Cameras, Cockiness, and Conversation.
Chapter 3 - Remus Lupin’s POV
Moving through the evening streets of Oxford, Remus looked for familiar faces. He found it hard to believe that he should be so entirely alone in this new place. It wasn’t the Remus walking along the streets that had made the choice to go here, it was the Remus who had to roll up his pant legs because they were always too long for him. It was the Remus who wondered if boys could wear makeup because he hated his scars.
The Remus living the life that little Remus had chosen strolled with his hands in his pockets, pants a bit too short for him, scars dulled but holding strong to his face. He admired the cobblestones and reached in his canvas bag for his camera. Positioning himself squarely in the middle of the street, he snapped a pic.
Radcliffe Camera, meetRemus Camera.
Maybe he could work there as an upperclassman, he hoped. Considering it was a science library, he didn’t think he’d spend much time studying there. Peering through the viewfinder, he took another look but didn’t press the button. Film was expensive. He did a slow orbit of the stone where he stood, keeping his amber eye right up to the camera.
That’s when he noticed them. A group of boys outside the Kings Arms seemed to be posing for his camera. Two brunettes doing bunny ears on a blond. They were cackling and trying hard to stay very still for Remus. Do I know them? He didn’t think so. As he had previously come to terms with, he probably didn’t know a soul in this entire city.
Intrigued, Remus lowered his camera and walked over to the table where the gaggle sat. Very quickly, they all dropped their poses and went back to their pints. The blond one kept pointing at him, and frantically shushing them all.
“Hi,” Remus stated. He stood staring, unsure of himself. These guys were clearly full of themselves.
“Hi yourself,” one of the brunettes retorted. Remus took a good long look at him.
He had one leg up on the bench, the other below the table. He had an impish quality about him, with his cigarette dangled impossibly still from his slightly open mouth. He had on a red tank top and tight black pants. His eyes were green and glittering with deceit or mischief or some combination. And he was watching Remus’s every move.
“Would you guys like me to take your picture? I have plenty of film,” lie. “And I wouldn’t mind.” Lie. These guys were dicks, as made evident by the cig-smoking cool-boy.
“Nah. We were just messing weren’t we, Sirius?” the other brunette said. This boy had a tinge of boyish charm hanging around him, like he couldn’t really do any wrong. He pushed his glasses up his nose.
The blond stretched his hand across the table.
“My name is Peter. That’s James,” he gestured to the one in glasses, “and that’s Sirius,” adding a name to cool-boy. “It’s nice to meet you, they really are just playing around. I’m sorry if we ruined your pictures.”
“No, it’s alright,” Remus looked at his camera. “I was just trying to get my aperture and settings right, I guess.” He took Peter’s hand and shook it.
“Why don’t you join us? We’re trying to build a small union of English Department students.”
Remus raised his eyebrow as he sat down next to Peter.
“How did you know I was an English student?”
The brunette – Sirius – scoffed lightly. “Oh, our mistake. It’s just, something about your canvas book bag said you were decidedly not off to Bodleian for aeronautical studies.”
Cars and bikes sped past them, and Remus steadied himself on the seat.
“So, Balliol? The lot of us?” he asked, nodding to punctuate his question.
“Yes, you don’t remember me?” Sirius said. “You knocked down my box in the hallway just this morning. Potter and Pettigrew are just down the hall from us. One might say we’re Monica, Ross, Chandler and whatever another one of those American prats are called.”
“We’re not living together, though.” Peter noted.
“Quite right, Peter. An astute observation, because if we were then I would have to listen to Fleetwood Mac before bed, in some bizarre profession of love to Stevie Nicks.” James replied, giving Peter a quizzical look and almost reverent bow of his head.
Peter turned bright red.
“I just think they’re a good band! Anyone with half a brain and even less of a penis would want to snog Stevie from 1977.”
Remus chimed in. “Rumours is a very good album actually. I have to take Peter’s side with this. Though, I'll pass on snogging Miss Nicks.”
Sirius groaned. “I am begging you, Mister,” he stopped. “Actually, what is your name?”
Remus looked at him blankly. “You don’t remember me?”
Sirius and James exchanged a worried glance.
“Shit, no. Did we meet on the train? Or at…the, er,” Sirius’s voice fizzled out and James’s cut in. “The, er. Dinner? The dinner…”
Remus couldn’t hold back his laughter any longer. “No, no. We haven’t met. I’m Remus, nice to meet all you lads.”
The joke relieved the three of them, and Remus could tell that his banter meshed well. It was a relief to be around like-minded people, even if James and Sirius were stupendously posh. Peter, on the other hand, seemed a bit more like Remus. Rough around the edges and trying hard to soften them back out. Conversation drifted from classes to various M25 opinions, to people they’d met on campus.
“I don’t know many people yet, but I ran into a nice girl named Lily.”
“Hot, is she?” Sirius asked, his third cigarette in his hands.
“I mean…sure.” Remus had thought she was very pretty. “I don’t tend to go for gingers, though.”
“Fuck,” groaned James. “I saw the prettiest ginger around here a bit ago. And this monstrous git let the door close on her.”
“Oh, and Remus, he truly has the most horrific name, it’s–” Remus cut Peter off, excitedly.
“It can’t be worse than Severus. I met him today. You think that rando was a git, you haven’t seen SHIT compared to this one.”
“That’s his name! That’s his name. Severus.”
“Holy shit. He’s a bastard, he’s a demon.” James sounded delighted to have another slight against Severus. “Between the four of us, we call him Snivellus.”
Remus cackled. “Yeah, no. He really was awful. I think he’s a philosophy student, or something.”
Sirius ran his hands through his hair. “You’d think they’d be better people. Consuming books that are a basic “How To” on human decency.”
James gave him a shove. “Yeah, Mister Black, tell us alllll about human decency. You’re ashing your cigarette all over my chips.”
Sirius snorted.
“James, you’ve known me for a day. You think this is the peak of my indecency?”
Remus thought he caught Sirius looking at him.