person needs sustenance.
Remus wasn’t like that, could never be like that. He was a Gryffindor, sure, but not in the way that Sirius Black was. He wasn’t fearless.
He cast Sirius a glance. He was sitting with James and Peter now, engaged in some long-winded, dramatic explanation of something. Both of the other boys were enraptured with him, leaning forward with bright eyes and attentive smiles. The Sirius Black effect , Remus labeled it, that mixture of jealousy and admiration and awe that seemed to overwhelm him when he really witnessed Sirius in action. When Sirius Black was in a room, nobody could look away from him. If they did, they’d probably miss something.
He pulled himself out of his musings and inched over toward the group to sit next to Sirius, who moved instantly to make room for him without a single pause in his words.
“And then it turns out the slippers are actually all she needed to get home the whole time. All she has to do is click her heels together three times and say ‘there’s no place like home,’ and she gets transported back to Kansas.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Wait a minute,” Peter said. “That’s it?”
“So she had the way home on her feet this whole time?” James cried. “Why didn’t Glinda just tell her earlier?”
“Well- er-” Sirius turned to Remus helplessly.
“Well, because then the Scarecrow and Tin Man and Lion wouldn’t have gotten their brains and hearts and stuff,” Remus supplied.
James and Peter looked at each other, frowning.
“But didn’t you just say they already had them, too?” Peter said.
“So the whole trip to Oz was a total waste of time, then,” added James. “They all started out with everything they needed and did all that work for nothing.”
“Well…” Sirius said.
“That Glinda, man, what a bitch!” Peter cried.
“Exactly!” James said.
Sirius threw his hands up in exasperation. “You’d get it if you just watched the movie!”
James paused. “Wait a minute. This is a movie?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’d you even get the chance to watch a movie?”
Sirius paused uncomfortably. “Er, Marlene showed it to me,” he said, his voice a little quieter.
Some sort of understanding dawned on James’s face. Remus wondered if Marlene was the blonde girl, if the fight he’d witnessed the day before was the reason for the sudden somber tone.
“Okay, well, I thought this was a club for poetry, not movies,” James said lightly, in an attempt to restore the mood.
Sirius raised his eyebrows. “Well, I’d like to see you recite a poem, Prongs.”
“Fine,” James huffed. “I will!”
“You don’t know any poetry,” Sirius scoffed with a roll of his eyes.
“Sure I do,” James said, scrambling to his feet with an excited smile.
Sirius narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “You said earlier you didn’t have anything to read.”
“Well, I thought of one,” James said. “I have it memorized.”
Sirius’s face was pure bewilderment as he reluctantly motioned for James to go ahead.
James cleared his throat dramatically, straightened his shoulders, and clasped his hands behind his back. “My, my!” he said, so loud that Peter started beside him. “At Waterloo Napoleon did surrender.”
Sirius met Remus’s gaze with a furrowed brow. Whatever James was reciting sounded familiar, though he couldn’t place the words.
“Oh yeah!” James cried, with the same emphasis. “And I have met my destiny in quite a similar way.”
Where he had started off simply reciting in a dramatic tone, the words were starting to take on a certain rhythm and cadence, almost a melody. Yeah, Remus decided. This was definitely a song.
“The history book on the shelf… is always repeating itseeeelf!”
Sirius caught Remus’s eye again. What the hell, he mouthed.
“Waterloo! I was de-”
“Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute,” Peter cut him off loudly, raising a hand. “Isn’t this like… an Abba song?”
Sirius gasped, affronted. “James! This is some fucking Abba song?” he cried incredulously.
Remus could not hold back that laughter that bubbled up in his chest. He remembered Sirius telling him about James’s fondness for Abba. Somehow, given the boy’s personality, it made a lot of sense.
“What?” James cried. “It’s poetry!”
“ That is not poetry!”
“Music is poetry!”
“ Music ,” Sirius said, drawing out the word. “Not Abba!”
“You are a pretentious little git sometimes, you know that?” The words were bitter, but he was grinning fondly at Sirius.
“If you utter one more Abba lyric in this sacred space you will be hereby banned from the Dead Poets Society forever!”
James, as Remus was sure Sirius knew he would, took that as an invitation. “Waterloo!!” He bellowed. “I was defeated, you won the war!”
“Nooo!” Sirius shrieked, hurling a box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavour Beans at him, which hit the hardwood floor facedown, sending jellybeans in a scatter to every corner of the shack.
“Waterloo!! Promise you’ll love me forevermore! OH-OH-OH-OH…”
“James Potter, you are excommunicated from the Dead Poets Society!” Sirius cried over the obnoxious singing. “Remus, Peter, we must shun him!”
James grabbed Peter’s hand and spun underneath his arm like a lady at a dance, an awkward gesture as Peter was a good half a head shorter than him. Peter, though he pulled his hand back rapidly when James released it, was laughing rather hysterically, with his other hand covering his mouth.
“No, don’t side with him, Peter!” Sirius cried in mock betrayal. “How could you?”
Peter seemed to be laughing too hard to form any reply.
A strong pair of hands clenched abruptly around both Remus’s arms, and suddenly, Sirius Black was right up in his face, noses nearly touching, holding Remus’s gaze with an overly grave look while James continued to bellow Abba lyrics behind him.
“Remus,” he said seriously, though the corners of his mouth were constantly twitching upwards. “It’s just us now. We’re the only ones. You mustn’t fall to the plague of Abba.”
Remus felt the corners of his mouth tilting unconsciously upwards, unable to resist copying even the tiniest of Sirius Black smiles. Instead of some witty reply, he found himself saying, “...Mamma Mia. Here I go again…”
Sirius’s face split into a brief grin before he could force it back into over-the-top distress. “NOOOO!!!” he shrieked, sinking to his knees on the floor, one hand clutching Remus’s pant leg. “You’ve all abandoned me for Abba!” He threw himself backwards onto the hardwood so he was laying down, staring up at Remus in mock distress. “I’m melting!” he cried, shaking Remus’s pant leg. “I’m melting!”
Remus was laughing so hard at this point that he followed Sirius down to the floor, flopping down beside him. They laid side by side with their backs on the hardwood, James’s singing and Peter’s laughter floating in the air above them.
Remus tilted his head over to find Sirius already looking at him, hair fanned out around his face, silver eyes glittering, and a huge grin on his face. It was only then, looking at Sirius’s own smile, that one crooked tooth sticking out just the tiniest bit, that it hit Remus how hard he was grinning as well. He realized, all of a sudden, that it was the first time he’d ever smiled in this place.
The long nights spent here, the miserable mornings, the bite on his hip and scratches marring his face faded away for the moment, the awfulness of them seeming so small and inconsequential next to the warmth of Sirius Black’s smile. None of it mattered. The full moon would come back, as it always did, but for now, the only howls rising from the shrieking shack that night were the laughter of four teenage boys, giddy with the joy of newfound friendship and careless, innocent ignorance of everything the future held.
Day full-blown and splendid - day of the immense sun, action,
ambition, laughter,
The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep and
restoring darkness.
-Walt Whitman, "Youth, Day, Old Age, and Night"