AN: Enjoy.
The Sunday afternoon after the party Remus came back. As usual we asked about his mom (or in everybody else's case his 'mum'), and he said that she was getting better when he left, but wasn't completely well. His palor was the same as always, saying to us all that the stress of worring about her took a lot out of our friend. When James and Sirius had wandered off, with Peter trailing behind them I had my chance.
"Remus, can I talk to you?" I asked quietly. Something in my tone or expresson must have tipped him off that it was serious. His face darkened, and he nodded. Without having to say it out loud, we stood up and walked out of the common room, going down the hall until we found an abandonded classroom. Once we sat down, before I had a chance to speak, Remus broke the silence.
"You know. I should've known you would figure it out." He shook his head, looking slightly devastated. "At least I know you won't judge me for it."
"It was Slughorn talking about the dates of the moons, during that dinner. Suddenly it clicked, you were always visiting your mom around those times. That combined with your reaction to the lesson, it made me positive. Why didn't you tell me your mom was a werewolf?" I asked him, patting his sholder in a sign of support. Once I'd gotten the last sentence out, he sat up stick straight.
"My mum? A werewolf?" He hesitated "Sure."
With that I knew that I was wrong. It wasn't his mother.
"Don't lie to me. Remus, tell me the truth. Who's the werewolf? You dad, a sibling you didn't mention?" I demanded quietly. I wasn't going to let the issue drop. I knew I was right about the issue being a werewolf, he might as well have told me straight out when he said that I wouldn't judge him for it.
"No. None of those." He hung his head. The feel of pain just emitted from him.
"It's you, isn't it? You don't visit your mom, you transform." I asked. When he released a heavy sigh, I knew I'd hit the nail on the head.
"So." He said slowly and sadly. The dim lighting in the classroom as the sun was setting fit his mood well.
"Sew buttons on a cows tail." I shrugged. He actually broke a smile at that. "You know I don't care, we had that conversation already. Though then I though I was speaking with someone who had a prejudice against wolves, instead of actually speaking with one. Now the only issue is, do you want to tell the others?"
"No!" he said with suprising enthusiasm. "I-I can't. They might not be as accepting as you. Will you keep my secret?"
"Remmy, it's your life. If you want me to keep my mouth shut, I will." I said. But I was really thinking The boys might not be the most observant in the world, but they aren't stupid. They'll figure it out, sooner rather than later. Then I teased him, "Now you big wolf, gimmie a hug."
I could see that a little bit of weight lifted off Remus's sholders once I knew his secret. It must be killing him to have to keep it from his friends I thought. There was nothing I could do about it, so I let the thought slip my mind. Soon enough we were leaving the classroom and heading back to the common room. Though once we arrived, I really wished we hadn't.
"NICOLE!" I heard Lily screech as I entered the room. I wondered what I possibly could have done to warrant such loudness.
"Yeah?" I questioned. She stormed towards me, looking as furious as furious could possibly be.
"You need to control the two idiots!" Once the words were out I knew which two idiots she had to be talking about. I glanced at Remus at my side, and he had an expression on his face of mixed terror and understanding, which probably mirrored my own. "Potter and Black have gone to far this time! I found Severus hanging upsidedown from a suit of armor on my way to meet him before lunch. You need to do something about them!"
In my head I could picture Lily stomping her foot on the ground. Not that she would do that in public, but I could imagine that.
"I'll talk to them, alright?" I asked, hoping to placate the girl for now. Still in a great huff she nodded then stormed off into the dormitory. I shook my head, and looked around the room for Sirius and James. Remus spotted them before I did, and we walked towards our three friends (Peter was with them) at a table near the window. They seemed innocent enough, playing exploding snap (I still didn't know the rules, we didn't have it in the US).
"So. Boys. What's this I hear about you bulling Severus again?" I questioned, firmly placing my hands on the table in the middle of their card game. Peter gulped and looked down at the floor, signaling that he'd been involved too. "What did I tell you about that? Lily is livid, and frankly, I'm not entirely pleased with you all either. Would someone care to explain?"
"Not really." Sirius grumbled. I glared at them all.
"That's enough of the bullying. Understood." I questioned, waiting for each of them to nod. Once they did I simply turned away, walking up to the dormitory after Lily. As I did, I heard Remus sit down behind me.
"She's upset with you lot. You are aware of that right?"
Upstairs in the dorm, I found Lily sitting on her bed, speaking with Xylina about the transfigureation textbook. I threw myself on Lily's bed, bouncing her up and down.
"You have your own bed you know." She said, giving me a sideways look. I smiled at her, climbing up into a sitting position, but not moving to my own bed.
"Yeah, but it's more fun here." She rolled her eyes at me, "I yelled at the boys. Not that it'll do much. I've tried before."
"They are absolutely bloody ridiculous!" She sighed. I couldn't help but agree, though I was really only upset over the concept of the harassment.
"What now?" Xylina asked, oblivious to the excitement that had occurred downstairs.
"Potter and Black caused problems for Severus again." Lily complained. Xylina threw me a look, questioning, without words the change of name for Sirius and James. I simply shrugged, assuming that the two had pushed her over the edge.
"Speaking of James." Xylina smiled mischeviousy and wiggled her eyebrows. Lily made a sound of disgust, knowing where the conversation was leading. "Nicole tells me that he was watching you the entire dinner. Apparently you've caught your first admirerer Lily."
I giggled at lily's reaction to the teasing. I'd told Xylina that James had been stealing glances at the red head all throughout the meal, and let her make of it what she wanted. Of course she made it into James liked Lily. In all truth, I suspected that her assumption wasn't far from correct. Ever since that night, James had looked at Lily a bit more. The two of us had teased Lily about it to no end. Finally Lily reverted to one thing that would be perfect revenge.
"And what about you and Black?" She questioned, looking pointedly at me. I rolled my eyes, already knowing where this was going. "You had breakfast again this morning. Is there more going on there than you tell us?"
I gave them my usual response of no, and eventually, the conversation drifted on to other topics. Soon enough we were heading down to dinner. Once we reached the Gryffindor table I saw the boys had gathered together, and were attempting to wave me over. As I still had been livid with 3/4ths of the group, I decided to ignore them. Remus shot me a sympathetic look, and rolled his eyes at the others. Our trio was soon enough joined by the other two girls in our dormitory, and conversation moved causualy through the meal.
Closer to the end of dinner I heard the call of 'Sirius, no!' come from the direction of Remus, and as I turned to look and see what type of trouble the black haired boy could be causing, something heavy dropped on my sholders.
"'ello Nicole. How was your meal?" He asked casualy, leaning on me heavily. "Why didn't you come sit with us?"
"Buzz off Sirius." I retorted, jerking him off of me. Lily was glowering at him, while Xylina seemed to notice nothing. "I mean it, I'm not very happy with you right now!"
Still the stubborn boy refused to leave me in peace, so I pretended he didn't exist. Eventually, I belive he decided that it wasn't very much fun being ignored so he left, back to the sides of James, Remus, and Peter.
That evening, when we were all in bed, everybody but myself was asleep. I was trying to make myself put down a book (it was a rather good one, a muggle book called 'The Giver') and sleep because of classes the next day. Just as I was about to un-lumous my wand, which was currently acting the part of a reading light, I felt my notebook heat up.
I always kept the notebook by me, even when I was mad at the boys. At night it was under my pillow, so I could always feel it if they tried to talk to me. And during the day it was in my bag, if not blatently on my desk. None of the teachers were the wiser to how we always passed notes and planned schemes.
I reached under my pillow, to see what they could possibly want at eleven at night.
Nicole, we're sorry! So would you stop being mad at us, it's no fun when you won't speak with us!
Yeah! We miss you already, and its only been a few hours.
Please!
Please!
Please!
Please!
Shut up and go to bed already. I'll talk to you tomorrow.
Wait. Does that mean we aren't in trouble anymore?
Sure, if you'll go to bed.
G'night!
Nighty night Nicole!
AN: Hahaha. So this was an awful chapter. I really really really don't like it. But I hope you do. It's kind of a filler chapter after the first bit. But I guess we get to see how Lily gets to hate James and Sirius. So it kind of works. But not really. So I hope the next chapter will be a bit better, but their first year is soooooo boring. Second year things will start to pick up. I hope. Well we'll see :D
Love