Remus looked at the girl next to him with a smile. They were precariously close to the Forbidden Forest, comfortably seated in a tree in its outskirts. Lizzie was studying for her OWLs, which were only a fortnight away, as she and her classmates were daily reminded by their teachers.
Not that she cared much for them. There was no doubt she would ace the ones important to her. Transfiguration, Charms, Potions, Arithmancy and Ancient Runes were difficult, no doubt, but she had consistently put in hard work over the years. Her main problem was Defense, which she was just hopelessly inapt at. Of course, the young werewolf had tried to teach her, but he had underestimated just how terrible someone could be at that subject. Her reactions and reflexes were slow and mostly useless in combat.
"If I get a clean 95% in the theoretical exam, how much would I need in the practical for an Acceptable?", she asked, exasperated.
He grinned. "Don't waste your time, study!" Reaching for a book of his own – Potions of the Early Twentieth Century – , he wondered however he had come by this girl.
She was not beautiful, certainly not, but pretty enough to be attractive due to other attributes. Slightly chubby and short when they had first started going out, her following growth spurt and determination to shed those extra pounds by getting on the Quidditch team as a beater had led to her looking, although not perfectly slim or attractively curvaceous, healthy and fit.
Although not in the Marauders' own style or magnitude, Lizzie was also popular. Known as a practical problem solver, she was completely un-timid and well capable of approaching someone in trouble and offering a solution. This had induced a few incidents where she had helped people set traps for Remus' own friends (because frankly, they did occasionally make enemies), but she hadn't been mean about it.
Her family wasn't poor, but far from well-off and so, by the time of her third year, she had made a business of her inventive mind and become a sort of trouble shooter for all students by designing handy little contraptions for all sorts of purposes (although mostly Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs), not caring much for what her ideas were used as long as the money turned up.
By herself, she was a model student who generally did her homework, got good to excellent grades and gifted enough to have Professor Slughorn invite her into his little club. While some of her idead were doubtlessly used for just that, she never ever broke the school rules.
Of course it had been her who had asked him out. How could it have been different? After a couple of botched attempts, he didn't much care for a relationship built on lies, which was inevitable in his situation, so he had mostly abstained from acting on any less-than-pure feelings for the opposite sex. Not that she would have been the type for him to have those for. He was extremely Gryffindor in his preferences, always falling for the shy, fragile type of girl he would probably have gotten bored of in less than a week, had he decided to pursue a relationship.
It had been a highly uncreative question asked for the thousandth time ("Would you, um, like to go to Hogsmeade with me next week-end?"), but his reluctance and attempts to let her down gently had been met with much more fervor: "You know it's just a date, not a marriage proposal, right? It's yes or no, and you can still ditch me halfway through."
They had had a lovely day in the village. It had been the feeling of flying on a cloud of wit and laughs, not having to worry about tomorrow. She had kissed him on the cheek to say goodbye.
Of course, once that day was over and the full moon arrived, he had seen it wouldn't work; that lies and hurt were all that lay down that road, but she had convinced him to try. The Ravenclaw hadn't known about his lycanthropy then, in fact, she didn't now. But, when he had told her that a relationship between them was unlikely to work due to problems "purely of my own", Lizzie had immediately guessed the general idea:
"It's that secret that you and those friends of yours are trying desperately to protect, isn't it? The one that Snivellus Snape is attempting to figure out?"
He had nodded, and started to formulate a response, when she interrupted him.
"No, Remus, don't, okay? I've seen this coming, and I'd really like to say something, so please let me finish, right?" Her voice was not frantic exactly, but somewhat nervous.
Remus had been quite surprised at the fact that she had prepared herself for this – was he that easy to read? – , but went along with it.
"Quite frankly, I've been wondering when this would come up. You already know I like you, I wouldn't have asked you out otherwise. I still do, in case you were wondering. And I get the impression that you don't hate my company either." At this point, she stopped to look at him.
He chuckled dryly. "Yeah, that is correct."
"Well, then we were going to think about a relationship at some point. So, I hear that most girls you've been with were tossed aside because they pried, which by the way I find disgraceful on your part – at least dump me politely, yeah? – , and I decided not to. I don't know what the fuss is about, but if it's that important, you wouldn't want to tell a Hogwarts girlfriend after two months, I suppose. That's understandable, and I can honestly live with it."
This speech – which he later thought she had probably written out beforehand – had left him flustered. It gave their relationship a real chance of surviving. "So you would like to be – remain – my girlfriend?"
"Mhm, I think I would." She winked at him, clearly teasing his slow-wittedness.
He grinned. "On what terms then?"
"Good point; that is", she laughed. "And totally appropriate wording, too. Anyway, I know you probably do have to lie to hide whatever it is you're hiding, so that's fine, but try and be honest with me otherwise, alright? Also, I'd appreciate if you didn't date anyone else, because, you see, I get jealous very easily."
So it had remained. It was true that she got jealous (which caused some very awkward and occasionally tearful scenes), but in the end, Lily was with James, Remus was with Lizzie, Peter was with Anna and Sirius remained die-hard single for whatever reason.
As they sat in the tree, the light fading into a blue-ish pink nothingness far away on the horizon, Remus put his arm around Lizzie.
"It's getting late, and you're cold", he whispered into her ear fondly.
She turned to smile at him. "We should go back in. They'll be wondering where you are, you know. And Nora wanted to show me her Potions essay for tips."
When she then took the tie out of her hair and skipped off the branch, she may not have been beautiful. But she was perfect to him, laughing gleefully as she flew through the air, landing with grace, looking back up at him and reaching for his hand with her curls flying around her face in the wind.