Marauders - Always - Part One

Things You Can't Say

Spencer said, "See, that's part of what I like about you so much. You're empathetic in ways immeasurable." 

"Well I don't know about empathetic but I am certainly pathetic," Remus said self-deprecatingly.

"Nah," Spencer said, and he concentrated on his salad as he said, "You're not pathetic."

When they'd finished eating, they said goodbye and Remus walked to the bus stop with Spencer. The bus he was waiting on came sooner than Spencer's so he actually took it - though he'd been planning on walking 'round the bend and disapparating after Spencer left. Luckily he had enough muggle coins to pay for the ride. The bus was crowded and Remus had three stops before they'd let off at the corner across from the flat. He sat next to the luggage rack and hugged his arm about the pole as the bus stopped and started in the early afternoon traffic.  

A flash of blue caught his eyes and he looked up.

A young man about his own age - or perhaps a bit older, maybe? - was peering at him over a newspaper he had unfolded. The blue was the flash of his hair. It was electric blue, the sort of blue that in a drab grey space was shocking to look at it and certainly not a color that Remus had ever seen a muggle manage to color their hair before. There was something familiar about the grey eyes, too, that unsettled Remus and he tilted his head. The young man stared back into Remus's eyes for a moment, then hurriedly looked down at his paper.

Remus should've looked away - it's rude to stare, after all - but he couldn't bring himself to. Instead, his eyes traveled over the young man. He wore trainers and denim jeans that had a hole in the knee and an orange jumper that was several sizes too large for him so that it hung, baggy, about his shoulders. When  he shifted his newspaper to keep his face covered, Remus could just see the bottom of the Chudley Cannons logo peeking out below it.

"The Cannons are having a good season," Remus commented. Now, to be fair, he had no idea what sort of season the Cannons were having. Sirius or James certainly would know, but he, Remus, had no idea. Actually, now that he thought of it, he was fairly sure the Quidditch season may not have even started yet. James had only just refereed the first Hogwarts match the weekend before, hadn't he? Wasn't Hogwarts ahead of the actual league? Gods - for being married to one nut and good friends with the other he really wasn't much at knowing about Quidditch.

The young man lowered the paper and looked over at Remus again. Again, those eyes -- Remus felt his stomach lurch at them. They looked like somebody's - sort of like Sirius's but not enough to say they were like Sirius's aside from color but --

"You like the Cannons?" the young man asked.

Remus said, "I recognized the logo on your jumper."

"Oh." The man looked down, then up at Remus. "Yes. Good team."

There was an awkward silence between them.

"Sorry, do I know you from somewhere?" Remus asked, "It's just that you look terribly familiar."

The young man laughed. "Do I?"

"Yeah, like I've met you before and I'm sorry if I've misplaced where from, I --"

"It's alright."

"So I do know you from somewhere?" Remus asked.

The young man smiled rather sadly and shook his head, "No. You've never met me yet."

The bus came to a stop and he quickly folded his paper. Remus stood up, meaning to follow him - he didn't know why he felt so strongly that he should, but in the flurry of people trying to get off the bus, the young man had slipped away. Remus looked around the streets outside the bus as the door wrenched closed and he spotted the electric blue among the drab world outside, the orange jumper with the name KENT across the back shoulders wasn't too hard to miss, either - but both the hair and the jumper were out of sight as the bus turned the corner by Waterloo and rumbled down the road toward the flat.

Remus settled back into his seat, brow crunched in thought.

Who was it that man had reminded him of? And why did Remus feel like he ought to pull the emergency lever and go after him?

He looked up and spotted the man's newspaper on the seat across from him, folded neatly.

Remus leaned over and grabbed it.

None of the headlines made sense. None of what was being covered sounded familiar and Remus had just read the paper that morning. He turned it over and his eyes went over the date. He laughed.

Thursday, 28 March, 2024.

It was some sort of prop newspaper or something, obviously. The man must be in a play or something.

He shook his head and dropped the paper back onto the bench as the bus rolled to a stop, announcing Remus's stop and he could see Peter on the corner in front of the curry shop across the street. He got up, pulling himself by the pole, and hurried off the bus, carrying his briefcase as he let the blue-haired man slip his mind.