and nothing but the truth
chapter twenty-five
Remus's great flaw is that he has saved all this anger, all this battle for Sirius Black, but now that he has used it, he doesn't have anything left.
He feels like an emotional shell, because though he's laughing and smiling and frowning on the outside, on the inside nothing is happening, nothing at all. It is as if someone has taken a vacuum and sucked the concern from him like marrow from his bones, and the worst part is, he doesn't care.
Not one bit.
So he doesn't have anything to say to James when he returns and apologizes. He understands the built-in phobia most wizards have. He appreciates that James can overcome it. But he doesn't have anything to say. And he doesn't try to come up with something, either.
And he certainly doesn't ask him about Lily, either, but it's not because James looks positively shell-shocked right now (he does) and it's certainly not because he cares about what Lily was upset about (he does care, a lot) but because it's just not his place.
Well, not until Lily knocks on the door a few days later, and says Remus do you want to go somewhere today and he says of course where do you want to go.
She looks past him and sees James standing in the hallway like a deer in the headlights. Her face goes pink. "I – Remus, grab your jacket and hurry, the stores will all close soon."
"Alright, alright," he exclaim, throwing on his coat. "Let's go. James, I'll be -"
"Okay," the other man replies, as if he's in pain. He retreats to another room and Remus raises an eyebrow, closes the door.
"How odd," he comments.
Lily doesn't respond.
"Where do you want to go today?"
Anywhere but here, she thinks desperately, actually saying, "I want to go to London, if you don't mind. Dumbledore contacted me about – well, you know – and there are some things I need to pick up."
He scowls slightly at the mention, but doesn't say anything, which Lily takes for agreement.
A short stroll takes them to a safe location to Disapparate, though, Remus thinks with slight grumpiness, they could have departed privately at the flat. But considering the state he last saw Lily in, he isn't ready to argue with her.
They arrive in Diagon Alley just outside of Flourish and Blotts, where there is apparently a sale going on.
"After Christmas shopping," Lily comments with a tinge of nostalgia. "Dad used to take me every year, you know. Loved Diagon Alley, couldn't get enough of it."
"I know, I met him once," Remus says, recalling faintly Lily's father: a tall, thin man, balding but with enough of his dark red hair to recognize him for a relative of hers. He'd been extremely excited to meet his daughter's friends. "Good man."
She gives him a small smile, then trots into the bookstore without warning, all nostalgia apparently behind her. "The sales are calling!" she cries as he follows on her heels.
The bookstore is a flurry of activity – books are literally stacked to the ceiling, attendants rush back and forth, customers flock to the most popular magazines. And Lily and Remus are in the middle of it, the former now alive with excitement.
"I love this store," she declares as she plucks a copy of The Indicative Animagus and flips through it. "It just makes me want to fill up on knowledge."
"Did you even bring Wizard money?" he questions skeptically as she pulls another tome, Memoirs of a Perfect Pureblood, off the shelf.
"I actually stopped at Gringotts yesterday," she admits. "My mum gave me some money so I changed it to Galleons and decided to bring you shopping with me."
"How considerate of you," Remus says dryly, though he is truthfully glad for her enthusiasm; compared to when he last saw her – an emotional wreck – this sudden change is more than welcome.
He faithfully follows her as she searches the bargain bin, picks out a new quill, admires bottle of multi-colored ink. Finally she makes her purchases and throws her shopping bag over her shoulder; they step out once more into the wintry street.
"Is there anywhere you want to go?" she asks.
"I'm fine," Remus says. "I was in Hogsmeade a few days ago, after all."
She looks instantly guilty. The full moon has come and gone every month for the entire duration of their friendship, but he can see she still gets depressed when he mentions it.
"It's alright," he adds quickly, searching her expression. "It's so much better now – that brewer works miracles, Lily."
He takes special care not to let the nickname, Lee, slip.
They walk a little farther, a destination-less meandering, until they find themselves outside the back lot of the Leaky Cauldron. Lily stares up at it.
"I might just rent a room here, when I move back," she says thoughtfully.
Remus looks at her, an unreadable expression in his eyes. "So you're really moving into Wizarding Britain? Permanently?"
"Permanently," she affirms. "I found a good opportunity. I'm sure if you're interested I can put in a good word for you -"
"No," he says quite firmly. "They won't need me. Dumbledore has already given me an education – I can't bother him more."
She wants to explain, this is a favor to the world, not just Dumbledore.
But she's side-tracked by the vague though, I wonder if James has been here lately?
And then that becomes, I wonder how he is…
Questions spin around her head, and almost none of them can be asked.
What she does ask is, "So you're going to be alright at Cardiff by yourself?"
"I'm not staying at Cardiff," he replies incredulously. "If you're moving back, I'm moving back. I only chose Cardiff because you did."
Lily frowns and readjusts her bag on her shoulder. "Remus," she says, "you can't just do what I do. What about getting a Muggle job?"
He shrugs. "I'll get by."
She is skeptical, but something occurs to her before she can press the issue. "I have to go to Eyelop's before we go back," she says quickly. "Do you mind?"
Of course he minds. He wants to keep her as far away from this world as possible – its dangers. Death Eaters. War. The resistance, which, though he has been told so little about it, Remus knows can almost certainly lead to her death.
But Remus doesn't have any fight left in him. So he says, "Not at all."
--
Lily, alone in her dormitory except for her quietly sleeping roommate, is curled up in her bunk, leaning against the wall. In her hands she has The Indicative Animagus, which she has been reading with dwindling interest for the past half-hour.
The Animagus is the animal representation of one's character and holds many insights into one's personality, manner, and values system. It cannot change, being the permanent basis of a person's being, and therefore is much easier to interpret than a Patronus, though much harder to produce.
Lily yawns. It's like studying in McGonagall's classroom all over again, and though she finds the subject interesting, it's just not light reading. She puts it by her side and instead picks up Memoirs of a Perfect Pureblood, a small brown book with simple lettering across the front.
Very modest compared to the typical pureblood supremacist, she thinks.
The memoirs begin as normal – an outline of the author's childhood. Right away Lily feels shocked – the author's last name is Black, and he is clearly a relative of Sirius's.
"So he's a pureblood, huh?" she says to herself.
Everyone in the Black family was in Slytherin, the author wrote, and I was proud to be sorted likewise.
Lily frowns.
I was in Gryffindor, too. Is Sirius ashamed of that?
But then she remembers how he blamed his parents' politics for his cruel childhood, and how James spoke of Sirius's good will. She relaxes, and flips through the book once more.
It is a fairly interesting read, though very biased politically; although she looks carefully, there is no mention of Sirius in the memoir. After all, the Black family is a large one, dispersed throughout Britain.
Most interesting to Lily are the illustrations – maps of old Black family lands; sketches of influential ancestors; elaborate, hand-written family trees that take up several pages.
These intrigue her the most, because she does find Sirius listed here, in tiny, neat lettering, beside Regulus Black, apparently his brother.
"Oh," she says softly, realizing that Regulus died very recently. A death date glimmers under his name. Barely 18. "Poor Sirius."
Sirius didn't seem bothered in the slightest, she thinks, and she wonders if he just doesn't show it or if he really doesn't care.
She skims along the tree some more, shaking off the depressing thought, and instead marvels at how interconnected all pureblood families seem to be. Indeed, she recognizes a few names: Weasley, Longbottom, Malfoy…
And, her index finger moving across the page, she hits it.
Potter.
Lily's eyes snap shut. She's suddenly back kneeling by his side, surprised by the whimsical kiss; no, further, speaking in a bookstore like it was the last time; even further, sitting on that bench in cold November air as he grinned at her.
All because of that name, Potter. She's not even the least bit surprised that she just found him in a random book, no – it's more the rush of feeling that accompanies the discovery, the dull pounding of her heart against her chest.
She lays the book down the leans again the white plaster wall, staring at the generic dormitory, the generic furniture, and realizes she is just a generic person. And James – James is extraordinary.
"He's a pureblood, eh?" A voice drifts from above. "I'm a bit surprised; I always knew he was magical, but I didn't know there was so much hype about bloodlines."
Dumbfounded, Lily looks up to see Elle's upside-down face over the edge of her bunk. The girl gestures vaguely toward the book.
"You're… a witch?" the redhead stammers.
A girlish laugh. "Lord, no," Elle giggles. "I just noticed you were, that's all. I wish I was, it seems pretty glamorous."
It takes Lily a minute to absorb this. Ironically, she is not surprised in the least. But perhaps the number of recent events have taken all the surprise out of her; the unexpected, she muses, has become paradoxically routine.
"I don't think you would want to be," she finally says, much to the bemusement of her roommate. She sinks back into her pillows and gives a long sigh. "It seems like a great lot of drama to me."
"Love drama?"
"That's part of it," Lily agrees.
"But don't you know," Elle says earnestly, "the best love stories are those left unwritten?"
Author's Note: I know, this chapter is rather uneventful and doesn't progress the plot at all. But it's somewhat important. (And if you're thinking, Uh, didn't Marlene say that line a couple chapters ago? then yes, she did. Think about it.) Please review!