Manu Forti

'Potter and Black, Black and Potter…' Lily growled as yet another crumpled ball of parchment flew across the Charms classroom and bounced off her ear, 'They sound like a bloody DIY set.'

Laura moved her leg dragged the ball towards her, asking, 'What's a DIY set?' as she leant over to pick it up.

'It's-' Lily watched as Laura's fingers rested a little longer than necessary on Black's as she passed the wayward note across, 'Oh, never mind. What do you see in him?' she hissed instead.

Laura turned huge brown eyes on her friend, 'Other than the fact he's incredibly handsome, great at Quidditch, ridiculously smart and-'

'Is a complete prick?' Marlene added from Lily's other side.

'You missed "exceptionally good hearing",' Black said, leaning across to their table and lobbing a new note back across the classroom. Potter caught it without looking up from his whispered conversation with Remus.

'What was that, Mr Black?' Professor Flitwick called from the front.

Laura blushed crimson, while Marlene remained steadfast, as Black replied easily, 'Just practising my Banishing Charm, Sir, you did say it could use some work.'

'Carry on, then.'

'James, on the other hand,' Marlene continued, 'has got nice hands.'

'Nice hands?' Lily choked as Laura snorted loudly.

'Yes! Just look at them.'

All three of them studied James Potter's hands for a minute, until he finished scribbling a note back to Black and flicked it back across the room with a practised twist of his wrist. Honestly, Lily couldn't really see them, despite trying; he was hunched over the note and on the other side of Remus to her.

'They are quite nice, actually,' Laura admitted.

'Laura! He's your cousin, that's just wierd!' Lily protested.

'First cousin and it's not like I fancy him anyway,' she replied pointedly.

'I was just commenting…' Marlene said coolly, 'I thought Lily might like to notice.'

'I- what?' Lily sputtered.

'I mean, look at them,' Marlene continued conversationally, apparently not noticing Lily's response, 'They're not like Black's or Pettigrew's.'

Black held up his hands, palms towards them, to show he had heard everything they had just said, then he turned them slowly round and finished scribbling another note to Potter. His large hands were calloused on the palms from years playing Quidditch with a Beater's Bat rubbing against them, and several scars on the knuckles showed where he given up on his wand and just punched Avery in the face at least once, that Lily knew of. They were rough hands; the sort that made Lily think of nineteenth century sailors hauling on ropes in a storm.

They weren't nice hands. She pursed her lips and looked across at Peter Pettigrew as he struggled to write down notes as Flitwick wrote them up on the board.

He was practically the other end of the spectrum; where Black's were hard with years of physical exercise, his were soft. His fingers were rather short and stubby, to tell the truth, fleshy and soft looking as he put his quill aside for a moment and rubbed at where it had pressed against the skin on fingers, leaving a red-lined indent. They looked like the hands of a small child; still with baby fat on them and too soft to be grown up. On a little boy Lily might have called the cute and cooed over them, but on a teenager who wasn't that far from adulthood, Lily found them faintly repellent.

They weren't nice hands either.

She caught up with the notes on the board while she thought about this for a few minutes, letting Marlene and Laura move on with the conversation to who they thought was likely to have more money; Finn Quigley whose Mother was an International Quidditch Player, or Barney Cuffe who everyone said had more money than brains. From their they moved on to whether Quigley was still good-looking or not, considering his cheekbone seemed to be a bit wonky where it had been smashed by a bludger during a Quidditch match at the end of last year.

Lily, however, was looking surreptitiously at Remus' hands.

He had a piano player's hands, her Mum would have said. They were large, but not out of proportion and slim, but not skeletal. Lily could imagine that he could have been really good at the piano if he had been given a chance to learn.

There was something strange about them though. It was the first time Lily had really looked at them; thinking about it, he normally had them stuffed in his pockets or they were clutching a book or three and partially hidden. Lily would have expected Remus to be the kind of person who looked after his nails and made sure his hands were clean, but looking at them as he wrote precise, neat notes they were very different to what she had thought. There were faint hints of healing scars, like on Black's knuckles, and quite clearly a bruise across the back of his right hand.

She watched as he lifted one hand to scratch at his temple and the sleeve of his school robes fell back slightly; were those teeth mark bruises on his wrist? He didn't show any sign of discomfort though.

Lily frowned at her notes; it was probably from Care of Magical Creatures or one of the "Marauder's" attempts to smuggle a Niffler into the Slytherin Common Room or something else equally as stupid that Remus had been pulled into. She sniffed and wished he would stand up to his friends a bit more, at least when he was on Prefect duty, if not more often.

She glanced across again and noticed his fingernails were much chipped; worn as though he had been biting them a lot, though Lily had never noticed him chewing at them.

Then Flitwick was dismissing them, promising them an essay as homework at the end of their next lesson and Lily was packing away her notes; looking forward to the last two lessons of the day being free.

'Have fun with Kettleburn!' Black called after Pettigrew's retreating back as they made their way out of the classroom.

Pettigrew made a rude gesture over his shoulder.

'Aren't you going?' Lily asked Remus as the remaining Marauder's joined the girls on the staircase up to Gryffindor Tower.

'I don't do Care of Magical Creatures,' he replied with a frown, 'Peter's only doing it because Slughorn wouldn't let him into NEWT Potions.'

'Oh…'

Remus' replied served as enough of a distraction for Lily to miss the next step and her stomach leapt as she found herself stumbling forward, up the stairs. Her feet caught on the step and her arms were full of her books.

Then there was a wrench and a hand caught her arm, yanking her back. Her books, ink and notes tumbled out of her arms and fell.

Only neither Lily nor the books, ink and notes hit the floor.

She was pulled back to her feet and her stuff simply floated in the air, she bit back a cry of surprise and found her heart thumping with shock. Turning, she found her saviour was Potter, and it was his left hand which had prevented her from falling while his right had managed to scoop his wand from his pocket and levitate her stuff before it hit the ground.

'Sorry, Quidditch habit.' He muttered and hurried up the stairs after Black.

It was Remus who stayed and checked she was alright.

Changing into her pyjamas bottoms and favourite Genesis t-shirt for bed that evening, Lily found a large bruise across her upper arm and it was a few seconds before she realised that it was in the shape of Potter's handprint. It was an angry red colour and she had to bite back a reactionary curse, reasoning that he had stopped her falling up the stairs.

'Wow, Lily!' Laura cried, catching sight of Lily looking at the bruise in the dormitory mirror, 'I didn't realise he had grabbed you that hard.'

'Neither had I,' Lily admitted.

In the turmoil of the moment, she hadn't even thanked him; so much for her self-made promise to be nicer to Potter, since the Werewolf Incident. In fact, he'd only apologised for catching her as his own reaction. How had he reacted that fast?

Surely even his famous "Quidditch reactions" weren't that good.

Lily sighed and got ready for bed; she'd thank him in the morning for catching her, after she had been to Miss Pomfrey to get rid of the bruise.

Getting into bed, she realised that out of the four "Marauder's" he was the only one whose hands she hadn't looked at today; she hadn't got a chance. Maybe that was something to do while she thanked him; have a look and see if his hands were as nice as Marlene said.