I Used to Jive With You

Remus knew what had started as a rather shaky relationship, had blossomed into an even shakier one. As Molly put it, 'It's all this uncertainty with You-Know-Who coming back, people think they might be dead tomorrow, so they're rushing all sorts of decisions they'd normally take time over. It was the same last time he was powerful, people eloping left, right, and centre.' Even before the idea of war had fully blossomed in their heads, James' continuous want for Lily Evans seemed almost a game, something to do when things got slow. Even Sirius didn't believe he really felt that much for her, and Lord knows he was the best person to know anything about the Seeker.

He (selfishly now, that both friends were dead and buried) thought Lily would have been better suited to himself, they were both sensitive, rule-abiding bookworms, it was more of a match than the sometimes brutish boy she had finally accepted. Remus had heard the saying 'Opposites Attract', but surely the bullying, brilliant James Potter was too much an extent of this for the sweet and secure Lily Evans?

Flashback

Remus' eyes were tired, but he valued the rare silence of the Gryffindor common room to much to let his eyes close. Although his injuries from this full moon were almost non-existent, his body still ached for the night of sleep he had lost.

He was taking a break from a Potions essay to reply to Sirius' letter. With it being the holidays, the common room would often be empty, but Remus was too tired and too stubborn to fully process this. By the time he had reshuffled his papers; his ink had rolled off the desk. Remus took this as a good moment to give in to his tired eyes and have a long blink.

A pale head offered it back to him on opening his eyes. 'Lily, thank you.' Remus smiled up at the red head. Her eyes turned concerned as she took in Remus' tired demeanour. 'Maybe you should get to bed soon Remus, don't let Sirius keep you up when he's not even here.'

Remus yawned. 'I swear, just this letter. Sirius needs a morale boost when he's at home, otherwise his parents and their pure-blood superiority talk start getting to him.'

Lily looked at him for a long moment, and just as Remus was about to ask if he had something on his face she bent down and kissed him softly on the cheek. 'You're a wonderful person Remus. Much better than you think you are.' Her green eyes looked at him with a quiet intensity that caused him to feel his cheeks redden.

'So, why didn't you go home for the holidays?' A change of topic to stop him stuttering or saying anything embarrassing.

'My parents took Petunia to Lapland, to go see Santa.' Lily met Remus' eyes and they both giggled at the customs of their other world.

End Flashback.

Truth be told, Remus had a feeling that particular joke would have been lost to his other friends, who had not had the experiences of muggle life. Even Sirius, who had tried so hard to immerse himself in it.

Sirius, who honestly didn't care for many things. It made Remus feel so treasured that he himself was a part of the privileged list of things he did care for. Sirius hadn't had a good childhood; living with a family that suffocated him and looked down on him had affected him, making him cold. It had made him detached from people in general, which later gave reason for Remus to doubt him and think how he, rather than Pettigrew, could have betrayed James and Lily.

However, before war came and clouded his eyes it was clear to all that three boys had escaped this detachedness. Remus felt smug when Sirius forgot girl after girls' names, and yet remembered that Remus liked to sit with the sun in his eyes.

Sirius, who stopped him killing three innocent children when he forgot to take his Wolfsbane potion on that night when everyone realised Peter Pettigrew was alive.

And then there was Tonks, who seemed to be oblivious to the dangers she would be in. Tonks, with her childlike romanticism, wanted to bring a child into the world. He fell in love with this obliviousness as much as her kind heartedness, her clumsiness, and the way she held his hand. Proud, for all to see.

The problem was, he could see where their shortcomings would come about, where there was nothing but dead ends. He had to leave his wife and the child she was carrying before he killed them both, maybe this would save them? Maybe he had already given the child his curse.

Remus wished he had loved Lily, when he still had a kind of innocence about the beast he came to be once a month. He wished he hadn't thrown away any thought of Sirius' innocence, when he could have had a friend the last cold, hard thirteen years. He wished Tonks didn't have the same problem of innocence, that she could look upon him, care, and even love him, without considering the curse and pain that was to be inflicted on them because of his condition, because of the years and experience between them, because he had never truly thought about sharing his life with another person. But share he did, and he had promised to love her through health and sickness; he had promised he would never leave her. As night fell, he apparated.

And he went back to her, fell down to his knees and cried. She pulled him up and hugged him, and two stars in the night sky burned brightly.