Sirius Black's heart was beating so fast that he was panting. He moved foot to foot in nervousness as the four of them stood on the line to be let into the Palais des Sports de Gerland for the show. There were loads and loads of people gathered about in long queues. James held an umbrella he'd conjured, and Sirius kept craning his neck to look at the round building on the far end of the lot where they stood.
"Your hands are shaking," James murmured, holding Lily's hand up to look at it.
Lily glanced at Sirius. "So are his."
Sirius turned about to look at her. "What?"
"You're so nervous, Sirius, you're making me nervous, oh my stars."
"Well both of you relax," Remus laughed.
"I can't. I can't handle this," Sirius said, "I feel like my entire insides are electric."
"They do," Lily agreed.
James squeezed her fingers and smirked at her as she echoed Sirius's nervous motions. He leaned over - not down - and whispered, "Have I mentioned, by the way, Evans, that you look really beautiful?"
She flushed. She was wearing a pair of wide-legged, high-waisted jeans with a big chunky red belt, a black cropped top that let the top part of her abdomen show ever so slightly above her belt, long kimono-style duster covered with embroidered stars of many colours, chunky plastic beads around her neck, and bright red platform slingback loafers. Her and Sirius looked far more the part of the activity than either James nor Remus looked, seeing as Remus was wearing two thick sweaters and a pair of corduroy pants while James had on his usual jeans, Gryffindor trainers, and a basic ringer tee under his wool coat. Remus's two sweaters made him stand out far more than anything Sirius had on.
Suddenly, somebody slammed into Sirius, throwing him off balance and knocking him into Remus. "Oi!" Sirius turned about.
"Sorry," the young boy said, his accent strange and voice low. He looked at Sirius intently for several seconds. "Didn't mean to. You alright, then?"
"Yeah, fine, just watch where you're going, alright?" Sirius answered, dusting off and turning back to looking at the venue looking before them.
The boy stayed standing there, his eyes moving from one to the other of them.
There was some commotion across the lot and Sirius was jumping on his tippy toes to see. "What's happening? What's happening?!"
Remus glanced over. "Looks like a big bus just pulled up."
"Oh my fucking hell he's here." Sirius turned and practically climbed James. "Help me up, Prongs, I have to see!"
James grunted as Sirius foisted himself up onto James's shoulders. James made a face, "It's a bleedin' good thing you're a hobbit."
Sirius's boots hooked under James's arms and he clutched his fingers into his hair. "There is a bus!"
Remus muttered, "Because I might've been lying."
Sirius stared intently across the lot, giving a running commentary about everything which happened for the next several minutes before James finally cut him off, making him get down. The entire time he'd been up there, though, the young man that had walked into him watched.
"Are you lost?" Lily's voice was gentle as she turned to the boy.
"Oh - no, not lost," the boy answered. "Sorry, just - blimey, I love your leather jacket." He directed this last bit to Sirius.
"Thanks," Sirius said, still straining to see despite having been demoted to his own natural height.
Lily ended up talking to the boy as Sirius jostled Moony for a play-by-play, wanting to know if Freddie Mercury came out of the bus. The boy, it seemed, was named Freddy Jenkins and he was French-British, a big fan of Queen, and glad to have somebody to talk to in the line while they waited for the show. But as he spoke, Lily kept getting the funniest feeling that she couldn't quite shake, especially when the boy would glance at Sirius.
A loud cheer went up through the crowd again and Remus said, "I think they've opened the doors."
"WE'RE GOING INSIDE?" Sirius cried.
"Yeah, looks it," Remus said, "Well, if we ever get up to the doors, that is. Bloody hell there's so many people."
"I reckon it's more than the whole of Hogwarts, all the classes combined," James agreed.
And suddenly it was like a surge had come beneath the surface of the people in the crowd and they were moving forward, shuffling, bottlenecking their way along, slowly merging down and down into a single-file line all across the lot to the ticketing turnstiles. Sirius held onto Remus's hand and James held onto Lily's, who held onto Remus's other hand as they walked forward, not wanting to be separated. The boy they'd been talking to struggled to stay even with them through the crowd as it narrowed down, but it was sort of like swimming up stream and soon he'd disappeared in the crowd.
"I had the funniest feeling," Lily said quietly to James.
"What feeling?"
"That boy - the one who nearly knocked Sirius over?" she said, "I-- Well, I suppose it's silly to say this but I rather thought he reminded me of someone."
"Yeah? Who?" James asked. He'd barely seen the kid, honestly, he'd been too busy enjoying Sirius's excitement the way a proud father might enjoy their kids opening presents on Christmas morning. Sirius couldn't stop talking and he'd turned to an unending ramble, trying to choose which Queen number was his favorite one.
"They're just so all bleeding good but every countdown must inevitably end with the best -- It's like choosing between your children!" Sirius was saying.
Lily shrugged, looking over her shoulder at the crowd, but unable to see the mysterious young man anywhere, "Nothing, nevermind," she answered.
If Sirius's enthusiasm wasn't peaked enough already, it launched to new heights as the building loomed ever closer so that he was dizzyingly energetic, making Lily's energy soar as well, and even James and Remus couldn't help but get excited and soon they were there, they were next in the line and a burly looking man was blocking the entrance, checking tickets, tearing the stubs off and handing them back until he'd gotten to Sirius's and then Remus's, then Lily's and James's... and all four of them had stepped inside the Palais.
"Oh my God," Sirius was all but hyperventilating. "Oh my God. We're under the same roof as Freddie. You guys - can you feel it? The hallowedness of this ground?!"
There was a small table where they were selling t-shirts and a tour program booklet, which James purchased for Sirius, and a t-shirt for Lily, who tugged it on over her head and Sirius put both into his deep pockets. They stopped to get a drink for Remus, and then it was the restroom for Lily, and then - Sirius gripped onto Remus for support - they stepped through the threshold of the tunnels leading into the seating area and they'd come out onto a lower level raised seating area, overlooking the floor and the stage directly before them.
Sirius froze in the doorway, people streaming 'round him, staring for in the center of the stage stood a single silver microphone stand and there were the drums and guitars on stands and these giant black cases of lights and equipment. People were jostling for the front of the floor area, pressing against metal railings to try at reaching the stage itself.
"Over here," James waved and Sirius numbly stumbled along after him, Remus's hands on his shoulders to keep him aimed the right way, 'til they'd reached their seats and sat in the hard plastic stadium seats, with a perfect view of the stage, the first row in their section so that they had a ledge ahead of them where Remus rested his drink and Sirius sat to the front of his seat, knees bumping against the boards, biting his lip and rocking himself.
Lily was sitting similarly to Sirius, her eyes sparkling bright green. "Oh these are wonderful seats!" she exclaimed, looking back at James, "You did a really excellent job!"
James smiled, then looked over at Remus behind Lily and Sirius's backs. "Alright, Moony?"
Remus nodded, "You?"
"Brilliant," James answered.
The entire room seemed to throb with the excitement of the moment. Men and women, boys and girls, teens to the elderly alike all were marveling at the stage in anticipation of the show beginning. Nervous energy filled the room as everyone packed in, the seats filling up the more and more people arrived, and soon it seemed there wasn't an empty space in all the Palais.
Sirius thought he might lose his mind. He took several deep breaths, reminding himself of a breathing technique that Dorcas Meadowes had showed him during one of their therapy sessions. It was meant to give his brain time to catch up to him as she'd put it, letting him take a tiny bit of a time out to inventory everything going on around him. She had taught it to him to use as a tool against raising anxiety or depression when Achlys was doing her most terrible work in his heart, but he found it useful when he was overwhelmed or over-stimulated, too, even in a good way like he was now. It sort of gave him pause to think and put himself back into a moment.
You'll want to remember how this feels, Sirius reminded himself, Every moment of this is precious... These are precious seconds that I get to experience. I don't ever want to forget tonight.
In and out, he breathed, and he could feel his heart beat slow to a normal speed.
For a moment anyway -- for as he finished his breathing exercise, the lights turned off and the entire auditorium went pitch black.