Chapter Text
Remus’s mum never, ever complained.
She was a manager at a supermarket – which didn’t pay her a lot of money – and when she came home from her job at 8 PM every night, she kissed Remus on the head, teased him about how long his hair was getting, then went to the kitchen. She’d stick on a song and jig in front of the sink while she scrubbed each plate spotless, in steaming hot water, just for all of them to get dirtied again the next day.
Remus learned how to do the dishes himself when he was six. He’d had to kneel on a chair because nothing they had was the right height to stand on, and he hadn’t been able to do them properly, but his mum had been so happy when she came home that she squeezed him and cried into the top of his head.
He was eleven now, and his mum worked a better job with fewer hours, but he still made sure the dishes were done when she got back. She always thanked him. Sometimes she still got shiny-eyed.
Peter, Remus’s friend who lived in the flat beneath them, had a working dad, so his mum didn’t work at all. She was pudgy, beetle-eyed, and she was always around in the day, like a mosquito caught indoors. All Remus ever heard her do was whinge. “Peter, would you keep your voices down? I’ve got a headache coming on…” (even though Peter was also a very quiet boy and they never made any noise) “Peter, why can’t you go to that one’s flat every once in a while?” (they’d only come inside for a minute while Peter got a new change of socks) “Peter, Peter, dear! Listen to my annoying bloody voice, listen to me nagging all day long!”
One muggy day after school, the two were on the rooftop to do homework, and Peter said, “Oh, I forgot my pencil. Can you come with me to get it?”
Remus asked, “Is your mum home?"
“Yeah, I think so.”
“Take mine then,” Remus said, putting down his pencil and nudging his homework away resignedly. “I can’t stand your mum.”
“Oh. Really?”
“Yeah.”
Peter laughed nervously, his face turning blotchy. “Me neither.”
It was very easy to tell when Peter’s feelings were hurt. You could always hear them in his voice. When he was getting ready to be a baby about something, he spoke like his throat was clogged.
Peter and Remus had been friends since they were babies (Remus couldn’t imagine they had a lot in common back then either). They were the same age, and they had always lived in the same block of flats, so of course they’d been best mates their entire lives. Remus did honestly like him. Sort of. Sometimes he wished he had more friends – ones that didn’t whisper “Can we do something else?” in the middle of listening to Remus’s mum’s music or give Remus tight, twitchy looks when he took something from their fridge.
Remus and Peter were in the same grade at the public secondary school, so they spent practically every minute of every day together. Neither of them had any other friends. Peter had once confided in Remus that it terrified him when the other children tried to talk to him or asked him to play, and Remus had nodded understandingly, but he could only half relate. He got nervous when the teacher swapped their seats in class and he got sat next to someone who looked down their nose at his scruffy, overlarge uniform, and always ended sentences drifting awkwardly because they’d forgotten his name. He was actually delighted when he got to play with the other boys. “Is it okay?” he’d wince at Peter before he ran off grinning.
He and Peter were both shy, but Peter was so shy that it wasn’t nearly the same. Sometimes, when he wasn’t stuck to Remus’s side, a person tried to chat with him – usually a teacher or an older girl that pitied him – and he got so much terror in his eyes that Remus could imagine him shrinking into a ball like a pill bug.
Remus felt terrible for him. But he hadn’t asked to be Peter’s only friend.
One day, Remus and Peter were in the schoolyard, sitting against a dark wall. Their families were both too poor to buy lunch, and Remus’s house had run out of sandwich meat a few days before, so Peter was the only one with a sandwich. He was wolfing it down while Remus watched sullenly.
They both looked up at the sound of running footsteps, at a dark-skinned, glasses-wearing boy, who was panting and holding a football under his left arm. His name was James Potter, Remus knew. He had the good football. Not the hard one the girls had to play with.
James stopped in front of them. Remus looked at him nervously, and Peter had stopped chewing.
“Hi,” James said, smiling broadly. “Do you lads wanna play with us?” He pointed behind him and Remus saw that all the other handsome, athletic boys in their grade were waiting in a circle, looking bored.
Remus’s eyes widened. “Yes!” he said immediately. James was so popular that Remus knew his first and last name already, and what position he played in football, and that he had gone to see his grandparents for the winter holiday. Remus didn’t care about being popular himself, and he thought that a lot of the kids in their grade that were popular were pricks, but James was so magnetic and likeable that being approached by him felt like Christmas. Remus had already scrambled to his feet before he remembered Peter. “Er,” he said, looking back at Peter, who obviously hadn’t followed him. Peter’s sandwich now looked very sad. “Will you be okay, Peter?”
He felt guilty that he was so relieved when Peter nodded furiously, but, as he was cowering against the wall, clutching his lunch, Peter looked afraid and a little pathetic.
It had occurred to Remus that, if he distanced himself now – went off with James Potter instead of Peter now – then everyone would realise that the two oddest, most rough-looking boys in the school, who didn’t buy lunch and spoke to no one but each other, weren’t actually two at all, but one, and another one who was completely regular. Remus shuffled towards James.
“Oh, why not?” James pushed brightly. Remus got even more embarrassed, and he felt even worse for Peter as he shrunk further into the shadows. “You can play any position. Do you like forward? Everyone likes forward.”
Peter shook his head even harder.
“How about goalie, would you like to be the goalie? You can be my team’s goalie – you probably won’t even have to do anything.” James reached out with his right hand. Remus felt envious and admiring at once. “Yeah?”
Peter looked at Remus, and Remus saw the mongrel fear in his eyes up close for the first time. They were bulging and the whites showed all around the blue parts. Remus felt a twinge of pity and he reluctantly gave Peter an encouraging nod.
“Okay,” Peter squeaked.
“Great! You’re saving us, mate, we really needed one!”
--
Remus knew he was great at footie. He kept sneaking past kids bigger than him and not being able to help but grin widely, which just made them all angry. James loved it. They ran alongside each other, their limbs pumping and their hair whipping, both of them laughing madly.
No one won. A few boys on different teams kicked off and they all forgot the score.
James and Remus lay gasping in the wet grass. Peter was away, probably snuck away to finish his lunch against the wall. None of the other boys wanted to sit with them – a few had taken up a game with the girls and the good football – and Remus was completely fine with that. He’d be fine if none of them but James ever wanted to talk to him again.
“Hey, Remus,” said James. “D’you wanna play footie outside school sometime?”
Remus looked up at the gloomy grey sky to hide his smiling face. “Yeah, ‘course.”
Remus stared over the rooftop railing at the orange clouds. He plugged his ears, then unplugged them, then plugged them again.
When they were plugged, the entire city was deserted - everyone had been ripped to gory shreds by zombies. Their cars were all stopped on the street with no one inside them, or their corpses slumped over the steering wheels.
When they were unplugged, everyone was alive. Their cars skid on the road loudly, shooting up asphalt and coughing smoke, and honking at one another. All their tired voices were angry and all their laughing was unhappy. Remus hated the British.
Practically everyone in the building came on that rooftop to smoke, but only Remus and Peter stayed for more than a couple of minutes, so Remus got to watch all of them with his homework blank on his knees. No one ever saw them. They were too quiet and small.
A few people had come out already. Ms Gack had her teenage daughter, Minny, for the weekend – she was fifteen years old, and she was really fit. She had a piece of metal in her bottom lip. When she came out for a cigarette, she’d seen them right away and they both blushed furiously.
Right then, though, the rooftop was empty. Even the crow that’d been puttering about had flown away holding a syringe in its feet.
It made it easy to pretend everyone had died in the Apocalypse, and that only Remus remained, doomed to be completely alone for the rest of his life.
The clouds shifted again and the orange became bright gold. Remus felt the late breeze on his cheeks. He plugged his ears. There actually was another person alive, and it was the boy who was made by God to be Remus’s best mate. He was probably in America right then, and they’d be the exact same age, but he was probably a musician or something, someone who was gonna grow up a rockstar. He probably had really wicked, enormous hair, and piercings all over his face. No way he was living in a one-bed flat with no dad.
“Hey Remus,” Peter said. Remus jumped. “Oh, sorry.”
Remus gave him a kind smile. “It’s okay. What?”
“Are – are you friends with James Potter now?”
“Oh. Yeah,” Remus said, slightly apologetically. He’d hung out with James outside of school only once so far. They played football, James showed him his football boots, and Remus showed him he could juggle the ball with his head. Feeling bad as Peter’s face fell, Remus said, “But you’re my friend, too.”
Peter started to smile nervously. He bumped their shoulders together.
A squawk made them both jump and look up. A black blur, the crow returning, swooped to the ground, empty-handed.