Chapter Two

Slice of Life

The sound of books falling heavily on the table startled Remus out of his concentration. He looked up to see a certain redhead slipping gracefully into the seat across from him, pointedly ignoring the dirty look the librarian was giving her.

Remus couldn't help but smile at the annoyed look on his friend's face, already knowing what was coming. "Something troubling you, Lily?" he asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

"I don't see how you can share a dormitory with them for the past five years and not have completely lost your mind," Lily huffed as she began sorting through her textbooks.

Remus chuckled lightly to himself as he dropped his eyes back down to his Potions textbook, trying to hide his amusement. "What did James and Sirius do this time?"

"They somehow managed to set off dungbombs in all of the girls lavatories at the same time," Lily told him matter-of-factly.

"Are you sure it was them?" Remus asked, doing his best to make it sound like an innocent inquiry. In fact, he had already heard this story from James, Sirius and Peter's point of view in detail the night before.

"Oh, it was them, all right," Lily said confidently. "We couldn't prove it, but you should have seen the looks on their faces. And then Potter had the audacity to try and flirt with me to try and get me to lay off. Like I'd ever be even vaguely interested in that prat."

Remus' felt a strange, contracting pain within his chest at the mention of James flirting with Lily. It wasn't as if he had no idea about James' feelings for Lily. But every time it became obvious, Remus found himself feeling uncomfortable. He hated this feeling. He tried to tell himself that James' flirting only bothered him because Lily clearly didn't reciprocate his feelings. He was obviously getting on the poor girl's nerves. But even he had a hard time believing himself.

He took a deep breath, trying to push away any confusing feelings that he had on the matter. "Oh," was all he managed to say.

Thankfully, Lily didn't seem to have noticed anything out of the ordinary as she pulled her notes out of her bag. Instead she continued to speak, and what she said next caused his heart to stop in his chest.

"I swear, they get worse when you're not around."

He could feel his cheeks grow hot the way they did when anyone casually mentioned his disappearances. It seemed so much worse when it was Lily though, as his stomach turned almost violently. The idea of Lily Evans knowing what he turned into once a month was always terrifying for him. Over the past five years, they had become close friends and he wasn't sure how he could handle her inevitable rejection if she ever found out.

"My mum was ill," he mumbled, automatically offering up an excuse for his absence, his eyes carefully trained on James' Potions notes he had let him borrow. "I went home to see her."

"I know," Lily said gently. There was something oddly sympathetic in her tone, something that seemed to go beyond what was necessary for an ill mother. Suddenly she abandoned her seat as she came around the table to take the seat next to him, looking at the parchment in front of him. "Are those Potter's notes?"

Remus was a little started by the sudden change of subject. He had gotten the distinct sense that she had wanted to say something more about his absence, but apparently she had changed her mind.

He nodded at her question. "Yes, they're his Potions notes. He let me borrow them since I missed class."

Lily shook her head and clicked her tongue in disapproval as she looked over James' messy notes. Then she smiled at him as she nudged him lightly with her shoulder. Remus felt a calming warmth spreading through him at the casual contact. "It will take you ages to decipher these. Would you like to look at my notes?"

"Yes, that would help," Remus admitted as he stole a glance at the pretty girl that was now sitting unnecessarily close to him. "James means well, but his handwriting leaves a lot to be desired."

Lily snorted as she reached across the table to pull her notes over to them. "James Potter? Mean well? They've got you brainwashed in that dormitory, Remus."

Even as she said it, though, she shot Remus that infectious smile that he couldn't help but reciprocate. They quickly fell into their usual studying routine, something they had both become comfortable with over the years. Sitting and talking with Lily was as easy as breathing for Remus. Yet these days he felt himself becoming more aware of her presence, especially when she was in close proximity. He found himself noting the way she smiled at him, noting the way she made more physical contact with him than she used to – whether it was a touch on his forearm or a gentle nudge of her shoulder. Something about them had changed somewhere along the line, and he found that he wasn't quite sure he knew when it had happened.

But, despite the way he felt himself yearning for her presence more and more, he knew that this was as far as this could ever go. For who in their right mind could ever really love a werewolf?