fox_confessor (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
fox_confessor) wrote2010-05-18 07:28 am
fox_confessor) wrote2010-05-18 07:28 am
Entry tags:
Fic: These Four Kings (Year One 4/7) Harry Potter
Title: These Four Kings (Year One 4/7)
Author: Dani (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
escribo)
Word Count: 2912
Rating: PG
(Pairings: in the future will be remus/sirius, lily/james)
Timeline: January 28 (Friday) 1971
Summary: There are some things Lily will never understand.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. I've not made nor seek any profit.
one/ two/ three
The sun was already setting low and casting shadows throughout the castle when Lily walked back from the owlery where she had spent most of her free period that Friday afternoon. She listened to the clicking sound her shoes made on the broad flagstones of the stairs leading back to Gryffindor Tower. Usually there were so many people around that she couldn't hear herself think much less hear her own footsteps. She liked that, mostly, the way she never felt alone, especially now that Petunia wouldn't even answer her letters.
At the thought of her sister, Lily stopped in front of one of her favorite portraits, that of the Brontë sisters, and smiled as they stopped in their quiet industry to smile and wave back at her. Charlotte had been Petunia's favorite and the portrait was one of the first things Lily had written home about. Lily had never imagined that the Brontë's had been witches, couldn't have, though now she even knew that it was suspected that their younger brother, Branwell, had been a squib. Petunia had called her a liar and Lily had ripped up her letter and not written her again for weeks.
Petunia didn't understand, Lily thought, as she moved more quietly through the halls. Petunia would never understand magic, Severus had said, and she believed him now. How could Petunia? Lily hadn't believed it herself, even after Severus had explained so much to her. It wasn't until she was sitting on the rickety stool in front of the whole school and the Sorting Hat had declared her a Gryffindor before she truly believed this was all real. That she was a witch. That the strange things she could do really were magic. Petunia couldn't understand that, and Lily didn't know how she could ever explain it.
Of course, Severus was another sore point between her and Petunia. Lily stopped again in the middle of the hall and pressed her fingers to her lips. Petunia hated him but it was just another thing she didn't understand--couldn't understand. He could be kind, was very kind to Lily. She was sure she would be lost without him. None of the other girls in Gryffindor could cast a protective charm in D.A.D.A. or manage a decent summoning charm. Only James and Sirius matched her in Transfiguration and Remus in Astronomy. None of the Gryffindors could come close to her in Potions and that was all due to Severus.
A sound like a stack of books falling startled Lily from her thoughts, and she looked around, surprised to find herself down an unfamiliar hall. It was one she was sure she had never been in before, dim and filled with suits of armor that she was sure were watching her. Lily turned to retrace her steps but stopped again when she heard another sound coming from one of the rooms further down the hall that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She looked at the armor nearest her and considered again just finding her way back to the Gryffindor common room but then forced her feet forward.
The rooms along the hall were dark and empty, as if they hadn't been used for classes in two ages. She could hear voices now, two of them, one deeper than the other, but both had the same kind of tense excitement as when some of her classmates played wizards' chess, encouraging each other and whispering strategies. She wondered for a moment if ghosts could play chess and wasn't quite sure she wanted to find out, even as she eased around the final suit of armor and peeked into the last darkened classroom.
The desks were all pushed to one end of the room, as Professor Lindt sometimes did when they had practical lessons in D.A.D.A.. In a circle of light, Lily saw the backs of two people and knew immediately that she hadn't stumbled upon ghosts. Lily took a step back, meaning to leave, not wanting to interrupt whatever the pair were up to and risk being drawn into a prank.
A different sound altogether, a kind of panicked scrambling of fingernails on wood, stopped her feet.
"She's pretty, your mum, but she can't save you, can she?" The voice was no more than a whisper but still carried out into the hall and Lily took another step back.
"All she can do is cry. They're so very weak, Muggles. It's all they can do. Like you."
"Why don't you cry for her now? I think I'd like to hear that."
Lily recognized the voices now and clasped her hand against her throat to keep from making a sound. The Lestrange brothers were sixth year Slytherins with a reputation for being determined to make all the first years cry at least once. They'd already had Lily in tears within her first month at Hogwarts along with Grace Prewitt and Sabine Bolingbroke when they had transfigured Sabine's pet rat into a great spider and threatened to trample it beneath their boots before being caught at it by Professor Flitwick. There had even been a rumor that they'd made Sirius Black cry, though he denied it loudly, but even Potter and Black hadn't tried to take revenge on the brothers, afraid, she thought, of what the brothers would do to get back at them.
Lily took another step away from the door, trying not to listen to the brothers' speech. It was entrancing, though, their voices gentle if their words terrifying. Lily wrapped her arms around her middle and took another step back, finding the wall against her back.
"We'll make you cry."
"You know that we can."
"Would you like to see her again? We could open the door again."
"Put you inside."
"You could be with her."
"She could you sing you lullabies while you go mad."
The voices were so deceptively calm, so pleasing in their menace, that they could have been talking about almost anything in the world. Lily crept back toward the door, needing to see, and watched as the brothers maneuvered a struggling boy between them. His arms were caught behind his back as Rodolphus, the taller of the twins, reached out to rest his fingers on the handle of a cabinet that was rocking violently as if something was trying to escape it. The boy breathed out something that sounded somewhere between a whimper and a plea.
"Go on, Lupin," Rabastan said, and Lily sucked in her breath, clamping her hand over her mouth in case she could be heard. "Ask your Muggle mother to come save you."
"Ask her to come out again."
"No? I don't think he's going to cry, this one, Rodolphus, not over a stupid boggart."
"There's other ways, of course."
Lily watched as Rodolphus pushed Remus toward his brother and Rabastan caught Remus' other arm, pulling it behind him.
"I'm getting bored," Rodolphus said as he drew his wand and turned to pace the room. "Let's just finish this up. I don't want to miss dinner."
"Then we should just do it fast." Rabastan pushed Remus to the floor and stepped to stand next to his brother. Rodulphus, who had been using his wand to trace his name in flaming blue letters, lowered it level with his Rabastan's. His voice was still just as conversational, as if they were discussing a Potions lesson to a particularly dim student. "They're only Unforgiveable when they know you've performed them, you see."
"And I figure you won't tell, right?" Rodulphus knelt down in front of Remus and grabbed his ankle, jerking on it hard. "Because it's not the only Unforgiveable we know, the Cruciatus curse."
"He's just a first year, Rodulphus, and a Muggle at that. He probably doesn't know the Unforgiveables."
"This should be an excellent lesson then."
Lily spun around then, meaning to run for a teacher, but her feet wouldn't move. If the Lestrange brothers really meant to perform an Unforgiveable, then she didn't have time. She looked wildly around the hall, searching for anything that could offer help but found only the suits of armor staring emptily back at her. Finally, she had an idea.
Pulling her wand, Lily ran silently across the hall to another of the empty classrooms, and took a deep breath. She'd never used a charm to lift anything heavier than a book, but now she took aim at the suit of armor and whispered Wingardium Leviosa. The armor lifted and then dropped with a clatter against the stone floor, its pieces scattering loudly around the hall. Lily quickly pointed to another and sent it skittering into the first before she heard heavy boots pounding forward and she hid herself in the darkness, hoping the Lestrange brothers didn't bother to search too hard for the source of the noise. Fortunately, the boys seemed more interested in not being caught as they ran away, and Lily breathed a heavy sigh after listening to their retreat, pressing a hand to her chest before she dared to look out.
The suits of armor lay on the floor, an empty helmet staring up at Lily as she crept back toward the room. She found Remus on the floor, alone, his hands over his face, and she watched as his chest moved heavily, as if he'd just run a race.
"Are you all right?" she whispered.
Remus jumped, crawling awkwardly up onto his knees. "Who's there?"
"It's me. Lily."
"What are you doing here? The Lestrange--"
"I scared them off. With the suits of armor." Lily took another step inside the room and lifted her wand, whispered Lumos. "Are you really all right?"
"I'm fine."
"You're not." Lily walked toward him and knelt on the floor, putting her hand on his shoulder. "You should go to the infirmary."
"I can't." Remus washed his hands over his face one last time before he dropped them at his sides, plucking at his trousers, and gave out a great sigh. "I need to go to the library to finish my Charms essay and she'll keep me for ages."
The cupboard gave a heave, rocking against the wall, and they both jerked their heads up to look at it.
"What is it?" Lily hissed, her hand squeezing Remus' shoulder and missing his wince of pain.
"It's just a boggart."
"They said your mother." Lily stopped talking, not able to make herself repeat what the Lestrange brothers had said. "I thought it was just a ghost."
"No. It turns itself into your worst fear. I saw my mum and she was--" Remus stopped and Lily watched as he bit his lip, remembering, and then he shook his head as if to rid himself of it.
"You have to tell, Remus. What they did."
"No, I don't." Remus gingerly got to his feet, rubbed his hand over his shoulder, before he began looking around for his book bag. He found it in a corner of the room, ignoring the boggart when it gave the cabinet another shudder.
"Not to me, I didn't mean."
"Not to anyone." Remus picked up his bag and shoved his spilled books back into it, checking that his wand was still tucked inside. He lifted it onto his shoulder, wincing a bit again.
"Then I'm going to tell Professor McGonagall."
"No, Lily. Don't. Please." Remus turned away from her and she took a step closer to him but stopped when he took a step away. "They do it because they think I'm weak. It'll be worse if--"
"It's not tattling."
"I wasn't going to say that."
"They were going to perform one of the Unforgiveables, Remus. We have to tell."
"They were just trying to scare me."
By the way Remus' voice wavered and how pale and gray his skin was in the dim light of Lily's wand, Lily thought they had done a good job but kept quiet. She watched as he adjusted his bag on his shoulder again then pulled his hands into the sleeves of his robe so that she couldn't see his hands shake.
"I'm fine," he said. "I really just need to get my homework done before the weekend."
"Do you have to go home again?"
Remus' expression was suddenly unreadable and Lily was the first to look away, her heart beating hard in her chest, though she couldn't say why she felt more afraid now than she had earlier with the Lestrange's so near. She shook her head and clasped her hands into fists, angry with herself. She couldn't help but think of how there were so very many things that she didn't understand herself about magic and felt a sudden warmth of understanding toward Petunia.
Lily sighed and watched as Remus walked toward the door before following him, giving one last look at the cabinet that held the boggart. Remus carefully looked both ways down the hall, satisfying himself, Lily thought, that the Lestrange brothers were really gone, before he took a step into the hall.
"Are you sure you're all right, Remus?"
"I'm fine," he said again as they stepped over the pieces of armor that still littered the hall. He stopped suddenly, cocking his head to the side as if listening for the brothers to return, and then turned to Lily, stopping her with a hand to her wrist. "Thank you, Lily, for what you did but I don't want to talk about it anymore, all right?"
"Sure, if you want."
"And please don't tell anyone."
"I won't."
"Thank you," he said again and took an awkward step away from her as if suddenly realizing he was touching a girl, and blushed. "I need to go. We shouldn't stay up here."
Lily nodded and followed Remus down the hall and a flight of stairs until they were back to a more familiar part of the castle. She couldn't think of anything else to say, her mind on the Lestrange brothers, on the things they had said, and the way that Remus had hardly made a sound through it all when she knew that anyone else would have been reduced to tears, knew that she would be crying still. She sneaked a look at him as they walked, at the determined set of his mouth and the glint of his deep brown eyes that seemed a bit dimmed from their usual brightness.
"I'd like you to come to my birthday party on Sunday," Lily said impulsively, putting her hand on his sleeve to stop Remus before he could turn toward the library, and forced herself to smile. "I mean, it's not really a party but it'll be fun. My mum is sending cake, muggle cake." Lily caught Remus' hand and felt it tremble against her own and knew that he wasn't as unaffected as he pretended and she admired him even more.
"I don't think—"
"Professor McGonagall said that we could go up to the astronomy tower to see the full moon." It was there again, the closed off expression and the sense of danger that Lily couldn't quite place, but she plowed ahead, focusing on a spot just past Remus' shoulder. "It's not like presents and stuff. You don't to have to bring anything. It'll just be the other girls from Gryffindor and Benjamin Goran, Matthew McKinnon, and Nathan Stebbins from Ravenclaw." Lily gently tugged on Remus' hand, ignoring her own blush, and stepped closer, biting her lip.
"Is Severus going to be there."
"Yes." When Lily hesitated, Remus pulled his hand away, adjusted the strap of his book bag and took a step away. "He's my best friend," Lily finally said, straightening up and hating that felt that she needed to defend Severus to Remus. "You don't know him like I do."
"He hexed James and Sirius when—"
"They've hexed him."
"But he actually hurt James. Drew blood."
Lily looked away from Remus' steady gaze, not liking that she knew he was right and tried to remember all the times that James and Sirius had called Severus names, tried to trip him in the halls, or caused his books to fall, his ink bottle to spill, or his parchments to suddenly combust. "I'm sure he didn't mean to."
"All right, Lily," Remus said though he sounded doubtful. "I need to go."
"Will you at least think about it, Remus?"
"I can't—"
"Not about the party." Lily swung her hand dismissively, hating that she had asked him in the first place. She'd known since they had all come back from Christmas holidays that Remus was now suddenly friends with Potter and Black, and so Severus said that meant Remus was his enemy, too. Remus seemed too quiet, too thoughtful, and gentle to be anyone's enemy but Severus didn't want to hear it. Lily still hated that there were lines of allegiance and hated it even more that she found herself in a position of having to follow them. "I meant about telling Professor McGonagall. Or at least a prefect. They could have really hurt you."
"I can handle it.
"You shouldn't have to, Remus." But Remus was already walking away, disappearing around the corner on his way to the library. Lily turned herself and walked again towards Gryffindor Tower, thinking there were some things about magic that she was glad that Petunia would never learn about, things she didn't think she wanted to understand herself.
continued...
Author: Dani (
escribo)Word Count: 2912
Rating: PG
(Pairings: in the future will be remus/sirius, lily/james)
Timeline: January 28 (Friday) 1971
Summary: There are some things Lily will never understand.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended. I've not made nor seek any profit.
one/ two/ three
The sun was already setting low and casting shadows throughout the castle when Lily walked back from the owlery where she had spent most of her free period that Friday afternoon. She listened to the clicking sound her shoes made on the broad flagstones of the stairs leading back to Gryffindor Tower. Usually there were so many people around that she couldn't hear herself think much less hear her own footsteps. She liked that, mostly, the way she never felt alone, especially now that Petunia wouldn't even answer her letters.
At the thought of her sister, Lily stopped in front of one of her favorite portraits, that of the Brontë sisters, and smiled as they stopped in their quiet industry to smile and wave back at her. Charlotte had been Petunia's favorite and the portrait was one of the first things Lily had written home about. Lily had never imagined that the Brontë's had been witches, couldn't have, though now she even knew that it was suspected that their younger brother, Branwell, had been a squib. Petunia had called her a liar and Lily had ripped up her letter and not written her again for weeks.
Petunia didn't understand, Lily thought, as she moved more quietly through the halls. Petunia would never understand magic, Severus had said, and she believed him now. How could Petunia? Lily hadn't believed it herself, even after Severus had explained so much to her. It wasn't until she was sitting on the rickety stool in front of the whole school and the Sorting Hat had declared her a Gryffindor before she truly believed this was all real. That she was a witch. That the strange things she could do really were magic. Petunia couldn't understand that, and Lily didn't know how she could ever explain it.
Of course, Severus was another sore point between her and Petunia. Lily stopped again in the middle of the hall and pressed her fingers to her lips. Petunia hated him but it was just another thing she didn't understand--couldn't understand. He could be kind, was very kind to Lily. She was sure she would be lost without him. None of the other girls in Gryffindor could cast a protective charm in D.A.D.A. or manage a decent summoning charm. Only James and Sirius matched her in Transfiguration and Remus in Astronomy. None of the Gryffindors could come close to her in Potions and that was all due to Severus.
A sound like a stack of books falling startled Lily from her thoughts, and she looked around, surprised to find herself down an unfamiliar hall. It was one she was sure she had never been in before, dim and filled with suits of armor that she was sure were watching her. Lily turned to retrace her steps but stopped again when she heard another sound coming from one of the rooms further down the hall that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She looked at the armor nearest her and considered again just finding her way back to the Gryffindor common room but then forced her feet forward.
The rooms along the hall were dark and empty, as if they hadn't been used for classes in two ages. She could hear voices now, two of them, one deeper than the other, but both had the same kind of tense excitement as when some of her classmates played wizards' chess, encouraging each other and whispering strategies. She wondered for a moment if ghosts could play chess and wasn't quite sure she wanted to find out, even as she eased around the final suit of armor and peeked into the last darkened classroom.
The desks were all pushed to one end of the room, as Professor Lindt sometimes did when they had practical lessons in D.A.D.A.. In a circle of light, Lily saw the backs of two people and knew immediately that she hadn't stumbled upon ghosts. Lily took a step back, meaning to leave, not wanting to interrupt whatever the pair were up to and risk being drawn into a prank.
A different sound altogether, a kind of panicked scrambling of fingernails on wood, stopped her feet.
"She's pretty, your mum, but she can't save you, can she?" The voice was no more than a whisper but still carried out into the hall and Lily took another step back.
"All she can do is cry. They're so very weak, Muggles. It's all they can do. Like you."
"Why don't you cry for her now? I think I'd like to hear that."
Lily recognized the voices now and clasped her hand against her throat to keep from making a sound. The Lestrange brothers were sixth year Slytherins with a reputation for being determined to make all the first years cry at least once. They'd already had Lily in tears within her first month at Hogwarts along with Grace Prewitt and Sabine Bolingbroke when they had transfigured Sabine's pet rat into a great spider and threatened to trample it beneath their boots before being caught at it by Professor Flitwick. There had even been a rumor that they'd made Sirius Black cry, though he denied it loudly, but even Potter and Black hadn't tried to take revenge on the brothers, afraid, she thought, of what the brothers would do to get back at them.
Lily took another step away from the door, trying not to listen to the brothers' speech. It was entrancing, though, their voices gentle if their words terrifying. Lily wrapped her arms around her middle and took another step back, finding the wall against her back.
"We'll make you cry."
"You know that we can."
"Would you like to see her again? We could open the door again."
"Put you inside."
"You could be with her."
"She could you sing you lullabies while you go mad."
The voices were so deceptively calm, so pleasing in their menace, that they could have been talking about almost anything in the world. Lily crept back toward the door, needing to see, and watched as the brothers maneuvered a struggling boy between them. His arms were caught behind his back as Rodolphus, the taller of the twins, reached out to rest his fingers on the handle of a cabinet that was rocking violently as if something was trying to escape it. The boy breathed out something that sounded somewhere between a whimper and a plea.
"Go on, Lupin," Rabastan said, and Lily sucked in her breath, clamping her hand over her mouth in case she could be heard. "Ask your Muggle mother to come save you."
"Ask her to come out again."
"No? I don't think he's going to cry, this one, Rodolphus, not over a stupid boggart."
"There's other ways, of course."
Lily watched as Rodolphus pushed Remus toward his brother and Rabastan caught Remus' other arm, pulling it behind him.
"I'm getting bored," Rodolphus said as he drew his wand and turned to pace the room. "Let's just finish this up. I don't want to miss dinner."
"Then we should just do it fast." Rabastan pushed Remus to the floor and stepped to stand next to his brother. Rodulphus, who had been using his wand to trace his name in flaming blue letters, lowered it level with his Rabastan's. His voice was still just as conversational, as if they were discussing a Potions lesson to a particularly dim student. "They're only Unforgiveable when they know you've performed them, you see."
"And I figure you won't tell, right?" Rodulphus knelt down in front of Remus and grabbed his ankle, jerking on it hard. "Because it's not the only Unforgiveable we know, the Cruciatus curse."
"He's just a first year, Rodulphus, and a Muggle at that. He probably doesn't know the Unforgiveables."
"This should be an excellent lesson then."
Lily spun around then, meaning to run for a teacher, but her feet wouldn't move. If the Lestrange brothers really meant to perform an Unforgiveable, then she didn't have time. She looked wildly around the hall, searching for anything that could offer help but found only the suits of armor staring emptily back at her. Finally, she had an idea.
Pulling her wand, Lily ran silently across the hall to another of the empty classrooms, and took a deep breath. She'd never used a charm to lift anything heavier than a book, but now she took aim at the suit of armor and whispered Wingardium Leviosa. The armor lifted and then dropped with a clatter against the stone floor, its pieces scattering loudly around the hall. Lily quickly pointed to another and sent it skittering into the first before she heard heavy boots pounding forward and she hid herself in the darkness, hoping the Lestrange brothers didn't bother to search too hard for the source of the noise. Fortunately, the boys seemed more interested in not being caught as they ran away, and Lily breathed a heavy sigh after listening to their retreat, pressing a hand to her chest before she dared to look out.
The suits of armor lay on the floor, an empty helmet staring up at Lily as she crept back toward the room. She found Remus on the floor, alone, his hands over his face, and she watched as his chest moved heavily, as if he'd just run a race.
"Are you all right?" she whispered.
Remus jumped, crawling awkwardly up onto his knees. "Who's there?"
"It's me. Lily."
"What are you doing here? The Lestrange--"
"I scared them off. With the suits of armor." Lily took another step inside the room and lifted her wand, whispered Lumos. "Are you really all right?"
"I'm fine."
"You're not." Lily walked toward him and knelt on the floor, putting her hand on his shoulder. "You should go to the infirmary."
"I can't." Remus washed his hands over his face one last time before he dropped them at his sides, plucking at his trousers, and gave out a great sigh. "I need to go to the library to finish my Charms essay and she'll keep me for ages."
The cupboard gave a heave, rocking against the wall, and they both jerked their heads up to look at it.
"What is it?" Lily hissed, her hand squeezing Remus' shoulder and missing his wince of pain.
"It's just a boggart."
"They said your mother." Lily stopped talking, not able to make herself repeat what the Lestrange brothers had said. "I thought it was just a ghost."
"No. It turns itself into your worst fear. I saw my mum and she was--" Remus stopped and Lily watched as he bit his lip, remembering, and then he shook his head as if to rid himself of it.
"You have to tell, Remus. What they did."
"No, I don't." Remus gingerly got to his feet, rubbed his hand over his shoulder, before he began looking around for his book bag. He found it in a corner of the room, ignoring the boggart when it gave the cabinet another shudder.
"Not to me, I didn't mean."
"Not to anyone." Remus picked up his bag and shoved his spilled books back into it, checking that his wand was still tucked inside. He lifted it onto his shoulder, wincing a bit again.
"Then I'm going to tell Professor McGonagall."
"No, Lily. Don't. Please." Remus turned away from her and she took a step closer to him but stopped when he took a step away. "They do it because they think I'm weak. It'll be worse if--"
"It's not tattling."
"I wasn't going to say that."
"They were going to perform one of the Unforgiveables, Remus. We have to tell."
"They were just trying to scare me."
By the way Remus' voice wavered and how pale and gray his skin was in the dim light of Lily's wand, Lily thought they had done a good job but kept quiet. She watched as he adjusted his bag on his shoulder again then pulled his hands into the sleeves of his robe so that she couldn't see his hands shake.
"I'm fine," he said. "I really just need to get my homework done before the weekend."
"Do you have to go home again?"
Remus' expression was suddenly unreadable and Lily was the first to look away, her heart beating hard in her chest, though she couldn't say why she felt more afraid now than she had earlier with the Lestrange's so near. She shook her head and clasped her hands into fists, angry with herself. She couldn't help but think of how there were so very many things that she didn't understand herself about magic and felt a sudden warmth of understanding toward Petunia.
Lily sighed and watched as Remus walked toward the door before following him, giving one last look at the cabinet that held the boggart. Remus carefully looked both ways down the hall, satisfying himself, Lily thought, that the Lestrange brothers were really gone, before he took a step into the hall.
"Are you sure you're all right, Remus?"
"I'm fine," he said again as they stepped over the pieces of armor that still littered the hall. He stopped suddenly, cocking his head to the side as if listening for the brothers to return, and then turned to Lily, stopping her with a hand to her wrist. "Thank you, Lily, for what you did but I don't want to talk about it anymore, all right?"
"Sure, if you want."
"And please don't tell anyone."
"I won't."
"Thank you," he said again and took an awkward step away from her as if suddenly realizing he was touching a girl, and blushed. "I need to go. We shouldn't stay up here."
Lily nodded and followed Remus down the hall and a flight of stairs until they were back to a more familiar part of the castle. She couldn't think of anything else to say, her mind on the Lestrange brothers, on the things they had said, and the way that Remus had hardly made a sound through it all when she knew that anyone else would have been reduced to tears, knew that she would be crying still. She sneaked a look at him as they walked, at the determined set of his mouth and the glint of his deep brown eyes that seemed a bit dimmed from their usual brightness.
"I'd like you to come to my birthday party on Sunday," Lily said impulsively, putting her hand on his sleeve to stop Remus before he could turn toward the library, and forced herself to smile. "I mean, it's not really a party but it'll be fun. My mum is sending cake, muggle cake." Lily caught Remus' hand and felt it tremble against her own and knew that he wasn't as unaffected as he pretended and she admired him even more.
"I don't think—"
"Professor McGonagall said that we could go up to the astronomy tower to see the full moon." It was there again, the closed off expression and the sense of danger that Lily couldn't quite place, but she plowed ahead, focusing on a spot just past Remus' shoulder. "It's not like presents and stuff. You don't to have to bring anything. It'll just be the other girls from Gryffindor and Benjamin Goran, Matthew McKinnon, and Nathan Stebbins from Ravenclaw." Lily gently tugged on Remus' hand, ignoring her own blush, and stepped closer, biting her lip.
"Is Severus going to be there."
"Yes." When Lily hesitated, Remus pulled his hand away, adjusted the strap of his book bag and took a step away. "He's my best friend," Lily finally said, straightening up and hating that felt that she needed to defend Severus to Remus. "You don't know him like I do."
"He hexed James and Sirius when—"
"They've hexed him."
"But he actually hurt James. Drew blood."
Lily looked away from Remus' steady gaze, not liking that she knew he was right and tried to remember all the times that James and Sirius had called Severus names, tried to trip him in the halls, or caused his books to fall, his ink bottle to spill, or his parchments to suddenly combust. "I'm sure he didn't mean to."
"All right, Lily," Remus said though he sounded doubtful. "I need to go."
"Will you at least think about it, Remus?"
"I can't—"
"Not about the party." Lily swung her hand dismissively, hating that she had asked him in the first place. She'd known since they had all come back from Christmas holidays that Remus was now suddenly friends with Potter and Black, and so Severus said that meant Remus was his enemy, too. Remus seemed too quiet, too thoughtful, and gentle to be anyone's enemy but Severus didn't want to hear it. Lily still hated that there were lines of allegiance and hated it even more that she found herself in a position of having to follow them. "I meant about telling Professor McGonagall. Or at least a prefect. They could have really hurt you."
"I can handle it.
"You shouldn't have to, Remus." But Remus was already walking away, disappearing around the corner on his way to the library. Lily turned herself and walked again towards Gryffindor Tower, thinking there were some things about magic that she was glad that Petunia would never learn about, things she didn't think she wanted to understand herself.
no subject
no subject
no subject
Really, I love the dynamic they have here. Wonderful job.
no subject
no subject