Boom

All was quiet in the Gryffindor common room. It was a rare moment, extremely rare in fact.

A green-eyed boy shook his shaggy black hair out of his eyes as he aimed a paper aeroplane towards the back of his friend's head.

"James!" screeched the blond boy as the plane hit him. He was chubby and with his hideously unfashionable feather cut, he was more than slightly feminine.

"Sorry, Pete," James replied nonchalantly as he inspected a few strands of his hair. He liked to believe that when the light hit it just right, he had a unique blue tinge. "Oi, Remy, reckon I should let it grow?"

The boy in question, who was lying upside down in one of the armchairs with his long brown hair pooling out on to the floor made a noise of indifference. James returned to inspecting his hair, Peter to his Potions essay. Remus simply let the blood rush to his head, enjoying the almost impossible quiet.

It could never have lasted. And it didn't, for only seconds later another boy bounced in with his curly perm flopping out in all directions. At the time, Sirius adored his highly fashionable perm but would later look back on it as a gigantic faux pas and simply delete it from his memory; such was the fickle nature of the boy.

"My lords," he announced grandly as he plonked himself down on to the armchair containing a protesting Remus. "I have found It."

The It he referred to was something he had long been searching for. Being from a magical family, he had very little experience of Muggle music and was curious to see what it was like. He'd seized the opportunity that summer to steal a 'didio' from the house next door and lo and behold, the quest began.

He was looking for a song. Not just any song, but a perfect one - the best song in the world. His search had until now been unsuccessful. There had been good songs, bad songs and just plain ugly ones. He was not particularly fond of the disco sound, but he did 'dig' rock.

He wanted loud, squealing guitars that one could mime horrendously along to. He wanted deep lyrics delivered by a voice that tore at the soul. He wanted a song that blew you away every time you heard it, even if it had been played fifty times before.

"Yes," Sirius grinned excitedly. "It was just on the didio."

"Radio," Remus corrected. Sirius turned around to pull a face at him, blinking in confusion when he was not greeted by his friend's face but his feet. He looked down to see Remus grinning up at him from the floor and said no more. There was no point in questioning the many quirks of Moony.

"You really think it's It?" James asked. He never failed to look bored, even when he wasn't. In his opinion, enthusiasm was deeply uncool on any levels.

"It is It," Sirius insisted, becoming very earnest as he started to fiddle with the tuner. "Trust me, when you hear it, you'll know."

He made faces at all the songs played that weren't it. Sometimes he would mutter angrily, becoming particularly upset when the Bee Gees were played and declaring them 'girly voiced twats'.

"What was it called?" James pressed, stifling a yawn. "Who sings it?"

"I don't know," Sirius muttered, ready to pick up his wand and blow the offending radio to smithereens.

"Well, what's it about?" Remus asked, pulling himself up and enjoying the head rush that followed.

"What's it about?" Sirius wrinkled his nose at the question. "I dunno, I think there's this bloke who's shot another bloke and they're trying to decide if he's guilty or not."

"Of course he's guilty!" snorted James. "You just said he shot someone."

"So nobody's heard it, then?" Sirius asked with obvious disappointment.

"It's not Hendrix, is it?" Remus now dangled his legs over the side of the chair and stared at his friend through a heavy fringe.

Sirius simply blinked in reply.

"Who?"

"My dad listens to him," Remus shrugged. "There's a song about a bloke called Joe who keeps shooting people."

"No," Sirius shook his head. "This bloke was singing to his mum."

James snorted again and propped his feet up on Peter's shoulders.

"Oi!" Peter whined, only to have James' none too fragrant feet shoved in his face. "I'm trying to work!"

Sirius turned the radio up in response, crooning "Iiiiiiiiii love to love you, baaby" in a nasty falsetto.

"Stop it," begged Peter. "I really need to finish this or I'll get chucked out of Potions."

James rolled his eyes.

"So? It's only Potions. Don't know why you took it in the first place."

"I like Potions," Peter muttered, his face turning red.

"You would, you're just like that creepy little git Snivellus. Am I right, Sirius?"

Normally, Sirius would have jumped in with the insults but a misty eyed look had crossed his face as another song began.

"James-"

"What, Sirius? Trying to defend him now, are you?"

"James-"

"Well, the worm has turned as they say. Literally."

"James-"

"Alright, I'll stop. Pete knows I'm only jok-"

"SHUT UP, JAMES!" Sirius stared around wildly as James stared at him in complete shock. "The song, it's the song!"

"I still think you're-"

James was thrown a very evil look and took this as a cue to shut up and listen. He didn't doubt that The Song would be a disappointment. Sirius just didn't understand music on the level that he did.

"Hey," Remus said after about a minute of the song. "I know this one."

"Who sings it?" Sirius demanded, his perm bouncing madly as he turned his head.

"Er... Ah...Hmm," Remus scratched his chin with a long finger. "Thingamibob."

James sighed at the inferiority and gross stupidity of those which he called friends.

"It's Queen, you silly prats. You know, with the daft wanker in the leotard prancing about the place. Honestly, what kind of a lyric is 'Bismillah! No, we will not let you go!'?"

"Oh, is that what it is?" asked Peter in a very small voice. James stared at him.

"What did you think it was?"

Peter stared at the floor and fiddled nervously with his quill. "Doesn't matter," he mumbled.

James only lasted another few seconds of the song before tiring of it completely. He turned his attentions to a red haired girl walking by.

"Alright, Lils?" he smiled, stalking over to her with a predatory gleam in his eye.

"I'd be a lot better if you left me alone," she replied coolly.

"Can't handle my charm, eh?"

"Get out of the way, James, before I hex you."

She pushed past him, long hair flying out behind her as she tossed her head indignantly. James turned to his friends, impervious to her obvious dislike.

"I'm going to marry her one day," he said and followed her out of the portrait hole.

*

Peter had finally gone to bed, leaving Sirius and Remus alone in the common room. Sirius vaulted over an armchair and launched himself on to a fluffy, white rug by the fire where he stretched out lazily.

"So," he yawned, grinning at Remus who was again upside down. "James and Lils. Reckon it'll ever happen?"

"No doubt about it," Remus replied. "You know that if James wants something he'll eventually get it."

"S'pose," Sirius stifled another yawn. "But... Lily Evans?"

"Oh, she fancies him like mad. All the girls do."

Sirius simply shrugged and coiled a strand of his permed hair around his finger, watching it bounce back.

"Fur-face," he said after a while, making Remus cringe at the 'affectionate' nickname. "You thought the song was good, right?"

"Mm," Remus replied calmly. "Bloody brilliant actually. Dog-breath," he added for good measure. "Got any Boomslang?"

Sirius rummaged around in his robes, eyes lighting up as he struck gold.

"Don't tell Prongs," he grinned as he shook out some of the dense powder and laid it out on the special paper, rolling it up. He handed it to Remus, who muttered a few words and tapped his wand to produce a flame, which then lit the object.

Smoking Boomslang was Remus and Sirius' little secret. Even James hadn't been let in on it, which was strange as Sirius usually hated to keep things from his best friend. As far as they knew, nobody else had even thought of rolling Boomslang into a joint. They liked the secret thrill of their discovery and finally having something to share with each other- something that hadn't been thought up by James for once.

"Yeah," Remus sighed as he inhaled the familiar pale lilac smoke. "Good old Boom."

He passed Sirius the Boomslang joint, who took it and inspected it, laughing softly.

"Wonder what part of a Boomslang this is?"

Remus turned over and propped himself up on an elbow. "Skin, I s'pose. Wouldn't want to be smoking Boomslang organs, would we?"

"Mmm. Meaty," Sirius said thoughtfully.

A long silence followed, during which they simply revelled in the heavy smoke.

"It's not just James, you know," Remus said after a while, his glossy, brown eyes flickering as the reflection of the flames danced in them.

"What isn't?"

"It's not just him all the girls fancy."

"Who is it, then? You? You're hardly around enough for them to even remember your name," Sirius replied with more than a slight hint of James to his voice.

"Sad but true," Remus nodded and picked up Peter's discarded essay, skimming through it. "Anyway, I was talking about you, Sirius. Yes, you and don't look so surprised. You must have seen the way they all giggle when you walk into a room."

"Wow," Sirius blew out a cloud of smoke. "Never saw myself as much of a sex-god before."

Remus made a small noise of disbelief. Sirius was almost unnaturally vain, giving James a run for his money. He supposed that was why the two of them got on so well. Luckily, he knew Sirius well enough to know when the boy was fishing for compliments.

"Sorry, don't believe you," he grinned. "Admit it, Si, you fancy yourself."

"Don't."

"Do."

"Don't!"

"Do-oo."

"Oh, just... Bugger off, will you? You're just jealous."

Remus raised an eyebrow at him, humour slowly leaving his wise face.

"Jealous of what?" he said in little more than a whisper.

"Er," Sirius blinked rapidly. Maybe it was the Boomslang, but Remus' company always made him uncomfortable after a while. Melodies from The Song ran through his mind as he searched for a reply that never came.

"You... Just are," he muttered and snatched the rest of the Boomslang joint from Remus, throwing it into the fire. They both stared at each other, challenging the adversary to look away.

"What did you do that for?" asked Remus, looking annoyed to say the least.

Sirius shrugged.

"Dunno."

*

"Oi, Padfoot," James shouted across the table. "Clock the Malf over there!"

Sirius looked up from his plate to see Lucius Malfoy sporting a rather gruesome black goatee. He raised an eyebrow at James.

"Groovy looking facial fuzz you've got there, Malf!" cried James, standing up in his chair. When he spoke, the hall fell silent. "Suppose you're not a natural blond, though?"

The entire hall erupted with laughter. Lucius was horrified to find that even his faithful Slytherins were mocking him. He turned bright red and began to nervously finger his platinum snake medallion.

"Laugh all you want, Potter," he hissed before flouncing out of the hall. Ever the entertainer, James took a theatrical bow before sitting back down and letting the hall return to normal.

Sirius looked around the hall at the various Muggle fashions that seemed to be taking over the wizarding world.

At the Gryffindor table, almost everybody had followed James and Sirius and opted the glam rock bird's-nest of hair. Boys and girls alike wore black eyeliner and powdered their faces to a deathly pale.

The Ravenclaws had chosen a more conservative style. The boys had neat, layered hair and the girls wore feather cuts. Out of robes they wore brown cardigans reminiscent of the popular television show 'Starsky and Hutch'.

Of course, the Slytherins had nothing to do with Muggle fashion. They turned their noses up and sneered at it until Muggle fashions reached the Wizarding world and therefore became acceptable. Sadly, Wizarding fashion was still stuck somewhere in the sixties making Slytherin hopelessly sad.

Hufflepuff House was by the far the most amusing. They had chosen to base their style on the Disco stars of the day, resulting in afro styles of every colour and size. The intervention of magic made it much easier to create and maintain this style, but very few had managed to get it right. The Quidditch captain, Geoff Bilchwater became renowned for his rather odd triangular crest of hair.

"It's here!" shrieked Lily Evans as an owl dropped a bright magazine on to her plate. The whole of Gryffindor began to crowd round her as she flicked through it, announcing who was on every page.

Sirius tugged the back of Peter's jumper impatiently. "What's all the fuss?"

"It's a Muggle music magazine," Peter told him, glancing over somebody's shoulder.

Music? Sirius raised an eyebrow and immediately pushed poor Peter aside, wading through the crowd until he was looking over Lily's shoulder. What was the band that sung The Song called again? Something regal... And one of them wore a leotard, much like the dark haired man pictured on the page the girls were currently swooning over.

"Who's that?" Sirius demanded. Rosemary Brown threw him an almost despairing look.

"It's Freddie," Lily replied in a dazed tone, absent-mindedly stroking his picture. "Freddie Mercury. Isn't that the most gorgeous name?"

James growled in disgust and turned his back on her. She'd realise he was the only one for her sooner or later and then hopefully she'd stop lusting after moustachioed men in nipple-exposing jumpsuits.

"Freddie Mercury," Sirius replied in a very similar tone to Lily's. "What band is he in?"

This gained him yet more raised eyebrows and rolling eyes.

"Queen," Rosemary Brown told him, shaking her head in disgust at his gross stupidity.

Sirius' mouth fell open. Queen, the very band who sung The Song! And now that he'd seen Freddie Mercury, he could only like them more. Freddie was cool, the epitome of everything that he'd been trying to emulate.

"Yeah," he grinned, lapsing into the colloquialisms of the ultra-stylish DJs on the radio. "I dig their beats, man."

The girls simply looked at him in disgust, rolled their eyes once more and turned their attentions to David Bowie on the next page.

*

"James?" Sirius asked later that day in Transfiguration, tapping out a beat from The Song with his foot. "Do you think I'm... with it?"

James leant back in his chair observing his friend's features for a few seconds before coming to a conclusion.

"Sirius," he sighed. "I don't think you're ever quite with it."

"No!" Sirius cried earnestly, waving his arms around as he spoke. "I meant... Do you think I'm..."

For want of a better word, he used one mentioned in a song he'd heard earlier. "Do you think I'm 'funky'?"

James roared with laughter, earning them a warning glance from the teacher. The pair of them began to mutter incantations and wave their wands vaguely until she looked away.

"You're not 'funky', Padfoot," James hissed. "You've got a perm and you like Queen, of all things."

"Well," Sirius tossed the offending perm over his shoulder in irritation. "So does Lily."

"Yeah, well," James muttered, annoyed that Sirius had got the last word. "The two of you can just piss off."

*

As they shared a little Boomslang in the Quidditch changing rooms, Sirius replayed the earlier incident to Remus who found the whole thing hilarious.

"Yeah. I rendered James Potter speechless!" Sirius cried, throwing his arms wide as he took another puff.

"Now that's funky!" Remus laughed, blowing the smoke out of his nostrils. He knew Sirius hated that.

"Urgh, Remy, don't," Sirius instructed. "Hey, did you see that picture of Queen today?"

Remus nodded, sprawling out across one of the benches.

"What'd you think?" Sirius yawned and copied his friend.

"Pretty cool," Remus replied, digging the palm of his hand into his eyes. "You know, you sort of remind me of the singer."

Sirius beamed. It was more than a smile. The boy was radiant.

"You really think so? Maybe I should get my hair done like him..." Sirius jumped up and inspected his reflection in the mirror. "Oh yeah, I would look so good like that."

Remus shook his head at Sirius' brazen vanity.

"Yeah," he grinned, a wicked glint in his amber eyes. "I reckon you'd look really good in one of those leotards too..."

To his delight, Sirius started to inspect his figure in the mirror.

"Dunno about that, Loopy," he muttered. Those things were awfully revealing, after all.

"No, really. You've got the body for it," Remus insisted. "It'd drive the girls wild."

And not just the girls, Remus reflected.

"Hmmm. Yeah. Yeah, you're right, Remy! I think I'll go for it."

Remus could barely resist an evil grin to himself as Sirius sped out of the changing rooms, a new mission on his mind.

*

Sirius became extremely jumpy at every meal, his eyes darting round for owls. He had found the order form in the back of Lily's pop magazine and sent for a black and white jumpsuit, slashed to the waist. One size only.

Remus' comments about his looking like Freddie Mercury had gone to his head a little too much. Now, every time that he heard The Song he would mime along to it, strutting around like nobody's business. There was no doubt about it; with his perfect perm, jumpsuit and new rock-star attitude, he'd exude style.

James was beginning to feel a little left out. Sirius and Remus had started to bond over their similar; and in James' opinion, appalling tastes in music. He wondered if Sirius was a bit bruised by his jibes, but didn't have the energy to apologise. Lily was beginning to yield to his constant attention and had stopped pushing him away all the time.

Peter, however, revelled in the shift in the group. James was being forced to spend more time with him and for once, was not insulting him. Peter was the only company he had these days when Lily did manage to escape his clutches.

"Lils," James called to her across the table, which was set for dinner. "D'you reckon I'm better looking than that Freddie Mercury?"

"Dream on!" Lily called back, laughing. "I'm going to marry him one day..."

James rolled his eyes. Freddie, Freddie, Freddie. There was no escaping him. What did they all see in him, anyway?

"Don't think he swings that way," he replied, grinning devilishly at her.

Sirius looked up from his plate, surprised by James' comment. Some of the other boys were nodding in agreement. Did they mean that the great Freddie was-?

"Remy, is Freddie Mercury... y'know?" he whispered urgently, nudging his friend.

"Who cares?" Remus replied, going back to his steak and kidney pie.

"I do!" Sirius hissed. "Is he?" he pleaded, his eyes turning impossibly large.

Remus sighed. There was no point in even trying to resist Sirius when he put on the puppy eyes.

"Don't know," he said truthfully. "Wouldn't matter if he was, though."

"You don't think there's anything wrong with-?"

"No." Remus looked at his friend with interest, his eyes barely visible through his fringe. "Do you?"

Sirius shrugged and blew a curly strand of hair out of his eyes.

"Nah. Freddie's a god, no matter what."

*

Three days later, the Holy Grail itself arrived. The second it was dropped on to his plate, Sirius grabbed it and ran off towards the dormitory with Remus in close pursuit.

"This is it," Sirius announced as he closed the door behind him. Remus flung himself down on his bed, brown hair flying in all manner of directions.

"Open it then," Remus told him and consequently, Sirius tore away at the paper. There was an almost grave silence between them as Sirius lifted the garment out of the paper and held it against himself... Sirius took a sharp intake of breath.

"Well?"

Remus grinned and held two thumbs up. In an involuntary and utterly embarrassing gesture, Sirius clapped his hands together with glee. He was lucky enough to withhold the girlish squeal of excitement.

"Put it on, put it on!" Remus cried, accidentally rolling off his bed. "Ugh," he muttered, spitting out a mouthful of feathers from his pillow. "Sirius, we have got to stop smoking the Boom."

Sirius stroked the stretchy material with a long finger, admiring the way it shimmered when the light hit it. He couldn't imagine how glorious it was going to look on his body. In a convulsive movement, he threw off his robes and began to rip off his jumper, shirt and trousers. It was no big deal for the boys to see each other in a state of undress, in fact it was very unusual to get changed without somebody else being in the dorm at the time. What was different this time was that Remus actually observed his friend's body; feeling a mix of jealousy, attraction and rising desire.

"God, this thing is tight," murmured Sirius as he shimmied into it. He began to feel extremely self conscious and rather... exposed in certain areas. Certain areas that a Mr. Lupin was openly ogling.

"And, um, it said it would be slashed to the waist. This is barely decent, Remy!"

Remy shrugged, leaning back with his hands crossed behind his head.

"That's what the look is all about, Sirius. Sex."

Despite his 'been-there-done-that' attitude, underneath it all Sirius Black was little more than a nervous child. His eyes widened at the word 'sex' and he squirmed uncomfortably in the risqué jumpsuit.

"Do - do I look-?"

"Sexy?" Remus offered, swapping his battered pillow for Peter's. "I don't think you want to know what I think."

Sirius sighed. Of course he couldn't compete with Freddie Mercury, what was he thinking? There he was, practically naked in front of poor Remus and being an embarrassment to them both.

"You're right, Remy," Sirius nodded sadly. "Let's stop smoking the Boom. I look stupid."

"No, you-"

"Yeah, I do," said Sirius, sounding utterly crushed as he wandered over to his bed and closed the curtain around it. Remus let out a long breath and stared at the ceiling. Had he said something?

"Sirius?" he called softly. "You alright?"

His response was a strange noise like somebody rubbing a wet finger down a balloon. He could hear yet more bizarre sounds coming from the boy and eventually, a reply.

"Er, no," Sirius said faintly. Remus took a deep breath and pulled back Sirius' curtain, only to have his friend fall flat on his face.

"Jesus," Sirius muttered as Remus started to laugh. "Oi, it isn't funny!"

But it was, there was no denying it. In the process of taking off the jumpsuit, Sirius had somehow got his left arm caught inside it and been unable to take it out. The material had proved too tight to shift his arm out alone and there was no way he was going to risk taking the other arm out of its sleeve.

"Sorry," Remus choked, tears of laughter running down his cheeks. "You - you look like a hunchbacked old hag!"

"Thanks, you're gorgeous too," replied Sirius, sticking his tongue out. Despite himself, Remus' laughter rubbed off on him and before long a huge grin had appeared on his face.

The pair of them could barely contain themselves as they tried every trick in the book to free Sirius. Sirius wiggled, shimmied and shook himself with moves to rival the greatest dancer. It didn't help that every time he moved, the material rubbed against his skin and made a crude noise. Remus tried many times to reach into the jumpsuit and remove the offending arm, but the closer he got to Sirius, the more hysterical they became.

"All in the name of fashion," Sirius sighed mockingly and wiped an imaginary tear off his cheek. "Come on, Loopy, I do want to keep my arm."

"Right," Remus forced himself into a more sensible frame of mind. "Alright. For the good of mankind, Sirius!" he added, giving a formal salute.

"Shut it, fur-ball," Sirius gave him a playful shove, which when executed with one arm could hardly be called a shove at all. Remus took a deep breath and reached into the front of the stretchy monstrosity, grabbing hold of Sirius' arm. At first, he did try to be gentle and ease it out but nothing came of it. There was nothing for it but to yank the appendage out, hoping that it stayed in its socket.

"Ow! Bloody hell, Remus, you bastard!" Sirius screamed as his arm was finally freed. He stared at it, wiggling his fingers to see if it was broken or not. "Ouch," he whimpered again, the left sleeve hanging miserably at his side.

"Well," Remus stood back and looked at his friend. "Your dignity may not be intact but I think your arm is."

"Doesn't feel like it," Sirius muttered, lifting it up and letting it flop back down. Remus sighed and appeared in front of him, one hand circling around his wrist and the other pressing down on his fingers.

"Does that hurt?" he asked, slowly moving Sirius' arm and up and down. There was no response. Sirius was currently floating in a strange land, feeling like he'd had a lungful of Boomslang. He could feel the warm, brown eyes boring into his and stirring up very, very strange emotions. He knew that it was Remus' hair that was tickling his arm and sending shivers down his spine, to quote The Song. Without even thinking about what he was doing, he leaned forward ever so slightly and captured his friend's lips.

The odd thing was that it didn't even feel strange. It felt completely normal for him to be kissing Remus. He knew that Remus felt it too, as the kiss was most definitely being returned. He found Remus' hands come to tangle in his hair as he wrapped his own arms around the boy's slighter frame. It still felt natural, so he deepened the kiss, now experimenting. His tongue explored Remus' mouth and his hands roamed his body, the pair of them becoming more and more entangled. The spontaneity of what they were doing still failed to phase them; in fact, the closer they got, the better it felt.

"God," Remus murmured as his head came to rest on Sirius' chest. "That wasn't weird at all."

"Mmm," Sirius replied, now twirling strands of Remus' hair around his finger. "Weird, isn't it?"

Remus lifted his head, frowning. "It's weird that it's not weird?"

Sirius nodded.

"You're weird," Remus smiled and for the first time, Sirius noticed he had a dimple in his chin.

"So, what happens now?" Sirius asked, catching sight of himself in a mirror. Well, admittedly, he would never be Freddie but it had to be said, he had a rather nice body. Very nice, in fact. He rather thought that he could get used to jumpsuits, if only they weren't such a pain to take off.

"We find a way to get you out of that thing," Remus gave a roguish grin, giving Sirius goose bumps at the very thought of it. "And then we just go with the flow."

"Go with the flow," Sirius mused. "I like that. But I prefer the thought of you undressing me."

"Funny, so did I."

They grinned at each other and Sirius playfully bit Remus upon the nose. Remus tweaked a strand of his precious hair in return, and thus started the wrestling match of the century.

A few minutes later, James entered the dormitory to a very strange sight indeed. Feathers were flying everywhere and he could hear muffled squeaks and bouts of laughter. As he walked amid the debris, he came upon the most bizarre sight of all.

Sirius was lying on his back, clad only in a skintight black and white jumpsuit. Remus, with his clothes and hair in disarray, sat astride the boy's back repeatedly bashing Sirius' head with a pillow and demanding he yield to him. The pair of them were giggling like schoolgirls and being generally very disturbing.

Understandably, James left the room without another word. Remus and Sirius were weird; there was no other way to describe it. He suspected what he had just seen might haunt him for life. Why was Sirius wearing a jumpsuit, anyway? He found that he didn't really want to go into it any deeper.

After a while, Sirius tired of the endless beatings and surrendered. He declared Remus the king, and him his humble servant. The pair of them lay in a tangle of arms and legs, observing the mess they had made.

"Can we take this thing off now?" Sirius asked, tugging at the leotard hopefully.

"Hmmmmm, leave it on," Remus mumbled into his chest. "I like it."

"Oh yeah? Does it look 'funky'?"

"Yeah... You're the funkiest of them all."

Sirius nudged the other boy in the ribs, they erupted into another laughing fit and the rest was history.

*

Nineteen years later, Remus lay upside down in an armchair at home. It was strange that he should still find this position so comfortable, particularly as he was nearing middle age, but then he had always been weird.

His eyes wandered to a package wrapped in brown paper sitting on the top shelf of his bookcase. It had resided there since his last day at Hogwarts. At first, he had simply forgotten about it then could no longer be bothered with what it contained. It had collected an awful lot of dust since then and was barely visible amongst the hundreds of grubby old books.

Now Remus found curiosity getting the better of him. He muttered a spell to himself being unable to reach the parcel and found it drifting into his hands. For a few seconds he just stared at it, wondering what on earth could be inside. Then, with childish excitement he found himself ripping off the paper in lumps and shreds, letting it all scatter to the floor.

A small gasp escaped him as he lifted out a black and white jumpsuit, slashed to the waist. One size only. He stroked the stretchy material with a bony finger, admiring the way it shimmered when the light hit it. He remembered how glorious it had looked on Sirius, the day things had changed forever between them.

And for the better, he reminded himself, a sad smile gracing his sunken features.

A piece of parchment fluttered to the floor and he felt his heart race nervously as he picked it up. Typically of Sirius, the note was scrawled all over the page in a languid hand. Remus even found what he suspected to be half a rhubarb Every Flavour Bean stuck to the back of it. He allowed himself a small grin at this and began to read.

'Remy

Any way the wind blows

Freddie lives forever, and we do too'

Later that day, Remus played his ancient seven-inch copy of Bohemian Rhapsody. He was instantly transported back to the golden years of the curly perm; glam rock; the thick, purple smoke of the Boomslang joint and above all, the Rock God that was Sirius Black.