Hello! This story is for Round 3 of the QL! I am beater 1; my word restriction was 1201-1500.

Prompts:

(word) bat

(emotion) surprise

(word) destiny

(quote) Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud

Word Count: 1500

Remus walked into their small room in the restaurant. He immediately smelt it. But there was no way he was right. Lily wouldn't date a vampire... Would she? She would have at least warned him first.

Tonight was the night Remus was finally going to meet his best friend's boyfriend: the infamous James Potter.

But Remus was a werewolf. He could smell vamp anywhere. And he could smell it now.

Upon noticing him, Lily stood up to give him a hug. "Remus!" she greeted. "You're a bit late! Anyway this is—"

"Lily," he interrupted in a whisper.

"Remus?" She asked confused.

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Tell you what? What are you talking about Remus?" Lily asked, looking completely bewildered. Could she have really forgotten? Maybe she didn't know about James. He could only tell because he'd be able to smell vamp a mile off.

"Lils. You're boyfriend. He's a vampire."

"What?" Lily looked at him blankly for what seemed like an endless eternity to Remus. He envisioned her heart breaking as she realised her trusted boyfriend had lied to her. Then, to his complete surprise, she laughed. "Oh, you mean Sirius! I was just about to introduce you! James." She pointed. "Sirius."

Remus, having now looked at the table, realised that there were in fact two boys sitting there, one of which matched the detailed description of James Potter perfectly, and the other matched the stereotypical vamp to a T. And it appeared the two boys were having some kind of whispered argument too.

"Wait. Oh Merlin. Vampire. Werewolf. Oh my god, I am so sorry, I completely forgot. Do you want to leave? I would completely understand. It's just, James owled me this morning to say that he had forgotten he had something planned with his best mate tonight and would I mind if he came along? And I thought, cool, I mean if you're meeting him then why shouldn't he meet me and I completely forgot about the whole lycanthropy thing—"

"Lily," Remus cut off her long rant. "It's fine. I'll cope."

Remus hated the smell of vampires. So did every wolf. And most likely, Sirius hated the smell of him too.

But Lily had forgotten about his lycanthropy. Maybe he should have been offended by this, but it was almost the opposite. He was proud that she had forgotten that her best friend was a bloodthirsty beast once a month. Most people acted differently around him forever after finding out his secret. But not Lily. That was why she was his best friend.

She had forgotten about the wolf and, in return, he could cope with the smell of a vampire for one night. How hard could it be?

They had been planning this dinner for ages. Lily often jokingly called Remus her relationship advisor, and this was surprisingly a pretty apt title. He met all her dates within the first few weeks; if Remus didn't like a guy then BAM. That was it. He was dumped. If Remus and the guy became friends then immediately Lily liked the guy more. If the guy ever, ever, said anything insulting about Remus' lycanthropy, he was not just dumped. He was humiliated. Every girl who went to Hogwarts would refuse to date him. He would fall 10 places down the social ranks. Any status he had BAM gone. Any friends he had that were also friends of Lily or Remus BAM gone. When anyone knew came to town they heard about that ugly prejudiced guy who was a complete twit and nobody liked. Remus was a stereotypical gay best friend, if a bit shy.

But Remus had been hearing about James for weeks and not met him. Remus could stick with the smell of a bloodsucker for one evening.

...

Remus was regretting his decision. It was 7:45 and he wanted to leave. They had finished their main course and Remus was doing his best to think up a good enough excuse to leave, but he was terrible at being subtle. It wasn't that he didn't like James or Sirius. They had turned out to be really nice blokes, and he approved of Lily's choice. He would have to give James the protective: 'I'm a wolf. You don't wanna hurt my best friend' speech that he often gave out to guys who looked like they'd be sticking around. And Sirius was great too. Well, his taste in music was a bit dodgy, but he was the only pure blood wizard Remus had met that had heard of any good muggle bands.

But the stench. He was going to vomit soon. Surely Lily would understand.

One and a half hours later, Remus found himself licking his spoon after a delicious caramel cheesecake. He hadn't intended to stay for dessert but he had a weakness for cheesecake and if he hadn't got his own, he would have ended up stealing Sirius'. All four of them had been getting progressively more drunk throughout the evening and James and Lily (he had dubbed them Jily) seemed to be getting pretty lovey-dovey. It was when they started making out that Remus realised Sirius and he were becoming the awkward friends. And he also became grateful that Sirius was there. If not, there would have been a serious third-wheeling problem.

Eventually, Jily decided they were going home (Remus noticed that they implied they were going to the same home, despite his drunken state) and Remus and Sirius waved them off with reminders to use a condom from one of them and a request to name the kid Elvendork from the other (you can guess which was which).

Now Remus and Sirius were left alone and Remus suddenly noticed the awkwardness of the situation. A vampire and a werewolf, alone. At least he was drunk enough that the smell wasn't bothering him anymore.

"Well, I had a great night," Remus said and stood up, attempting to make his escape.

"Aw come on, don't leave." Sirius complained and, to Remus' surprise, he saw genuine disappointment and worry in his eyes.

"Why?"

"You can't leave me to pay the bill by myself," replied Sirius jokingly. Remus sat back down again.

"I'm a werewolf. You can't lie to a wolf. What's up?"

They then took part in what seemed to be a four hour staring contest. Finally Remus won and he was so cocky about it that he almost forgot why the battle of wills had started. "What is it? What's wrong?"

And so Sirius launched into his long sad story about how he hadn't really had plans with James and how he had been dumped that morning and didn't want to be alone and his friend had taken pity on him and invited him out. And now James had forgotten about him and he was in his own after all.

Remus remembered something his mum always said. There was often nothing you could do when someone was upset. You can hug them; you can wipe their tears; you can let them know you are there. Sometimes you can punch the offender, but that was a rare case. Sometimes you just have to sit with them. "Be the rainbow in someone's cloud." His mum would say.

And so, after Sirius' long and melancholy recount, Remus found himself in the nearest bar with Sirius, listening to each others' sad life stories and getting, to put it bluntly, pissed as hell.

"So." Remus said, leaning forward on his bar stool (in front of a vampire at 2 in the morning).

"So." Sirius leant forward too, before wobbling and nearly falling off his chair before catching himself. This seemed to be the funniest thing in the world to Remus, who laughed for a good few minutes before suddenly sitting up straight again.

"So."

"So." Sirius attempted again, this time managing to lean forward without falling.

"You're a *hic* vampire." Stated Remus.

"Uhuh." Agreed Sirius.

There was a long silence.

"Can you turn into a bat?"

"Yeah!"

"Can you?" Asked Remus excitedly.

"Nah." Sirius sighed. "Just a rumour. Good old Count Drac was a bat-" Sirius muttered some unintelligible word and Remus frowned.

"What?"

"He was a bat ami... Aga..."

"Agimanus?" Remus giggled drunkenly.

"Yeah, that's it!" Cried Sirius. "Amiganus! He could turn into a bat!" They giggled on each other's shoulders, leaning on each other, all over each other, when all of a sudden they weren't laughing, they were kissing. Just a vampire and a werewolf drunkenly making out in the middle of a bar in the middle of London. A complete normal sight to come across.

"Hey, *hic* Remus?"

"Sirius?"

"I'm glad I got dumped this morning and was sad and went out with James and met you."

"I'm glad I'm friends with Lily and wanted to meet her boyfriend and came to the dinner and met you."

"I *hic* think *hic* I love you, *hic* Remus!"

Remus gasped. "Sirius! I love you too!"

"You think *hic* this was destiny?"

"Definitely."