Sun Sneeze
a Harry Potter story
by Magic Toes 11
December 13, 1975
It was a chilly December morning, way too early to be conscious, especially for a Saturday. But a shiver running down my spine despite the overwhelming mass of blankets I normally slept with and a sweetly whispered voice in my ear sought to wrest me from dreams of mischief.
"Padfoot? Oh, Padfoot... It's time to wake up, Sleeping Beauty."
I awoke to cold, cold wetness dripping down my chest, and a predatory shimmer of grey met my eyes as I inched them open. "Oh, bugger this," I mumbled thickly, staring in a sleep-heavy daze at the chilled drops of water that pooled across the front of my chest.
"Wake up, dear Padfoot, or else you'll find snow in places upon you where snow does not need to be," crooned the familiar voice of Remus Lupin above me. As I rubbed my eyes and brought him into focus, I could see a brilliant shade of rose in his otherwise pale cheeks and a wry smirk upon his lips. He was bundled against the winter weather, and in one mittened hand was a thick ball of snow, steadily melting into a dripping mess over my bed.
"What are you doing?" I said stupidly. "Cripes, what time is it?"
"About half past six," he said, idly letting a couple more drops of waterfall to my chest, where the top three buttons of my pajamas were unbuttoned. "Come on, get dressed already."
"Great God, you must be kidding me," I groaned, tugging the blankets over my head.
Remus snatched the blankets from my hands and yanked them from me completely, managing to dribble snow and melted water across the bed -- while his mittens were enchanted to stay dry, my covers were not. "I'm not kidding. It's time to get dressed."
"Why?" I uttered in something akin to a growl. Already, I was shivering after being drawn against my will from my warm nest of blankets. I peered over the edge of the bed and discovered my slippers were nowhere to be found, so as I stood, I gasped upon placing bare feet to painfully frigid stone.
"It snowed last night." With his free hand, Remus briefly straightened the loose covers that I could not be bothered with neatening up.
"So I've discovered," I returned dryly, walking across the chilly floor to the dresser beside my bed. Straight off, I hunted for the thickest pair of socks I owned. "We'll have our snowball fight later, Remus. And don't think you're getting off at all easily for this."
"I'm sure I'll be in for it when we do," he said with a smirk, and he sat upon the edge of the bed to watch me dress. "I don't want to fight now. There's something I want to show you."
"You can show me later." Despite my arguing and my grousing, I didn't bother to deny Remus, and I quickly climbed into two thin sweaters and a sturdy pair of pants.
Remus appeared to be studying the melting ball of snow in his left hand, the corners of his lips twitching up in an enigmatic smile. "No, I can't. By then, it'll be too late."
After buttoning my pants and knocking my dresser drawer closed with an elbow, I fell to the bed beside Remus, rubbed my eyes once again, and proceeded to pull on my socks. I debated whether to find a second pair for good measure. The dormitory floors were damn cold. "Are you at least going to tell me what it is?"
"Now, Padfoot, you should know better," he said, still grinning oddly. "Of course I'm not going to tell you."
"Hmph."
I finished getting dressed, yanking on heavy boots and a long, woolen winter robe atop my uniform before winding the red and yellow Gryffindor scarf around my neck. Finally, I ran my fingertips through my hair to give it some obscure sense of taming and snatched my mahogany wand from the bedside table.
"Let's get this over with."
"You act as if I've sentenced you to hard labor at Azkaban," Remus said, climbing to his feet. Evident by the small line of concentration in his brow, he was still in contemplation as he gazed at the rapidly melting ball of snow.
"You might as well have. Waking me at six-thirty. Mind you, it's a Saturday, as well."
"Yes, yes, I know that. All the better for us," he said with a dismissive wave of his free hand. That same hand suddenly reached into the pocket of his heavy winter robe and pulled out his own wand. "When I give the signal, prepare to run."
"Hunh?"
Remus winked at me, thin lashes of light brown closing atop a grey-shaded and mischief-filled eye, and murmured, "Wingardium Leviosa." At the direction of his wand, the snowball lifted into the air, and he guided it before him as we quietly made our way down the rows of beds in the Gryffindor sixth-year dormitory.
"You're up to no good once again, aren't you?" I asked, unable to contain the tired grin as I watched in awe of how easily he wielded such magic.
"Who, me?" Remus asked innocently, giving a flick of his wand and sending the dripping snowball sailing through the curtains and into the four-poster bed where our partner-in-crime Peter Pettigrew slept, blissfully unaware. "I suggest we run. Now."
He grabbed my arm, and together we bolted down the stairs, towards the common room and through the portal leading to the school proper, even as Peter's startled, waking cry resounded past the paintings and followed us on our laughing dash through the corridors.
We stopped at the kitchens first, sneaking past the House Elves to pilfer some breakfast (Although they would gleefully have given us as much food as we could carry, this method was infinitely more enjoyable). Dashing away on silent feet and stuffing bread and jam into our mouths, we swept past the dining hall, down a secluded, darkened corridor, and burst out an auxiliary entrance into the dazzling early light of day.
The view that awaited me was startlingly glorious. The sun, though past the colorful haze of its early rise, was no less beautiful as it shone upon the field and path leading to the Quiddich pitch. It was as if the entire world had been covered with a thick blanket of cottony white -- at least fifteen centimeters thick and thus far unmarred by the rough, trampling feet of students.
This was truly magic; this was peace. Even the frost that enwrapped the craggy branches and darkened recess of the Forbidden Forest made the normally sinister area appear much less foreboding. It was a spectacle that caught me so off-guard I couldn't even find myself angry with Remus any longer for waking me.
"Oh, wow," I whispered, and, after a moment of breathlessly gazing across the perfect horizon, turned to look to Remus. He had paused beside me, grey eyes half-closed as he stared towards the sun, his brow wrinkling as if in concentration. As I watched his nose twitch and his eyes crack open just a little further, I knew exactly what was coming next.
Remus was, without fail, a photic sneezer, and a rather predictable one at that. On days when the sun was bright, unobscured by the typical overcast grey of an English sky, he would squint against the light, raise a hand before his face, take two heavy breaths, and sneeze three times in rapid succession within moments of stepping outdoors, or into a brightly lit room. Sometimes, at the end of it all, he would gasp in breath as if another sneeze waited in the wings, but he never let out any more than three. Most times after the fit had passed, he would rub at the bridge of his nose, as if to hide behind his hand as he offered a sheepish apology.
I knew these displays embarrassed him greatly, though I could never determine whether it was the prospect of sneezing in public, the loss of a tight control he always kept upon his actions, or a combination of the two that was the primary source of his shame. This was also a main reason that I would seek to diffuse his embarrassment with a flippant remark, or a joke to make him smile. And while I didn't question his reaction to the sun, I found I could never quite reproduce the same results myself -- the one time I made it a point to stare directly at the sun, I was left aching and seeing spots for hours. How he did it was beyond me...
Today was no exception, and the sunlight cast a blindingly bright glitter upon the snow freshly fallen the night before. In that moment, the reflection of the sun shone upon Remus' cheeks, and his chest rose as he cupped both hands before his face, eyelids fluttering before twitching closed entirely, and drew in two gasping, convulsive breaths. His sandy brown hair, already beginning to streak with grey at the tender age of sixteen, tumbled before his eyes as he let out his three requisite, beautiful sneezes, one swiftly following the next with barely a pause to catch his breath between.
"Heh...heh... cshuh! Csshh! Cshuuh!"
"Bless," I said, lips quirking in a wry smile.
Remus looked to me with a shy grin, running a mittened hand across his nose. Like clockwork: "Excuse me."
"Never have, never will," I said with a flippant laugh, and looped an arm around his shoulders. "My God, Moony, I think I've just died and found heaven."
He turned his head and his shining, stormcloud-grey eyes towards me. "I'm surprised you're communing with a higher deity after your constant complaints this morning of being awakened at such an 'ungodly' hour."
"There's something to be said about being able to sleep in on a Saturday morning. I suppose if God had wanted us to be getting up early, He'd have made morning much, much later."
Remus leaned his head closer to mine, and whispered conspiratorially, "Part of me wants to run across this all. To be the first to leave tracks across this field. But another part of me is just holding back, not wanting to leave any prints at all."
"You know that in perhaps an hour or two, there will be nothing but prints across this field as everyone wakes up."
"Yes, I'm well aware of that," he said, rubbing his hand across the bridge of his nose again.
My arm fell from his shoulder and I clapped him upon the back before taking off in a run down the small flight of steps towards the pristine field. "So if you want to be the first to leave tracks, you're going to have to beat me first!"
Remus let out a soft cry, half a laugh and half a shout of protest, and bolted after me, at first slipping on the first several steps but catching his stride soon enough.
Together we ran, leaving large, stumbling paths through the snow, marring the virgin white blanket but caring little. Looking back behind me into the wind-flushed and broadly grinning face of Remus, I saw that our trails twisted behind us like twin snakes, deep and coiling. I could also see my companion closing the distance between us, and I turned front once again and gave a feint before jerking my body in the direction of the Forbidden Forest.
Suddenly, I felt a pair of hands encircle my waist, and, my momentum thrown off, I toppled to the ground. To my amusement, the soft weight that was Remus tumbled with me, spilling hard against my back even as I struggled to shake him off me. Great, frigid patches of snow burned my cheeks and slid icily down the back of my robes. In the end, after struggling, wrestling, and rolling through snow, Remus had me pinned and was crouched atop me with snow dripping from his hair and a beaming grin on his face.
"I think I've won," he said, giving his head a shake and spattering water in my eyes.
"Think again, you prawn. I beat you fair and square. You were the one who cheated and tackled me from behind!"
"Yes, but who's got the upper hand now, Padfoot?" Remus asked, his stormy grey eyes sparkling with mirth.
"You're covered in snow," I laughed, dodging his question entirely.
"So are you." Remus reached a mitten-covered hand out and, in a surprising movement, swept the tangled hair from my face. The grin on his lips fading from bemusement to a more enigmatic expression, he almost seemed to blush, particularly when I lifted my own glove-clad hand and mirrored the gesture with his own hair.
I smiled at him, reassuringly, even as my fingertips strayed upon his cheeks. Remus closed his eyes briefly and inclined his face against my touch. With a gentle urging of my fingers, I eased his head forward, tilting it closer to my own.
"Moony, do you --"
"I don't mind," he whispered, staring at me with a mix of anticipation coupled with a bright bout of fear.
Smirking, I snatched the front of his robes and, while his guard was down, threw my body so that I wriggled out of his pin and rolled him beneath me. "You were saying something about an upper hand?" I murmured close into his flushed face.
Remus didn't respond, but instead reached up a sudden hand to clasp me by the hair, and he yanked me down towards him. His point was easily made. My teeth pressed achingly hard against the inside of my lips as they met with his. Yet despite the initial awkwardness, the kiss melted into sweetness - the hand twined within my hair eased and rested at the back of my neck, while his lips parted to accept the teasing invitation of my tongue.
After a few moments of tender exploration we parted, and I rubbed my nose against his own as he sighed in apparent contentment. "That was nice," he whispered, his eyes still blissfully closed.
"I've wanted to do that for years, Moony."
"Years?" He didn't sound convinced.
I shrugged and twirled the ends of a swatch of his hair between my fingertips. "Well, since I decided that girls weren't worth a second glance, at any rate."
"I'm sure the female population thanks you wholeheartedly," said Remus dryly, his great grey eyes cracking open again. He grinned at me, even as his eyelids fluttered against the brightness of the early, snow-filled morning.
"Now see here, you --"
A scathing retort (or so I imagined it would be) died upon my lips as Remus suddenly struggled to free himself from beneath me. I could see from the twitching of his nose and the anxious wrinkle in his brow that he was about to sneeze again. While I would not have complained if he had merely turned his head, I sensed the almost desperate need within him to squirm away, and reluctantly I rolled away to give him freedom.
Righting himself in a single, swift movement, Remus tossed his hands up to cover his face. "Excuse me," he managed to gasp as he squinted against the bright sun reflected off the snow. His chest rose in two panting, anticipatory breaths before three rapid, uncontrollable sneezes overcame him, each one stronger than the next.
"Huh... huh... ecshuh! Cshuh! Csshuuh!"
I sat up beside him and rubbed his back gently. "Bless, Remus. You're not getting sick, are you?" I asked, even though I knew perfectly well that he wasn't coming down with a cold -- Remus hardly ever got sick, even when the worst of bugs was going around the school.
He shook his head, grinning sheepishly as he rubbed his nose with his hand. "I certainly hope not. If I am, I'll make sure to give it to you."
"And all this time I thought you didn't care." I grin wryly, and I nuzzle my nose against his cheek, delighting in watching him squirm.
"Whatever gave you the idea that I didn't care?" Remus asked, a tiny smile on his lips. His cheeks were still flushed, as if the sun, the kisses, and his sneezes managed to bring a new life to his otherwise pale skin.
"Well, you did wake me up in the dead of night to show me snow," I returned, an impish tone to my voice.
"It wasn't the dead of night," he said, turning from me and laughing. "And it's not my fault you were awake well past curfew. I thought we had gotten past this."
"Hush, Moony. I think that the least you could do is make it up to me."
"Could I?" Remus asked, a mischievous grin alighting on his face as he ran a mitten-clad hand across my cheek. Sighing contentedly, I inclined my cheek against his touch. "And how do you propose I do that?"
"Oh, I can think of more than a few ways," I whispered, and I leaned forward to catch his lips against mine in what I certainly hoped would not be our last kiss.
After all, he had a tremendous debt to repay me, after waking me as early as he did...
July 1, 1995
I don't know why I didn't bother simply apparating to Remus Lupin's humble home near the shore at Dover -- it certainly would have been easier than taking the exhausting, nonstop trip to the other side of the country on the back of a Hippogriff. I had mastered the spell of apparating in my youth and had occasionally been able to bring others along for the ride, as it were. Perhaps it was concern of it backfiring that made me ride Buckbeak all the way across the country in order to "lie low" at Remus', as Dumbledore had instructed me.
I'd sent an owl ahead to warn him of my arrival -- a nattering, hyperactive, feather-covered tennis ball called Pigwidgeon -- but I was still nervous. Although Remus and I had corresponded regularly since my escape from Azkaban, the letters were few and far between, and it had been nearly a year since our last physical contact. A year since I'd been able to clear my name with him, a year since that firm, comforting embrace in the Shrieking Shack. How I'd needed it now, since the troubles with my godson had multiplied exponentially...
Remus' home was secluded, a tiny flat huddled away from the town proper, hidden from the white cliffs that overlooked the sea, and the Muggle tourists who flocked to get a glimpse of them. It was a tiny place, no larger than a shack -- very likely all he would allow himself to afford. But it was situated well away from Muggles, guarded by warding charms, and I felt no qualms about bringing Buckbeak below the cloud cover to land.
It was early still for Saturday, perhaps seven or eight in the morning, when I'd tied Buckbeak to a nearby tree and finally ascended the stairs to Remus' home and knocked upon his door. I'd been flying for what seemed like days, well above the cloud cover to keep the Hippogriff hidden from Muggle eyes, and I was exhausted.
As Remus opened the door, I could see more grey streaking his hair so that it appeared almost completely shot through with silver, and his robes were shabby and darned at the sleeves and elbows. But his hair was, as it always had been, neat, and his robes, though aged, were still clean. While a vainer, more affluent wizard might have considered his state to be substandard, he instead bore it with pride.
The morning sun shone brilliantly on those tired grey eyes of his, and as he took in the sight of me, bedraggled but grinning upon his doorstep, it only seemed to enhance the inherent glitter that rose to the surface. Even after all those years apart, he was beautiful still.
"Hullo, honey. I'm home," I said, feeling immediately cheered by his presence despite how weary I was from the long journey.
A smile made its way to Remus' lips, and he opened his mouth to speak. Yet before any words could make their way out, he suddenly lifted a hand, finger pointed to the air in request of a pause, his breath catching in his throat. As his other hand raised before his face, he tilted his grey eyes to the sun, catching a sliver of brilliant light and hastening along that inevitable trio of light-induced sneezes. Inwardly, I trembled in anticipation of the once-familiar display, one I hadn't witnessed in over fourteen years.
Remus didn't disappoint: half-turning from me, he sneezed in rapid succession into his hand, three swift expulsions none too loud nor too strong. "Heh... heh... Cshhh! Cshuh! Cshuuh!" As always, he drew in a convulsive breath at the end of the fit, as if in preparation for another sneeze that would never follow through. This breath he let out in an embarrassed laugh, and, rubbing at the bridge of his nose, he quietly murmured, "Excuse me."
"Bless, Moony," I whispered, feeling both enthralled and comforted. In a scary, undefined world, some things were still resistant to change.
"Are you quite alright, Padfoot?" Remus asked, his sensitive grey eyes, growing used to the sudden change to sunlight, still shimmering faintly as he gazed upon me with expectant curiosity.
"I'm alright," I said in a brusque tone, before realizing what Remus wanted -- he, too, sought something of the familiar. A joking remark, anything to lessen his embarrassment. I quirked my lips in a wry grin, shaking out of my nostalgic daze, and added, "Fine way to greet someone you haven't seen in over fourteen years."
Looking relieved at the flippant remark, one of the very few that had managed to make its way past my lips in recent days, Remus pulled me into an embrace, clapping me on the back before drawing away. "It hasn't been fourteen years. At most, it's been slightly over a year since we saw each other last," he said.
"When we're apart, the time just seems to run together," I said, more seriously now. The sunlight upon his cheeks brought a small glow to an otherwise unhealthy pallor. "You don't blame me for being confused, do you?"
"I'll think about it," said Remus, backing towards his front door. "Would you like to come inside?"
With a gentle smile, I shook my head. "I think I'd rather stay outside for a while."
Remus nodded, and he raised his hand to touch my shoulder, allowing his fingers to trail down my arm. He was guarded, but I didn't blame him after so many years of doubt and remorse -- such scars didn't fade easily. But they would heal. Scars always heal. "I'll make us some tea," he murmured.
"Don't be long. I -- I've missed you." The words were difficult to force past my lips, but they were necessary.
"And I you," said Remus quietly. "I'll be but a few moments, and then we can sit in the sun. I'll -- even use proper loose tea for you." It sounded as if his own jokes were difficult to come by, but they relaxed me more than a cup of tea ever would.
"For me? Oh, Moony, I didn't know you cared."
Remus smiled at me enigmatically, fingertips straying upon the door handle. "I've always cared, Padfoot. Don't you know that by now?"
Yes, I knew. I'd always known, since that day nearly twenty years ago, when it had snowed and he'd pulled me into snow-covered, warm arms. Although we'd kissed many a time since then, up until the world fell to pieces on the deaths of the Potters and my arrest, none could quite match the sweetness of that first kiss, when the sun shone down like a brilliant beacon, and the snow muffled our laughter.
It was far from winter, but the sun had broken through the grey clouds that spilled across the shire of Dover with a brilliance that brought my thoughts immediately back to that day -- its brightness threatening once again to break down self-conscious barriers, to put a sparkle in our eyes and a brightness in our cheeks.
And as Remus turned to enter his home in order to prepare a companionable pot of tea, I knew that, for the first time in years, I was truly home...
The End
Not mine. If only they were...