"AND THOUGH THE TEA IN OUR LOVE KETTLE'S GONE COLLLLD... DARLING DON'T LET OUR LOVE GROW MOLLLLLD... I'M GIVING YOU ALL THAT I'VE GOT, OOO BABY LET'S PUT THE STEAM BACK IN THE OLD TEA POT!"
"Sirius! Shut up!" James yelled, laughing as Sirius's voice rose loudly, carrying through the trees. He laughed, his arm around Remus's torso, supporting him up as they walked through the trees. Peter scrambled along beside them, humming with excitement along in tune with Sirius's obnoxious singing. "You're a stronger man than I am, Moony," James said to Remus, his eyes shining bright with the thrill of the brisk morning air.
"I dream of murdering him sometimes," Remus said dryly, "But I always remind myself just how bloody bored I'd be if he wasn't around."
"How bored we'd all be," James said.
Sirius was far ahead of them in the woods, and they could hear the sound of his tromping along, breaking branches and blasting away debris that blocked the pathway with his wand, making an easy passage along for Remus.
"PUT MY HEART BACK ONTO THE FIRE BAYYYYYY-BAYYYYYY, STOKE THE HEAT, TURN UP THE DESIIIIIIIRE...."
It had been nearly a year since they'd been out this way and the path they'd used was overgrown and rough, and Remus's knees were hurting, but despite the knees, he was having the time of his life as he leaned on James for support. He smiled at the back of Peter's head and squeezed James's hand on his shoulder, listened to Sirius and that feeling like coming home after being away for a long, long time overcame him.
The Howling House they'd built in James's basement was wonderful. It was great being able to go some place that wasn't a bomb shelter or a cage or even the Shrieking Shack, but this - this being out in the woods stuff - this was the way things were meant to be on a full moon night. He did feel bad that Bradley Scamander wasn't coming along with them - but Lily and Dora were going to spend the day with him before it was time to go into the suitcase and Bradley had been terribly excited about that - and it had been a horribly long time since the four Marauders has been out on a camping trip together, just the four of them, and to be honest Remus had missed it quite a lot.
"Nearly there," James encouraged him, grinning.
Remus didn't mind. Despite the pain shooting through his knee caps with every step, he sincerely wouldn't have traded the walk to the camp site behind the old Dumbledore house for anything in the world.
"LADS OUR FIRE RING IS STILL HERE!"
"Hooray!" Peter squeaked and he bolted into the trees ahead with delight, clapping his hands and jumping through the brush in the direction Sirius's voice had come from.
James looked at Remus, "Express ride?"
"Sure why not," Remus said.
James ducked out from under his arm, transformed with a CRACK! and knelt, in stag form, for Remus to climb aboard. Remus wrapped his arms around the stag's neck and they were off - the stag running through the trees at top speed, using his antler's to thrash away the branches so they wouldn't hit Remus. He honked and Remus laughed as he pressed his face into the warm, bristly hair along the thick neck of the stag.
It felt like they were back in fourth year as they broke into the clearing. Sirius was laying across a log, singing that stupid Celestina Warbeck song still, and Peter was scurrying about, collecting branches and sticks and piling it up to make a campfire in the ring of stones they'd laid about a hundred camping trips before. Sirius had already tossed about the tents - popping them up by magic - and engorgioed the cooler full of food that Dora and Lily had sent along with them. The morning sun was up over the field, a breeze shivering over the long grasses below, making a natural music that would serve as their backdrop for their adventure.
Prongs stood in the middle of the long ring that served as their seating and tossed his head as Remus slid off his back onto the ground, wincing at the impact of his knees as he put his body weight back down on them.
"I brought some of that soothing salve for your knees, Moony," Sirius said, and he sat up and grabbed his leather jacket, which he'd been using as a pillow on the log, and reached shoulder-deep into the pocket, feeling about with a look of concentration on his face. He produced the little green jar and tossed it to Remus as Remus sat down, stretching his legs out before him.
"Thank you Padfoot," Remus said, and he kicked off his loafers and rolled up his trousers to reveal his knobby knees before unscrewing the lid on the salve jar. Sirius folded up his jacket again, holding it to his head, and leaned back against the log once more, smiling as he watched Remus bending over to apply the salve to his knees.
There was a CRACK and James was back, kneeling in the place where the stag had been, his antlers still on his head, for old times sake, and he grinned as he stood up, taking a deep breath of the fresh air. "Ahhh yes!" he said, thrusting his chest out as he bounded over the log ring to the cliff's edge and looked over the valley below. Sirius turned his head to watch as James beat his chest with his fists and let out a loud sound like King Kong or Tarzan or something over the land below. "AHHHHHHH-AAAAHHHHHH-AHHHH!" he shouted, pausing to listen to his echo resounding back at him.
Peter had got enough wood piled up that he set the bracken beneath it on fire with his wand and there was a popping and crackling as the leaves curled and set the twigs alight, smoke rising up from beneath the thicker branches Peter had laid down, gaining momentum. Peter grinned - he'd gotten better at setting the fires since their last outing - practice he'd gained from a few months living out of doors after getting kicked out of his university. He poked at it with a long stick, sitting on the log and watching James crowing.
"C'mon back here, you wanker," Sirius called out, and James laughed and returned to the firepit as Remus rolled his trousers back down and dropped the soothing slave onto the log.
James sank onto the log and Peter happily took a seat too, looking from one to the other of the lads in excitement, squirming with such happiness as they hadn't seen him exude since first or second year. His face was flushed and he was grinning ear to ear with joy.
"You make my love pot simmer! You make my love pot boil! Our love makes excimers -- oi Moony, what's an excimer?"
"Uhh it's a physics term," Remus answered, "When two molecules exist in close proximity --"
"Oh my gods, Moony, the abridged version would do!" Sirius groaned as Remus carried on.
"-- and one is electrically excited, they bond and form a conjecture that results in a lower energy than --"
"Remcyclopedia rides again!" James laughed.
"-- if they were existing separately," Remus finished.
Sirius thought about this a moment, then, "Classy lyrics, Warbeck!" He stretched, kicking off his boots and socks as he talked, "I probably would've done a stupid rhyme - something like glimmer or shimmer or slimmer or --"
"Dimmer," supplied James, smirking. "Fits perfectly if she's singin' to you, doesn't it?"
Sirius grabbed one of his socks, balled it up, and chucked it as James. The sock hit him and James feigned death, flipping backwards off the log he'd just sat down on, legs flailing.
"Oh he's killed me with that stank-bomb! That's warfare, that is!"
Sirius laughed and grabbed for the second sock. "BOMBS AWAY!" he shouted, tossing the second one at James. It hung up on the antlers that stuck up over the side of the log where James lay and dangled there until James, laughing, sat up and shook it off, tossing his head so that his hair went flipping up and the sock fell from the antlers, flying into the woods behind them.
Peter waved his palm in front of his nose, as though trying to rid himself of an offensive odor.
"They don't really smell that bad, Wormy!"
"Yes they do," James answered. "Go on and recall'em and sniff'em yourself."
"Accio socks!" Sirius called, but nothing happened.
"Oi those things are so disgusting even your magic doesn't wanna touch 'em."
Sirius rolled off the log and got up, trotting over and diving over James into the woods, emerging a moment later with the rolled up offensive sock. "Here it is," he announced, waving the sock like a flag.
"Keep that thing to yourself before you kill us all," Remus laughed as James faked gagging again, clutching his throat and falling the other way off the log. Peter laughed loudly.
Sirius jumped over the log on top of James and slapped him with the sock to which James shouted, laughing so loud he was honking and snorting, "Stop you fucking arsehole!" he wailed, kicking at Sirius, who laughed in that heady, mindless way that boys do when they're roughhousing mindlessly.
"Stop that," Remus called, "Before somebody gets hurt!"
"Yes mum!" James and Sirius chorused together, then they laughed and, again in chorus, said loudly, "Jinx! Jinx again!"
Remus shook his head, smiling, even as his husband and best mate dissolved into further laughter, punching each other and kicking as they rolled about in the dirt.
The day was a lot of the same - the boys just simply being boys and forgetting their ages, forgetting their responsibilities - even Wormtail ignored the impending onset of being another year older. They set about playing games of charades and a game called Sickles that bore a suspicious resemblance to the muggle game Quarters (usually played with a 10 pence), which Sirius had been taught by a halfblood at the Grindyswallow Pub. The game gave them all just a smidge of a buzz - not enough to be drunk or anything, just enough to bring that warmth and daring lack of inhibition that takes the edge off.
For dinner, they ate roast poked through with sharpened sticks, with small potatoes and peppers skewered on, too. For dessert, Peter brought out marshmallows he'd packed, as well as plums and apples, which they stuck through on the sticks and roasted, too, James trading his plum with Sirius for a second apple.
"I bloody love apples," James declared, taking a big bite of the fire-cooked fruit.
"You ought to put some cinnamon on it," Sirius smirked.
"Ohhh - yes! Cinaminon!" James asked, resulting in a loud round of laughter from the other three as James, looking confused, said, "What? What's funny?"
Sirius shook his head, still laughing.
It was as though they'd taken a time turner back and they had no worries in their lives save for whether they finished their homework in time to turn it in - but even better because it was summer and there were no rules.
They laughed at dirty jokes and threw marshmallows at each other, Sirius sang songs (or at least more of the "Steam in the Old Tea Pot" song) and Remus told them fantastical ghost stories with a bit of powder that made the smoke twist into shapes as he spoke, playing out the tales and capturing James, Peter, and Sirius's imaginations completely. Sirius belched half the alphabet and they all dissolved into giggles and raspberry noises after Peter farted, laughing so hard that there were actual tears rolling down James's face before the moon rise began.
It was as though they'd all forgotten the true reason for being in the woods that night - even Remus, who thought it remarkable how well the combination of the soothing salve and a good laugh had done to alleviate the pains he felt before the transformation. And when the time came for the moon to rise, it was Sirius there holding him as he shivered out of his consciousness, staring up at a star-filled sky.
The moon was bright and the change intense. It took some time for the stag and the dog to corral the wolf into submission, and an hour or two of Snuffles snapping at the wolf to bring Remus's mind back from the places the werewolf's mind dragged him away to... But when they'd done it, when they'd succeeded - oh it was a romp to remember.
Nothing particularly special happened - they simply ran through the trees - wolf, dog, stag, and rat - the rat's tail wrapped safely around the stag's antlers, the dogs chasing each other in circles, playfully snapping and wagging their tails as the stag sprang throug the trees, crashing prongs-first through them. They played in the field in the valley, ducking through the tall grasses - barking and howling and honking and squeaking and racing one another, chasing each other in a sort of hide-and-seek or tag, playing like the children they barely got to be.
Next morning, Peter woke to the sounds of shuffling feet and cracking branches outside the tent. He rubbed his eyes and rolled over, mind foggy, and pushed his head out the canvas flap of the door. The moment he had, he was splashed with a large fistful of bright red and yellow confetti and a rendition of Happy Birthday buzzing merrily out of the end of Sirius Black's kazoo. Peter's face hurt from grinning so hard as he scrambled out of his tent to find they'd made bubble and squeak - with rashers of bacon, of course, because there was never James Potter at a breakfast without bacon involved - and brought along bottles of orange juice. They'd written Happy Birthday Wormy with paper letters strung through the trees and there were crackers and poppers of more confetti and silly cone hats and a paper crown for Peter's head.
Remus was bundled up in several sweaters and sitting close to the fire so that his scars glowed silver and gold in the flickering fire, a fresh one mending on his jaw, but even he was smiling as Peter babbled excitedly about how much he loved bubble and squeak and Remus treated them to a dissertation on why it was called such a silly name until Sirius interrupted him by shoving a piece of toast into his mouth.
Peter was very excited, too, when they handed over gifts that they'd brought along for him and Sirius played his kazoo some more as Peter unwrapped the presents with feverish joy that turned his face pink. Lily and James had gotten him a smart newsboy hat and a very nice tweed vest in exactly the same fabric as the hat so that he would match, and there was a book called What Dreams May Come, which James said he hadn't read yet but heard was rather good and planned to read soon - but the real surprise was the book mark tucked in. A ticket to the Quidditch World Cup - and a box seat no less!
"Wow!" Peter squeaked in excitement and he thanked James profusely.
"Hopefully you won't mind the rest of us being there as well," James said, "And Oliver Kent, too."
"Brilliant!" said Peter, who was excited just to be included.
He opened a package from Remus, which included several thick chocolate bars and boxes of Bertie Bott's and finally it was time to open Sirius's.
Peter ripped the wrapping off to find a fine leather journal, fresh ink bottle, a beautiful quill, and a sealed envelope.
"Read the letter later," Sirius said quickly, flushing.
"Alright." Peter tucked it into the pages of the journal, and marvelled at the pretty leather and the fine detailed stitching and how there was a long leather strand that wrapped about the book to hold it closed. "I'll be sure to write important thoughts in here - well, as important as a lad like me has anyway," he added, flushing.
"You'll have loads of important thoughts," Sirius corrected, grinning. "And that book is for all sorts of thoughts anyway - sometimes even the ones that seem unimportant at first end up being the most important of all! Write them all down!"
They spent the morning larking about again, none of them wanting the camping trip to be over.
"We ought to do this more often - it's been so long since we camped out like this," James said sadly.
"We shall make a date of it," Sirius said.
"I agree!" Peter squeaked.
Remus laughed, "Well, you know I'm always up for it at least once a month."
They all laughed, too, all of them basking in the joy of feeling young, wild, and free.