For Ceciliaregent.

"'Hhhooo,'" Sirius said, "'hhhooo,' and he, 'mmmgrrrrrnn,' and she, 'hhhooosssss mmmm mmmm mmmm,' and they, 'mmmm mmmm mmmm mmmmmmmmm,' 1234123412341."

Remus wiped his glasses with his handkerchief--he had smudged them with chalk again after his lecture. He never remembered to clean his hands, no matter how many times Sirius laughed at him, and was forever turning up with streaks of white on clothing and cheeks and fingertips. He trailed them behind him, markers, so he could always be found, so friends could say, "He was here," say, "Remus Lupin," say, "here," and know where he had been.

"Well?" Sirius hurled himself backwards in his chair, nearly fell over, as if he weren't upside down already and inside out and. "It's rubbish, isn't it. Go on, say it's rubbish, I know you want to. What was I thinking, writing a novel? Hah! A novel, if you please. A novel."

"Sirius," Remus said.

Sirius leapt up and started pacing, pacing, back and forth, two feet by two feet, pacing. "You might have said, you know. I've only been slaving over it for--and oh, Mother is going to have such--and James! Remus, you arse, why didn't you--"

"Sirius."

"Birth of the World--death of it, anyway. Why do I do these things, when I would be so much better off just, just--it oughtn't--I have these feelings, you know, Remus--You know, and I can't, I try, but they're trapped, somehow, since the war, god, they're down in the trenches, I think, and --"

"Sirius!"

Finally Sirius stopped.

"It's wonderful," Remus said.

"Right."

"Right."

He sat again, fingers fiddling with his coffee cup, which was how Remus knew (not that he wouldn't have anyway, he knew Sirius well, better than anyone, better even than James who had known Sirius best of all before the war, before the trenches and the smoke and Sirius, lost, lost, how he knew, and the map said here, said Sirius Black but it wasn't, not Sirius, not really, not like this was, this Birth of the World) that he was lost. "It's extraordinary," he said, and Sirius smiled, and Remus was there, chalky fingers on his cheek and kissing him, mmmm, "extraordinary."

It was, it was a new world, a new life, a new chance, a new Sirius, the same Sirius redone, black hair falling onto bare skin and Remus and lips against his throat, his chest, his Remus, it was new, new, and the same, and Sirius was. "Hhhooo," he said, and he mmmm and mmmm and Remus, mmmm and together they moved they breathed they twisted they moaned they grunted lifted touched lived lived livedlived.

"We are waves," Remus said, "and particles, at once, we are around each other and through each other and in each other and pass and interfere and melt," and Sirius said, "yes," and "Remus," and Remus, "Sirius."

Later they would share with James and Lily, and the coffee stood cold on the counter, untouched cups with fingerprints around the edge of one unseen, and chalk upon the other, on the handle, just a thumb and forefinger and they sat unremembered while James and Lily and Remus and Sirius drank in cafes and talked and read and birthed the world anew, shining, unseen, not the trenches, not the grime, not the death turning dusty the green fields of Europe but brightness and Paris in springtime and Vienna in June and the unknown and the four of them finding it out.

Later they would come back to the flat and up and inside and over, over, day, night, day, sunday, monday, august, may, Remus, "Sirius" and Sirius, "Remus," and "yes," they said, and "yes."