The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

Bethesda

"Careful you don't fall down, please," Remus said. His voice echoed slightly off the beautifully tiled ceiling.

Remus was sitting on the low stone base that ran along the walls under the arcade in Bethesda Terrace. It was cool and shaded in the arcade compared to the heat of the summer afternoon under the sunlight. 

Tina had kept checking on them throughout the morning and once the creatures were all cared for in the briefcase, and Newt was still in the surgery with the mediwizards and muggle doctors who had been called in to assist as professional experts, she suggested that Remus take Bradley to the city to explore and distract both their minds. "They're saying it's going to be awhile," she said, and she gave Remus some money and told them to go and have fun, kissing Bradley on the head before they left.

There was so much to see, he'd realized, the moment they'd stepped out of the underground - which, apparently, New Yorkers called a subway - and Remus had felt really very overwhelmed. The buildings were tall, stacked up higher than they were back home, even in London, and everything felt much more compact in New York, he realized, probably because of the looming giants that seemed to go on forever. Bradley knew the City better than Remus could ever hope to - having visited it frequently with Tina.

They'd stopped in a book shop, where Bradley had bought some comics that he didn't have yet and Remus got a small guidebook to help him and Bradley navigate the City, since he'd never been to New York. The book told the history of all kinds of different things and he really enjoyed reading through it as they rode the subway about, Bradley holding onto the rails to balance and laughing when the train took off and the velocity made it hard to balance. "Look at me!" he called as he waved his arms around. "No hands!"

"Hold onto that railing before you fall down!" Remus said quickly, "Newt and Tina would kill me if I came back with you all busted up!"

Bradley laughed. "Mum does this all the time with me."

They'd already been to the Empire State Building and taken in a breath taking view of the whole skyline from above. Bradley had begged for quarters to put into the big silver viewing boxes, aiming it at his favorite places to visit for Remus to see. The book had talked about the history of the building and how they'd made it, with photographs of workers sitting at terrifying heights on narrow iron beams, the entire world below their feet as they ate sandwiches from metal lunch boxes as though they didn't have a care in the world.

They'd walked through Times Square and seen large billboards and signs that seemed to fill up the entire world. Anything that you could imagine was on advertisement there, and Remus had felt overwhelmed by the speeding motorcars going every which way, punctuated by red traffic lights and trilling pedestrian signals that sent herds of people crossing all at once in a great mass of humanity, passing by one another in seemingly endless patterns.

The theater district was all lights and posters for plays and marquees being changed out by men balancing on tall ladders as they plucked individual letters from the boards and replaced them with new messages.

The narrow boulevard had led Bradley and Remus to Bradley's favorite part of the city, and he'd pulled Remus along, excitedly, when Central Park had finally come into view, the mouth of the park marked by large stone pillars and metal gates. "Come on!" Bradley had called with excitement.

They'd seen loads of amazing things in the park - passed by all sorts of people of every nation, every race. There were men in business suits and women pushing prams, there were kids running with kites over the grass and old women walking dogs. There were people on bicycles and roller skates, and there was a man making balloons shaped like animals to a cluster of children that surrounded him shouting and clapping. There were people performing - people sitting and drawing and talking and playing chess and dancing and taking photographs and throwing frisbee disks back and forth. There were picnicking lovers and a couple having a row under a tree not too far away. There were guys wearing construction vests and pushing one another as they laughed and an old woman knitting on a bench. The diversity made Remus's head spin.