Lily and James had been out on one official, proper date – for a walk in the grounds, and they'd been left alone by tactful friends in the common room late at night on a number of occasions, and in the library earlier that week.
It was practically the talk of the school that the Head Boy and Girl were romantically involved, with neither of them being able to set foot in a corridor without attracting nudges and whispers and the odd knowing glance from Gryffindors who had long suspected that the barbs flying across the common room were simply a cover for something else.
James was deliriously happy about the situation, and whenever Remus had seen Lily, she's seemed pretty happy about the turn things had taken between them too.
Given all that, Remus thought that his confusion about why Lily was surreptitiously dragging him into the deserted Charms classroom instead of his friend at half past ten at night was perfectly justified. "Lily, what are you – "
"Shh. I need to talk to you."
"Oh," Remus said.
His head reeled with possibilities. Although he and Lily often talked, they normally weren't quite so cloak and dagger about it, unless he'd done something disastrous with a member of the opposite sex, which, as far as he was aware anyway, he hadn't. In fact, recently, he'd been depressingly far from doing anything with a member of the opposite sex.
His heart sank as he realised what this was probably about. His first attempt at match-making had been going so well…. James was going to be crushed.
He looked expectantly at Lily, and minutes slipped by as she glanced distractedly out of the window in the door. "Lily?" he said, thinking that it was probably best to get it over and done with.
"Hmm?"
"I don't know if you're familiar with the general rules concerning talking," Remus said, "but it usually involves, you know, talking."
Lily turned towards him, cocked her head and glowered. "Sorry," he said, deciding to abandon his sarcasm and smile encouragingly instead. "What's wrong?"
Lily let out a long, slow breath. "It's just – " He braced himself. "Is James ever going to kiss me?" she said abruptly. Remus stared at her, flabbergasted. For a moment he was too relieved that she didn't want his advice about how to break up with James to speak.
"What?" he said incredulously. He'd assumed that there had – at least – been kissing, and in fact, if there hadn't been, he was a bit miffed that all his tactfulness had gone to waste.
"Seriously, Remus," she said, resting her hands on her hips as she watched him take in what she was saying.
"I thought he – well, he said he had," Remus said, frowning in confusion. He was sure James had come – in fact, almost skipped – into their room declaring that he had shared a perfect kiss with the girl who was now standing in front of him, hands on hips and denying all knowledge. Maybe he'd dreamt it…. "Didn't he kiss you the other night when we all so tactfully left you alone in the library?"
"On the nose!" she said, throwing her hands into the air.
"Oh," Remus said slowly, eyebrows rising as it all fell into place.
"I kiss people I'm related to more passionately than that," Lily said.
"And that night I left you alone in the common room?" Remus asked.
"No," she said, raising her eyebrow at him. "We just talked."
"Oh," he said, his eyebrows shooting up again.
Thinking that this was a conversation they'd be better having sitting down, Remus slid down the door onto the floor, beckoning for Lily to join him. She shot a last furtive glance out of the window, and then did the same, landing next to him with a soft thump and a sigh.
"What's with the surprise?" she said, gesturing vaguely at the eyebrows that were still a little too high on his forehead. Remus shrugged.
"Just – well, he's liked you for ages," he said. "I thought as soon as he thought you liked him back and wouldn't slap him he'd – I don't know – make the most of it. If it was me, I – "
"Would've been all over me like a rash?"
Remus grimaced at her playfully, and she smiled. In fact, it was almost a smirk. "A nice rash," he said feebly.
"Yes," Lily said, grinning, "but as I think has been fairly well documented, you're a great big tart." Remus glared at her a little less playfully than he'd grimaced, and crossed his arms.
"Do you want my help or not?" he said.
"Sorry," she said, not looking in the least genuinely apologetic.
"Anyway," Remus said, "seems you'd rather like James to be a touch more tarty."
"Not necessarily," she said. "It's not like I want him to drag me into a broom cupboard and – you know – " She made a vague gesture that he thought he was probably supposed to interpret as indicating the kind of thing people did in broom cupboards. " – but – well, at first I liked that he wasn't immediately trying to stick his tongue down my throat, but now I'm a bit – well – worried that he hasn't."
Remus considered Lily's dilemma. It certainly didn't sound like James to be backwards about coming forwards, but then, that day in the Three Broomsticks, he'd been positively flustered…. "It's just – he hasn't – he hasn't gone off me, has he?" she said, frowning slightly as she spoke as if it was the very last question on earth she wanted to ask.
"Why would you think that?"
"I was talking to Elsa about it last night, and she was saying that maybe he'd spent so long creating this fantasy of what I was like in his mind that the real thing is – you know, a bit of a disappointment." Lily frowned a little deeper. "Then she started asking me what kind of energy he was giving off and I kind of lost track of her argument," she added, shaking her head in confusion.
Remus chuckled. "Did she lend you a book?"
"Yes," Lily said, drawing her eyebrows together in surprise. "How did you – "
"It's interesting," Remus said. "You should read it. Although it is full of new age hippie crap, despite what she says." Lily laughed, and it echoed around the empty classroom.
"Will it help?" she said.
"Probably not."
Lily slumped against the door and sighed. She fidgeted for a moment, toying with the hem of her skirt and flicking bits of, as far as he could make out, imaginary fluff off it and onto the floor. "Does he – you know, talk about me or anything?" she said quietly, her eyes flickering up to meet his for the briefest of seconds. Remus thought how unbelievably happy James would be if he could see Lily right now, how nervous and excited she was just talking about him.
"To be honest," Remus said, between sniggers at the thought, "if he utters a sentence without the word 'Lily' in it ever again, I'll be mightily surprised."
She blushed and looked down at her skirt, toying with one of the pleats at her knee. "Oh," she said, softly, the corners of her mouth hitching into the beginnings of a smile. Then she looked up and met his eye, biting her lip. "So you don't think there's anything in Elsa's theory?"
"No," Remus said, and she grinned.
"You sound pretty certain."
"I am. However great he thought you were, having you for real has got to be so much better, hasn't it?"
She nodded, looking a little comforted and reassured by his words, and rested her head against the doorframe, turning towards him a little. "Then what's he waiting for?"
Remus leant towards her conspiratorially, peering at her through the ends of his fringe. "Maybe," he said, "you just make him nervous."
"Nervous?" she said, incredulously. "James Potter?"
"Yes," he said.
"Why? You'd have thought – you know, since we went out – he'd have less reason to be nervous than ever. And he never seemed especially nervous before – not even when I was telling him I'd rather snog the giant squid than go anywhere near him."
Remus smiled to himself, remembering all the late night discussions after each and every one of Lily's many and varied, and often colourful, refusals. He couldn't believe that she hadn't realised that all of James' cockiness was just a front.
"Haven't you ever been in a situation with someone where you really, really liked them," he said, "so much that you wanted to do everything right – so much so that the only thing you could do was nothing because that was the only thing you could think of that wouldn't mess everything up?"
He looked up to find Lily staring intently at her fingernails. "Oh yes," she said. "I know exactly what that feels like."
"Really?" he said, his voice high with astonishment.
"Yeah," she said. Even though he'd asked the question, he never imagined that it was something Lily would have felt – she was always so cool and collected and in control, sure of herself, somehow. Who on earth had she felt like that with?
"Are you going to elaborate?" he asked.
"Nope," she said, looking up brightly.
He smiled, defeated, thinking that it probably wasn't important who it was, that he should just be grateful that he didn't have to go into lots of humiliating detail about his past romantic endeavours to explain the crushing paralysis of really liking someone and not knowing when was the right time to do something about it.
"I could talk to him, if you like," Remus said, realising as he made the offer that he wasn't entirely sure he'd survive a conversation like that with James.
"And say what, Remus?" she said. " 'Hey James, Lily wants you to get your act together and snog her face off'?"
"Might work," he said, laughing, "if he doesn't skin me alive. And if he does, he might still listen, which'll be fine for you."
"Not so good for you, though."
"Nonsense. I'll just be a bit more…slippery."
Lily made a horrified face and gave him a quick admonishing shove. "That's disgusting," she said.
"Sorry."
They chuckled together for a moment, and then Lily met his eye, biting her lip as she gazed at him from beneath a couple of strands of loose hair. "What would you think if I kissed you?" she said. Remus smiled slightly.
"That you were really mean for cheating on James just because he hasn't kissed you yet," he said, and Lily glowered at him playfully.
"No, I mean, if you were him. Or if I was some girl you liked. How would you feel if I kissed you?"
"Overjoyed," Remus said, rolling his eyes. "Being the boy is really stressful."
"Is it?"
"Oh yes," he said. "When you go out with a girl for the first time, you can't really enjoy yourself because you spend the whole time worrying about whether she wants you to kiss her or not – you don't want to kiss her if she doesn't want you to, but you don't want to not kiss her if she wants you to, but there's not – well, I've never worked out, anyway – a sure-fire way to tell the difference."
"Really?" she said.
"Hmm."
"Well it's easy," Lily said.
"What is?"
"Telling if a girl wants you to kiss her."
Remus smiled, noticing the pronounced changed in her demeanour. He couldn't help thinking that she much preferred being the one giving the advice than taking it. It hadn't escaped his attention that James was the first boy to ever make Lily come unstuck. "Go on, then," he said, not wanting to rob her of a chance to explain the mysteries of the fairer sex to him. "Enlighten me."
"Well, if a girl wants you to kiss her, normally she'll look at your lips."
"She could just be thinking that they're chapped, though, couldn't she? Or 'Merlin, I hope he doesn't put those things anywhere near me'."
Lily laughed. "I suppose. And she'll normally tilt her head to one side – "
"Maybe she slept funny."
"And she might play with her hair, thinking that she wishes you were doing it instead – "
"Or," he said, "because I'm so arse-achingly boring, she's dreaming about climbing out the window in the toilets and escaping from me."
Lily laughed, and he joined in. "I can see why you have trouble with it," she said. "It's not that you don't know what to look for, you just won't believe what your eyes are telling you."
"Hmm," he said. "Maybe."
"How come you've kissed so many girls, then?"
"Oh well that's easy," he said. "Olivia said 'are you going to kiss me or not?', so I did. Susan – I already knew she liked me a lot, so it wasn't the usual huge leap of imagination that she wouldn't mind if I kissed her. Elsa I knew was flirting with me because she kept putting her hand on my arm for no reason, and Lucidia – well, she really didn't give me the time to overanalyse things and chicken out – she just pinned me to the ground and kissed me."
Lily laughed. He was glad that his love-life at least served to offer his friends the odd flash of amusement. "You're really not much of a lothario, are you?" she said.
"No," he said, smiling at her. "I think the Marauders only need one, and Sirius had the position filled quite a while ago. Anyway," he said, "I thought we were here to discuss you, not me, for a change." She sighed.
"But talking about you is so much more fun," she said.
"Only for you," he muttered, and was rewarded with a grin. "So you're doing all that stuff when you're with James?" he said. "The looking at his lips, tilting your head stuff?"
"Yes," she said. "And nothing."
"Maybe he's as rubbish at reading that stuff as I am," Remus said, although he didn't really believe it for a second.
"Maybe."
"Maybe you should just kiss him," he mused.
"If I did that to you – you wouldn't think I was – I don't know – a tart or something, for kissing you rather than waiting for you to kiss me?"
"No, of course not," Remus said. "But then – "
"You don't mind tarts?" Lily supplied.
"I was going to say I'm not like James," Remus said, crossing his arms sulkily.
Lily nudged him apologetically with her shoulder, and he gave up his momentary sulk without much of a struggle. "What do you mean, anyway?" she said.
"Well I'm – " He glanced up at the ceiling, not sure he really knew how to explain it. "I don't know. I don't mind girls like that because I'm not like that, and to be honest, I admire their bottle. But James, well – you know us both. We're not exactly two peas in a pod."
"No," she said, with a rather wry smile. "I suppose not."
"I wouldn't write him off, though," he said. "Maybe he doesn't want to do anything that might rock the boat, make you reject him. He does like you a lot."
"You really think that's it?"
"He was really happy when you just started talking to him," Remus said quietly. "Maybe he just needs to get used to the idea that you're not going to go back to the way things were."
Lily considered him for a moment. "When did you get so good at this?" she said.
"Oh I'm great with other people's love-lives," he said, "it's just my own I have the trouble with."
"Hmm," she said, letting out a soft, amused, sigh. "Nobody on the horizon for Lothario Lupin, then?"
Remus sniggered. "No," he said. "I don't think so."
"So you've sworn off girls, again, then?"
"I think it's rather more that they've sworn off me," he said, rolling his eyes. "Elsa told me Lucidia's not exactly been discreet. Payback for me putting her in detention, I suppose. You two are the only ones still talking to me."
"Well who else would you want to talk to anyway?" Lily said.
"Exactly," he said.
They sat quietly smiling at each other for a moment, and Remus thought about his life, and the unexpected turn it had taken. He'd never thought – dreamed, even – of having friends like this, people who wanted to confide in him. He couldn't help but feel a slight glow in his insides at the thought.
"We'd better get back," he said. "It's nearly eleven."
Lily nodded and they got to their feet and trudged back to the common room. Outside the portrait hole, Lily paused. "You really think it's just a matter of time?" she said.
"I do," he said. "Of course there's always the other option."
"Other option?"
"Well, what's James' favourite thing in the whole world? The one thing he can't resist?"
"Quidditch?" she offered.
"No," Remus said, laughing. "A dare. He can't resist a challenge."
"I should dare him to kiss me?" she said.
"No," Remus said. "But I could. You know, if you get desperate."
Lily punched him on the arm, and they stepped through into the common room, laughing. After a quick scan round to check that the place hadn't burned down in their absence, they said goodnight and went up their respective staircases.
As Remus pushed the door to their room open, Sirius looked up from the game of Exploding Snap he was playing with Peter. The slight smell of singeing in the air indicated that they'd been at it for a while. "Where have you been, then?" he said, a glint in his eye that suggested he thought it might be a story worth hearing.
"Nowhere," he said, thinking that it would probably be better if James never knew that he'd spent the last half an hour discussing his burgeoning relationship with his girlfriend and their distinct lack of lip-action. He wasn't entirely sure James wouldn't string him up from the top of Gryffindor Tower if he knew half the things he and Lily talked about.
"Nowhere nowhere or shagging somebody in a broom cupboard nowhere?" Sirius said.
Remus sighed. However often he tried to make Sirius understand that he wasn't some great big tart who tried to sleep with every girl he spoke to, Sirius didn't quite believe him. Either that or he just liked teasing him too much to let the truth get in the way.
"Nowhere nowhere," Remus said. James looked up from the textbook he was reading and raised an eyebrow rather disbelievingly. "Really," Remus said, crossing the room and leaning on the wall next to the window. "Believe me, I would love to fill you all in on the more salacious details of my evening, but unless you want to hear about the papercut I got from a copy of Ancient Runes: The Messapic Paradox, there really isn't much to tell."
Sirius got up from the bed and slapped Remus reassuringly on the shoulder. "We all have our dry spells, mate."
Remus closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and then rubbed distractedly at his shoulder where Sirius had hit him. "It's not a – dry spell," he said, closing his eyes again as he uttered the phrase. "I just – "
"I thought you liked Denie Clayborn?" James said. "You know, since you got paired for that Astronomy project?"
He couldn't deny it. Maybe it had been the romantic overtones of the project, the fact that they'd been forced to spend a week gazing at the stars together, but he had been quite taken with Denie. Peter looked up expectantly from the bed, and James smiled at him encouragingly.
"Yes, and then Lucidia kindly informed her that I'd shagged her in a broom cupboard and now Denie won't even look at me, let alone anything else," Remus said, ruefully. Elsa had informed him a couple of weeks ago that Lucidia had taken great pleasure in telling anyone who'd listen what they'd gotten up to, and it seemed that anyone who'd listen included most of the girls in the school.
"Maybe she'll come round," Peter offered.
"Maybe," Remus said, although he didn't hold out much hope.
"You know," Sirius said, "if I'd known this was going to happen – "
Known this was going to happen?
Remus didn't like the sound of that one bit. He narrowed his eyes at Sirius, and Sirius, having apparently abruptly realised that he'd just dropped himself in it, shifted from foot to foot while trying to look nonchalant. "What do you mean if you'd known this was going to happen?"
"Well, Lucidia getting in the way of you being with girls you like."
"Right," Remus said, raising an eyebrow at him to indicate that he expected him to continue, since there was obviously more to say.
"Well I wouldn't've…."
Sirius made a vague gesture of surrender, his palms turned towards the ceiling. "Wouldn't've what?" Remus said, more insistently.
Sirius exchanged a glance with James, who just looked on and shrugged. He exchanged another with Peter, who shrank a little from his gaze. "Wouldn't've, you know, set you up," he said, with what Remus thought was rather false bravado.
"Set me up?"
Sirius cleared his throat and winced slightly. "I might have had something to do with the two of you getting together. I might have – you know – suggested to her that she go out with you. But I never would have if I'd known – "
"You – you – what?"
His brain struggled to process the information it had just received, and Remus wasn't sure he had the words to really describe what he was feeling. Had Lucidia not liked him, then? Had Sirius talked her into it?
"Oh come on," Sirius said, rolling his eyes. "You did fancy her, didn't you?"
"Well yes, but – "
"And you never would have had the guts to do anything about it. You know you wouldn't. Not with a girl like that."
"So what did you do? Pay her to go out with me or something?"
"No!" Sirius said, appalled. "I just told her that you kind of fancied her and that if she fancied a shag you might be up for it."
It took Remus a moment to process the full horror of what Sirius was saying, and another to realise his mouth was open. "Why?" he stammered. "Why would you..?"
Even as he asked the question, he thought he probably knew the answer. Nothing would've amused Sirius more than setting this all up, watching as it unravelled before him. "It was for your own good," Sirius said.
"My own good?"
"Yeah. All that moping and soul-searching was seriously boring. You just needed a good shag."
"I – I – gah," Remus stammered.
"And don't say you didn't enjoy it, because I know you did."
"Oh yes," Remus said, glaring, "having my heart ripped out is, in fact, my favourite pastime."
All of a sudden, everything seemed to make sense. Lucidia had probably thought – thanks to his so-called friend – that he was only interested in one thing. No wonder she was so narked about the whole revenge detention thing. She probably hadn't even realised that he liked her, probably thought they both understood the casualness of the arrangement. "You know, I really liked her," he said.
"How was I supposed to know that?"
"You could have asked!" Remus said. "Or – I don't know – stayed out of it altogether?"
"I just – " Sirius started. Remus raised his hand and cut Sirius off. He didn't want to hear it.
"Ugh," Remus said. "I'm not talking to you."
"Moony – "
"I mean it," Remus said firmly.
He didn't want to be in the room anymore. He knew James would take Sirius' side even if he thought he was wrong, and he knew Peter would follow James. "I'm going for a walk," he said, to no-one in particular.
Sirius was halfway through and imploring 'Moony' when Remus stopped him with a fierce look. "And I'm taking your Firewhiskey," he said. He opened Sirius' bedside cabinet and grabbed the bottle, then stormed out of the room.
Remus was vaguely aware of two things. One, he was cold. Far, far too cold. Two, his bed wasn't nearly as comfortable as it usually was. Three –
Hang on, he thought. That's more than two things.
Remus was vaguely aware of a number of things. One, he was cold. Far, far too cold. Two, his bed wasn't nearly as comfortable as it usually was. Three, the light was far, far, far, far, far too bright. Four, he had a pounding, unrelenting headache.
He opened his eyes slowly to find two startling blue eyes looking back at him. He blinked, but they didn't disappear.
He tried again.
Nope, still there.
Surmising that they weren't a figment of his imagination, he took in the rest of the face they came with, quickly coming to the conclusion that he had awoken to find himself nose to nose with Heather Noonan. "Morning, sunshine," she said.
Remus disregarded the other, now seemingly insignificant problems of cold, headache, and brightness, and sat bolt upright, swallowing wildly.
Where the hell – what the hell –
He looked around. He seemed to be at the top of the Astronomy Tower. With Heather Noonan. And they were alone.
He looked down. He seemed to have all of his clothes on, which seemed important, somehow, although at the moment he couldn't really remember why.
Heather sat up slowly. "You know that was a bit rude," she said.
"Sorry," he murmured, his voice low and hollow.
What on earth had he done?
He thought back to the night before. He'd stormed out, had quite a bit to drink, and come up here, he thought, to gaze at the stars and get properly melancholy before he went back to the room to deal with Sirius. He didn't remember running into Heather at all, and he couldn't think for the life of him what she was doing up here. She didn't even do Astronomy.
He took in her face, trying to see clues in it as to what might have happened. Her hair was a messy, frizzy red halo, but then it always was, so no clue there.
"It's all right," she said, leaning forward and kissing him on the cheek. "I forgive you."
Remus desperately thought back to try and ascertain what she was forgiving him for. He thought he should probably slowly work up to dealing with why she was kissing him, since his brain didn't seem to really be firing on all cylinders. Or indeed any cylinders.
Having worked out that she was forgiving him for sitting up, he felt a little better. But not much.
He swallowed. Her face broke into a large, toothy grin. "Or I will if you get me some breakfast. I'm starving, and it's the least you can do, really," she said.
"The least I can do?" he said tentatively.
"Yes," she said, with a confused frown, "now that I'm your girlfriend."
Girlfriend?
Remus blinked a couple of times, still clinging to the hope that this was all some figment of his twisted imagination, but Heather Noonan seemed all too real.
It wasn't that he didn't like her – she always seemed to be teetering just a little too closely to the edge of being completely insane, but apart from that…. Still, he couldn't think of a single reason why he would be up here with her, on his own, and why she was referring to herself as his girlfriend.
Unless, of course, he thought, his heart sinking down into his stomach, he'd gotten really drunk and done something stupid.
Remus offered her a smile that he suspected might look more, to a trained observer, like a grimace. He got to his feet, staggering slightly as the blood rushed to his head, making him feel dizzy. He leant on the wall and stamped the feeling back into the foot he hadn't realised in all the Heather Noonan panic was asleep. Getting her breakfast seemed like a good idea, he thought. At least it was a chance to escape.
He asked her what she'd like, barely listening to the reply, and then bolted for the Great Hall.
His friends – and several other people – looked up, startled, as he made for the Gryffindor table, smoothing down the hair he knew was probably sticking up all over the place and fussing with the robes he knew probably looked entirely too slept in.
"What the hell happened to me last night?" he said when he reached his friends. He searched their faces for an explanation, but James and Peter stared down at their plates and Sirius just scowled.
"I thought you weren't talking to me?" Sirius said, taking a surly and rather purposeful mouthful of toast.
"I'm not."
"That'd be a bit more convincing without words," Sirius said. Remus waved his protest aside.
"This is an emergency," he said. "I just woke up next to Heather Noonan."
Sirius immediately abandoned both his toast and his surliness and roared with laughter. "Oh bloody hell, Moony. You didn't."
"I did."
"Wake up next to her did or did something else did?"
"I definitely woke up next to her," he said. He glanced at the ceiling, desperately trying to stem his embarrassment. "As to the rest, well, that's why I said this was an emergency," he whispered. "I don't even remember talking to her."
Sirius grinned. "She's going to eat you for breakfast," he said. "And then spit you out by lunchtime." Remus swallowed, trying to quell the rising bile and panic in his chest.
"That's a lovely analogy," he said, gripping the edge of the table and closing his eyes as he swayed nauseously on the spot. "The one thing I need to be thinking about at the moment is regurgitation."
He gagged at the very thought. He looked to his other friends for some support, but James was desperately and quite obviously battling the urge to laugh, and Peter was just behind him, staring at him with knowing amusement. Remus was immediately suspicious.
"So what happened?" Remus said, looking pointedly at James. For a moment he thought James was about to deny all knowledge, but then he rolled his eyes and relented.
"You took the Firewhiskey and disappeared," James said. "We thought we'd leave you to cool off for a bit, but when you weren't back by one me and Peter looked for you on the map." James and Sirius exchanged a glance, and Remus wondered if Sirius was miffed to be left out of the loop. "You were up the Astronomy Tower," James continued. "So we came to see if you were all right. You were drunk, so we rolled you into the corner."
"You just left me there?"
"What else were we supposed to do?" James said.
"Carry me to bed?" Remus offered. "Wake me up?"
"We tried," Peter said, "but with just the two of us – "
"And Peter's weedy girl arms – "
Peter turned to James, his face flushed with indignation. "Hey!"
"Sorry," James said, shrugging, "but you know it's true."
Sirius shifted a little in his seat, and Remus wondered if he felt guilty. "So you just left me?" Remus said.
"We were going to come back later," James said defensively. "You know what you're like when you're drunk – you're all – " He searched for the word, his forehead creased in thought. " – flaily," he said. Remus wondered if he should tell him that that wasn't a word at all, but he decided, on balance, that it was largely beside the point. "We couldn't have got you under the cloak in that state, so we thought we'd just let you sleep it off for a bit first. Then, when we checked the map again, Heather Noonan had appeared."
Sirius shot him a suggestive smile. "And naturally they assumed you were – " he said.
"Please stop putting me in the same bracket as you," Remus said, grimacing. "This may come as a huge surprise to you, Padfoot, but some people do actually go up the Astronomy Tower to look at the stars."
Sirius raised an eyebrow at him and then looked away, smirking. "Your dots were very close together," James mumbled, suddenly fascinated by the scrambled egg on his plate that he was toying with. Remus rolled his eyes, tensing his jaw indignantly.
"So you just left me there for Heather Noonan to take advantage of me?"
"Believe me," Sirius said, "if you'd done anything with Heather Noonan, you'd remember it, no matter how wasted you were."
Remus supposed that was something.
Of course, assuming Sirius was right.
He couldn't remember doing anything with Heather Noonan, but then, he couldn't remember not doing anything with her either. He frowned at the thought.
"So are you going to go out with her, then?" Peter asked.
"I don't know," Remus said. "She didn't really seem to want to give me much choice in the matter. And I didn't know what to say to her because I didn't know if I'd – you know – made some kind of commitment last night."
His stomach sank at the very thought. "So – what exactly are you doing in here?" James said, looking a him with distinct puzzlement.
"Oh," Remus said, suddenly remembering. "I said I'd get her something to eat."
"Wrapped around her little finger already," Sirius said. He lifted his pumpkin juice in salute. "Well, it's been nice knowing you."
Remus rolled his eyes, grabbed a small stack of toast and a jug of pumpkin juice and reluctantly headed back up to the Astronomy Tower.
Heather was staring out over the grounds with a rather dreamy expression on her face, and he winced at the thought. He cleared his throat to attract her attention. "Remus!" she said, spinning round. He couldn't help thinking that there was something quite manic about her grin. "You're such a sweetheart. I knew you would be."
He forced himself to smile and set the toast, carefully wrapped in a napkin, and the jug on the parapet. She helped herself to a slice, chewing it not unlike he imagined a squirrel might. "Don't you want any?" she said. Remus groaned at the thought.
"No," he said. "To tell you the truth I'm feeling a bit worse for wear."
"Oh," she said. "I thought you might be. I mean, it's a shame, but – "
"A shame?" he said.
"Yes," she said, "because I was just thinking that this would be a really lovely setting for our first kiss."
"Our first..?"
She nodded enthusiastically and clutched his arm. "Don't you think so?" she said, eyes wide with enthusiasm. "I mean look at the view, and you've been so sweet, bringing me breakfast and everything. But, you know, if you're feeling a bit iffy I'm sure we'll come up with something just as lovely. I mean, I don't want you to be sick on me. That'd be memorable for all the wrong reasons."
She rolled her eyes dramatically, and he smiled.
"So we didn't – "
He stumbled for the word. Have sex? Shag? Copulate? Fornicate? Yikes – make love?
"Didn't what?" she said, taking another slice of toast.
"Do anything that involved taking our clothes off," he said.
"No," she said. He let out a sigh of relief.
For a moment he thought she might be offended at the suggestion, but then she tossed the toast aside and stepped closer, pressing herself against him with a look in her eyes that said she'd just had a very bright idea. He tensed, wondering if taking a large, noticeable step back would be considered rude.
She settled her hands on his hips and he wished he'd acted a little quicker with the step back.
"Although," she said, slyly, running her hand over his hip and onto his thigh, "you know, you can do it without getting undressed. I'll show you – "
Before she could do anything else, he grabbed her hand. "Heather – we – I mean – "
He wasn't entirely sure what he was supposed to say. "Didn't you just say that we haven't even kissed yet?"
"Yes," she said, with a look of real incomprehension in her eyes, as though the two things were entirely unrelated. She tried to move her hand again, but he stopped her.
"Er – "
"Don't you fancy me?" she said, her tone slowly rising. "You spent the night with me and you don't even fancy me?"
He could barely make out the last few words since they were so high-pitched. He almost didn't want to look down, but he forced himself to. Her lips was trembling and her eyes held a kind of cold, desperate rage he was fairly certain he didn't want to see come to fruition. "Heather," he said. "We didn't spend the night together spend the night together, did we?" She looked spectacularly confused, her eyes switching between his. "I mean nothing happened."
"Nothing except the connecting of two lonely souls," she said, and tears sprang into her eyes. "I expected better of you, Remus."
She let out a loud, rather undignified, hollow wail. "Erm – " Remus said, looking desperately around for some kind of help, even though he knew they were alone.
"Boys," she said loudly, choking on the word as she sobbed. She sniffed dramatically and wiped her face with the sleeve of her jumper. "It's all about sex. If we didn't have sex then nothing happened. It doesn't matter that we really talked or felt something – no, it's always just about the sex."
In amongst all the confusion, Remus couldn't help feeling a little bit put out. After all, she was the one who wanted to have sex, not him. All he really wanted to do was curl up into a ball and die.
"Heather – " he started, even though he had no idea what he was going to say next.
"You think I'm hideous," she said.
"No I don't," he said earnestly. "Just – "
"You just don't fancy me."
Remus frowned, unable to sort out in his mind what her argument was, what he had done to upset her and, more importantly, how he might get her to stop crying. "Don't you want to – I don't know – get to know each other – go out or something – first?"
"I think when two people have a connection, like we have – " she said, pressing her hand to his chest and then hers, "there's no need for that necessarily."
He wondered if he wasn't following her argument because of his raging hangover, or because she was quite clearly nuts.
"Ok," he said, slowly. "Connection?"
"Don't tell me you don't feel it, Remus," she said, "or you'll break my heart."
He assumed she was joking, but one look at her face told him that she wasn't. There was no playful pout there, no jokey smile. She was desperately serious. Although she did appear to have stopped crying, which he supposed was something.
He took a step back towards the wall, attempting to get some distance, but she took two steps towards him, ending up closer than she had been. He took another step back, and his heel came into contact with the stone behind him. He gulped.
"Do you believe in fate, Remus?"
"Erm – what?"
"Well I do, and I've got a really good feeling about us. The best feeling."
"Really?"
"Of course," she said. "Fate brought us here."
"You don't think that maybe we just got a bit drunk and enjoyed the fresh air?" he asked, more in hope than expectation that she'd agree.
"No," she said. "I mean look at us – we've never really spoken before, but you were drawn to me."
"Drawn to you?"
"Well yes," she said. "You went away and then you came back."
"Because you told me to get you breakfast," he said.
"Right," she said. "Precisely."
Remus frowned at her. The way she was acting, it was as if he was the dimwit and she was making perfect sense.
He wasn't entirely sure she wasn't right, and he was so busy pondering it that he didn't realise until it was far too late that she was leaning in to kiss him. His lips responded to hers – he didn't want to rude, but he didn't really want to be too enthusiastic, either. However, it slowly dawned on him that she was probably being enthusiastic enough for both of them. When she eventually pulled away, she was grinning. "You weren't sick on me," she said. "That was thoughtful."
He smiled at her faintly. She brushed the tears from her eyes and squeezed his hand. "Come on," she said. "I want to show you off to all my friends."
"You want to..?"
"Yes," she said. "They'll all be so pleased I finally met someone nice. Someone who understands me."
"Right," he said.
He was utterly torn. He desperately didn't want her to start crying again, but he didn't really want to be shown off to her friends either. He just needed to find a way out of this. He decided to try something drastic. "Heather?" he said. "There's something I should probably tell you."
She turned towards him, wide-eyed with curiosity. He took a steadying breath, more for effect than because he really needed the oxygen. "It's just that, well, you might have heard the rumours about Lucidia Jones and me – "
"Oh yes," she said. "I know all about that."
"Well, they're true," he said.
"So?" she said. "Everybody makes mistakes."
Hell, he thought. Just his luck to find the one other girl in the school who didn't care.
"Don't you see?" she said, clutching his hand so tightly it was really quite painful. "This makes us perfect for each other."
"Does it?"
"Yes," she said. "We both know what it's like to make mistakes, so maybe we won't make them with each other. This is going to be so much fun."
Somehow, Remus suspected otherwise.
As she dragged him down the stairs he sighed and rolled his eyes, wondering how on earth he was going to get out of this one.
A/N: Many thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, and as a reward for doing the same for this one, there's a Remus backed against a wall to play with.
Incidentally, anyone wishing we'd seen a little bit more of Heather needn't fret – I didn't really want to re-write the Gringotts scene (since I think I've already said all there really is to say about it in Werewolf), but she will be back. She's his bad penny girlfriend, and consequently, she might show up, without warning, anywhere ;).