I'm glad you guys liked the chapter. This next one was easier to write (which I'm sure you could tell, what with the quick update and all) and I hope I continue to do well in your eyes. Which you should totally tell me if I am or not, via the review button.
September, 1971
Remus glanced up at exactly the right time.
Blair entered the Great Hall in a subtle sort of way, glancing so quickly at the Gryffindor table that had he not been looking for it, he wouldn't have seen it. She immediately moved to the Slytherin table, her bag slung loosely over her left shoulder and her robes fluttering slightly with her speed, and chose a seat close to the one she'd been in the night before. She then poured herself a goblet of orange juice and dragged what appeared to be the Standard Book of Spells, Grade 1 out of her bag. Remus felt a smile slide onto his face at the normalcy—for some reason, he'd expected explosions and shouting and tears (not from Blair, of course, because she wasn't the type to cry in public)—and dragged a plate of strawberries towards him, looking away from Blair for the first time since she'd entered the hall and picking absently at a loose thread at the end of his left sleeve.
Just as he'd selected the plumpest, reddest bit of fruit, Lily finally noticed her best friend had entered the premises.
"Blair," she said, perhaps a bit louder than she should have, straightening her back to get a better view of the other girl over the heads of the slowly gathering students. The brunette was apparently absorbed in the book in front of her, chewing slowly on a forkful of sausage, her eyes darting back and forth over the pages. Remus swallowed—suddenly letting Lily stalk over there and demand attention seemed like a very bad idea—shifted ever so slightly, just in case he would be forced to grab the girl in order to stop her.
Instead, Blair glanced up just as Lily began to push herself off of the bench.
Their eyes met for a fraction of a second, but something in Blair's gaze obviously placated her, because Lily was suddenly seated again and picking at a bit of scrambled eggs. The Slytherin shot Remus a look as well, though to him she was entirely inscrutable.
McGonagall had gotten up from the staff table, along with the heads of the other houses. Remus looked away from Blair again to focus on his breakfast.
He was bloody tired and he needed some energy for the first day of classes.
--
When Professor Slughorn, the head of Slytherin house, finally reached her, Blair was finally starting to relax.
Lily hadn't done anything—for lack of a better term—stupid. Lupin had simply gazed, looking just as exhausted as she'd felt, before turning back to his food. Nothing cataclysmic had happened, Bellatrix Lestrange hadn't so much as glanced at her since she'd entered the hall—though, Lucius had, the prat, for someone so keen on protecting her from the evil forces of older Slytherin girls, he was certainly drawing a lot of unnecessary attention to her—and she had found the Hogwarts cooking to be much better than Eileen's—which had been declining in quality as of late.
Of course, then the big nosed, pink faced, almost-goofy Potions Master smiled cheerfully and handed her the schedule in his left hand with a loud and almost legitimate honk of, "Welcome to Hogwarts, my dear!"
The boy seated across from her—Evan Rosier—rolled his eyes spectacularly. Blair almost smiled; it was quite obvious Professor Slughorn was atypical of their house.
Her schedule looked decent to start. That day she would be attending History of Magic, double Herbology and Transfiguration. The next she would start Defense Against the Dark Arts—incidentally, the subject she was most eager to learn. Wednesday, Potions was introduced, as well as Astronomy. Thursday, Charms. It didn't seem all that bad, or even remotely difficult.
Blair glanced once again in Lily's direction, only to find her pouring over her schedule with a strange mixture of excitement and apprehension. She frowned—it would be easy for her, perhaps, but she'd also grown up with a witch.
"Bloody History of Magic," Evan Rosier muttered and she looked at him, unsure if the words were meant for her. He met her stare and his mouth twitched slightly, "I've been told it's nearly unbearable."
Blair blinked—what was this? An offer of friendship or just small talk to fill the silence?
Rosier promptly stood, effectively dashing her hopes. But then, as he lifted the strap of his bag to his shoulder, he lifted an eyebrow at her.
"Shall we?" he asked, perhaps a bit lazily. Blair's stomach felt a bit lighter and she threw up a casual expression.
"I suppose," she sighed and dragged her bag out from under the bench.
--
On the third day of classes, Lily couldn't decide if it was appropriate to laugh or to cry.
It wasn't that she didn't love it at Hogwarts—she did, rather a lot, actually—but she also felt ages behind the rest of her class.
The first class she'd attended was Herbology with the Hufflepuffs and they'd made the trek out of the castle and down to the greenhouses, where they'd been shown by Professor Sprout how to plant a rather nasty looking bush bearing sharp spikes in soil using large amounts of, to her absolute horror, Dragon dung. Watching it had been one thing, but actually doing it had been entirely another.
Charms the next day had been an absolute nightmare. She'd been horribly nervous when the tiny Professor Flitwick had asked them to levitate a feather with the spell Blair had been so adept at on the train, Wingardium Leviosa, and hadn't been able to keep her hand steady enough to actually do it. What was worse, James Potter—who was painfully cheeky and seemed to live for the expressed purpose of showing off—achieved flight in one attempt and had thrown her a rather disturbing wink as she'd gawked.
The only class that she wasn't convinced would be the death of her was History of Magic, dreadfully boring though it was. Note taking had always been one of her strong points.
And to cap it all off nicely, she hadn't even spoken to Blair, let alone had a moment alone with her, since the Sorting.
Lily was beginning to fear the worst for their friendship on Wednesday morning when, in passing, Remus—who had become something of a crutch to her and didn't seem to mind her company—mentioned that their double Potions block after lunch would be shared with the Slytherins.
"What?" she sputtered over the top of her milk glass. Remus didn't look up from buttering his bread.
"I heard Rosier talking yesterday in the Charms corridor. They have Potions the same time we do."
Lily glanced towards the Slytherin table, where Blair was seated next to Rosier and chewing absently on a bit of melon.
"Oh," she said quietly.
--
Slughorn, it seemed, was insane.
The moment he and Lily arrived in the Potions classroom—which was also the largest dungeon, to his distaste—Remus knew the class would be unpleasant at best. Not because of the teacher, but rather his radical ideas.
Radical in a Slughorn-partnering-Slytherins-with-Gryffindors-for-their-first-exercise sort of way.
"Ah!" Slughorn cried as the door swung shut behind them, "You two are Gryffindors, yes? Well, we're trying a bit of ice breaking today. Your name?" he asked Lily.
"Erm…" she glanced towards the rest of the classroom, where the sullen looking pair of Potter and Rosier shared a desk, as well as Black and Carrow, and Lestrange and McKinnon, "Lily Evans?"
The Potions Master beamed.
"Miss Evans, dear, go sit by Miss Carrow. And you, my boy?"
"Remus Lupin."
"Mr. Lupin, you will be partnered with Miss Snape."
Lily, who was in the process of sinking into her chair, shot a look of pure disbelief at Slughorn. Remus swallowed, carefully avoiding her eyes, and turned to the last row of tables, where Blair was sitting and looking strangely disarmed. He could feel Lily's eyes on him as he moved to join her.
"Hello," he muttered under his breath, "Nice to see you again."
Blair said nothing in reply.
Class began two minutes later, with a lecture on the difference between Potions and other branches of magic. Remus found himself wishing he and Lily could trade partners—Alecto Carrow, though rather sour looking, would not have caused so much tension. The air between himself and Blair was thick enough to cut and she seemed content to leave it that way.
Slughorn set them to making a batch of weak Sleeping Draught about halfway through the period, giving them about an hour to complete it. The directions were on the board and the ingredients in a storage cupboard at the front of the classroom, which Blair fetched without giving him a chance to offer.
When she returned, she had a rather foul look on her face, though all of the ingredients in her arms.
"What?" Remus asked before he could stop himself. They could have been friends, after all, and she didn't have to be so completely abrasive just because of house politics.
"I want you to tell Lily that I haven't replaced her with Rosier," Blair snarled and slammed a bottle of bat hearts down next to his forearm, "Cut those up."
He blinked and glanced at the boy in question, who was having an extremely obvious and heated argument with James Potter, apparently about the proper way to set up a cauldron. Lily was glaring, albeit subtly, at the pair as she chopped up her own bat hearts.
"I'm not so sure it's Rosier she's looking at," he said to placate her, "She's not all that fond of Potter."
Blair's expression told him she didn't buy the argument at all. She shoved a knife at him before starting in on the required newt tails violently, "Lupin, she's been giving him dirty looks all week."
Remus picked up the blade and eyed the organs in front of him, "She misses you," he stated matter-of-factly and could practically hear Blair rolling her eyes.
"You can't know that," she said coldly, "You've known her all of four days."
He smiled mildly at her, "Perhaps," he cut into the first heart, "But it's rather obvious, you would have noticed if you hadn't been avoiding her the way you have."
Blair's knife stopped mid stroke, sunk half way into the thickest part of the newt tail she was pinching between her pointer finger and thumb. There was an extended pause, though this one seemed more—more uncomfortable than tense. Then, Remus supposed, most would argue they were the same feeling. Here, however, was the proof that they were anything but.
Then, so softly he barely heard it—though he had a feeling his…advantage was unfair and she hadn't intended for him to hear it at all—"I miss her too."
He frowned at his second bat heart. Blair's knifed started moving again.
--
Sorry I'm giving you another short chapter. I find it's easier to write smaller chunks than to tackle one, long, never-ending part. So please review, because it helps my inspiration.