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The first time Remus ever skives off class-- proper truancy, rather than having the excuse of illness or the moon-- it is because of Sirius Black.
Not with Sirius Black. Because of Sirius Black.
On most days, Remus can stand the close proximity, the inappropriate touching disguised as boyish roughhousing, the innocuous winking-- he can take all of it in his stride. But the morning he wakes up with Sirius's fifth favourite Beatles song (i'm fixing a hole where the rain gets in and stops my mind from wandering) stuck in his head, he knows that it's time for a break.
There's something deeply troubling about knowing Sirius's fifth favourite Beatles song. Something that says to Remus John Lupin: no, it is not enough to know which is your best friend's favourite jumper (cobalt blue, in jersey, too short because it's been his favourite for years, and slightly pilling around the elbows). It is not enough to know his favourite book (Brideshead Revisited) but also his favourite passage from his favourite book ("'I know it must be embarrassing for you, but I happen to like this bad set. I like getting drunk at luncheon, and though I haven't yet spent quite double my allowance, I undoubtedly shall before the end of term.'" [Remus, James, and Peter have heard this quote so often that they all know to finish it with, "'I usually have a glass of champagne at this time. Will you join me?'"]) It is not even enough to know the exact pitch and timbre of Sirius's snore (low, gentle, and steady-- unlike Peter's occasional wheezes or James's nightly imitation of a locomotive). Somehow, it is both too much and never enough. So he walks towards the Transfiguration classroom with his friends but ducks into the toilets on the way, assuring Peter he'll catch them up in a minute. Ten minutes later, he is sitting under their favourite tree by the lake, hidden from sight by the trusty trunk of an unassuming oak.
i'm filling the cracks that ran through the door and kept my mind from wandering
Remus is well-acquainted with Wanting but Not Having. The feeling is an old childhood friend-- a puppy, at age three; a pair of trainers without holes in, at age 6; a brother or sister, at age 8; a life not lived out of suitcases and boxes, at age 10. This, whatever this is with Sirius, is different. It aches deeply, like the moon (but pleasant). It whines and scratches from inside of him, like the wolf (but pleasant). It begs to be heard; demands to be satiated. This is not a Want he can get used to Not Having, no matter how he tries-- but Remus hasn't the first clue how to go about it.
He is used to cataloging things that are true about what he has, and things that could be true about what he hasn't. His brain stores away enough information, both true and fictional, about any given thing that it makes it easy to blur the lines between what he's got and what he wishes he had. When he was six, Remus tricked himself into thinking that he had a bright red bicycle instead of the moderately rusted thing left behind in the shed of the latest in a string of temporary rental homes. Imagination was the key to unlocking almost anything Remus could want.
Fancying one of your mates, however, is not something you can fix by sheer force of will. So, half an hour later and no closer to a solution, Remus forces himself wearily to his feet. He makes his way back into the castle, towards the Great Hall, dinner, and the words he can predict will come verbatim from Sirius's smirking lips: "All grown up and skiving class! I'm so proud of our boy."
Not wishing to delay the inevitable with a lengthy explanation, he merely shrugs when Peter asked him where he'd got to. He nods mutely when James dramatically tells him that McGonagall was apoplectic over his absence. Finally, he turns to Sirius, who smirks and says, in the exact intonation Remus imagined,
"All grown up and skiving class! I'm so proud of our boy!"
i'm taking the time for a number of things that weren't important yesterday
and i still go