A/N: This story is slightly more recent. This is also from a 100-prompt challenge that my sister made. This is based on prompt number 56: Burn. (Incidentally, if you're interested in the prompt table, check out crystallicrain's livejournal.)
Remus and his hyperactive sense of guilt, Lily and her blush, the passageway behind the mirror, and the rest of the marauders and Hogwarts are all the intellectual property of J. K. Rowling. No offense is meant by my clumsy manipulation of her world.
( b u r n )
"Rem? Is something wrong?" Lily kept a hand at the nape of his neck, but her face was concerned as she looked at him.
Her cheeks were slightly flushed, and despite his worry, Remus couldn't help appreciating how beautiful she was. Remus gently ran a strand of fiery, silken hair through his fingers. He knew he couldn't be that transparent.. but then again, Lily always seemed to see straight through him every time. She was the first to find out about his secret, after all. Perhaps it was one of the myriad things about her that made him love her.
"What do you mean?" he asked, twirling her hair around his fingertips. He probably was that transparent, after all.
"Mmm," she said, burying her face against his chest and curling up against him. Her words were slightly muffled by his robes as she said, "You seemed a little distracted, is all."
His heart sank a bit. He knew it. He had to stop being so worried, or else Lily really would start to be concerned about him. But lately, he just couldn't forget James's comment. Though, he reminded himself, it wasn't like their relationship was obvious. The brief touch in the hallways between classes, the occasional furtive glance across the common room: those were the only visible signs of it.
"How could I be?" he asked, his voice teasing. He gently kissed the top of Lily's head. "I'm holed up in a cozy little passageway behind a mirror with the most beautiful girl in Hogwarts. I've got everything I could want."
Remus could just have been misinterpreting what James said... but he didn't really think that he was. It wasn't really a surprise. He knew James had been going after Lily for.. well, probably since their first year. But she had been outright refusing his advances for just as long. Yes, he was James's friend, but why did that mean that Remus shouldn't go out with a girl that had once said she quite plainly that she would greatly prefer snogging the giant squid to James?
Lily looked up at him with a smile, rearranging herself in the crook of his arm. Her slender fingers reached up to caress his cheek. The gentle brush of her fingertips seemed like fire on his skin. "Is that so?"
"Well..." Remus pretended to consider a moment. "Acing all my OWLs would be rather good, as well." He returned Lily's smile, and kissed her on the nose. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm still a bit worried about that."
She laughed, and like always, it made his heart bob gently inside his chest. He wanted to keep this secret happiness for just a little while longer. What was so wrong with putting himself first, for a change? Didn't he deserve a bit of joy, just for once?
He held her tightly as she kissed him deeply. Her soft lips burned against his.