Chapter Text
you fell in love with the sunshine
and you took a walk with a boy
and you spent half a year on the verge of tears just because nothing ever feels like it did before
june & july, 1978
mary
School ends and they are free. Free from the horrors of secondary school, Muggle and magical alike, free from essays and due dates, from discrimination and hurt, from being taken advantage of and the worst things in the world.
Sirius and Remus lease their own little house down in Cardiff, Lily and James are madly in love with each other and believe in a future bright enough to blind, Dorcas and Marlene live together, and Mary is waking up on a camp bed set up in the corner of the living room because her bedroom had been turned into an office space for her dad.
They had a row about it as soon as Mary had returned from Hogwarts feeling like the loneliest, most pathetic girl in the whole world. All she wanted was some privacy mixed with a good dose of peace and quiet, most of which had been lacking for the seven odd years that she’d spent living in a dormitory that always smelled like a weird mix of perfume and candles, the smell of teenage girls.
Only Mary’s family lives in London so peace and quiet is never given, and her older sister Martha still lives at home even though she’s broken through into the dating scene and brings home blokes to shag late at night when she thinks no one else is awake.
Mary had arrived home with her trunk and her barren desolation, and her bedroom had a huge desk in it instead of a bed. Her dresser had disappeared. Her dad had pointed out his new office chair, demonstrating how smoothly it rolled, and Mary had started shouting at him.
She gets angry like this sometimes. Ever since the business with Mulciber back in October, her emotions have run close to the skin. She spent most of the winter weeping, smoking, and snapping at her friends. She’d felt like 1978 was bringing something bright and better, but most of it had been the way her friends banded together to support her, and in early June it was just her, her dad, and her dad’s fucking office chair.
So Mary’s camped out in the living room for the time being. When she wakes up, her back hurts, as though she is eighty instead of eighteen. The door to the only bathroom in the flat is shut tight and Mary can hear the shower running inside, so she conjures a toothbrush, a tube of paste, and brushes her teeth over the kitchen sink in early morning light.
Her mum bustles in and bumps her hip with Mary’s as she fills the kettle with water before sticking it on the stove. Mary turns around, the back of her shirt wet against the line of the sink, and scrubs harder at her teeth.
“Vile to do that in the kitchen, Mary, what do we have a bathroom for?”
“Martha’s in it,” Mary mumbles through a mouth full of foamy paste. Her mum flicks her on the shoulder and then turns away to get out some cereal.
“D’you have any plans for the day? Going to find a job?”
“I’ll start the search after I have a shower.” Cherelle MacDonald gives her youngest daughter a disparaging look. Mary knows that she looks a mess- wearing nothing but shorts and a vest top to sleep in because their cramped little flat gets awfully hot in the summer, her hair still wrapped up in a scarf to sleep in, hand pulling lazily at the toothbrush in her mouth. Her mum steps closer and her eyes widen as she grabs Mary’s hand and pulls it towards her.
“Are those tattoos?” Mary makes a useless noise and pulls away, one finger held up in a ‘hold on’ gesture and then she spits into the sink, washes out her mouth, and holds back nervous laughter. Sirius tattooed her hands at the end of seventh year, because they look cool and the pain almost felt good.
“My friend Sirius did them, they’re so faint, come on, mum, don’t even stress.”
Cherelle shakes her head. “I can’t believe you. You’ll never get a job with those.”
“You didn’t notice until you looked!” This fight is reminiscent of the one that Mary had with her mum after she pierced her own nose in sixth year. Often, Mary’s mother tells her that she gets into more trouble with wizards rather than people of ‘her own kind’, whatever that means, and Mary hates that it’s true and also, mostly the fault of Sirius Black.
“They blend in,” Mary adds, “Black on black. And they’ll fade.”
“Oh, they’d better.” The malice is only soft in Cherelle’s voice, because Mary’s skin is dark and the tattoos are only barely darker. They’ve already faded into nothing but dark grey shapes in her skin and somehow she misses them. James used to get jealous, too, about how Sirius’s skin was pale enough for tattoos but his own brown skin seemed to turn that enchanted ink invisible.
There are conversations in the mornings and the evenings, when Mary eats breakfast and dinner with her family. They all have jobs, friends, social lives. Mary sits on the sofa and watches the world go by. She doesn’t sleep much and wakes up early. Maybe her parents and sister wonder why she’s always up before them, but they never ask. All of them move as though in fast motion, sped up, while Mary sits on the sofa as life plays way too fast around her. They leave her in the dust. All she stays is put.
There is nothing to do, absolutely nothing. Sirius calls every day like clockwork, usually at about two o’clock, and there is always an invitation on his lips, like: “We’re going to a gig later, come with!” and gig can be replaced with film, party, museum, can be replaced with anything in the world and Mary still says no, no thanks, I’m fine here.
Sirius gives up on the invitations after a while. Two weeks after Hogwarts ends, he asks, “Are you okay? I haven’t seen you in ages and I’m worried.”
Mary is sitting in her usual position on the kitchen floor, under the telephone, cord wrapped round her finger.
“I’m fine, I’m whatever. It’s just hard to do anything. I dunno why.”
“Remus always used to get summer depression when there was nothing to do.”
“How’d he fix it?”
“Found something to do.” Sirius hesitates. “Just come out, Mary. Come hang out.” Mary says that she doesn’t want to go out and Sirius says, “Stay in then, just stay in with us! We’ll pick up a pizza and listen to records and- oh, Mary, you haven’t even seen our super cool rug! Pride of the house and home! I know you want to see our rug.”
It’s not the rug that leads Mary to asking her next question, but the temptation of a hug from Sirius and the sound of his voice in real time. “How would I even get there?”
“Oh, I dunno, I know a guy with a magical flying motorbike…” Mary chuckles but the sound is forced.
“I just feel worse than ever,” She blurts and it’s awfully bleak. “It feels like October again.” Sirius gives her silence for a moment, leaves space open in case she has more to say. She probably should say more. She doesn’t. “I’m sorry, Sirius, I just can’t tonight. I’ll talk to you tomorrow, okay?” Because if there is anything to count on, it’s a steady routine of morning / noon / night, and Sirius’s calls breaking through the humid silence at two o’clock in the afternoon, when he and Remus are finally ready to go out for the day.
“Okay.” Sirius’s has his gentle voice on. “I love you, Mary, and you’ve got this. You know I’d be at your door every day if I had your address.”
Mary believes him, but still does not stoop as low as to give him access to her house and family. She wonders what it must be like for the Potters to have a character like Sirius bopping in and out of their house at random. It feels like there’s no concrete universe in which Sirius Black would have ever stayed at home under the tyrannical rule of his family, and Mary is glad that he is free, if only so he can call her up every day and make her feel a little better about the life she’s missing out on.
It’s Lily who Mary turns to when she’s finally ready to leave the apartment for a reason other than a late afternoon stroll to TESCO to buy some ice cream or biscuits. On the last day of June, Mary dials up Lily’s number as she leans back against the kitchen counter and waits for her friend to pick up.
“Hello?” The voice is already incredulous and sneering- Petunia Evans to a fault. Wait, no. She’s married now. Mary doesn’t know her new name and doesn’t care. Remind her why Petunia is always on the other end of the line even when she’s married and should be off with her new husband in a house away from poor Lily?
“Hiya, this is Mary MacDonald, is Lily there?”
Petunia does not reply directly and instead screams away from the receiver: “ Lily ! Call from one of your friends!”
“Charming,” Mary mutters under her breath.
“I can still hear you,” Petunia snaps at her. In a moment, the phone jostles and there’s some chatter between Lily and her sister before Lily’s voice comes into clearer reality.
“Hi, Mary, what’s up? Sorry I haven’t called much, there’s just been family stuff, and just, lots of... stuff…” She sounds frazzled and sort of frustrated. “Can we hang out sometime? I really need to just have some fun. James is driving me mad these days and my sister is absolutely… argh. When are you free?”
“I’m sorry,” Mary tells her, “And I’m free literally whenever.”
“Okay, amazing. Can you do Tuesday? I want to get my tongue pierced.” Mary laughs out loud and Lily laughs too, obviously relieved by their easy conversation.
On Tuesday, July fourth, Mary puts on some real clothes that don’t involve her lived-in pyjamas that deserve a good wash. She wears high waisted blue shorts with thin stripes on them in all colors- pink, yellow, green, orange. Her top is a mustard yellow collared shirt with a blue floral print, and she leaves a few buttons on top undone. Mary had washed her hair last night and now taps the edge of her frizzy hair.
Mary smiles at herself in the mirror, and that looks more like her.
When Lily shows up, she looks beautiful. Mary has always found her best friends gorgeous and so aesthetically appealing. Lily likes skirts, and today wears a long orange suede skirt and a plain black top with only thin straps instead of sleeves, showing off her pale shoulders. Her face is white and dotted with freckles, and her lips a deep red that match her hair. Other than the lipstick, she wears no other makeup.
She smiles. “Ready to go?”
remus
The strange thing about coming home is the curious way that it never really changes.
The clouds, mostly. They never change. Or the way that Remus’s dog Luke licks his face like he’s a puppy again, even though he’s not really young anymore. For the first time in his life, it seriously occurs to Remus that his dog is not some immortal little creature and will one day die.
Luke has been there with him through his early years at Hogwarts, through that awful angsty period before his mum started drinking or got sick, then when she started drinking and shouting all the time, then when she got sick, and then when she died. Luke didn’t witness all that extra shit at Hogwarts piled on top, or most of the monthly transformations, but he was there with Remus through all the chaos at home.
Jesus, Remus may be having a bad day, and it’s not the right day to be feeling low.
He’s back in Mold, today, to move the rest of his things out from home. Remus hasn’t been home since last year, in those brief days where his body was physically shutting down. And he hasn’t seen his dad since Lyall abandoned him in the hospital in early January.
Remus decides almost as soon as he Apparates to Wales that he can’t do this alone, and briefly steels himself before going to Sion’s house.
Sion is Remus’s childhood friend and brief participant in a strange summer fling that lasted one summer while the two of them came to terms with their fluid sexualities. They’re strictly on a friendship basis these days because Remus has Sirius, and Sion’s sort of friends with Sirius, which adds more to the complication.
Sion is as happy as ever to see Remus on his doorstep. It seems that the two of them are always home when each other comes knocking at the door, just some way that fate has kept them together.
“Hi, Remus, you look so much better!” Last Sion had seen of Remus had been in a hospital down in Swansea, and Remus could say for himself that he probably looked rather shit back then.
“Thanks, wow, it feels like it’s been ages since I’ve been home. I’m moving out right now. Want to help me?”
They’re walking down Remus’s street when Sion asks, “Have you seen your dad yet?”
“No,” Remus tells him a little warily. “I kind of don’t want to talk to him at all.”
“Huh.” Sion eyes Remus’s house at the end of the block. Their steps have slowed to something unsteady. “Have you even written to him?”
“Yeah, we’ve written.” Now they’re just standing still. If Sirius were here, he would have just dragged Remus inside by now. At least one moving box would be filled at this point. Sirius can be very efficient when he puts his mind to it.
Sion scratches his head. “Well, do you reckon we should go in?”
“Yeah.”
Luke is there, barking and licking and jumping on Remus as soon as he’s through the door, but Lyall is nowhere to be found. Typical of two o’clock on a weekday.
“He’s a huge workaholic,” Remus tells Sion as they head upstairs to his bedroom, “Used to stay at the office until ten or eleven. Didn’t eat dinner or anything. What a fucking nutter.”
“I’d rather have my dad out than at home, to be honest.” Sion looks around Remus’s bedroom as they enter. “At least yours has a steady job, like.”
“True, true.”
They take lots of decorations and assorted items from Remus’s room. Posters, pens, pictures. Loads of records and cassette tapes. Three whole boxes stuffed with books. Then Remus digs through his family’s very disorganized records, thumbing past marriage certificates and records of death to find his own birth certificate. It’s a small blue paper with details of his birth on it. He reads REMUS JOHN LUPIN under his parents’ names, and his weight and height (more like length, for a newbaby), his sex.
Jesus. Thinking about life in general is getting too bleak for him.
Remus shakes off the existentialism and duplicates a folder to slip his birth certificate into. Him and Sion drag all the boxes downstairs and stand in front of the fireplace while Remus explains the Floo network to his Muggle friend.
Last summer, Remus had gotten spectacularly drunk at a local party and ended up telling an entire crowd of young Welsh teenagers about his lycanthrophy, leading a group howl at the nearly full moon while Sion listened perplexedly. Remus explained it all to him the next day from behind a bad hangover, but he hasn’t done too much magic around his friend.
Or used the Floo network with him. Possibly because it’s illegal. Which isn’t going to stop Remus.
“So I’m just supposed to- you want me to step inside?” Sion ducks down and peers up the chimney. “Like Father Christmas?” His voice is muffled as he speaks into the chimney, and Remus laughs.
“Yeah, well. We won’t go up or down any chimneys, it’s just the fireplace. You’ll throw this powder down and then speak my address, okay? One hundred thirty eight Fanny Street, alright? But throw the powder down after you talk, are you with me?”
“Erm… maybe you should do it first.”
“Well I have to make sure you make it! You want to stand very still, elbows tucked in- there you go.” Sion has fully stepped inside the fireplace and now tightens his posture anxiously, his brown eyes wide and staring back at Remus from the fireplace. He drags a moving box inside with him too, and then looks at Remus again for instruction.
“What do you have to do?” Remus asks for confirmation.
“Throw down the powder and say your address.”
“And what’s my address?”
“Hundred thirty eight Fanny Street, Cardiff, Wales.”
“Very good.” Sion makes a face at him and Remus only laughs. He hands his friend the dwindling bag of Floo powder and Sion takes a deep breath before throwing down the powder and speaking Remus’s address out loud. The green flames crawl up his legs and then his whole body in a matter of seconds, and then he and the moving box have spun away into nothing.
Remus sends the rest of the boxes through the Floo before giving Luke a big cuddly hug and telling the dog that he’ll be back soon. This isn’t a lie, because although it had been an incredible relief to come home to find his dad gone, Remus thinks that he might make a small effort to try to maintain the relationship. His dad isn’t putting in any effort, but he’s all Remus has left.
There’s a crowd waiting when he arrives. Caradoc is there, sitting on a huge patterned beanbag sort of chair with a guitar, and so are Mary and Lily. Sion is standing by the kitchen with Sirius and drinking a glass of water.
“Hey, everybody,” Remus tells them as he drags the last box of books out of the fire. “What’s going on here?”
“Just hanging out, Remus, nothing new.” Caradoc strums his guitar. “Little concert.”
“Since when did you play guitar? And what is that chair?”
“Housewarming gift,” Caradoc says and pats the beanbag. “And guitars are cool, right? I had a year with nothing to do but Auror training, you know I had to find a way to blow off steam. I’m joining a band, you know. I’ve been telling Mary and Lily about it.”
Mary looks as though she hasn’t been hidden away at home for three weeks straight, and when Lily greets Remus, he sees some silver flashing in her mouth. She sticks her tongue out at him and he sees a silver stud in her mouth.
“James is going to lose his mind.”
“I know ,” Lily says with an expression that says she might have planned this on purpose. Caradoc is apparently there to invite them to some rock gig down in London, and Lily and Mary showed up because they wanted to invite them to go dancing at some club in London, and Sion shakes his head while asking if there’s even anything to do in Cardiff, which is traitorous to being Welsh in general.
Lily and Mary have claimed the only sofa in the living room, so Remus joins the rest of his friends on the floor and debates what to do with the rest of his day. Both events take place tonight, but the gig is a one time thing and they can dance whenever, so Remus tells Caradoc that he’ll join him. Mary invites Sion to come dance with them and he agrees readily, smiles with his teeth and Remus can gauge that as his flirty smile, but Mary smiles right back and if her eyes linger on him for maybe a second too long, then Remus can’t say he blames her.
“How will we get there? Don’t tell me we’ll have to use the fireplace again,” Sion complains. “I can’t bear it.” Lily glances at Mary, who just smiles and shrugs. “How else do you lot get around? Can’t we just take a train, like?”
“If you want to pay money and waste three hours on travel time, then sure,” Mary tells him. She rolls her eyes. “We can Apparate, but that might even be worse than the Floo.”
“It can get worse?”
They do end up Apprarating, a few hours later. The six of them walked around the neighborhood first, because Remus and Sirius sort of wanted to show off the place that is now home to them. Sion agrees to Apparition because he doesn’t know the worst of it and is somewhat of an adventurer, but Remus can see how pale he is as he holds onto Mary’s arm before the two of them whirl away into nothing.
“Poor bloke,” Caradoc laughs once he’s gone, “I can’t believe that you’ve told him all about wizarding stuff and now we’re magicking about the country with him. If the Ministry finds out- you’re screwed.”
“On more accounts than that!” Sirius adds, and Remus shoots him a dark look. It weighs on Remus quite heavily that Caradoc doesn’t know about his lycanthrophy and he feels almost guilty for it. Caradoc had been a drug dealer first, a business partner second, but is now one of his closest friends, and Remus remembers just how angry Mary and Dorcas were at finding out about it after six or seven years of friendship.
Sirius only rolls his eyes, which is never a good sign. “I’m going to change and fix my face, okay? Be right back.” He heads upstairs while Caradoc stretches back in the bean bag chair. Remus peers at it.
“Dooooo yooouu lot want to come over for dinner?” Caradoc asks through a yawn. “I can make something delicious. And Benjy will be there, he’s coming to the gig, but his mum’s dead overprotective and has a fucking minumum number of hours he’s got to be in her sight.”
“Really?”
“Something like it, but you can’t blame her, really.” Caradoc looks at Remus now with those thoughtful, intelligent brown eyes. For the first time since he’s arrived home, Remus wonders why Caradoc is fucking about doing nothing useful on a weekday when he’s supposedly in Auror training. “So what do you say, butt?”