The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix Part Three

CXIII: The Novelty of Going Outside

Remus woke, laying on the mattress he and Sirius had bought and dragged back to their mysterious little house just off the beach. The waxing moonlight glowed through some curtains that he had conjured to cover the window, which was left open. The smell of the plants in the backyard wafted in through the window on a breeze that also carried with it notes of the tropical forest beyond and the salt of the sea and the dimmest sense of the smells of the city far off, riding on the night air.

Remus sat up, realizing Sirius wasn't in the bed beside him. "Sirius?" he called quietly. 

Getting up, Remus, dressed in his boxers, paused and tugged a plain white undershirt on over his head before slipping out of the bedroom, down the creaky hallway and into the mostly empty living room, where Sirius had used magic to make a table and chairs, and he'd even made Remus a bookshelf for the books he'd had packed away in his trunk when they'd left, which Remus had lined up on the shelves with a feeling of nostalgic home-ness that he hadn't felt since he'd left the flat in East London for the last time. 

"It isn't a Moony house unless it's got book shelves," Sirius had said when he'd made the shelf, and Remus had felt his heart beat through every nerve in his body, just like he had done in the old days when Sirius said things like that - things that proved how well he knew Remus, and how well he loved Remus. Remus could feel it even now as he ran his hands over the smooth wood and looked at the colorful spines of some of his most beloved titles - including an illustrated copy of J. R. R. Tolkien's books, given to him by James Potter for his birthday years and years ago...

Beside the book shelf was a squat table, too, and on the table was the record player and beside it sat the box of records that Remus had never had the heart to get rid of. The needle was pulled back and the player off, the turntable empty. 

In the far corner of the room, Buckbeak lay on a squat wood bed covered with straw that Sirius had made for him. His legs were crossed at the ankles and he had his head turned and tucked under his long wings, asleep. Remus watched the rise and fall of the hippogriff's chest.

But what Remus did not find in the living room was Sirius Black himself.

Sirius's leather jacket was missing from the back of the chair where he'd left it, Remus noticed, and the flip flops he'd left next to the door were also gone. 

Remus kicked on his own pair of flip flops - much larger in size than the ones Sirius wore - and he pushed opened the front door and walked down the wood steps, following the wood pathway they'd made that led out to the beach. Stepping through the protective charms, Remus spotted Sirius sitting on the sand and he stepped off the end of the pathway and walked across the warm beach toward Sirius, who was about halfway between the line of trees and the water line. 

Sirius was sitting in his boxers and leather jacket, a cigarette hanging from his mouth, staring up at the stars and hugging his knees. The flip flops were beside him on a blanket he'd laid down and his feet were buried in the sand, toes splayed so the sand got all in between them. Smoke streamed from his nostrils as Remus dropped down beside him and lay back on the blanket as though he had been there all along, legs stretched out before him, propped up on his elbows and watched the tide, the white-capped waves rolling gently in and out from the horizon line.

"I'm not over the novelty of going outside yet," Sirius admitted suddenly without prelude, lowering his cigarette between his index and middle fingers and shuffling his feet in the sand. He looked over at Remus and extended the cigarette as an offer. Remus shook his head. "I know you probably think I'm mad, sitting out here at this hour."