Regulus woke with a scream, flinging himself up from what he thought was the ground but was really his mattress. He fell headlong out of his four poster and onto the floor of his room - his mind still half in dream, the floor was water - and he screamed all the louder, shaking and scrambling as his mind parted from the dream and re-paired with reality.

He was gasping, choking for air, tears filling his eyes as he came to, disoriented and clutching his chest. Looking around the room, his face twisted into a horrible grimacing frown, the sort of face an unhappy toddler would make, the guttural cries of a child breaking out of him as he rocked himself.

Kreacher appeared at his side. "Master Regulus! Master Regulus, Kreacher is here! Kreacher is here. Kreacher will make his Master safe..."

Regulus couldn't speak, he was too overwhelmed.

There was something dark breaking like waves in his chest, like a smoke or a liquid, like a memory that wasn't there, a gap where something terrible once had been. The feeling inside of him reminded him of the look of the puckered flesh on his wrist, the scars where his wand had seared the Mark from his skin, leaving behind exposed muscle that new skin had to grow over like a covering being stretched between the walls of burned flesh that formed around the edge of the wand's burning.

Something had been there, but it was taken away, and the remaining bit still bore the unintentional residue.

This dream - it was unintentional residue, too, just like the edges of the Dark Mark. He knew it. He could feel it. Because things like that, no matter how hard one works to take away, cannot fully be removed or hidden away. Despite all the work that might be done to force it from the surface, there's always some ickle little bit that gets through and lurks and waits to come up. Here, something lurked in Regulus, the edges of something which had been taken, something that, if found, would complete a puzzle...

Kreacher was petting Regulus's shorn head and his eyes were wide with concern. "Kreacher hates when Master is sad like this," the elf's voice was sad. "Every time Master dreams bad things and remembers the nightmare he has such sad times and Kreacher is here to comfort his Master and do as his Master wishes... Kreacher will care for Master if Master will only tell Kreacher what he must do..."

Regulus was hugging his knees... rocking... sobbing...

"It is most unfair, most unfair... Kreacher hates Master's pain, Kreacher hates Master's pain... Ohh if only Kreacher could take it from Master, Kreacher would... Kreacher would have the nightmare himself for Master so that Master did not have to, and he would not have to remember the nightmare."

Regulus could barely hear the elf, so caught up inside the cyclone of pain and darkness raging around him... he felt like he was seated in the eye of a terrible tornado, black and whirling around him... which was why he didn't comprehend it when Kreacher said, "Kreacher would have drank the nightmare in the cave for Master if Kreacher only could have done it..."

James couldn't stop thinking about his own dream. Every time his eyes landed on a clock, he paused, picturing that strange ocean shore, lined with thousands and thousands of clocks in every direction. He kept thinking, too, about that one watch - the watch he'd pulled from the water in the dream, the one that had given him so much panic as to scream at the sky before waking up. That watch was familiar. He'd seen it somewhere before. But where?

He stood now in the living room of the Potter cottage in Godric's Hollow, looping streamers over the mantel and he had taken pause at a golden clock Lily had put on the mantel, one she said reminded her of something, which had a pendulum which twisted clockwise, then counter-clockwise, clockwise, then counter-clockwise, like a hypnotic dancer.

"Are you nearly done with the streamers?" Lily called from the kitchen.

James shook his head to clear the dream away. "Nearly!" He yelled back. He looked about - he'd barely done anything yet. He looked at the streamer he'd been hanging by hand, then muttered, "Hell Remus doesn't care if I did it myself or with my magic..." and he flicked his wrist and a pile of streamers on the coffee table seemed to burst, exploding all over the room, landing with incredible precision perfectly hung.

And not moment too late for Lily stepped into the room carrying a tray of sweets she'd laid out. "Oh it looks lovely, James, good job. Remus will be so excited."

"Thanks," he said, and he reached for a chocolate chip cookie but Lily swatted him off, "Stop it, those are for the party."

"Ugh, but I've done such a lot of hard work," he waved his palm at the decorations, "Haven't I earned a cookie?"

"Waving your wand hardly counts as hard work," Lily said, smirking.

James pouted, "Alright. Soft work then. Can't I have just one?"

"You can have as many as you want; later, though."

The fireplace flashed green and the energy and sound of Sirius Black came through then. "DECK THE HALLS FOR MOONY'S BIRTHDAY - fa lalalalala la la laa la - MAKE IT BRIGHT AND HAPP-PAY-AY..."

"Hap-pay-yay?" James asked.

Sirius was carrying his box of records and the record player in his arms, his hair hanging 'round his shoulders and a cone-shaped hat on his head, which flashed garishly and reminded James of the running lights on a game show set. His t-shirt was neon yellow and on it in bright red letters read, "I'm A Present".

Lily read the shirt. "You're a present?"

"Yes," Sirius sing-songed. "I asked Moony what he wants and I told him he could have anything in the world and he chose me."

"Didn't you get him one of you last year?" James asked.

"I'm the gift that keeps on giving, Prongs."

"Could've at least wrapped it."

"I think the wrapping is very nice, rather," Lily said, and she kissed Sirius in greeting, then batted his hand off the cookies, too. "Those are for LATER."

"Bloody hell, but I've done all the hard work of bringing the music for this shindig."

"Soft work deserves no cookies," James pouted.

"What?" Sirius looked confused.

"I'm in line first for the cookies, not you."

"Boy you lot are mean for party-revelers," Sirius accused.

James started working at blowing up balloons, using his wand to create them in different colors and patterns. Sirius would look over and laugh at them when they came out with funny shapes or pictures to them and James would blow them Sirius's direction with a flick of his wand as Sirius worked on creating the perfect song order for the evening. Once or twice James may have magicked the balloons to rub themselves on Sirius's scalp so that his hair was filled with static electricity and the ends of it stuck to the balloon as it floated over him.

"Stop it, you git," Sirius batted at the balloon currently attached by static to his hair. 

James laughed.

Lily had worked like mad to make the birthday cake and the dinner so that the house was warm and smelled delicious. James and Sirius went outside to get the preparations in the yard finished and when they came back inside they were both hanging about in the kitchen, trying to getting nips and tastes of the food and Lily pretended to look the other way a couple times to let them at it, rolling her eyes because the pair of them thought they were right sneaky and getting one over on her, giving each other thumbs up and wagging their eyebrows in triumph.

The evening was a great one. They had over all their friends and had a grand dinner 'round tables and chairs in the house, laughing and telling jokes and stories, which was Remus's favorite sort of conversation, and so it was right fitting that it was the sort they had for his birthday celebration. He was very happy for the delicious dinner, too, as he'd come directly from Uni feeling rather famished and peaky. Lily made sure he was stuffed right full. 

They sang happy birthday and cut the cake and Lily pressed a kiss to the top of Remus's head, "Welcome to nineteen, you old bugger."

Remus laughed and hugged her, "Thanks."

The real event was outside, where James and Sirius had built a great big bonfire in the backyard and the flames seemed to reach up into the sky and they'd managed to bewitch the smoke so that when one spoke a story the smoke took the form of elements of it, sort of enacting the story into a bit of a film. It was very brilliant, then, to sit and read the Tales of Beedle the Bard and of the Brothers Grimm and watch the smoke twist and turn and play out the stories. Remus's eyes were wide and captivated, and Sirius punctuated some of the smoke's scenes with bursts of sparks and stars shot up from his wand.

"I don't know how you lot did that," Remus murmured. "Wherever did you find that spell?" 

"Sirius did it," James said, shrugging.

Sirius grinned, and, mimicking Remus's words from James and Lily's wedding, said, "I'll never tell."

Remus got a good deal of wonderful gifts from everyone - and it was terribly evident how well they all knew him.

Peter had gotten him the usual - but much loved - bars of chocolate, but it was a big box full of different kinds and flavors, including a big bag of truffles with flavors of every sort ranging from tangerine to salt water taffy to bacon. "Chocolate covered bacon?" James said, eyes wide and Remus laughed and broke off a bit of that one for James to try.

Marlene gave him a jumper with books on it. Emmaline gave him several pairs of socks with pictures on them - one with books, another with bright orange stars, and one with green polka dots. "You can mix and match," she explained. These went perfectly with the trunk at Frank and Alice had given him, which rolled and flipped and tucked to hold a good deal of jumpers and shirts, with little drawers that popped out and enough magically extended space to store an entire closet in one little case that he could easily carry about.

"These things are brilliant," Frank said, "We took one to Brazil with us and got looks from all the bus boys for having too little luggage."

"Yeah," Ali said, "I got to bring all my things and Frank couldn't even complain I'd overpacked."

"She's very good at overpacking," he whispered to Jasper.

Jasper gave Remus a book of tickets for free ice cream, "Ought to last you a year or more, I'd reckon," he said. "And I've made a special flavor up just for you - Remus Rum Fudge Ripple!"

"Is it Remus flavored?" Sirius asked, "Because I'll take that in a dish to go." He grinned.

James had a collection of books that chronicled some of the lore of the wizarding world as told by a historian called Tolkien, including a new volume that had been published the year before. "I hope you haven't gotten these before now," James said, "I don't think you had as I didn't see them on the shelves at the flat, and I reckon you likely know all this stuff already..." But the books were beautiful leather-bound volumes that had gold foil gilding and beautiful pages with ink-drawn illustrations and maps that Remus really hadn't seen before and he would reckon later that James must've spent a fortune on such a beautiful set of books.

Lily's gift was a tea kettle, but it wasn't an ordinary tea kettle, it was a very special tea kettle in that when it was warm it whistled classical music and each time it made a different song and it glowed different colors, too, depending how hot the water inside of it was so Remus could always tell by a glance if the water was precisely the temperature he wanted it to be, depending on his mood. 

Sirius grinned as Remus's eyes turned to him after he'd opened all the other presents. He pointed to his chest and Remus laughed and said, "I think that's the best one of them all."

"Well! Just you wait 'til you unwrap it later," Sirius said boisterously.

"Keep it wrapped for now," James urged, and they all laughed. 

After the presents, they made s'mores with chocolate bars and marshmallows and Sirius's record player set the tone as they just enjoyed one another's company, all bundled up, and spending until the wee hours together, simply enjoying their lives and looking up at the stars until the bonfire had burned out and all that was left of the day was the memory and a pile of wood ash and cinders.