Night Swimming

Night Swimming

He stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that [he] had made lovely for him. But it was all going by too fast now for his blurred eyes and he knew that he had lost that part of it, the freshest and the best, forever.

-- F.S. Fitzgerald, the Great Gatsby (ch 8)

The last night they spend in Remus' Dorset cottage falls muggy and hot, as it has almost every night since Sirius arrived. After the rain-choked dampness of the last few days, the suffocating heat in the evenings makes it too close to sleep; Remus twists on the narrow sofa, groggy and grudging, watching the face of the clock glow in the suffused light of the near-new moon.

He hears restless two-footed prowling over the squeaky floorboards in his bedroom, and knows that Sirius cannot sleep either. He has more than enough reason not to, even if the night were conducive to slumber. They move to Grimmauld Place in the morning, to take up their duties and obligations as Order members; it is anyone's guess how long this will last, how far-reaching the impending war with Voldemort will be. Now it is just after midnight; the hands of the clock creep forward inexorably, closing down on their last remaining hours and minutes of relative freedom.

Sirius will pace all night at this rate, Remus thinks. The footfalls cease, there is a reluctant groan of bedsprings and the room falls silent for the moment. Remus' eyes finally drift closed, waiting for the blanket of sleep to smother him at last, when long bony fingers grip his shoulder and shake him awake.

"C'mon Moony, wake up, let's go swimming," the hoarse voice hisses in his ear.

"Whazza--?" he mumbles, eyes flying open not to the morning light but to the still-suffocating shadow of the cottage.

"Swim, Remus. In the water, outside? Get up, get up." The shaking on his shoulder is more insistent now.

Remus bats the offending hand away, focuses bleary eyes on the moonlit clock. "Merlin's balls, Sirius, it's still just after midnight--"

"Best time to go for a moonlight swim, wouldn't you think? C'mon, up and at 'em. It's my last night of freedom, and I'll be damned if I'm not going to spend it doing something worthwhile." Remus' eyes now focus on Sirius' face, pale and drawn, but also lit with a desperate glee. The hand yanks him up to sitting.

"Fine, fine," Remus grumbles, but good-naturedly. "Just don't forget the towels, you wanker." Sirius chuckles and drops them onto his head.

They find the pond more by smell than by sight in the humid darkness; the moon, struggling to glow through the clouds, cannot provide sufficient light through the leaf-dappled brush. It is not far from the cottage but Remus' robes are already sticking to his back by the time he is halfway there. Sirius as always has forged ahead, charging through the underbrush as Padfoot; Remus needs only to follow the sounds of crackling twigs. The dog is already frolicking in the weedy water by the time Remus arrives at its grassy bank.

The pond is small and dank, in truth not ideal for swimming but at least it's private and miles away from anyone else, surrounded by a thatch of brambles and birch; Sirius doesn't care anyway, being used to festering privation this water is a veritable haven. Remus fans out one towel to sit on, hugging his knees, content to listen to the splashes and watch his friend play. Padfoot yips and dives and paddles, generally making a joyous racket.

Then Padfoot comes bounding out of the pond and heads straight for Remus, dripping and covered with stringy seaweed.

"No, don't you dare--" Remus warns, but too late. Padfoot shakes himself dry, soaking Remus with water and flinging the weed into his hair.

Remus stands and plucks the weed off his robes with a distasteful sneer, while Padfoot, now Sirius, doubles over laughing.

"Holy Merlin, Moony, you are so fucking predictable! Why, you never even saw that coming--?"

Remus glares at Sirius for a moment and does not reply. Now concerned--did he offend his friend?--Sirius leans closer, opens his mouth with a half-formed apology--

Only to be caught off-guard by the resounding *thwack* of slimy, stringy reed on his face.

Sirius spits out soppy plant matter and wipes his eyes as Remus snickers. "Now look who's talking? The Giant Squid will highly approve of you now, Padfoot."

With a roar, Sirius launches himself at Remus and this instigates a full-out scuffle, two grown men rolling and laughing and wrestling in the moon-dappled grass like young boys, until Remus straddles Sirius with his knees and pins him down by his wrists against the bank, chest heaving with the exertion. Their eyes meet and lock as something charged and primal passes between them, begins to smolder--the easy grins melt away, replaced by the nervous licking of lips and slight catches of breath. In this oddly suspended moment they both can hear the underscore of frog-song and rabbits crunching through the brambles; under that the muted hum of far-away traffic on the highways; and under that the flow and pull of blood, waiting.

Remus tears his gaze away first, perhaps embarrassed. His attention diverted, Sirius takes full advantage--he pushes Remus off with a well-placed shimmy of hips and hands, rises, then drags Remus by the hand down to the pond for a thorough soaking, robes and all. For someone so wasted and drawn, Sirius shows surprising strength as he submerges Remus under the earthy water. Remus cries "Uncle, you sodding wanker!" but then immediately returns the favour; they splash and shove until they both forget that in a few short hours they will be far away from here wrestling with a moldering cesspool of unwanted familial memory rather than each other.

Presently they stumble out of the water and flop onto the grass, letting the night air rather than the usual magic dry out their sodden robes, and stare at the sky.

"I'm getting too old for this," Remus wheezes.

"You're never too old for this, Moony," Sirius gasps between breaths.

"You're one to talk."

"Shut up you insufferable git, and find my namesake up there."

Remus reaches over to slap Sirius; their hands brush, then slide into each other's easily, closing around the other's fingers to squeeze in friendly contact. They lay side-by-side for a while, hands clasped and chatting idly, pointing out the stars and clouded constellations; then Sirius transforms back to Padfoot to nuzzle against Remus, and they watch the sky in companionable silence until the moon sets and the first streaks of dawn ghost above them.

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Remus starts with the roll of thunder, already feeling the distant moonlit memory slip through his fingers like water. In the back of his sleep-addled mind he realizes that it is not July now but February, that he is dozing on the sofa in the library at Grimmauld Place, and that the sleet storm outside has picked up in strength, the frozen rain sluicing behind the shrouded windows. But there is warmth beside him and as he instinctively reaches out to it, he feels thin arms tighten around him, lips brush against his cheek, a fall of hair against his forehead; the scents of slightly damp dog, old books and moldering dust fill his nose.

Sirius' pale grey eyes are gleaming in the firelit dusk. "'Just remembering a moonlight swim, Moony," he murmurs with a slight stuffiness. "Go back to sleep." Remus only nods, eyelids already drooping; he does not see Sirius' eyes gaze past him to track the infinitesimal movements of the clock on the opposite wall, stretching out to infinity with each passing sweep.

All Remus knows is that from this distance in his dreams, behind his sleep-shimmering eyes, the great black dog bounding down the dew-spackled grass by the pond looks exactly like Padfoot.