Lily wobbled slightly in the heels, unfamiliar to the new height and focusing wholly on balancing her body in thin stilettos. She bobbed uncertainly across her room to the mirror and looked at her choice outfit. A long black dress fitted her curves in all the right places, legs long and slim, and boobs looking, rather unsubtly, pretty great. She looked totally different. But totally hot.

Her hair had been straightened, curled, teased, brushed, tied back, braided and sprayed before Lily had finally decided on leaving the mane in all its auburn glory. She had spent an embarrassingly long amount of time touching up her makeup for someone that maybe bothered with mascara on the best days, had painted her nails all sorts of different colours, and used every mint she could find in the house. The date was, Lily had once-and-for all decided, not going to be a disaster.

Earlier that week she'd been taking a look round her village, doing a little shopping, but overall simply taking everything in. Every year, she'd make sure to visit every place in the town she'd spent her childhood, not wanting to forget anything when spending the majority of the year at Hogwarts. It had been a gorgeous day, the folk of Cokeworth bustling about the cobbled streets and going about their everyday lives. How odd, it seemed, that her life had taken such incredible turns and yet this little village would always ground her, it would always be her home.

While leaving the grocery store, arms overrun in bags, Lily had bumped into an old classmate of hers. Adam Roseland, once a little, podgy faced boy had, well, grown, if Lily put it lightly. He towered her, arm muscles bulging, perhaps rather intimidating if it wasn't for his perfectly charming smile and brown floppy hair. She wasn't quite sure how she hadn't melted into a puddle right then and there.

One thing led to another, and he'd offered to take her out on a date to catch up. The restaurant he'd mentioned was possibly the classiest place in the entire county and, looking at herself in the mirror, Lily wasn't sure whether was dressed up enough.

She sighed, tucked a curl behind her ear and began to practise different expressions. By the time her 'I think you're really fit and wouldn't mind snogging you right now, but like not in a needy way or anything' smile was perfected, Lily took a glance at the clock and saw it was almost seven. Realising that Adam wouldn't be picking her up for another hour and a half, she decided to take a break and read a bit more of her book.

Just reaching the end of a chapter, Lily heard the trill of the doorbell sound through the house. She sat up. A wave of panic fled her body, the book falling to the floor as she jumped off the bed and ran to the mirror. She'd completely lost herself on time and cursed herself for messing up her hair, whilst smoothing out the dress and –

Lily stopped. The reflection of the clock hanging on her wall showed it to be just gone half seven. The sky outside certainly didn't look like it was reaching quarter to nine, and, with a puzzling expression crossing her face, she wondered why Adam would come so early when he lived roughly three minutes away.

Pulling a last, gentle brush through her hair, Lily gathered herself together and made her way downstairs in hurried footfalls. Her heart was pounding with incredible nerves.

Through the blurred window of the front door, she saw the outline of a tall Adam. Oh crap.

It's alright, absolutely nothing to be nervous about, it's just a date, it's just a –

'Remus?' Lily's stream of thoughts fell to a stop as her hand had, with its own accord, opened the door to find a boy. But not the boy she was expecting.

'Lily,' Remus spoke in almost a whisper, his face fallen into a heart wrenchingly sad expression. Lily was stunned for words.

'Mate, are you okay?' She asked, her face worked into a worried frown. There was absolutely no reason why Remus should have been standing outside her house, looking despairingly like a lost little lamb, and while worried, Lily was just slightly confused.

'Can I come in?'

'Wha- oh yeah, of course,' Lily said as Remus walked past anyway. She looked to the door of the kitchen he'd just entered and back to the door of the house, wondering if she was missing something. After a few moments of further confusion, she went to follow, wobbling slightly on the way.

'Um, Remus?'

He was sitting at the table, pouring milk into what appeared to be a bowl of cornflakes. Lily spoke tentatively, unsure of the situation but quite clearly seeing that her friend was not in a good state. She went to sit down.

'Remus,' she began. 'Uh, not that I don't absolutely love having you visit, but I'm just wondering why you're at my house?'

He looked up, hands twirling the soggy cornflakes around the bowel with a spoon. 'I found out Jessica's cheating on me.' He said bluntly.

Lily's stomach turned uncomfortably. 'Oh god, Remus. I'm so sorry.'

'Yeah.'

Lily looked at his face, noticing that his eyes seemed to be deliberately averting hers and were focused unnaturally hard on the bowl of cereal. A mixture of sympathy and anger filled her, wanting nothing more than to have a word or two with Jessica.

'Do you want to talk about it?' She asked quietly.

'No.' He shook his head. 'Yes.' He ran a hand through his hair in frustration and covered his face. 'I don't know.'

'You can tell me anything, okay?'

'I, uh –' Remus started. 'You know what, it doesn't matter.' He began to stand up. 'Don't worry about it, Lily. Sorry for bothering you.'

Within a few seconds, he'd risen from the table and was shuffling his legs to move out from the chair.

'Remus,' Lily stood up immediately after, gently reached out for his arm and rose her eyebrows in as stern a manner as she could. 'Stop,'

He did.

'Don't tell me you're bothering me when you've just come in here, to my house and told me something like that, okay?' Lily said. 'I care about you and of course this matters, you numpty.'

Her attempt at a firm telling off cracked a small smile out of Remus.

'And if you don't want to talk about it, that's completely fine, yeah? I'm just not having you think you're bothering me.' She went on. 'You're not bothering me at all.'

'Thanks, Lil.'

'Now, sit down and finish your cereal.'

'And when I get there, I find her all over that fucking prick Jeremy Greenstone. I didn't do anything, I just didn't know what to do.'

'So you came here? Straight after?'

Remus nodded.

For the last thirty odd minutes, Remus had been recounting every suspicion he'd had of Jess being with other boys, the events of the previous week that had caused him to ask her about it, leading to a huge fight, and the story of the last couple of hours where his suspicions were confirmed. Lily hung on to every word, throwing in regular sounds of distaste at the names of the boys Remus had found out Jessica had been snogging.

'Can I ask you something?'

'Yeah?'

Lily paused, a sad smile crossing her face. 'Why didn't you go to James? Or Sirius or Peter? I love you Remus, really. But they're your –'

'I don't know.' Remus looked at the ceiling and sighed. 'I guess I didn't want them knowing I'd lost out on my first real girlfriend because she cheated on me. I guess I didn't want them thinking I was even more pathetic than I already am.'

Absolutely stunned in disbelief at his words, Lily felt a little of herself break.

'What are you talking about? I –' she tried to gather the right words, tried to come up with something to say that would let him know what she was thinking. She couldn't. The words simply fell out. 'Remus. Nobody, nobody, has ever thought of you as pathetic. Nobody will ever think you're pathetic. You're incredibly smart and brave and such a good person. You don't deserve this, so do not ever think that what you get comes to you because it's meant for you, alright? James, Sirius, Peter. They're your brothers and think better of you than anybody. The only person they'll think less of is Jessica.'

'Lily –'

'No, listen.' She carried on, unaware of the little smile that had crept onto Remus' face. 'One day you will find someone and she's going to be crazy and fun and kind and she'll love you so much that you'll think you don't deserve it. But you will, Remus. You deserve that.'

'Lily –' Remus was chuckling.

'What?' Lily said, a little breathless, eyes bright and fierce.

'Thank you.'

She smiled. 'C'mere.' Reaching across, her arms wrapped round him in a hug. 'I'm sorry about Jessica.'

'Me too,'

A few moments passed as they hugged. It was Remus that broke the silence.

'This is lovely and everything, Lil,' he said. 'But I feel a bit uncomfortable when you're dressed like, well –' Remus sat back, gesturing Lily's rather revealing dress.

Lily hesitated in confusion for a second before looking down and remembering the date she had with Adam.

'Oh fuck,' she muttered.

'So are these your new cleaning clothes?' Remus laughed. 'Very tasteful, I'm sure James would appreciate this new attire very much.'

Lily slapped him lightly on the arm. 'Shut up, you. First of all, that was a literal year ago. Second, I literally forgot I had a date tonight.'

Remus' grin fell slightly. 'Oh?'

'Yeah, I know.'

'Um, do you want me to leave now then?'

'No, please don't!'

'Lil, if someone is coming to take you out on a date, I think I have –'

Lily scrunched up her face in frustration. She thought about Adam, her floppy haired, dreamy eyed, hunk of a date expecting to spend the evening with her. She thought about Remus, her sad, recently broken up, lonely friend prepared to leave so she could go out and enjoy the night. She thought about the black dress and stilettos, the original example of 'beauty is pain', the expressions she had to practise in the mirror because she hadn't imagined that the fun would rule out her nerves. She thought about the prospect of changing into comfy pyjamas, having a cup of tea and talking to Remus for hours. Between a disappointed stood-up date and her best friend, alone again in a pretence of being 'fine', there was really no choice.

'I'm not going on that date.'

'What?'

'I'm not going.' Lily's voice was firm, unswaying, and she was entirely confident in her decision.

'Lily, you can't just –'

'Watch me.'

She stood, swaying a little as she found her balance in the heels, and walked over to the phone. Managing to find something to hold onto for each step as she trotted across the kitchen, she eventually gave up and wrestled with the stilettos to come off her feet. 'These damn shoes, honestly. No chance of me walking around all night in the bloody heels of Satan.'

'Why would you do this?'

Lily looked over and smiled. 'That's what friends are for, isn't it?'

Remus shook his head. 'That's what idiots are for.'

She grinned. 'What's the difference?'