The Balcony
Chapter 2 - The Balcony
The air was in that comfortable state between summer and autumn. It’s not hot enough for you to be sweating, but it’s not cold enough for you to freeze. Lukewarm. As Remus looked out into the night, he took a big breath to help him stay in the moment. He had found it easier and easier to simply drift away recently. It wasn’t as though he was thinking about anything in particular, but rather just observing his brain taking a train between different memories and thoughts. Whether this would be his dad, music, spells or ideas for a prank; Remus had no say. Most of the time, this wasn’t a very big issue. It only became troublesome when it hindered his studying or holding conversation with friends. Lily had given him some advice in the form of breathing techniques. Sometimes this helped, other times it did absolutely nothing.
Sirius slid down the wall, to sit on the floor of the balcony. In turn, this made his shirt slide up ever so slightly; revealing some of his pale torso. Remus slid down next to him and stared straight ahead. At this point, Sirius had placed a long red Marlboro between his lips and held the open box towards Remus to offer him one. Remus took one and placed it between his lips. Using his wand, he placed a spell to light his own, before holding it out and raising an eyebrow to offer it to Sirius. In turn, Sirius leaned forward to place the cigarette by Remus’ wand. It quickly lit, and there was a tiny spark that flew down and landed on the floor before quickly burning out.
While Remus could roll his own cigarettes, Sirius most definitely could not. He had tried, many times, but he could never get it quite right. This had led to Sirius beginning to buy pre-rolled cigarettes over the summer - as he had no other way to smoke. While it wasn’t exactly the same thing, Remus would also never turn down a free smoke.
“So,” Sirius exhaled. “Summer’s been shit”
“Yeah, tell me about it,” Remus replied.
“Still, I must admit it has been better with my uncle than my parents.”
“Oh, please. Any place is better than that shithole!” Remus exclaimed.
“Hey! The actual place is very nice, it just so happens that the people living there are not,” Sirius said and the boys snickered.
Remus gazed towards the stars and found Sirius was doing the same. He had always felt that the stars had a way of making one feel very small and very big at the same time. As for the moon, that was a whole different thing.
“Man, I cannot believe my parents named me after a fucking star” Sirius said.
“It’s very rock n’ roll, though,” Remus replied and looked at Sirius.
“True, true. Starman and all that,” Sirius said and smirked.
“Besides, you did end up following the entire dog-star thing.”
“Oh shut up, mister “named after the actual moon”.
“Yeah, that was just bad planning on my parents part,” Remus said and took a long drag of the cigarette.
Sirius knew about the situation going on with his dad, and how they didn’t really speak any longer. His father’s attitude towards him had grown colder during the years, which Remus believed to be some sort of resentment following Lyall’s greatest mistake of his entire career. This was something that Remus had concluded following a talk with Sirius at the beginning of 4th year, where they both just kind of talked about their families and how shit it all was. Nowadays, Remus has found that he and Sirius don’t need to talk too much about it, but rather just have a mutual understanding of one another and have a smoke.
“So, I have been thinking,” Sirius said thoughtfully, “about possibly throwing some sort of welcome-home party for the Gryffindors”.
“Listening,” Remus replied.
“Everything has basically been proper shit for everyone during the summer, yeah? So, what’s a better fixer-upper than being with friends and getting drunk?” He asked. Sirius sort of laid out this proposition as a car salesman, Remus thought to himself.
“As long as there’s booze I’m in, mate!”
“Great,” Sirius said and threw his arm around Remus. “I could use some help with actual planning”.
Remus felt very aware of the arm that was now around him. In fact, it felt as though every nerve-ending that was in contact was sending a thousand alarm bells to his brain. This had started happening more and more to Remus as the years went on. He just assumed that this had something to do with Sirius ever-growing popularity. In some sense, Remus felt sort of special when Sirius chose to hang out with him out of all people that he could pick and choose from. The strange part is, he didn’t exactly feel the same way with James, who basically was equally as popular. But Remus imagined this just had something to do with Lily always humbling his ego.
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Remus and Sirius had stayed out for a few more smokes, discussing ideas about the party before going inside as to not freeze to death. They wanted to really bring the house spirit into it, and contemplated doing something alongside some quidditch event - but they both felt as if that was too far into the future. Instead, they would try to deck out the common room as similar to the Great Hall when they won the house cup as possible. This also doubled as a sort of cover-up to teachers, as it could then be described as an event to bring morale for house points up. But, by the time they went inside, both James and Peter had fallen asleep. James was barely visible through his curtains but was sleeping on his front. Meanwhile, Peter had somehow fallen asleep diagonally, with one arm hanging off the side of the bed.
“Christ, I didn’t realise we were out that long,” Remus whispered.
“Nah, they’re just weak,” Sirius replied in a hushed tone.
They snuck over to the bathroom to get ready for bed, trying not to creak any floorboards too loudly as they went. The bathroom was slightly too small for two people to be able to move comfortably at once, but for now, it had to do. Without really speaking, they both changed into sleepwear. For Remus, this meant flannels and a t-shirt, while Sirius simply skipped the shirt. In turn, this revealed a muggle tattoo on the inside of Sirius’ left bicep.
“Ho-” Remus started but quickly realised that he had two people sleeping in the other room. “Holy shit, when did you get this?” He asked in a concerned whisper.
“Oh, this little thing?” Sirius said, and lifted his arm to properly show off the design. It seemed to be displaying a black and white dagger with rose thorns twisting around it. “Got it over the summer, had nothing better to do,” he said and started brushing his teeth.
Remus simply stared at him in awe while holding his own toothbrush in hand. “You have gone absolutely mental,” he was eventually able to stammer out.
“Yeah, but you know you love me,” Sirius said and winked, before spitting out the rest of his toothpaste and exiting the bathroom.
Remus continued to stand for a while, before exhaling a big breath he hadn’t even realised he was holding.