It's a blindfold kick-back Date: Sunday, 7 December, 2001 Time: Morning Characters: James Potter and Remus Lupin Location: 12 Grimmauld Pl
It used to hurt like crazy ever single time, like his head was about to split open. There was, however, a bit of truth the adage about practice and perfection. As he slipped through the gate of the back yard, James ruffled his hair up a bit. These days, the only noticeable side effects of sprouting and then retracting antlers was a not unpleasant sort of tingling across his scalp. On rougher nights, like the full moons, it gave him headaches, but he attributed that to the his whole body could feel a bit battered and bruised. Nothing beat running as a stag. When it was all physical and just that thrumming, consuming urge to go faster, faster, faster. As it was, he was practically sweating despite only wearing a long sleeved t-shirt and a leather jacket. His or Sirius', he couldn't tell. Once through the back door and into the kitchen he shrugged off the jacket and tossed it onto the table.
Remus enjoyed the newspaper in the mornings, particularly when James and Sirius had both left early. He found that the perfect way to wake from a long nights' sleep was a cup of tea, some toast and jam and the morning paper. He yawned broadly as the door opened and James entered. "Good run?" he asked, closing the paper and taking a sip of his tea.
"Always," was James immediate reply. James had a hunch he enjoyed the habit because it made him feel less... restricted. Though now that he was inside, toast seemed like a great idea. Probably best not to just take Remus'. He never seemed to eat enough for James' liking. "Sirius leave for work already?" he asked as he began rummaging through the cupboards for the bread.
"Yep." he nodded, pointing his wand at the loaf of bread where it rested on the counter and using his wand to float it over to James. "He had quite the time getting out of bed this morning... perhaps you shouldn't keep him up so late." he chuckled, shaking his head. "I thought today was the day I was going to have to use the water trick again... haven't used that since school."
Grinning as he plucked the bread from the air, two quick cuts through the air with his wand had two nicely sized slices of bread cut free. He glanced from his wand to the stove and back to the bread. Magic would be faster and give him close enough the same results. James didn't trust toasters, with their insistent habit of completely burning whatever he tried to put inside them. And besides, he was hungry. Quickly grabbing a plate, he tossed the slices of bead onto it headed over to the table to join Remus. "Because that always put him in such a good mood," he smirked as he sat down. "Besides, it's not my fault at all. I accidentally left my watch at home, how was I supposed to know what time it was?" he asked perhaps too innocently. With that, a fizzling streak of sparks leapt from his wand and across the bread on his plate. Didn't even burn it, he noted with a triumphant smile as he grabbed the jam from the middle of the table.
"Well, yes... it didn't make for a terribly pleasent day. I'll tell you what, next time you take him out drinking, you get him up the next morning for work... don't always make me the bad guy." he chuckled a bit. Sure, he was teasing, but he knew James would actually step up if asked. He leaned forward and took another drink of his tea. "So where've you been running then? Seems like a stag in the middle of London might be a bit out of place."
He gave a relenting roll of his eyes as he spread an disproportionately large amount of jam across his toast. Honestly, he figured Sirius was perfectly old enough to get himself out of bed. Using the knife, he gestured to himself. "Wizard," he reminded Remus before moving on to coat the next slice, as if Remus would somehow forget. He certainly wasn't restricted to London. Sure, sometimes, if it was the middle of the night or something there was a park that wasn't bad. "But really, I like the Forbidden Forest. It's familiar enough to know if something's up." Taking a bite, he let his eyes pass over Remus' face for a moment. He was older, James knew in his head, but it was easy for him to forget most of the time - Remus was still Remus. "Hey," he mentioned. He paused to swallow the bite down. "Do people, you know, know about the whole- I mean, Marauder secrets, how many of them are still secrets?" It had been rolling around in his head ever since he'd started thinking about files and records and all that nonsense. He and Sirius were completely unregistered, and Remus was- well, even these days being a werewolf was, well, it seemed hard to sort out what was part of public knowledge and what wasn't.
"Obviously." he rolled his eyes at James's indication of himself as a wizard. "That's why I was enquiring, since apparently sarcasm has completely escaped you this morning." He took another piece of his toast, chewing as he listened to James's questions. "I don't know, really. The fact that I'm a werewolf was common knowledge within the Order, but I really don't believe that anyone outside would have any reason to care. And as for Marauder secrets, as far as I know only Harry and the Weasley twins know much in the way of those. Was there something specific you wanted to know?" he asked with an eyebrow raised.
James had to chuckle at Remus' response, but didn't raise to any further baiting. Amarissa had actually had a point the other day - wizarding exceptions to the whole portion of the population called werewolf or vampire weren't treated well at all and it was likely that if zombies were ever publicly acknowledged, they'd find themselves in the same boat. James didn't much like the idea of someone finding out about a zombie werewolf. That alone might be grounds to cart him off and do who-knew-what to him. But if it wasn't public knowledge then maybe she didn't know, and maybe that meant there was no mention of it in the file marked Lupin, Remus. It's not like James had to... steal it, or anything. He could just read it. Just in case, you know, it needed to be stolen. "Anyone beyond the Order know about me and Sirius... and- about us being animagi?" he asked, shying away from inquiring toward Peter. Part of him said it didn't matter, part of him wanted to cover all their bases.
"I'm not sure, really. Sirius wasn't exactly careful when he escaped from Azkaban, but as far as I knew, it was never published how he escaped... so I suppose we're safe. Why all the paranoia, James?" If he knew his old friend, something has spawned this line of questioning.