Harry sat in the passenger seat of the mustard-yellow Vauxhall Astra, flumped against the seat, staring at the little house just outside the window. He rolled his head and looked at his father, who was making a face at his to-go cup of tea.

"Milk, they always put milk in," he muttered, putting the tea down in the cup holder.

"Dad, can't I just go and hang out with Uncle Padfoot at the shop instead?" Harry whined.

James was moving his tongue trying to get the taste of the milky tea out of his mouth. He looked over at Harry. "What's wrong with Mrs. Figg's?"

"There's just so many cats."

"Yeah, but she loves seeing you. She used to baby sit you when you were a baby, you know."

"I know."

"Only person your Mum trusted when the four of us weren't available," James added.

"Why though?"

"Mrs. Figg once did something very kind for your mother and she never forgot it," James said.

"What did she do?"

"I'll explain it to you one day but that day is not today. I've got to go and meet Uncle Moony and you dallying about will make me late."

Harry looked at the house, then looked back at James. "But Dad, hear me out, Uncle Padfoot likes it when I'm 'round his shop. I help out. He says I can have a job there one day."

"Yes but today he has a show being put on and there's a lot of people going to be crammed into that little shop and Sirius is going to be extremely busy and last thing he needs is to be keeping up with you in all that hallabaloo." James reached over and nudged Harry's chin with his knuckles gently, "Hey Bub, it won't be so bad. I'll come and fetch you in no time. Just a couple hours."

Harry sighed.

"Besides, you like Rodger - cats aren't so bad."

Harry looked at James.

"When I get home, we'll toss the quaffle about."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I promise."

"Alright." Harry sighed and pushed open the Astra's door. It took a couple tries before it let out and when it did it creaked horribly.

"Gotta get that door fixed again it sounds," James murmured. He smiled as Harry climbed out and bent down to grab his bag from the floor, which he'd stuck in one of his textbooks for perusing. Harry waved half heartedly as he wandered up the walk way to the door, rang the bell, and waited for Mrs. Figg to answer. James used his pointer fingers to indicate for Harry to smile and Harry frowned all the harder back and James chuckled. "Why is he so much like me, Evans?" he muttered quietly. "Gods, you'd be havin' flashbacks everyday. Reckon he'd be as much like me if it was you that'd raised him? Or have I simply corrupted our boy?" He watched the door open and Mrs. Figg shuffled out in her furry house shoes and exclaimed over Harry, hugging him with wide open arms and excitedly kissing his forehead. James smiled as she ushered Harry inside and took a deep breath. "Nah, he'd be more like you if you were here, I know it. And that'd be a good thing."

James shifted off with the Astra then, pulling away from the curb and rolling down the road. He turned down Privet Drive, passing Number 4 he glanced over and wondered how Lily's sister Petunia and her family were doing, whether they were alright, and thought for a moment about maybe sending them a letter. Hadn't their boy just recently had a birthday, too? Dudley was his name, wasn't it? Horrid name, that. Who would name their child something as terrible as Dudley?

But the thought was lost to his mind as he popped on the invisibility charm and picked up speed, the Astra lifting off and headed for London.

James felt more and more nervous as he got closer to the college. He'd never been a model before - he worried if he'd worn the right clothes or if he ought to have brushed his hair, though even as he thought it he ran his fingers through it and would've mussed up any combing he'd done as a result. He thought fleetingly of his Dad's old sales pitch for Sleekeazy and he smirked to himself.

Charuls would've been falling over himself with excitement at the thought that James might actually find a use for the stuff. "Still flying off the shelves, innit, Jamesie?" his old dad would've said if he were here. It was true, much to James's dismay. Witches and wizards alike still used Sleekeazy everyday and the money kept streaming into Gringott's from the proceeds.

James came to a stop outside an office door which was affixed with a little plastic placard which read, Professor R. J. Lupin, Art Studies. The placard made him smile and melted about half his anxieties away. He drew a deep breath and knocked.

"Come in," came Remus's stressed voice from inside.

James pushed open the door. "Professor Lupin, my dog ate my homework!" he said in a whiney voice as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him, "I really need you to talk to your husband about keeping his mouth off my studies!"

Remus looked up from where he was going through a pile of papers, his hair all dissheveled and hanging over his forehead. "You know I have no control over what my husband does," he said, "I never have and I never will."

James laughed and sat himself down in a chair in front of Remus's desk. He leaned forward and plucked an orange from a bowl of them on his desk - a lovely Costra Rican orange. Remus and Sirius always had Costa Rican oranges on hand everywhere they went. He stuck his thumb through the skin and pulled the peel off, flooding the office with the smell of ripe orange. Remus paused and took a deep breath.

"Gods alive, that scent --" Remus smiled.

James grinned and tossed a wedge of fruit into his mouth.

He was still eating the orange as they walked through the college corridors a few minutes later, headed for the arts room that Remus's class final would be conducted in. It was a large room with warm lighting, filled with easels mounted with canvases, stools before each one, all spread about the room, all facing a short plinth at the front that reminded James of the staff tables in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. On the plinth, Remus had set up a chair with a short table beside it upon which stood a brass-looking lamp shaped like a large stag with a green lampshade. On the chair sat a bag.

James grinned around the orange in his mouth, "A stag lamp, huh?"

"I saw it in one of the other professors offices and begged them to let me borrow it for today. I thought the lamp would throw an interesting shadow on your face if we turned it on and give the students some lighting to play with and also adds a bit of irony to the portrait, doesn't it?"

James nodded, "That it does." He went over and picked up the bag, "What's this?"

Remus smiled, "Thought you might like some reading material."

James opened the bag and found a book - Only You Can Save Mankind by Terry Pratchett, a science-fiction novel. He grinned. "Excellent."

James settled into the chair and Remus turned on the lamp and directed James how to sit and how to hold his head so that he was both comfortable enough to sit still for four hours and in an aesthetically interesting position. "Make sure to smile so they have to draw your quirly tooth."

"Gyrari tooth," James corrected, and he hitched his lip up on the tooth and smirked down at the book as he cracked opened the cover and settled into his pose.

Students were coming in by then and Remus checked the clock and stepped into the hall to see to the last of them coming in. James watched as they unpacked paints and created color pallettes and washed brushes in sinks along the far wall in preparation. The easels filled one by one as people chose their spots and soon all but one was occupied. Remus hovered by the door until quarter past and finally sighed and closed the door. He was muttering and shaking his head as he did it, James noticed, and took down the empty easel.

There wasn't any official call for the exam to begin, other than Remus saying good morning and introducing that their model was his good mate, James. The students simply started painting after that, and James sank himself into his book and tried not to think about all the people staring at him and, even harder than that, tried not to move his face or limbs too much, aside from the occasional flip of the page of the book. Every now and then a student would step a bit closer to examine the color of his eyes or hair and then step back and muse to themselves as they returned to their easels. James tried to stay focused on the story of the book, which had a boy entering into a video game like the ones Harry sometimes talked about which were played on the muggle telly.

They'd been at it for nearly two and a half hours when the door of the room banged opened. James struggled not to look up at the sound of it, especially when Remus stood up and went as quickly as he could toward the door. "Everyone keep working," Remus called as he went past the students.

"I'm so bloody sorry, I'm such an eejit," came a woman's voice. "I got sidelined and I know I'm late --"

"This exam began two and a half hours ago, Miss. Fuentes."

The door to the hall opened and closed as Remus took the girl outside.

"She's always late," whispered one girl in the front to another. "You'd think she'd put in a little effort."

"Right? Like, she must be so lazy," replied the other.

"She was probably out all night," the first one said quietly, knowingly, suggestively.

The other one laughed.

James stared very hard at the book pages.

After a few minutes, the door of the classroom opened and Remus came back in with the girl and they quietly set up the easel and canvas back up that Remus had put away at the start of the exam. James felt a funny rush of relief knowing Remus had let the girl stay, rather than kicking her out for her tardiness and he tried to ignore the catty comments from the two girls in the front of the room.

"Wonder what she offered to do to get the rules to bend like that?" whispered the second girl under her breath, and the first one laughed.

James felt like the remaining hour and a half went quite quick considering, and was actually rather surprised when Remus announced the time was near to up and that they ought to be finishing and cleaning up. The students all seemed to oblige and James unhinged his jaw and stretched for the first time, dropping the nearly finished novel onto the chair as he stood up with a groan. His back cracked and he muttered, "Blimey, when did we become old men, Rey?"

Remus chuckled as he turned off the lamp and pulled the plug from the wall.

A couple students came up and started talking to Remus, thanking him for the term and such, and James wandered around the room, looking at the paintings of himself. Some of them were quite good and he actually could recognize himself in them. He'd wandered entirely around the room before he came to the easel of the girl who'd arrived late - coming up from behind her.

She'd barely gotten started compared to the others. She'd gotten a flat version of the image created, no real depth or shading, just basic color smudged onto the canvas in thick strokes. She was sitting with her head down, staring at the brushes in her hands, and James could see tears on her face.

He hesitated, then stepped closer. "Alright?" he asked awkwardly.

She looked up.

He was shocked to see a familiar face. If it hadn't been so recent, he might not have remembered her, but it had only been a couple days since he'd been run-in with the door at the art shop near to Diagon Alley. Her dark brown hair created a curtain over her cheeks.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

She looked up at him. She had bright eyes that glistened with the unshed tears.

"Just - because you're crying," he pointed out.

The girl was about to reply when Remus walked over. "Hey Daisy," he said, "How's it going?" He looked at the canvas and sighed.

Daisy looked up at Remus. "Horribly, I'm afraid."

"Well, at least there's something on the canvas, so it won't be a total loss," Remus said gently. He looked the artwork over. "It's an exceptional start, really, your color blocking is really nicely done..."

"I told you, my daughter -"

"I know, I understand."

Daisy sighed, "I don't know why I took a class to begin with, I should've known better than to think I could possibly carve out the time to do it. Thank you Remus for what you've taught me, I truly appreciate it, you've been a lovely professor, but we both know I needed a better grade on this than I've earned in order to pass."

Remus frowned.

Daisy got up and stepped around the easel. "I'll just clean these up and be out of your way." She went over to the sinks across the room.

James watched her go, then looked at Remus.

"She's an exceptional artist," Remus whispered, "But terribly distracted. Been late or absent nearly every class, but her work's been so grand she's managed at squeaking a passing grade. If she'd gotten high marks today, she'd have passed, but --" he looked at the canvas and pursed his lips.

James said, "Oh."

"She really needed to get here on time," Remus sighed. "Even if she'd had just a little longer, she might've pulled it off."

James stared at the art on the canvas.

Daisy came back, tucking her brushes into a cloth that she rolled up and shoved roughly into a book bag.

James was speaking before he realized what he was saying, "If Daisy has time to finish the painting would you accept it a bit late?"

Remus and Daisy both looked at James.

"I - I could sit a bit longer," he said.

Daisy's eyes widened. She looked at Remus.

Remus hesitated, "I mean you've been here four hours, James, and the school won't pay for any longer, and --"

"I don't care about the money, you already know that, Rey," James said.

Remus looked at his watch, then up at Daisy. "Do you reckon another hour or two might be enough?" he asked.

Daisy was breathless, "Yes. If you - you don't mind," she added, looking at James.

"I hadn't quite finished my book anyway," James said.