The Marauders - Order of the Phoenix - Part One

XXX: 23 December, 1993

"If I didn't know better, I'd swear you were the very same cat," Remus Lupin murmured, his hand stroking the back of Crookshanks' ears and neck as the cat purred, a long, low, drone of a sound that seemed to carry on and on in the dark night that filled the office.

He stared into the flickering fire in his office floo, scented with pine and spruce logs that he'd chosen specially to get the scent in his office. He leaned into the seat back, groaning as pains spiked throughout his body, his bones preparing themselves for the change that would be coming soon...

The full moon would be on 28 December and here it was the 23rd and Remus could barely move with five whole days still to go. Merciful that it was the holidays, he could hole away in his office before the fire, sipping aconite tea, and patting this renegade cat who never seemed to be where he ought to be, but always hanging about lurking in dark hallways and purring on the lap of a tired Professor late in the hours of night.

In the morning it would be Christmas Eve.

On the small table beside his arm chair, he'd put the little frame with the photograph from the wedding. It was a magical photo, but you wouldn't know it from the way Lily and James refused to look away from one another in it, their eyes glued together it seemed. The only motion the twitch of his lips as they hung up on his tooth and the glisten of sea glass-green eyes that peered out from behind a curtain of beautifully styled ginger hair, which shone only for him.

He rubbed his chin. If Lily were here, she could instantly tell him precisely how many days it had been since that photograph was taken - could've done it in a second flat. Remus had to work it out.

"How do you do that Evans?" James looked at her with awe and a twist of his mouth that said he thought it was equally cool and weird - an oddity that was both attractive and strange at the same time.

"It's easy, you just --" and she'd rambled on a good deal about maths.

5478 days since the wedding.

He struggled through some more math... He had only known Lily and James for 3713 days - 3713 days from 1 September 1971 to Halloween night 1981. Barely made a decade. Remus stared at the fire, dumbfounded and cold at the realization that he had been missing them longer than he'd even known them.

"We can choose to dwell on the past and end up losing - tossing awy- what good things are left..." Flitwick's words echoed in Remus's mind. "Remus, have you ever noticed at Argus hates Christmas something terrible?"

And suddenly it was James's voice echoing in Remus's mind. "I mean, isn't goodwill and helping others that are in need of it what Christmas is all about?"

Suddenly unable to contain himself, Remus moved the cat off his lap and Crookshanks made a sound of disapproval as he was put down onto the floor. He slapped at Remus's ankle as he walked away, picking his wand up from the table beside the picture. The corridor was cold and dark and as he stepped out into it, Crookshanks slunk along the corridor to the left. Remus followed after the cat, since they were going the same direction - Remus didn't know where the cat was going ultimately, but he knew where he was headed: for the Trophy Room passageway. In the alcove, he knew there were loads and loads of old photographs in boxes and piles that went back to the days when Flitwick, McGonagall, Moody, and James's parents had gone to Hogwarts. If Flitwick's story was accurate, then thre would be photos of Hermes Filch would be there, too.

"Lumos." His wand tip ignited and Remus pulled aside the tapestry and stared up into the dark of the passageway, sloping off into the dark... a hard climb with his bum knee even on a good day, a damned near impossible one in his current condition, but he was determined, driven forward by the thought of 5478 days.

Crookshanks went streaking past him, running up the steps into the dark ahead of him at top speed, disappearing in the shadows nearly as quickly as he'd appeared from the corridor. "You'll get lost!" Remus said to the cat's back side. "Or else fall down one of those ditches and come out Merlin knows where!" But the cat was gone and there wasn't much else Remus could do about it - not like he was going to catch it up.

There were stairs that seemed never ending, and he had a time of getting 'round the wide mouths of the abysses. He used magic to create little bridges so he didn't need to jump and chuckled to himself because they'd been idiots back then, leaping over those canyons like that was their only option to getting across. How many times had James and Sirius talked about going down them and exploring? They'd never done it, aside from the one that came out in the laundry room. At least not to Remus's knowledge. Who knew what the pair of them had gotten up to over the few holidays they'd spent alone at the castle? He'd heard of at least one mattress-sledding incident (which of course Sirius had insisted they reenact themselves the year he'd stayed at the castle with his more rebellious counterpart).

As he trudged along, thinking out what he would do once he'd collected the materials from the alcove, Remus thought about the thing which was inspiring him - a gift that Rubeus Hagrid had made for Harry nearly two years before.

"I know yeh must have sommat I could use, Remus," Hagrid had said over a big mug of ale at the Three Broomsticks. "You bein' so close ter James an' Lily an' all... I un'erstan' of course if yeh don't want ter part with yeh photographs, bein' they must be mighty special ter yeh... but Harry hasn't got a single one of 'em and I want ter su'prise 'im with 'em at the end o' term."

Remus had been visiting Hogsmeade with the hope of talking Dumbledore into hiring him on as a professor at the school - having heard about Quirrell's death and subsequently an open position on the staff - and he'd run into Hagrid after his meeting with the Headmaster. "I'm sure I could find a few that I could part with for Harry's sake," Remus had replied.

Then, tentative, he'd asked Hagrid about the boy, inquired if he was healthy, if he was well, if he was happy... Hagrid had said he thought Harry was happy at Hogwarts and that he looked the spitting image of James. "But with Lily's eyes," Hagrid had added, nodding and taking a long slurp of his ale. "An' how've yeh been since I seen yeh last? Must've been at least ten years or more - yeh should come by and visit me more of'en... yeh always welcome... Can have some tea and rock cakes an' a good talk... any time..."

"I'm alright, Hagrid," Remus had lied, and when Hagrid asked what he was in town for, he told him he'd been inquiring about the open DADA position, but he hadn't gotten it. "But it's quite alright, Hagrid, really, I have some other options and I'm sure at least one of them will pan out." He'd smiled, thinking he may have to take Hagrid up on the offer of tea and rock cakes soon... at least he knew where he'd get one meal in the next few months if he did...

He arrived at the alcove and found it a right mess. The light was left on, blankets on the floor, a quidditch magazine laying open on the floor. There was a small stack of dirty platters by the door and a bunch of Honeydukes wrappers strewn about the floor. He wondered what student had found the passageway and made such a mess

The magazine was recent - he knew because the page that was open was a player profile on the seeker for the Chudley Cannons - "Can't Keep Kent from Catching the Snitch!" the title of the article boasted - and he could see the smiling face of Oliver Kent looking up at him from the pages. James would be so proud if he could only see that, Remus thought, bending down and lifting up the magazine to stare at the photograph. Why bloody hell, he suddenly realized that he'd known Oliver Kent longer than he'd known James Potter.

He shook his head and tossed the magazine onto the couch, waving his wand and clearing away the rubbish, disappearing the dishes back to the kitchens, and sending the blankets folded back into place. Then he turned and picked up the old box full of photographs, which had been pawed through and spilled over onto the floor, too. He shook his head in disapproval, "We were never this disrespectful, were we?" he muttered as he scooped up the photos and tossed them back into the box, hoisting it up onto his hip. He flicked his wrist to put the light out and started on his journey back to his office - he would need his desk to do this properly, he reckoned, and he started off down the passageway.

Sirius came 'round the bend in the passage as he heard Remus leave, creeping through the dark and slipping back into the alcove, turning the light back on, and seeing everything had been cleared up. It took him a little while to realize that Remus had taken all of the old photographs - including the ones he'd taken out of Charlus and Dora Potter. He hugged his knees, feeling lonely without their smiling faces looking up at him from their photographs and wondered what it was Remus intended to do with them.