A/N: I found this challenge and I just thought that not enough stories are written from Remus's point of view. I liked the requirements, and thought why not give it a shot. This is a short little fic on Remus's relationship with Lily before she started publicly going out with James. Written for kate manon, who loves my stories almost as she loves Remus, I hope you like it!!!!
"Ready to go, Remus?"
She bounds up to me, latches her hand in mine, presses a kiss to my cheek, flashing that brilliant smile at me, that smile that I know so well.
I think that I was the first Marauder that Lily Evans ever took a liking to. Not James, whose repetitive, insistent requests for her to go out with him annoyed her to no end; not Sirius, whose arrogant, haughty good looks gained the hearts of nearly every girl in the year. No, I think that I was the first one, but most definitely not the last.
Compared to James and Sirius, I looked decidedly… well, worse for the wear. I was tall, well-built, fairly good looking, I'll admit, but my face and body bore scars and scratches from my painful transformations at every full moon, and I always had a shabby, unkempt look about myself.
I was more studious and careful than my fellow peers, so much that I was made Gryffindor Prefect in my fifth year. I think that Dumbledore had hoped that I might be able to make the others behave, but I never really lived up to his expectations. That was the thing that drew Lily to me – I looked before I leaped, I never went too far, I always considered. It's the part I hate about myself, my lack of recklessness, but I guess Lily found it appealing.
Needless to say, I was surprised but delighted when Lily, egged on by two of her friends, worked up the nerve to ask me out to the next Hogsmeade trip. We developed a close relationship, we ate together, studied together, we always had things to talk about… but I'll never forget the look on James's face when I told him that I was going out with her. I saw it for only a fraction of a second, that saddened look of utter disbelief, before he gave a fake, hearty laugh, clapping me on the back and grinning much too widely.
I didn't think about it from the beginning, because Lily genuinely liked me for a while, but after a couple months or so, I realized her eyes strayed to James once too often during meals, her gaze stayed a second too long on him when she was seemingly gazing into nothing. I should have realized it when she asked about how James took it when I told him of our relationship.
It became clear around three months after the start of our relationship, when Lily and I were patrolling the halls on prefect duties. We found James and another Gryffindor, Alyssa Rhodes, getting cozy in a broom closet on the fourth floor. Lily was speechless, and that bothered me. Normally, she wouldn't hesitate to give James a piece of her mind, but as we stood there, her mouth hung open, incapable of uttering a sound. It may have been a trick of the light, but I was sure that I saw James give Lily a look of apology when they locked eyes. Lily remained silent and sullen for the rest of the night, and ignored me when I said her name.
It never occurred to me that Lily may have been cheating on me, but the thought popped up in my head once too often for my liking, and it made me uneasy. I tried to block it out, but soon, all the clues were obvious, hanging in front of me, and I was pretending that I was blind to it. The glances during meals, they certainly were not loathsome. The way her hand brushed against his inconspicuously, surreptitiously, like it was an unsaid sentence between them, a language that only they could understand.
At first I was jealous, angry that Lily would to this to me, when I thought that we were so close, but I quickly realized, that she was happier with James than she would ever bee with me. I certainly didn't think that it was I who made her laugh the way that he did, who made her smile the way that he did… he was better than me, I had always known it. I knew for certain that they were together when I was poring over our map a few weeks ago; it's still not completely correct, but it is not so wrong that it would put James and Lily in the same empty, deserted classroom, unless they were really there.
I don't know why I've kept this relationship going, but I think it's because… Lily is my first ever love. I knew, that when I started dating her, that we wouldn't last long, I knew that James would eventually claim her as his prize in the end, but its good to know we kept this going as long as we did.
"I'm ready if you are, Lils."
"Okay… I'm all yours."
As we pass James, her hand brushes his, his eyes meet hers, his dark hazel meeting her emerald green, a statement of understanding passing between them both. How easily she says this, that she is all mine, when we both know, she never will be.
FIN
Remus Drama Fic Challenge
Rating: no higher than T
Must haves: Lily Evans/Potter, some romantic relationship, a cheating girl/boyfriend, less than 2,000 words.
Must NOT have: Peter Pettigrew, Harry Potter, anyone dead.
