Who: Remus Lupin & Sirius Black When: Backdated: Thursday, May 23rd. Early Evening. Where: Sirius' House What: Trying out their new wands Rating: Low Status: Complete
Remus placed a hand over the bag that was slung across his chest. The bag that he usually carried his grade book or other supplies for school in, but at the moment he was using it to transport something else. While his usual items were still in the bag, there was an added item now. An item that had shown up that morning on his nightstand when he woke up. An item from his dreams. His wand.
At first he’d thought he was seeing things, but it was indeed the wand that he’d used at Hogwarts. The want he had gotten at Ollivanders when he was eleven. His first instinct had been to text James and Lily and Sirius and Tonks and he had. It hadn’t taken long to hear back from his friends and to his surprise, Sirius had also received his wand. What were the odds? They’d quickly made plans for Remus to come over, to see if perhaps their magic had manifested along with their wands. For good measure, Remus had also decided to bring the copy of Hogwarts: A History that he received a month or so ago as well.
Reaching Sirius’ house, he parked the car and went to the door, ringing the bell.
Sirius pulled open the door and was still smirking in amusement after having left his message on the network for Tonks. “Hey... come on in. I was just taunting my lovely little cousin on the network about my new toy.”
He waited for Remus to come in, closed the door, and wandered into the living room. “You hungry or anything Moony?”
Remus laughed as he stepped inside, “Yes, I saw it, remember?” Teasing Tonks seemed to be the common thing to do these days after she’d meddled in order to get them to talk two months earlier. Of course it had worked in their favor, but she didn’t know that yet. As far as she knew, Remus was looking for dates because he believed that he and Sirius were too different now. In actuality that couldn’t have been farther from the truth.
“No, I’m fine. A drink however, would be nice.” He said as he followed Sirius into the living room, “Ah, it looks much more put together than the last time I was here.” Remus had helped Sirius with some of his unpacking a few weeks earlier.
“Coffee, tea, soda, or something stronger? And it better be! I’ve been busting my ass trying to get everything finished. Now it’s just comfortably messy instead of piled with boxes and crap everywhere.” Sirius pointed over to the coffee table and said, “Oh hey... my wand is over there. Looks just like the one in my dreams.”
“Tea, if it’s not too much trouble.” Remus said as he approached the coffee table, gazing down at Sirius’ wand before reaching into his bag and pulling out his own, “Mine as well.” He removed the bag from across his chest and set it down, wand still in hand. It was much different than when Hermione had shown him hers that day at the library. For one, the moment he’d picked it up, he had known it was his; he could feel it. “Do you feel anything when you hold it?”
“Huh? Yeah... can’t really explain it though. It was kind of weird,” Sirius called out from the kitchen. He inserted a pod into his Keurig machine and pressed the button to start the tea brewing. “I just sort of knew it was mine. I felt... hmm.. I don’t know. A little tingly or something? Like an electric shock, but not quite the same. Either way, I knew that thing was mine and no one elses.”
Remus set his wand down on the table next to Sirius’ and couldn’t help but simply stare at them. He’d seen them so many times in his dreams; theirs and James and Lily’s and hadn’t actually thought he’d see them in this world. “Have you tried anything yet?” He asked, finally pulling his attention away from the wands and walked towards the kitchen so they wouldn’t have to raise their voices to be heard.
“Not really,” he yelled out. Sirius heard footsteps, so he glanced over his shoulder and grinned as he repeated, “Not really. It just showed up today, so I haven’t had much of a chance yet. But the moment I figure out how to do some of the stuff from the dreams? Nymphie is screwed because it’s prank war time!”
Remus nodded, “I haven’t attempted anything else either; after all, I had to go to work not long after I woke up.” As they stood there in the kitchen, Remus was reminded of similar events year ago when they would stand around the kitchen in their apartment while they either drank tea or made dinner and talked about Remus’ day at school and whatever Sirius had done that day. Those had been the good days. The days before Peter had come into their lives and made a mess of everything. “She doesn’t have a clue what she’s in for, does she?”
“Nope! Absolutely none!” Sirius replied gleefully. He turned around and handed Remus the mug of tea, then began fixing one for himself. “My guess is that she’s busy wedding planning, or still plotting to get you to call off your online dating thing. Either way, it’s keeping her busy and it gives me time to figure that blasted thing out. If Nymphie can use one, then so can I!”
Remus thanked Sirius and blew across the top of the tea’s surface as he watched the other man go about making his own tea. Taking a sip, he couldn’t help but smirk as he realized that Sirius remembered how he took it without him needing to tell him. “She should know better than to go up against the Sirius Black.” Of course Tonks probably wasn’t aware of most of the pranks that James and Sirius had pulled at Hogwarts, but she still should have known that Sirius was going to try and retaliate. “Ever since I made that post, I’ve wondered if she’s gone searching on-line dating sites for my profile. Not that she’d find one of course.” Despite the fact that they both knew that the whole on-line dating thing was just a ruse, he felt the need to reiterate that fact around Sirius.
“You should set a couple of them up!” Sirius suggested. “That way if she does go looking and she finds one, it makes your story seem even more credible. You know Nymphie... if nothing else, she’s definitely got the Black family stubbornness running through her veins.” He shrugged his shoulders, but it was clear from his expression that Sirius was highly amused by all of this.
Remus hadn’t thought about that, but it was a good idea, “I suppose you’re right. And it isn’t as if I need to actually reply to any messages I get.” He smirked at Sirius over the rim of his mug as he took another sip of his tea. Remus would never actually use a dating site to look for a date and was glad that he didn’t actually have to use any means to look for one other than simply asking Sirius. Of course, since they’d decided to get to know one another again, they’d mostly spent time together inside; not that Remus minded of course, “Speaking of dates.” He paused for a moment as he looked over at Sirius, “Perhaps we could go out for dinner soon.”
“Exactly! And sure.” Sirius blew across the surface of his tea before taking a sip. “Where do you want to go?” he asked curiously. “Maybe we could catch a movie after or something too.” Sirius began heading back into the other room and he flopped down on the couch. He leaned forward and picked up the wand, twirling it in his fingers as he looked at it. “So... back to this. How do we get them to work? I mean, I know how it worked in my dreams and stuff. But how do we get it working here?”
A small smile crossed Remus’ lips at Sirius’ response, “I’m not entirely sure. I haven’t been on a proper date in some time.” Dinner, the night they’d decided to give things another go, wasn’t considered a date, because it had been two old friends catching up. It hadn’t been until after dinner that they’d decided to take things slow and get to know one another once more. The last time Remus had gone on an actual date had been when he was teaching in Boston almost a year ago.
When Sirius headed back into the living room, Remus followed, sitting down beside him on the couch, leaving little to no room between them as opposed to when they’d been sitting on his couch that night after dinner when Remus had left practically a foot between them up until he’d kissed Sirius. While they were still taking things slow, things had certainly progressed since then and Remus didn’t feel odd sitting so close to Sirius, “In the dreams, it would seem that we can’t do magic until our magic manifests itself. Has anything unexplainable happened recently? Anything that could be even remotely magical?”
“Okay. So then we’ll do dinner, movie, and whatever,” he commented offhandedly. Sirius’ attention was pretty solidly focused on the wand at the moment. Without even thinking about it, he draped his left arm around Remus’ shoulders and began swishing the wand back and forth. “True, but in the dreams we all started having our magic as little First Years. So 10 and 11 years old.”
He sighed and looked at the wand, studying the runes inscribed on his. Sirius frowned and rolled his eyes in frustration, then flicked it casually towards the vase. Which promptly exploded. “SHIT!”
Remus knew that Sirius was only partly focused on making plans and honestly, he didn’t blame him. The fact that both of their wands were here was rather exciting in and of itself. “So, you think that since we’re older now, we should already have our magic?” He hadn’t really thought about that before. It was possible, but he had thought that he’d feel different or something. Like the way he knew when the full moon as approaching without even having to look it up. He was exceedingly that so far that was the only bleed over from the Lycanthropy. The heightened sense of smell had faded months ago.
When Sirius draped his arm over his shoulders, Remus didn’t attempt to push him off, because he enjoyed being close to Sirius and for now, he was content to have this. However, when the vase shattered, Remus jumped, not having expected that, “I do hope that wasn’t expensive.”
Sirius was still staring slack jawed at the now destroyed vase. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He’d made it explode? With the wand? Sirius whooped loudly and started laughing, practically vibrating with excitement. “DID YOU SEE THAT?!?! IT FUCKING EXPLODED! THAT’S BRILLIANT! LET’S BLOW SOMETHING ELSE UP!”
He bounced to his feet and scanned the room, looking for something else to test his wand out on. Sirius smirked and ran into the kitchen, coming back a few minutes later with a hideous teapot that he thought once belonged to his mother. Sirius placed it in the middle of the floor, ran back over to the couch, then aimed his wand. He bit the tip of his tongue as he concentrated, then burst out laughing when the teapot exploded. Small shards flew all over the place, littering the floor. “This is great!”
Remus wished that he could say that he was surprised by Sirius’ reaction the his use of magic, but he really wasn’t. Sirius had always been easily excitable, both in and out of the dreams, but that was just one of the things that he loved about him. He was able to express himself without worrying about what others thought. Of course, that didn’t mean that he couldn’t pretend that he was surprised. As Sirius blew up the teapot, Remus sighed and shook his head, “There are times when I feel as though I’m in love with a twelve year old.” It had been much the same when they had been dating years before.
“At least I’m a fun twelve year old,” he countered, flashing Remus an impish grin. “Okay. I blew them up, so now you try to put them together. And if you can’t, it’s okay... I didn’t like either of those things anyways.”
Remus shook his head, attempting to hide a smile, but it didn’t work very well, “I’m just glad you aren’t really twelve, because that would be illegal.” He reached for his wand, where he’d left it on the table and got to his feet. He recalled a few spells from the dreams, but he didn’t know whether or not they’d work. Pointing the wand at the shards of glass and porcelain on the floor, he flicked the wand, “Reparo.” Nothing happened. He tried it once more and again nothing.
“Let me try something else.” He turned towards the coffee table and spotted his bag. He stooped down and pulled Hogwarts: A History out and placed it on the table. Pointing his wand at the book, he swished it as he spoke, “Wingardium Leviosa.” To his surprise, the book, slowly, began to levitate a few inches off the table.
“What’s that?” Sirius asked curiously. He nodded towards the book and arched an eyebrow. “Spell book or something?”
At Sirius’ question, Remus lost his concentration and the heavy book fell back to the coffee table, “No. It’s Hogwarts: A History. I suppose you wouldn’t recognize it, because as I recall, from more than one dream, you didn’t actually read it.” Every student needed to buy a copy their First Year, but Remus was fairly certain that he was the only Marauder who had actually read it, “It appeared one morning after a dream about Hogwarts.”
Sirius rolled his eyes after hearing Remus mention the name. “For your information, I did read it. McGonagall forced me to read it out loud every day for 2 weeks as part of my detention. It was boring as hell, but I actually read the bloody thing.”
“Did she? I wasn’t aware of that.” It was interesting to talk about the dreams in the past tense, as if they had really happened to them, but it also felt normal. It really was all very strange and Remus wasn’t sure he’d ever really get it, but at least he didn’t have to go through them alone, “Perhaps you’ll receive your own copy, in time then.” Remus smirked, teasing him a bit.
“King of detention. And I really hope not! If the dreams are going to send me something else, then it should be cool and useful. Like that cloak James had or something. Not the giant book of boringness,” Sirius replied. He rolled his eyes and planted his hands on his lap as he looked at the debris littering the floor. He tried giving Reparo a while, but no luck. Levitation didn’t work either. But when he grumbled in frustration and tried to just vanish the junk, that finally worked. “Huh... so I can destroy stuff and then make it disappear off to who knows where. Not too shabby.”
Remus couldn’t help but laugh as he listened to Sirius and shook his head, “There is some interesting information in there, you know.” Of course Remus knew that he could try to convince Sirius of that fact until he was blue in the face and he would never agree. It was one of the things that Remus liked about Sirius. They were so very different most of the time, but they worked. He was sure that it was partly because they had been friends first. “I do hope you made them vanish and not simple transported them somewhere else.” All he could imagine was shards of glass and porcelain falling on some unsuspecting person’s head.
Sirius considered that for a moment, then smirked impishly and just shrugged his shoulders. “Dunno? Oh well... can’t do anything about it now anyways.” He reached down for his mug of tea and took a sip, still thinking about that book of Remus’. “We should make a list of all the spells we can remember from our dreams. Then start working on them one by one until we master them. It’s going to suck having a wand and not even being able to do more magic than a First Year.”
“That’s actually not a bad idea, Sirius,” Remus said, smiling at Sirius before picking up his own mug and taking a sip. “I’m sure that we’ll be able to do them all in time. I’m sure our magic is bleeding over slowly. Perhaps we should practice a different spell each day. One that didn’t work one day will surely work eventually.” Setting his mug back down, Remus reached into his bag again and pulled out a notebook and a pen. He flipped to a blank page and wrote Spells and Charms across the top.
Sirius nodded and sat back down, propping his feet up on the corner of the table. He leaned back, tucked his arms behind his head, and closed his eyes. After a few moments of trying to recall various bits and pieces of information from the dreams, he began rattling off a whole bunch of different spells that he could remember.