A very blustery day
Written for theleapingmuse, as part of xylodemon's I Didn't Get To Go To TWH Ficlet-a-thon.
wind slowly earthward | Remus/James | 450 words
"October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause
between the opposing miseries of summer and winter."
- Carol Bishop Hipps
Remus’s old Gryffindor scarf is looking a bit ragged these days, threadbare and worn from fierce winter winds. The stripes of red and gold seem faded by the passage of time, dull and pale against the fiery magnificence of a Hogwarts autumn. Not that the scarf isn’t well past its time; it has been seven years, after all. That “it seems like only yesterday” business that everyone seems to be invoking these days.
Trees are raining leaves of crimson, orange and sharp golden colours, carpeting the grounds. Just looking at it hurts his eyes. There's a little tree near Greenhouse Four that sheds delicate cream-coloured leaves and a few on the edge of the Forbidden Forest that gleefully shower any who sit under them with little sour apples.
Autumn is the sharp, musty smell of wet wool on an early October morning as misty rain fogs the grounds and they all hurry to Herbology, clustered shoulder to shoulder as the damp seeps through gloves. The wind whispers of winter and if Remus stares at the pale grey sky long enough, he could swear he saw snowflakes.
The air is sweet-spicy and the evening darkness is hesitant, shyly approaching earlier and earlier (May I? Is it my turn? Are you ready?). Everything seems crisp and fresh. Apples make loud, satisfying crunches and the juice dribbles down his chin like a benediction.
James always seems to come awake in autumn, renewed by lazy summer days and the prospect of trying his brilliant new pranks on the unwitting first years. He’s more serious this year, however - older, softer and more vulnerable in some ways. Remus finds that he likes this quiet, mature side of James. For one, he can sit by the lakeside in peaceful contemplation without fear of James trying to strangle him with his own scarf. They have some nice talks instead and James even kisses Remus - kisses him. Remus walks around the lake for a full hour afterwards, whistling off-key, kicking at leaves and grinning. It dumbfounds him and he wonders what Miss Lily Evans might have to say about it, now that she’s showing signs of weakening towards James’s (markedly less annoying) advances.
The October wind numbs his ears and howls past his head with teeth-chattering ferocity, but all Remus can feel is the phantom touch of cold, callused fingertips on his cheek and the warm press of chapped lips that is all too fast fading into distant memory.
On Christmas, he has a new, thick woolen scarf, warm and vibrantly coloured. But it is James’s kisses that sear the frosty winter cold away, secret and wonderful and real long after the last leaf has fallen.
wind slowly earthward | Remus/James | 450 words
"October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause
between the opposing miseries of summer and winter."
- Carol Bishop Hipps
Remus’s old Gryffindor scarf is looking a bit ragged these days, threadbare and worn from fierce winter winds. The stripes of red and gold seem faded by the passage of time, dull and pale against the fiery magnificence of a Hogwarts autumn. Not that the scarf isn’t well past its time; it has been seven years, after all. That “it seems like only yesterday” business that everyone seems to be invoking these days.
Trees are raining leaves of crimson, orange and sharp golden colours, carpeting the grounds. Just looking at it hurts his eyes. There's a little tree near Greenhouse Four that sheds delicate cream-coloured leaves and a few on the edge of the Forbidden Forest that gleefully shower any who sit under them with little sour apples.
Autumn is the sharp, musty smell of wet wool on an early October morning as misty rain fogs the grounds and they all hurry to Herbology, clustered shoulder to shoulder as the damp seeps through gloves. The wind whispers of winter and if Remus stares at the pale grey sky long enough, he could swear he saw snowflakes.
The air is sweet-spicy and the evening darkness is hesitant, shyly approaching earlier and earlier (May I? Is it my turn? Are you ready?). Everything seems crisp and fresh. Apples make loud, satisfying crunches and the juice dribbles down his chin like a benediction.
James always seems to come awake in autumn, renewed by lazy summer days and the prospect of trying his brilliant new pranks on the unwitting first years. He’s more serious this year, however - older, softer and more vulnerable in some ways. Remus finds that he likes this quiet, mature side of James. For one, he can sit by the lakeside in peaceful contemplation without fear of James trying to strangle him with his own scarf. They have some nice talks instead and James even kisses Remus - kisses him. Remus walks around the lake for a full hour afterwards, whistling off-key, kicking at leaves and grinning. It dumbfounds him and he wonders what Miss Lily Evans might have to say about it, now that she’s showing signs of weakening towards James’s (markedly less annoying) advances.
The October wind numbs his ears and howls past his head with teeth-chattering ferocity, but all Remus can feel is the phantom touch of cold, callused fingertips on his cheek and the warm press of chapped lips that is all too fast fading into distant memory.
On Christmas, he has a new, thick woolen scarf, warm and vibrantly coloured. But it is James’s kisses that sear the frosty winter cold away, secret and wonderful and real long after the last leaf has fallen.