"I have a strange request."

"What's that, Moony?" Sirius was stroking Buckbeak's feathers. They had landed in the woods and allowed Buckbeak to rest - and Remus, too - while Sirius transformed and bolted through the woods, stealth and quick as a dog, collecting a few wild rabbits, which he returned with to the clearing. He fed most of the rabbits to Buckbeak, but had made a stew for himself and Remus. It wasn't great, it was fairly watery and the rabbit was tough, and there were very few vegetables or fruits to be found to add to the flavor, so they basically had meat and warm water...

"Well, we're - we're crossing through Canada, yeah?"

"Mhm," Sirius nodded, foused on Buckbean's neck.

"I'd like to stop at Niagara."

"The falls?"

"Yes. Well, close by to it. There's a place there... Table Rock. It overlooks the falls. There's a visiting center there and just a little road and -- I just need to see it. Just for a few minutes. Do you think we could stop?"

Sirius shrugged. "I don't reckon why not. What'll we do with Beaky? There's not really any place to hide a hippogriff 'round a place like that, I'd imagine?"

It took some talking and a good deal of circling about once they'd reached Ontario, but they found a patch of woods not far from the Center itself that Remus wanted to go to and Sirius brought Buckbeak to the ground there among the trees. They tied Buckbeack secure and Sirius left a couple leftover rabbits there for Beaky to eat while they were gone.

It didn't matter that the caps of his knees and the joint of his hips were bothering him, Remus walked briskly toward the center the moment they had cleared the trees, his eyes focused straight ahead with a brightness that Sirius couldn't quite figure out. Remus was teeming with a feeling between determination, pride, and nostalgia and those feelings flooded Sirius up, too, so he followed a couple steps behind Remus, wondering what they were doing.

The center was bristling with people, loads of trinkets in the gift shop captivating their attention. There were pins and baby spoons meant for collecting. There were stuffed animals and sweets and a special section of media items - books and documentaries about the history of the Falls... Sirius glanced about at these items as they passed them, even as Remus moved with a one-track motion past everything that might distract him. There was a spinner of postcards and Sirius paused, always a bit of a sucker for a good spinner of postcards, and as he turned the rack about, he glanced up, eyes landing on a framed poster for an old film that had once been made there at Niagara Falls, and the smiling face of the pretty muggle woman who had starred in the film stared back at him.

"Oh," he whispered, seeing her there.

He turned, abandoning the postcard rack, and rushed after Remus, who was already out the front doors of the visitor center and on the front steps. Sirius skidded to Remus's side and found they were standing on a sidewalk in front of the center, staring across a cobble-stoned pavement toward the viewing area overlooking the waterfall. Remus stood still there for several seconds, just staring across the road.

Sirius knew exactly what Remus Lupin was thinking about.

Sirius reached out and took Remus's hand in his own quietly and Remus felt the squeeze of Sirius's fingers.

"Alright, Moony?" Sirius barely breathed the words.

"Everything I've ever read about her said that she hated this shot," Remus whispered, his voice as low as though he were speaking in a hallowed ground. Sirius could almost smell the spice of incense that one might expect in a grand Cathedral like Westminster Abbey or St. Paul's for the reverence in Remus's voice. "Hated filming it, hated seeing it played back. It became so iconic to the muggles when she left. The poetry of it, you know? Her walking away from the camera like that."

Sirius looked at the silhouette of Remus's face in profile.

"I always loved it though. There was this moment, as she's walking away, when she smiles." Remus's eyes searched the view, appraising it for a moment. "That garden wasn't there," he pointed, "But look, see, in the distance, that building - that bridge... this lamp post." He stuck out his palm, pressing it to the stone base of a large iron lamp post. "It would've been just across there."

Sirius looked at the details Remus pointed out, things he'd never noticed in the several times - long ago - that Remus had shown him the film.

Suddenly, Remus was walking forward.

He stepped off the curb, and Sirius started to follow, but then he stopped and he stood there and watched Remus instead as Remus walked across the pavement in exactly the same trajectory as his mother, stepping carefully over the cobbled stones. Sirius glanced around and saw a man down the sidewalk snapping a photograph with a Polaroid camera. It reminded him of Marlene McKinnon's old one, and he looked back to Remus, who was just stepping off the pavement onto the roadway, passing that old lamp post.

"Excuse me," Sirius said, putting on his best charming smile, "Might I borrow your camera for just one quick photo?" he dug about in his pocket, "I'm willing to pay." He glanced back at Remus, now on the street...

The man hesitated, but Sirius scooped the camera quickly up from his hands and hurried to line up his shot, a quick aim of the lens and - luckily it was quite a lot like Marlene's old Polaroid, though it had a few more attachments and a big bump that flashes bright when he clicked the button and a moment later it was whirring, spitting out his white framed photo.

"Here you are, thanks mate," he handed back the camera and a five pound bill and rushed after Remus, holding the Polaroid in his fist, the picture slowly developing.

Remus walked, thinking purely of his mother. Her pretty smile, her honeyed voice, her bright eyes and the blonde hair she'd given him in his younger years, before time and lycanthropy had darkened his features.

It felt significant, it felt slow-motion.

He could almost feel her.

"Mum?" he breathed the word. He imagined her there, even if only in spirit.

You ran to escape things, too. He thought, picturing him talking to her. You ran away from cages people built around you to be with the man you loved, too. Just like I'm doing. You were happier than ever, you always said that, you were happy when you ran. Sirius makes me happy, mum. You'd understand, wouldn't you?

Probably better than I even do right now.

He reached the far side of the road, where the overlook had a railing and he leaned against it, staring over the waterfall, the mist rising up and cooling his face, illuminating the water like diamonds floating up from the depths. He let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding.

She would've supported the choice to escape.

More, she would have understood.

Him and Sirius and this adventure, wherever it would take them, however strange others might find their escape... Hope Lupin, above all people, would have understood.

She'd done precisely the same thing - defied odds, faced judgement and expectations to fit into a framework built for her by culture and people who didn't understand, to run away, escape, to go to a place far away from home, on the arm of the one person that she loved, that understood her, who loved her back, who society never would have accepted in the picture perfect world that she'd been trapped in for so long...

Suddenly Sirius was at his side.

Silently, Sirius held out the Polaroid photograph he'd taken.

Remus took it, looking down as the image finished developing.

It was him, Remus.

But it looked like her.

"Thanks, love," he whispered.