Summer of 1975. It’s been a long year, and it’s only June. After exams, the start of summer came too fast. Remus said goodbye to everything good in his life — hogwarts, magic, the marauders. Gritting his teeth, he tried not to think. The four dank, bare walls of his room felt as though they might cave in any moment, and suddenly Remus couldn’t breathe well. He felt hot and tight and wound up; the way he usually does before a full moon (but he nearest one was weeks away still). When he creeped out into the musty hall, Ste and the remainder of Craig’s boys from last summer were waiting. The distraction was a welcome one, anyway. He wasn’t Loony Lupin or a half-human beast here with the boys, smoking and causing trouble just to pass the time. To bond over something. He was feeling antsy still, which he tried to snub it out with his new, rapidly growing habit. The cigarette hung from his lips between two lazy crooked fingers. Remus was staring absently at the asphalt, and the boys’ laughter and crude jokes fell away. All he could hear were crickets and tires far away. It has felt as though he has been bubbling with something dangerously close to boiling over. What, exactly— he couldn’t tell. Just that he needed another smoke.