DISCLAIMER: Anything you recognise belongs to JKR.


Charlie


"Oh shut up, she does not!"

"She does, and you'd better watch out 'cause she seemed pretty determined."

"Oh come on, she's what, twelve?"

"And seeeeeeriously in looooooove with you."

Lily turned the corner in time to see Remus groan into his hands while the rest of the boys fell about laughing. Black made finger glasses about his eyes and forced his teeth out over his lip while batting his eyelids at Potter, who slouched his shoulders and responded with Remus's over-exaggerated finger combing gesture, and Lily realised they were talking about Charlie Norris.

The unfortunately featured second-year had harboured a crush on Remus since April of last year. Lily had noticed his initials emblazoned in a heart on the edge of her Potions notes during a tutoring session last week, though she had decided not to get involved. After all, Remus was a decent guy and probably wouldn't be nasty in turning her down if he ever found out, unlike some fourteen-year-old toe-rags she could name.

Another howl of laughter interrupted her thoughts, and Peter clutched the wall, gasping for breath as Remus and Black tussled over a piece of parchment charmed with a scarlet bow.

"Don't you dare Black!" Remus gasped as he tried to wrench the note from his grasp while Potter egged them on.

"But Moony, love letters are all the rage this year, right James?"

Potter grinned his agreement and Lily felt a wave of anger well up. Three times in the last fortnight her breakfast had been interrupted by his love letters. The first, delivered by a snowy white owl had contained some of the worst poetry she had ever read, where the final line, a request for a date to Hogsmeade, hadn't even come close to rhyming. The second, borne by a flock of conjured doves three days later contained a heart-shaped necklace which she had thrown at him across the table and stormed off to class. And four days ago, the third, which had burst into song the moment she touched it, drowning out her attempts to yell at him with an appallingly re-worded Celestina Warbeck ballad to the amusement of the rest of the school.

As she was joined by Mary and Alice, who started laughing at the show, the classroom door opened and a stream of students poured out. Before anyone could stop him, Potter snatched the note from Black's fist and dropped it into the book bag on the shoulder of a familiar curly-haired figure as she hurried past.

A look of dawning horror spread over Remus's face as he realised what had happened just as Charlie turned the corner in the middle of her pack of friends, and Lily hurried past them into the classroom, determined to sit as far away as possible from the brewing fight.