Archive of Our Own

Come out with me!

The dot of ink in the exclamation mark spreads while my quill and my hand are resting on the parchment, and I’m considering. What is becoming of sensible Amelia Bones, the friend you can always trust even – and perhaps in particular – if you are Remus Lupin? Maybe I’m just learning to be more: learning to know myself better and becoming more myself.

I lift my gaze from the clear handwriting and from the short fingernails up to Glam Girl, who’s puffing up her gleaming feathers, waiting atop my chest of drawers – and to the poster of Siouxsie and the Banshees: Hammersmith Odeon 11th September 1978. Her face on the wall has changed my flat, too.

I’m not necessarily losing… at least not my reason. Although I can’t forget what Remus has said about change – voluntary change, he emphasised – requiring us to go on boldly regardless of what we must lose.

I doubt he meant our closeness. He never talked about that – when it started, or lasted, or when it ended.

In any case I’m still considerate, and I consider how to act. The note must be different. But I’m leaving the parchment with its invitation on my desk for him to perhaps read later.

Putting the quill away, I look for a pencil and a piece of paper. Please come for a visit in the evening. No party here now that all our Auror trainee friends are away, but I’m cooking dinner. Amelia.

As I let Glam Girl fly out of the window with the small letter tied to her foot, I become aware of what a draft must have told her earlier. The weather, so far too mild for November, has now changed, the wind turned northerly and harsh, and the temperature is perhaps hardly above zero. I’ll light a fire, and maybe welcome Remus with some soup before the main course.

Now I’m sure he’ll be happy to come – to leave the room where he’s got no heating. On the other hand, he’ll probably think I’m doing this only for him. In the way he must have understood the trick played on him in April.

The thoroughly sensible Amelia I am back then has planned together with Alice how to offer some help to Remus without embarrassing him – after she’s happened across Peter, who’s seen him only twice in the whole of April and whose gossip has made her worried. Peter’s got no such discretion that would stop him from revealing – and even speculating on – Remus’s situation.

“We saw he’d lost weight. And a week before, when I bumped into him alone, he refused to come to a pub with me,” Peter’s said, smirking. “Because he had no money, I bet.”

Amelia’s wanted to hit him. Instead, she’s considered and said, “Next time in such a situation I hope that, instead of betting or gossiping, a friend of mine will simply insist on offering a meal, at least.”

Now, fortunately right away, Amelia’s got a perfect opportunity. Alice has complained that now that Lily’s travelled to break curses protecting another trove, and Frank’s staying with her for the whole month, he keeps filling the flat with Quidditch teams. Today Alice will have both Amelia and Remus to help her prepare for the dinner party. A hearty invitation is sent to him…

And here he is, with a wide smile – and a greengrocer’s bag. Now Amelia feels silly about worrying.

But he puts down also a crammed, battered satchel and takes off his jacket, drenched, of course, due to this spring’s relentless rain. Proud of what he has brought, and eager to join in preparing a salad, he doesn’t realise that she notices, and doesn’t notice himself that some of the vegetables and fruits are clearly second-rate, something that might have been given away for…

Not that she or Alice would complain: the veggies serve for completing a lunch for the three of them to share immediately, and the fruit, when combined with the cheese she’s bought, even for crafting special appetisers. What makes her more concerned than Peter’s account did is that Remus seems to have neglected his appearance in an uncharacteristic way.

He’s wearing the same sweatshirt she remembers from last year – even the year before, ever since they came to London, as is confirmed by Alice, who pays more attention to clothes. It’s worn ever thinner, but this time he doesn’t fold the cuffs carefully so as to hide the frayed edges, just pushes the sleeves up, when setting to work in the kitchen. Focusing cheerfully only on the food and on his friends’ faces, he looks so endearing that…

Amelia feels a jolt deep inside like those the sight of Remus during his recurring spells of illness used to arouse in her. Just like back then he looks too brave. Yes, perhaps he’s not ill now, but the smile can’t hide the gauntness of his face, and his arms… his scarred arms, but no, she doesn’t dwell on that… His arms are thinner than she remembers. She has to brace herself to keep talking and laughing, so that he won’t notice that she’s noticed what, peculiarly enough, he doesn’t seem to care about: the sweatshirt is also filthy. And so are his trousers. As if he’d slept with his clothes on in places where it’s not clean.

Today I’m relieved to see the neatness of his jumper. It’s the dark green polo neck which used to belong to Frank, the one Alice succeeded in presenting to him discreetly on that April evening. I take credit for that: I brought up the idea that all three of us should wear something different to suit our new hairdos, and first accepted Alice’s old skirt to keep, too.

I feel like touching the locks that curl over the green wool, and suggesting that he might need a haircut, like back then. But particularly as I’m alone with him, I want to be cautious not to send any false messages.

This time he’s carrying no bags. After hanging up his corduroy jacket, he still digs something out of a pocket: a small roll, on which he breaks a Shrinking Charm with his wand.

“This is for you,” he says. “It was inspired, partly, by my memories of you… to be honest, of all three of you: Lily and Alice, too.”

I open the roll of watercolour canvas. It’s an autumn landscape. “Oh.” I hope I don’t sound disappointed, or confused, either. “It is beautiful.”

In fact, a big part of the picture is rather dull and gloomy. There are dark blue clouds, ominous, I’d say, though I’m not good at interpreting art. In the foreground there are hardly any colours: just shades of greenish grey and patches he’s left unpainted. I wonder if the white is meant to be snow, or if he’s brought me an aquarelle he hasn’t completed. The colourful foliage of trees in a semicircle around a pond or a lake, which reflects them, is what’s first caught my eye and made me assess the painting as conventional.

“See,” he says in an eager voice, perhaps encouraged by my thoughtful concentration, “the rowans are Lily.”

As he moves his finger up along a trunk, almost touching it, then down along its image on the water, I manage to appreciate the way his light brush strokes have made the leaves real, so that they bring to my mind the deep red glow of such trees at Hogwarts.

“Is this the Great Lake?” I ask, so as to show some interest, but also genuinely curious about this detail.

He smiles. “Perhaps… Partly, yes, as that’s where I first saw you. But it’s also a smaller lake, solitary, with bare shores – a tarn in Yorkshire, where...” He’s got carried away, but here he stops.

And I’m so used to not asking him some questions that I don’t have to tell myself to stop. He doesn’t want to let me know where in Yorkshire he’s seen his lake, and when – and I could calculate that, if I wanted to. Planning our night out, I checked: there was a waning half moon a few days ago.

“And Alice?” I ask instead.

“The aspens: the glimmering, golden yellow, trembling in any breeze.” As he points at the dots depicting leaves, round like coins…

I gasp. Have I just seen the shining foliage truly move, shiver under his fingertips?

“Yes, I’ve achieved tiny twists of movement. But it’s just thanks to this high-quality canvas that Sirius insists on buying for me. I wish I could learn to make real, moving art, but...”

“You really should study Magic of Images, too, at Merlin, and not only Dark Creatures. Why...” Now I have to stop myself – and change the topic to something less sensitive. “What about me? What kind of tree…?”

“That’s been hard to catch. You’re the one with various secret colours.” He spreads the fingers of his left hand over some green trees, and I succeed in looking closely enough to distinguish that in shape, if not in size, their leaves resemble his palm.

And under my gaze these maple leaves turn… yellow, then orange, red, crimson. The colours resurrect the day when he, for the first time, reached out his (freezing) hand to take mine (in its sensible mitten). “You made me begin to see them.”

The Amelia I am when barely fourteen sees only him. Up early on an October morning to polish an essay in Muggle Studies, which is new and still demanding for her at the beginning of their third year, she’s attracted by a line of lacy frost lit up by the first rays of the sun, and she stands up to press her forehead on the windowpane. Now a movement down on the grounds catches her eye: a boy striding on the frosty grass barefoot – yes, the white glow both on the frost and on his feet and ankles, exposed by the too short robes, and that’s all he’s wearing. She recognises his wavy hair and his gait, as he’s the one she’s been secretly watching for two years: the only boy she can imagine having romantic feelings for, perhaps becoming a girl like the others, those who sigh and giggle, enjoying and suffering crushes.

The jolt down in her belly almost promises to grow into pleasure or pain, perhaps both. She’s suddenly ready to rush to an adventure. Reckless… still, the reasonable Amelia who won’t neglect putting on heavy shoes and a cloak, lifting the hood over her head, and finding her mittens. And the reason she’s going is that Remus must be in trouble, upset, in need of help…

This makes her run faster than she’s ever thought possible. By the time she catches up with him near the lake, the cold air is hurting her throat.

He glances back and stops, looking astonished.

“Silly boy!” She’s disappointed to hear the reproachful tone in her voice. “You’ll catch a cold.”

But now there is a smile, shared between them. That’s what counts, not his words – or his turning away. Staring at his bare neck and heels, she’s getting ever more breathless even before she continues right behind him to the water’s edge and along the shore.

Now he slows down, and she’s beside him. Just looking at him makes her tremble.

He says, “So you wanted to see this...”

See what? She starts explaining something about wanting to go for a walk, or actually worrying that he’s argued with his friends and run out without getting dressed, about his getting ill often enough… Even, “I’ve got such an impression that you have some secrets, and…”

There’s a moment when Amelia still wonders whether Remus would like to confide in her – or deny any reason for curiosity. Perhaps she’s scared or irritated or angered him. She must look nervous.

He reassures her, “You won’t have to bother about my secrets.” To her surprise, he sounds thrilled, and a bit amused. “There’s at least one right here, and you can’t see it anyway.”

Puzzled, she folds her arms – perhaps because she feels an unusual urge to touch… What has he said just now? Complimented her on running so fast – to reach him soon after seeing him from her dormitory window. “Race me back to the castle?” It’s occurred to her to suggest something simple, safe, also reasonable. “So you… I can get warm?”

He turns away again but stays immobile, just breathing deeply and gazing across the water at the brightness of the opposite shore and its reflection. That’s when she begins to see it: the colourful foliage, also right here, around his beautiful head, in a tree rare in Scotland, the wide palm-shaped leaves in new shades of yellow, orange, red… And now his hand, reddened, too, by the cold, is grabbing hers, and he pulls her to run back together with him – holding hands, for the very first time.

The skin on his knuckles is ruddy now, too. I feel tempted to stroke it.

“Thank you!” I say, instead. “It took me a while to realise… how special this painting is, and some other things.”

“I’m glad you like it, and that I got the idea to bring it to you. I painted it after… mid-month.”

“I’ll have it framed and hang it up here...” I roll up the canvas and place it on the chest of drawers. I’m not going to let it replace Siouxsie, though.

She seems to follow us with her grave black eyes, and Remus must have noticed the poster. “Let’s go to the kitchen,” I say to him (only). “I’ve laid the table there...”

“For two?” In the doorway he’s taken aback. “I thought you’d invited Lily and Peter, too.”

“No, not this time. But no worries: I haven’t planned a romantic evening alone with you. After a simple dinner...” I pull out a chair and, with an exaggerated gesture, indicate for him to sit down at the head of the table. “I hope you’ll come… to a place where I’m still a bit shy to go by myself.”

I take the bowl from before him and return it unceremoniously after ladling in lentil soup from the pot on the stove. When I sit down opposite to him, having filled my bowl, too, he’s holding both hands around his, and watching me with his head tilted and with a small smile. I still don’t know if his unwavering habit of not starting to eat too soon, not before everyone’s got served, is ingrained manners or a conscious effort to hide his hunger.

In any case, here’s a moment for asking a question, but he refrains. No wonder we’ve grown distant when this behaviour has become reciprocal: as if we’d promised each other never to be inquisitive.

That thought gives me an idea. “Please promise to come. I’m not telling you more yet, and if you trust me, in return I’ll take care of all expenses in case it turns out there are any.”

“All right. That sounds like an adventure.” He empties his bowl and sets his spoon down. “And this was savoury. Thank you!”

“Lentil soup. It’s the easiest I found in Lily’s new exotic recipes.” I get up to take the bowls and fill them again, then set some water to boil and ignite the gas under a frying pan, too. “The main course… You can lay the blame on another Muggle-born friend. A fellow apprentice at the Ministry. Very practical.”

I’ve put some butter on the pan, and now I point my wand at the fridge. “Accio, package of fish fingers! These can stay in the freezer for months. I haven’t got one yet, but I bought this package just now.”

Having let the fish fingers slide from the package onto the melting butter, I sit down to eat my soup. Soon it’s time to summon a big bowl and the jar of Smash.

“What’s that?” There’s polite interest in the question posed between his slow spoonfuls.

“You could call it Muggle magic.” I flick my wand to move some flakes from the tin into the bowl, then to summon the kettle to pour boiling water on them, as well as a big spoon to start stirring. “For mash get Smash!”

“That’s… smashing!” Remus stares at the instant potato mash in the bowl, which I tilt for him to see better. “Is it really mash – or an illusion?”

“They claim that the flakes are made of real potatoes. It is edible but doesn’t actually taste that great.” I’m transferring mash and fish fingers on his plate, then on mine. “Not worse than anything I cook.”

“I’ve always thought cooking is too demanding, or exhausting. I once made mash with Peter… This is definitely better than an illusion.” He eats with a good appetite, handling his fork and knife so beautifully that his appreciation seems to turn the insipid food into a feast.

In any case I’m glad the meal isn’t all I’m offering to him tonight, in return for the amazing watercolour. That reminds me of…

“Drinks. Accio, two bottles of beer! This is premium bitter.” That at least sounds like I’m serving good quality. “Stronger than the ordinary. You know, I’ve become quite fond of beer. Besides, it’s time to start summoning up my courage.” I’ve uncorked the bottles, and now I’m lifting mine. “Cheers!”

He touches his bottle to mine. “To the mysterious adventure!”

After the toast I’ve soon emptied my plate, and I launch into backstory. “I’ve had that adventure with the apprentice I mentioned, Susan. Susan and I have quite a lot in common. Not only aversion to cooking. She’s taken me to Muggle pubs for beer. And then… in September she took me to Hammersmith Odeon...” I stop here to test if he…

“To a concert, yes.” Yes, he’s noticed. “I couldn’t help paying attention to that framed picture. It’s such an exquisite portrait. And an interesting name, too: Banshees?”

I grin. “I’m afraid there’s no true backstory concerning any Dark creatures. There’s no doubt Siouxsie Sioux and her band are Muggles. That hardly made them less interesting to me. Perhaps you’re surprised I can possibly like punk music.”

Now he places his fork and knife at four o’clock on his empty place and nods and smiles his genuine thanks before replying. “I saw you enjoyed punk at the Carnival Against the Nazis.”

“Exactly. The last day of April changed my…” Life, I’d like to say, dramatically. “My perspective on the struggle against racism, on music, and on… myself.”

“I’m sure you’re not the only one in our Gryffindor gang who… for whom that rally was a turning point.” He doesn’t ask any questions, doesn’t even look at me.

But now I’m determined to venture something close to an inquiry. “But you have known yourself better for a long time before…”

“Myself yes, in a way since our fifth year.” Perhaps suddenly, after a single strong beer, in his most confidential mood, he speaks slowly, thoughtfully. “But since then serious… things have changed and keep changing.”

I try to make it sound casual. “Serious things like?”

“Things like Sirius.” He grins.

“Oh. I understand.”

“Maybe, a part of it.” Now reserved again, he shows me the limits. “Do you want to talk about that part?”

“I want to take you to a place where he doesn’t want to take you, or to go – even after the turning point of ‘Sing if you’re glad...’”

He raises his eyebrows and empties his bottle. “Let us go then!”

“Let us go then, you and I,” he’ll whisper to his sensible, reliable Amelia.

And she’ll enjoy reaching out to touch his fingers under the parchment before rolling it up and following him out of the library. On the way, usually only out on the grounds, she’ll grab a firm hold of his hand. That is all she’ll initiate.

That’s still, after a year and… yes, after nineteen months, all she’s aware of desiring. He’ll take her where... and he’ll lead her hand where he wants to. He, too, is fifteen years old now, and while he’s leading her once again towards the edge of the Forbidden Forest, she can’t help wondering if he’ll soon want to kiss her and she’ll be a real girlfriend.

“Look,” he says, turning his amber gaze towards her only for a moment. “Now you can distinguish the tree from here: that bright light green against the dark pines.”

“Oh, it’s bursting into leaf.”

“This one perhaps as the first of wych-elms. Because it’s solitary and it gets a lot of sun. I guess there are a lot of big ones, too, deeper in. And at home, behind the fields there’s woods full of elms. The trees of revolution, my mother says.”

“Your wand’s of elm.”

“Like my father’s, and his father’s, and dragon heartstring like my mother’s.”

“You’ve read Howards End? There’s a vast wych-elm there, too.” Amelia remembers… yes, three years ago, Lily got excited about the novel when she’d missed the play on television, and lent the book to Amelia, who later recommended E.M. Forster to Remus.

“Is there?” he responds absentmindedly, lengthening his strides.

And as they’ve arrived under the wide tree, there is, of course, the clear blue May sky behind the net of branches, no sensual darkness for an intense embrace, or for rather losing your heads like Helen Schlegel and Paul Wilcox. Remus even lets go of her hand and places both of his on the lowest branch.

“This elm’s not too hard to climb,” he says, bending down to grab his hem. “If you tie your robes up like this.”

“All right.” Her words come out with a smile of childish excitement and also relief.

This is not what she’s expected – after learning what girls usually expect from dates. But she shouldn’t be surprised, having often seen Remus climb trees, and sometimes found him sitting up on a branch in a relaxed position, reading a book. Now she chooses to understand that he invites her, too, to climb, and she lifts her hem briskly above the knees and manages to knot it.

“Good.” He smiles, too. “You climb first, so I can assist a bit by lifting.”

She’s not so sure he’ll manage that. She probably weighs as much as he does. “You can try. I’m not exactly slight. But I’ll try my best. Haven’t climbed trees for years…”

“I’m using my elm wand, of course,” he adds just when…

Amelia bears down on the branch with both hands, and suddenly she feels light and agile, and she manages to lift one leg over and soon sit up with her back against the trunk. Without any assistance Remus reaches her.

And now he’s here, too near, sitting between her bare thighs, with his both legs on the same side of the branch, which is not exactly horizontal, so that she’s afraid he’ll slide or tilt ever closer. He gives her a big grin, but after that his gaze wanders up and around.

“See,” he says, beaming to the tree, not to her, “most of this new green is not leaves but elm flowers unfurled. That’s why the colour is actually greenish yellow, close to lemon.”

She succeeds in looking away from him and registers the exorbitant beauty surrounding them. This is how Remus makes their moment alone special today. He prefers seeing this to keeping his eyes on her when he’s making her touch him. Amelia, touch me… No, he doesn’t say it.

He holds her wrist and presses her palm against his chest, on top of the smooth fabric at first. Sliding the hand upwards, he makes the fingertips stroke the bare skin on his collarbone. He stops, seems to hesitate, then leads her fingers under his robes, onto his shoulder.

She almost recoils, barely manages to keep her hand still. Her fingers have come across scars on his skin before, even though he dislikes her tracing them: every now and then new scars on his wrists and arms, and large smooth, perhaps shiny zones of old scar tissue on his chest, which he hasn’t allowed her to look at. But the scar on his shoulder is different. Rough, with jagged edges, it feels raw, so that she can imagine fresh blood staining her fingers.

Who has hurt him, here at Hogwarts, or last time he was away, and when was that? At Easter, of course, and he was away longer than the others, left in mid-April, yes, almost exactly a month ago. Amelia doesn’t want to think about the suspicion… that perhaps this scar is a lot older. She’s closed her eyes, but dizzy, she has to open them. His are wide open, turned up, filled with the grace of the greenish yellow light, and so brave once again that there’s a promise of pain and pleasure in her belly.

Now he guides her hand away. Has he wanted to tell her something by making her touch that rough scar? Or is it as she’s started to understand it’s always been: he simply uses her for what he needs?

He’s moved her hand down, onto his thigh, now under his robes. He presses it onto his crotch. Startled, she manages to remember anyway what she’s heard from Alice; she knows that she’s supposed to sense some stirring. Has he known that there won’t be any? Did he need to find out, or just to tell her?

They share a shuddering breath, whereas his crotch remains still, and there are no more promises in hers either. He lets go of her hand, and slides closer, leaning into a rare embrace. She dares wrap only this one arm around him, still holding on to the branch with the other hand, but she hugs him tight.

With his head on her shoulder, he whispers in her ear, “You know, in any case, I’ll miss your touch. When I won’t see you for a few days now.”

He knows that this is no surprise to her. Here’s a serious one among the secrets she never asks him about.

There have been different ones: silly schemes he’s revealed to her afterwards, when he’s managed some mischief with his dorm mates, or occasionally failed, too, in a childish prank. But more and more it’s been plans for responsible rebellion. She’s been the first outsider to hear why he and his three fellow Marauders serve detention by scrubbing the walls of the Slytherin common room: because of the equality slogans they’ve painted in blood red – or Gryffindor scarlet, he claims – across the walls. And this term he won’t keep quiet in History of Magic but demands explanations – until he makes others, too, start to doubt the official truth and ideology which Binns professes.

“You’ll summon this elm back in memory,” Amelia says. “The tree of rebellion – for justice, equal rights for all. The struggle and hope for equality is now the main serious concern for you Marauders, too, right? That’s what counts.”

He moves his head to look in her eyes with a smile. “I make it such a challenge… and still, you manage to say the right thing.”

She just basks in his praise, waiting to hear if there’s more he wants to tell her.

“You know some things have made it easy for me to start opposing bigotry here. I’ve told you about my mother’s theatre group: they accept all kinds of creatures. It’s an extended family for me. And now again...”

His gaze wanders in the fragile foliage before he continues. “We both know there’s some gossip among our year and in Gryffindor because of my absences and their timing, too. Now there’s some hope – for the absences getting shorter. This is not something to talk about.” The tone of his words has been grave, but now he smirks in a lopsided, cunning way, and he lifts his own hand to the shoulder where he’s allowed her to discover the terrifying scar. “But let me say that it’s all been because someone in my family...”

Her other hand lets go of the branch, and, trusting that he won’t let her fall, she places it over his, as if to protect him with his scar and all. “I understand… as much as you want me to.”

I’ve summoned another beer and some cake for pudding for him to enjoy while I’m getting dressed for the club. It has not taken long, and now I’ve just called for him to come from the kitchen and bring the rest onto my desk.

I must linger a moment more in front of the bathroom mirror. This tie is in bold Gryffindor colours, but at least this bold Gryffindor can’t make it obey. Perhaps Remus will manage to help with the knot. I smirk at my square face, as since the summer I’m finally happy with my looks. My features may lack some grace, but they’re balanced and firm. I look like a pleasant, strong woman, and still reliable, too, in a way which can appeal to any girl like Susie.

I’ve combed my hair behind the ears, having discarded the ridiculous flicked-out style and resorted to my trusty kirby grips again. But it’s good that last spring I finally let Alice teach me something about make-up, too. Compared with her lessons, the tricks shown by Susie are crude and easy even for me. I apply deep scarlet lipstick to glow against the whiteness of my face, and draw dramatic dark lines of paint around my eyes.

Remus is standing at my desk, bent over the parchment I’ve left there, just tilting his head slightly and lifting his eyes only, so as to glance at Siouxsie – when I come out of the bathroom and he sees me from the corner of his eye. Now he turns fully to me, and before he speaks I know that this will be one of those rare occasions when he speaks my name to me.

“Oh, Amelia! You look amazing. I see I’ve been right about the secret colours.”

“Thank you. I’m almost ready. If you just help me with knotting the tie.”

“I’ll do my best… These colours are familiar enough.” He strokes the crimson-and-gold-striped silk hanging around my neck and over my breasts, next to the braces, which, I hope, make me look even less typically girly. “Beautiful. But how’s the knot supposed to go… I’ve looked at one closely only once, when Peter came from his grandfather’s funeral.”

I place the tie on the desk, and after several attempts and Remus’s encouragement I manage to form the knot there. Now he lifts the tie over my head, arranges the collar, and tightens the knot.

“Very smart,” he says, then hesitates. “But this shirt… Perhaps Muggles fancy stripes on stripes but the material...”

“I know. The clash in style is intentional. It’s a pyjama jacket. And these are trousers for sports. I’ve seen people in attires like this at the club where we’re going.”

“All right. So can I go like this?” He spreads his arms.

Pretending to make an assessment, I realise that he’s got new second-hand trousers, neat enough. “You still look like the artist you are. But I could apply some make-up on your face, too.”

“You’ve become worse than Alice!” But he smiles.

“You know that punk guys, too, wear dramatic make-up. Not only gays, and...”

“I’m glad to be gay, and to wear make-up tonight.”

“I’m glad… Sit down here!” I rush to the bathroom and back with my lipstick and eyeliner. “Perhaps it’s best to start with these only, so you won’t feel too strange.”

In my eyes, at least, Remus is so beautiful he hardly needs any make-up to be a queen.

He seems to enjoy the touch of my fingers on his face. Or perhaps it’s the line I’ve written to him in ink. In any case it’s hard for him to stop smiling to let me work on his lips. Now for the eyes…

“So you’re glad to be gay?” he says casually – as if it weren’t, at last, the kind of question we’ve never dared ask each other.

“Yes. I’ve finally figured out that I’m queer.” I can barely resist going on with my confession in detail right now. “Now I’ve come out to you. And you’ve promised to come out with me – to the people at Club Louise. Let us go then, you and I.”

“Let us go and make our visit,” he replies. “Take your winter coat. It’s no soft October night anymore. I didn’t know before I was on my way, “ he adds (after another T. S. Eliot quote, one of those simple phrases we used to play with), preventing any comment or question concerning his thin jacket.

I obey him, although, as I tell him in the stairwell, “It’s not far. Just...”

“Hush!” He interrupts me. “Don’t let me know yet!”

Out on the backyard, I choose not to Apparate, and not saying a word, I walk through the brick wall. Remus follows me, appearing next to me with his back against the privet hedge.

Side by side, we cross Cavendish Square Gardens, where the tall plane trees are almost bare. The north wind pushes us forward and twirls fallen leaves at our feet. These leaves are broad, palm-shaped, but dull brown, and Remus keeps his hands in the pockets of his jacket. I copy him, also his long strides, which is easy in my sensible shoes. This, perhaps, amuses both of us, even makes us feel happy.

As we soon turn towards east, the wind assaults us on our left. He moves to my left, so us to protect me, but I leap on his other side, protesting, “I’m no frail girl in need of a knight, you know!”

“It turns out you’re not.” He smiles. “But did I not need to come out to you?”

“No, I’ve known about you since our fifth year. That you are gay, I mean.” I nudge him, also to signal that I want us to turn to the right, to a narrower, half-deserted street. “But I never realised girls could be. Until the Carnival. That I could be. Until Susan. July. Soon after she started at the Ministry. She seemed to recognise me, and she wanted me. The first one ever who wanted… and whom I liked, too. But I fell in love only on the 11th of September – with the other Susan, Siouxsie Sioux. The first time I’ve fallen since our third year, or second.”

He lifts an arm across my shoulders, as if I were now one of his Marauder mates. “I’m glad… Thank you for telling me.”

Left, and right, and left, and right again. No, I have not gone lost. This is Poland Street. The door is easy to remember: painted red, with gold plates.

“The colours are getting rather predictable,” he comments as I stop.

A bit nervous, I ring the bell, and when the peephole opens, I’m ready for the question, “Are you members?” I’ve taken out my little red-and-white membership card.

The old lady in grey and diamonds smiles to Remus. “You must become a member, too, my dear.”

I’ve also got three one-pound notes ready to hand to the lady before Remus realises what’s going on, and he gets his card, too. Everything goes as smoothly as when Susan brought me here. Louise doesn’t seem to care whether we’re both quite twenty-one or not.

As we step onto the red carpet of the dimly-lit bar room, I lift my hand on Remus’s shoulder to lead him towards a long black sofa. In the mirror covering the back wall I can barely distinguish our reflections: two quite good-looking guys, I’d say.

There aren’t that many others yet; it must be too early.

“Hello, Mel!” The waiter... John, I remember, but how can he remember me? He appears beside me, startling me, as soon as I’m sitting down. “You’ve brought a new friend.” The one eye that’s not covered by his long red hair stares at Remus with open interest.

“An old friend of mine, my best old friend.”

“You can call me... Bruce,” Remus says, staring back at John.

After they’ve finished exchanging their stares and pleasantries, I order two screwdrivers.

Remus looks puzzled, even suspicious. “What did you just say?”

“It’s a drink with orange juice – good for your health – and, well, some alcohol, too: vodka.”

John’s soon back with the drinks and two paper plates to set on the red tablecloth.

Remus frowns, then grips his glass and raises it for a toast. “To you and me, and John and Louise! Oh, there are some others, too.”

He continues to sip his cocktail while we’re watching a group of six people enter. I’m glad it’s starting to look more exciting perhaps for him, too. Maybe it’s three women, three men; it’s hard to tell; they’re dressed in such combinations of masculine and feminine styles.

“That’s why he stared at me,” he says suddenly. “I must look emaciated.”

He must be drunk to say that.

“No… ” I protest. “Why…?

“That’s why he brought the food.”

I’ve forgotten about the silly little portions of Spam and gherkins. “Oh, it doesn’t mean anything that John brought it – doesn’t mean that he thought anything about you.” He doesn’t mean anyone should eat the food, I’m going to say, but don’t – so as not to stop him from eating it, if he wants to. “It’s just a Muggle law: they’re allowed to serve alcohol only when serving food.”

“What is this anyway?”

“Something like meat, from a tin. Try it!” And I eat a gherkin from my plate.

After emptying his, he’s in a better mood. Polite again. “Edible. Not as good as what you served, though.”

I laugh at the questionable compliment.

“Do I hear music from a farther room?” he asks in a feeble line of poetry. He sings softly, listening hard, “Come on, let’s stick together!”

“Yes, from downstairs. Come on...”

“Come on!”

None of them should have any need to hesitate to dance in Lily and Alice’s flat. The Amelia I am in August 1977 doesn’t know yet why she dreads the ballads.

But this is not one. You make me feel like dancing. He still does, Remus... The singer, in turn, doesn’t excite her like the Syrian one Lily’s introduced them to… or was she Lebanese? An amazing voice!

But this beat is for disco, and she’s the one urging James and Frank, the lazy sportsmen, to Lily’s oriental carpet – their dance floor. “Come on!”

Remus has already been pulled there, together with Sirius, by Lily, to join Alice, and Peter has followed. Now Alice takes Amelia’s hand and starts swinging her arm and making her swirl. Where’s…?

Here he is: dancing with happy abandon, Remus is so beautiful, almost as Amelia saw him years ago among the trees, celebrating their spring and autumn miracles.

But now he’s no longer beside Sirius. Peter has pushed between the two of them – typical of him!

This time they don’t seem to mind too much. She knows why Sirius hesitates to dance close to Remus, even when it’s not a ballad. Sometimes she’s afraid Sirius doesn’t even offer Remus the help he needs because he doesn’t want anyone else to realise how they love each other.

And Remus truly finds it great fun to compete with Peter: who’s the crazier dancer? They swirl and jump, copy and exaggerate each other’s movements, laugh together.

Peter was perhaps his best friend at first. And there’s something even uncanny about how their friendship has not faded despite his relationship with Sirius. She was only almost his girlfriend.

Now Leo Sawyer has started yet another song, quite as frantic in rhythm, so she just goes on swinging and swirling, while the lyrics… I see reflections of you and me/ Reflections of/ The way life used to be…

And Remus can’t possibly notice: listen closely, or see her. He’s dancing ever wilder opposite to Peter while Sirius is clapping to the beat, staring at him with desire, which she can see through his grin… but can’t quite imagine in bodies like theirs, so alien still.

When the next song starts in its slow tempo, she withdraws, as do Remus and Sirius – all of them from each other, too. Alice is leaning on Frank, now Lily on James. Watching them gives no pleasure to Amelia, and no pain either.

Oh no, Peter’s just emptied another glass of punch, and now he’s coming to her. She’ll brace herself, bear him touching her as much as the dance demands, no more.

The pain is in seeing Remus and Sirius just stare at each other all through the love song. Does it hurt her that they want each other’s touch? Or does she feel like crying only because of the cruelty that they dare not give each other what they need when anyone’s watching?

“Remember when Lily came from Syria?” I say to his ear when we’ve descended the spiral staircase. “Dancing at her party?” And not dancing.

He nods, smiling, and I believe he does remember. Although I know he’s gone to discos with his mates, and he’s dared dance anywhere. I haven’t wanted to go with them – I’ve claimed to have so much work – but Peter’s told me, “Remus is crazy, dances alone at those Muggle places.”

We go straight to the dance floor, and he’s already dancing. Let’s stick together – never mind the stupid lyrics about vows!

When the song’s finished, I tell him, “Siouxsie Sioux used to come here. That’s why Susan chose this place to show me...”

Remus looks around. “Wait...”

He strides to the glass booth, having clearly done this before, and soon gets the DJ dyke’s attention. Now she’s looking at a note he’s just written with a pencil dug out of his pocket, where he always carries one for his sketches.

By the time he’s approaching me with a wide grin, Siouxsie’s stunning voice is piercing me. This is a new song, from the fresh album. The clashing sound has attracted others, too, and there are suddenly several people on the floor, between us. I just gesture my thanks to him with crazy movements of my hands. I’ve started flailing my arms, jumping, mimicking Siouxsie on the stage.

Feeling total/ … split in two… I wouldn’t care what I look like now – but I do catch myself in the mirrors, and I look glamorous, perfect.

And he – despite his bold act, and endearingly right after it, next to the punks and queens dancing closer to him, he still looks vulnerable. Here he doesn’t need to dance alone, but… The problem solved here is not the main serious concern – as I worded it years ago – for him as it is for me. Here for one night he, too, can stop waiting for and fighting for a fairer world.

But he’ll still wait for his Sirius to dare come out, at least to himself, then to his closest friends. And there’s no escape for him once a month, and not only then: his secret affects him daily, harms his chances to earn his daily bread. He’s incurably split in two.

Complete me – yes, that’s me! Defeat… him. Who can stop it all from defeating him? Just his Sirius, who loves him in any case. And perhaps I can help a bit, doing my best, when leaving any selfish bitterness behind.

Now we’re back with conventional disco music. Oh, Diana Ross, I could fall for her, too: her voice. Even more impossible than being in love with Siouxsie. But I don’t mind.

If there’s a cure for this/ I don’t want it. I’m glad these dykes around me see what I am. But what am I? I don’t envy them touching each other. It’s enough for me to dream about someone to hold hands with.

I’ve got the sweetest hangover/ I don’t wanna get over. No, now I’ve got over being in love with him.

His eyes are now locked on mine, although there’s still someone between us, a short, slightly bald man (J. Alfred Prufrock, we’ll name him afterwards, I’m sure) copying his movements, almost touching him. He gives me his lopsided smile and sings along, “If there’s a cure for this/ I don’t need it.”

By now he must know that I know there’s something he would need a cure for. And if he can’t have it, I must be ready to do all my best. Talk with him about Sirius things. Dance with him, and bring him to dance with others. Build a career at the Ministry, to one day influence the law, too. Even take the challenge to really cook for him, or with him.