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Kids Like Us


Lily Evans had pressed her uniform so the pleats were perfect in the skirt. She’d rolled her knee socks on so the lines in the knitting were perfectly straight as they went up her calves. Her oxford was carefully tucked, her red Gryffindor tie puffed just enough from below her vest, her robes open so the shiny red silk showed, and the bright, shiny gold Prefect badge gleamed from her chest. Her hair was up in a knot on the back of her head, a barrette holding the fringe from her forehead to one side. She pushed her trolley through the barrier after saying a tearful goodbye to her mum and a stiff “see you about” to Petunia, who she’d engaged in the least wanted hug in the history of all time to please their mother. After depositing her trunk by the train for the wizard loading them into the compartment, she looked about for a sign of Marauders - specifically for Remus’s height or the volume of Sirius Black, the two most easiest things to spot Marauders by, for if you found one, you found them all…

What she spotted instead was what she was really after anyway.

“Hello Potter.”

James turned around, his oxford only half tucked and quite wrinkled, his tie hanging untied in two tails from his shoulders, and that stupid smirking grin… “Hullo Evans.”

She hadn’t seen him since the day of their duck. If it was possible for it to be, he seemed to have grown taller since then - or perhaps it was her imagination. He ran a hand through his hair nervously as he faced her and she smiled. “How are you?”

“Brilliant,” he answered. “Drop your trunk off already, have you?”

Lily nodded. “Did you?”

But James was distracted.

Lily saw his eyes sweep all her perfectly straightened and pressed clothes, lingering where her vest curved over her chest and and the patch of leg showing in the gap between her skirt’s hem midway down her thigh, and the top of her socks, just below her knee. She blushed when he looked back up at her. “You look really nice,” he said.

“Thank you.”

He stuffed his hands in his pockets, “You’re - um - you’re probably looking for Remus, yeah? Prefect duties?”

“Sort of,” she said. What she meant was she’d been looking for James, really, but she did need to see Remus, too, but he usually came with James as a package deal, along with Sirius and, at school at least, Peter. But she’d really been looking for James.

What James took it as was that she was looking for Remus and he was just what she found first. “He isn’t here yet,” James said, and his smile melted off just a tiny bit, “But him and Sirius probably stopped for breakfast or something. They were coming on Sirius’s motorbike. Which he’s been forbidden to fly.”

Remus got on the motorbike?”

James laughed, “Very reluctantly. Claims he’ll haunt us if he dies on it. Says he’ll be more annoying than Peeves.”

“What’s he going to do? Organize the sock drawer?” Lily joked.

James snickered, “Sirius and I said exactly the same thing.”

“Poor Remus and his famously organized sock drawer.” Lily smirked.

They stood there awkwardly a moment, then, finally, James said, “Would you like to go up to the lot and wait for them with me? My mum and dad wanted to see me safely to the Platform, else I would’ve waited up there anyway. But I s’pose it’s good, I wouldn’t have bumped into you if I had.”

Lily agreed and James led the way back through the barrier and across King’s Cross to the lot. They were just coming through the doors of the station when there was a loud, very horrible cry and they looked about to see Wally Grant.

“KIDS LIKE US AREN’T SUPPOSED TO DIE! WE’RE TOO LITTLE! IT ISN’T FAIR! IT ISN’T FAIR! HE WAS MY BEST FRIEND! MY BEST FRIEND! IT ISN’T FAIR! IT ISN’T FAIR!”

Lily didn’t even hesitate. She ran over, and James jogged behind her. “What’s going on?” Lily asked and two tearfully red faces turned to look up at her. Oliver Kent threw himself at her and pressed his face into her shoulder, crying, as James caught Wally up by the shoulders and firmly stopped him from kicking at the trolley. People were looking over in concern as they went by, giving Lily funny looks for her robes.

“Liam Harding’s been killed,” Dexter said quietly. “Over the summer. Darcy heard about it over summer. He’s from the same town as Liam. There was stuff in the muggle paper… he - he was killed.”

Lily gasped and wrapped her arms all the tighter around Ollie as Wally shouted again, trying to fight James off, “HE WAS ONLY TWELVE!! TWELVE YEAR OLDS DON’T DIE!”

James held Wally firmly. “Shhh, shh. I know. They’re not supposed to. It’s horrible when they do. It’s the worst. But shouting isn’t going to bring Liam back, kicking and knocking things over isn’t going to bring Liam back. C’mere.” He tugged the boy closer. He could feel the nerves tight in Wally’s shoulders. “This is Voldemort’s fault,” he said, “This is why Voldemort is so evil.”

“He was pureblood!” Wally begged, “He was pureblood, the only one of us who was. He shouldn’t’ve been killed!”

James sighed and squeezed Wally’s shoulders all the tighter, “I know.”




By the time Sirius and Remus arrived to King’s Cross, Lily and James had already taken Wally and Dexter to their parents and brought Oliver down to the Platform with them to get some answers on what exactly happened and to confer with somebody besides each other on how to handle the news and the chaos that would ensue if it got out on the Hogwarts Express… Sirius pulled up to the station and passed it a little bit, pulling into an alley just ‘round the corner. “What’re you doing?” Remus asked, pulling his helmet off as Sirius stopped the bike and shut it off behind a large rubbish bin, where they were hidden from the main road and the muggles passing by.

Sirius got off the bike, and waited until Remus had climbed off, then he drew his wand, double checked down the alley, and waved it at the motorbike. “Diminuendo!” Sirius said and the bike shrunk… down, down, down… until it was pocket sized and Sirius grinned and rushed forward to pick it up by it’s itty bitty handlebars. He looked at Remus, whose face was an expression of surprise. Sirius grinned. “How else am I supposed to bring it to Hogwarts?”

“You’re bringing it with you?”

“Never know when you might need a motorbike,” Sirius replied, shrugging. He carefully dusted the dirt from it’s wheels and tucked it into one of the pockets on the inside of his leather jacket, then stowed his wand and jingled the motorbike’s key playfully, grinning as the pink rabbit’s foot bounced from the ends of the chain. “C’mon Moony, what’d you think I was going to do? Leave it in the lot here ‘til holiday?”

Remus hadn’t really thought on it.

“Let’s go.” Sirius shrank the helmets and added them to his pocket, then waved for Remus to follow him and they walked the block back to King’s Cross. Sirius didn’t even notice it when a group of teenage girls in a cluster by the ticket booth turned to watch him go by, their eyes sweeping over his shoulders as he shrugged off his leather jacket, revealing a white tank top over his trousers, all his tattoos showing… Between those biceps and his handsome jaw… Remus couldn’t blame them for oogling at him before they all dissolved into a chorus of giggles.

“You’re getting stared at,” muttered Remus.

“Huh?” Sirius looked about, spotted the girls, and, smirking, blew them a kiss. They looked ready to pass out.

“Seriously?” Remus asked, raising an eyebrow.

Sirius grinned. “Gotta give the people what they want. Don’t worry, though, darling, the real ones are exclusively for you.”

They made their way through the station to Platform 9¾ and through the bustle and chaos, past sobbing mums and their uncomfortable-looking children, toward the train. It was in the corridor onboard the Express that Remus paused as Sirius headed for their usual compartment. “Moony?”

“Prefect duties, Padfoot,” Remus reminded him, and he reached into his pocket and pulled out the shiny badge. “Remember?”

“Bloody hell not that rubbish again. You should quit.”

“I can’t quit being a prefect, you ninny.”

“Why?”

“It doesn’t work that way.” Remus stepped up to him and stuck a stray bit of hair back into the thick mane that hung over Sirius’s ears and he said, “I’ll see you as soon as we’re done, alright? Relax, it’ll be alright.”

“Fine.” Sirius leaned forward and kissed Remus deeply.

“Get a room,” muttered a Hufflepuff pushing past.

Sirius didn’t break it off, he simply held up his middle finger in the kid’s face and went on with his Moon-snogging. Finally Remus pulled back, “Alright, enough of that. I gotta go. Be good this year, alright? No… flying broomsticks through the Express… it’s not allowed, you know.”

I know,” moaned Sirius. “I’ll mind my P’s and Q’s and be in the ruddy compartment when you deem me worthy of your presence again.”

“Good doggy.” Remus patted his head and turned, headed for the prefect compartment.

Sirius sighed and went to the compartment.

Peter was already in there.

“Hullo,” Peter said, looking up at Sirius.

“Hullo,” Sirius said, sitting down across from Peter.

They stared at one another - neither sure what to say to the other.




In the prefect’s compartment, Lily sat still hugging Ollie and James was talking lowly to the Head Boy - a Ravenclaw with dark skin and bright eyes. Remus saw Ollie was crying and he sat next to Lily, “What’s going on?”

Lily looked over at him, her own eyes red, “Liam Harding’s been killed.”

Remus’s face paled.

“Over the summer, in the death eater attacks - the ones the day James’s house burned down. They destroyed the building Liam lived in - killed ten muggles, including Liam and his aunt, who was a squib.” Tears shivered on the edge of Lily’s eyelids.

Remus put his palm on her shoulder. “Bloody hell,” he murmured.

Lily nodded and hugged Ollie closer as his cries renewed.