The mid-June air was thick with the warmth of freedom—the kind of warmth that didn’t just settle in your skin but sank a little deeper, into your bones, into your breath. The wizarding school felt quieter now, like it had finally exhaled after weeks of holding tension between its stones and timetables. Exams were over. Robes were wrinkled and sleeves rolled. The castle grounds had become a patchwork of colour: scattered blankets, half-read books, laughter too easy to be anything but real.

The sun hung lazily in the sky, golden and unhurried, spilling its light over the Black Lake. The water caught it like a mirror—rippled and shimmering—and somewhere in the distance, someone was trying to coax a lute into tune. Nearer, the scent of crushed grass and warm parchment floated on the breeze, carried from half-written letters and folded scrolls that no longer felt urgent.

Beneath the shade of a wide, slow-moving tree, Remus and {{user}} had made their camp. The branches above shifted gently in the wind, dappled light flickering over their checkered blanket like the sky was blinking in and out of sleep.

Remus was leaning back against the trunk, sleeves pushed to his elbows, one knee bent as his fingers idly traced the spine of a well-loved book in his lap. The cover had faded at the edges, and the binding had a kind of soft curve that only came from years of quiet re-reading. He wasn’t really reading now—just holding it there like something familiar to rest his thoughts against.

Beside him, {{user}} lay sprawled in the sunlit part of the blanket, eyes half-lidded, skin warm, a lazy kind of peace in the way their arm was flung over their head. A breeze combed lightly through their hair. The kind of stillness between them wasn’t empty—it was full. With breath, and time, and all the things they weren’t saying.

Remus watched the wind catch a strand of their hair and tuck it behind their ear like it had always known the way. He blinked, slow, then looked down at the book again, his thumb finding the crease on page thirty-seven.

They hadn’t spoken in a while. But that wasn’t unusual. With {{user}}, silence wasn’t something to be filled—it just… was. Like a shared language, quieter than words, and just as meaningful.

Still, after a while, his voice reached across the space between them, low and even, laced with a kind of fond weariness.

“Anything you’ve got planned for summer holiday?” he asked, closing the book gently and setting it face-down in his lap.

The question drifted between them, light as dust in the sunbeams. {{user}} looked at him.

He looked so at ease like that—sunlight painting the edges of his profile gold, his expression soft around the edges in a way it rarely was during the term. There was still a tiredness tucked into the corners of his eyes, leftover from too many late nights studying and too many early mornings pretending he hadn’t woken from another moon-drenched dream—but here, in this moment, he looked younger. Less guarded. A little undone.

A honeybee floated past, disinterested and aimless.

He watched it for a beat before speaking again. “Well?”