Do I ever thank you enough for all the reviews you've been giving me? Well, I don't feel I do. But here it is; a big giant THANK YOU!

Cheers!

~Ice.

38 –Hogsmeade

Remus

The whole of the next week was spent listening to Sirius' gloating about getting on the Gryffindor team. And the week after that. And the week after that . . .

In fact, Halloween had passed before Remus finally heard the end of it, and that was because Christina Johnson had finally increased the intensity of their training, and Sirius was too tired to gloat.

It was a relief, to say in the least. If he had to hear one more time about Sirius' capability of flogging bludgers . . .

On the first of November, a notice was pinned up in the Gryffindor common room saying that the first Hogsmeade trip of the year was that weekend. The third years were very excited about this, as they had never been down in the village before.

'I've heard there's this shack down there,' a Hufflepuff said as she walked by, talking to her friend. Remus and Kayla, who were going to Potions, stiffened as they heard this. The Hufflepuff continued. 'Apparently it's haunted. Called the "Shrieking Shack" or something, and the villagers hear something growling and screaming at night.'

'No way!' her friend said, wide eyed. 'That's awesome!'

'No it's not,' Remus muttered as they disappeared into the throng of people. Kayla put a hand on his arm comfortingly. For some reason, the single gesture sent a jolt down his spine. Then it had gone before Remus could blink twice.

'Don't worry about them,' Kayla murmured. 'They'll never work it out; no one has yet, and it's been two years.'

Remus chewed his lip and didn't say anything.

'Come on,' she said in an attempt to lighten his mood. 'If you don't cheer up, I'll force you into the most horrible little teashop I've heard of . . .'

'Oh, ha ha.'

But he did feel better as his mind was taken off the Shrieking Shack by discussing all of the other things around Hogsmeade, and by the time they had arrived at Potions, Remus had forgotten all about the Hufflepuff.

Lily

'Come on, Lily, please.'

'I'm not interested, Severus.'

'But I -'

'You're lucky Slughorn paired you with me, so you can harass me.' Lily looked at Severus with narrowed eyes. She counted out teaspoons of pickled slugs and tipped them into the almost-finished potion.

'One minute left, everyone!' Professor Slughorn called out. Lily began stirring the cauldron, sweeping her hair out of her face, which had gone frizzy from the humidity.

'If you'd just let me explain -'

'And you've been putting out the same explanation for the last six weeks. You were hexed. You're going to need a better excuse to make up for the fact that you called me a -'

'I told you – I couldn't do anything about it, Lily.'

'I'm sure you could have,' she muttered irritably. 'I'm surprised you haven't pulled out the "mudblood" insults yet.'

'But I -'

'But you what, hmm? Got hexed by Potter and Black so you talked like that?' She made a noise of disdain. 'You can't pin everything on them, Severus. They might be gits, but they don't affect everything you do.'

'If you'd just -'

'And time's up!' Slughorn called, clapping his hands twice. 'Bottle up, everyone, and put them on my desk. You'll get your results next lesson!'

Lily ladled a spoonful of her Dizziness Draught into a vial and scribbled her name on it. Severus was still trying to talk to her, but she had pointedly tuned him out. She crossed the room to Slughorn's desk, put her vial in the rack on it, walked back to her desk, shouldered her bag and walked out.

'Lily!'

Severus had followed her out of the classroom.

'Please Lily!' He caught up to her, and stopped her by grabbing her bag strap. 'Go with me to Hogsmeade this weekend, and I can explain everything. Please.'

He looked so determined and pleading that Lily paused, and held back the spiteful words she was about to say.

'Fine,' she said slowly. 'But you had better make it worth my time.'

And as she walked away, what she really hoped was that he had something that gave her reason to be friends with him again. She hated being cross with people.

Lily met Severus in the Entrance Hall on Saturday morning, but did not exchange a word with him until they were at least half way down to the village.

'So, what's your reason, then?' Her tone was icy, but she only realised it just after she uttered the words. A crease appeared between Severus' eyebrows.

'Like I've said, I had no control over what I was saying. All that came out was insult after insult and I couldn't do anything about it.'

'That's completely ridiculous,' Lily muttered. 'What would the point of a hex like that be?'

'I don't know,' Severus said pointedly. 'But I think it was Potter and Black who did it.'

Lily looked at him, her expression on of the utmost bemusement. 'And what interest would they have in doing that?' She didn't know why, but her need to see the best in people was suddenly showing a little more than she would have liked at the present moment.

'Because they're . . . them,' Severus bit out. 'They're arrogant toerags who want nothing more than to -'

'Than to get on your nerves,' Lily said shortly. 'And you're letting them.'

'But it's not just that,' he said, more than a little insistently. 'Potter has this creepy obsession with you -'

'It's not an obsession, it's the constant need to irritate me. And besides -' She gave him a pointed look. '- I'm sure plenty of people have "creepy obsessions" with others. Don't narrow it down to being just him.'

For some reason, Severus turned a funny colour. But before Lily could work out why, though, he had continued on. 'But, he's always being a complete -'

'Relying on colourful lists of profanities won't change anything, Severus,' Lily said. 'Potter will still be . . . Potter.'

Severus' mouth tensed, but Lily could see that her point had gotten through to him.

'Anyway,' she said crossing her arms as a cool breeze wafted over them, 'we're getting off track. I didn't agree to go here with you because of him. Are you sure that's what happened? Them hexing you, I mean.'

He nodded quickly. 'Yes – I mean, that's what I think – what else could it have been?'

'You have a point there,' she murmured. 'Alright, fine. I believe you.' She looked up to see the hugest expression of relief cross his features.

'Thank you,' he said gratefully. 'I would never call you names like that in my own state of mind. Never.'

'I know,' Lily admitted. 'I just needed to hear you say that for yourself.'

'So . . . we're okay, then?' he asked tentatively. Lily nodded.

'Of course. Now, come on. I want to go to this place – I think it's called the Three Broomsticks or something.'

Severus nodded, and together, they made their way through the village amidst the cool, autumn air.

It was good to have her friend back.

Remus

'So that's the shack,' Kayla said, leaning over the old railing at the edge of the slope. Out in the distance, a rickety, wooden building stood. All of the windows were boarded up. Remus, who felt quite sick, nodded.

After a long moment, Kayla tore her eyes away from the shack and looked at him. 'You're green, Rem. Are you okay?'

He waved her off. 'M'fine,' he lied. 'It's just . . . cold.' But he wasn't cold at all. Looking at this place with his best friend so close to him made him feel anxious. He had already spent so many nights in that building as a feral, rampaging monster.

But he didn't seem to be spending as much time in there anymore. Madam Pomfrey wasn't saying anything, but something at the back of his conscience, a second voice perhaps, seemed to think that the Forbidden Forest was quite a familiar place . . .

'It is starting to cool off a little,' Kayla noted, rubbing her hands together. Her voice snapped Remus back to the present. She pulled the sleeves of her jumper up so they covered her hands. 'Maybe we should go inside. Apparently Honeydukes is the best place to go in the colder months.'

Her lips were tinted blue. Seeing that immediately made Remus' more protective side kick in, and he agreed with her. 'Yeah. Come on. We don't need to stick around here. I'd rather not, actually.'

She gave an understanding nod. 'Alright.'

Together they turned and walked back into the village. Overnight, a light frost had settled on the ground, and the grass was still chilly. The sun had long since melted the ice, but traces still remained.

'I feel like a wuss,' Kayla complained. 'It's barely November.'

'No, I think it's just really cold today,' Remus reassured her. 'Let's get inside.' He pushed open the door to the sweet shop, and they stepped into the warm, toffee scented air.

It was crowded with students, though judging by what he saw from out on the street, the Three Broomsticks would have been even busier.

'There's so much sugar,' Kayla said, looking up at the rows of shelves.

'So much chocolate,' Remus added, a lazy grin crossing his face. She laughed and took his hand, triggering what felt like an electric shock up his arm, and pulled him into the masses.

They spent more time in that shop than they really needed to. Remus hovered around the hundreds of different types of chocolates, while Kayla was constantly disappearing and returning, adding a container of fudge or a bag of Fizzing Whizzbees to his already overladen arms. In short, he was her shopping trolley.

'I'll pay you off for this when we go,' she had reassured him, laughing while doing so.

In the end, Remus had gotten a large, plastic bag the size of a garbage bin and loaded everything inside it, sick of worrying about the piles of merchandise falling over and hitting him on the head. Kayla finally returned, once again, this time with about ten boxes of some mystery item.

'Here you go,' she said, shoving them at him. Remus, who was already getting sore from the ginormous bag, nearly toppled over.

'Easy,' he said insistently. 'You do realise we have to pay for all of this, don't you?'

'Yeah,' she said, grinning. 'But this will keep me going for an entire year. Keep in mind that I have Marley in my dormitory. And Lily. She's a sugarholic.'

'You're the supplier?' he asked with raised eyebrows. She nodded.

'They pay me back, of course, but I do the bulk shopping.'

'And make me carry it, apparently,' Remus muttered, a small grin starting to tug at his mouth. Even though those girls ate a lot of sweets, they put a lot of thought into how they were going to go about doing that.

'What about you lot? Do you just buy it and eat it?'

'Pretty much,' Remus said, shrugging. 'It works. I have to hide my chocolate though. Sirius is the worst with stealing your food.'

'You hoarder,' she laughed, punching him in the shoulder. 'Sharing is caring,' she added in a sing-song voice.

'Not with Sirius it isn't,' Remus said, looking at her pointedly. 'If I share, it's all gone!'

'Fair enough,' she said with a little nod. Her cheeks were pink with laughter. She looked towards the counter, then back at her massive bag of food. 'We should go pay.'

Five minutes later, the two of them left the shop and sat down on a bench outside, all of their purchases now in several other considerably smaller bags. Kayla reached into one of them and drew out the boxes again. 'Your payment, good sir,' she said, laughing again. Remus took them off her and opened one of them to reveal chocolate. A lot of chocolate.

'Fair?' she asked, raising her eyebrows.

' . . . fair . . .' he said faintly. 'How many of these are there? Ten?'

'Twelve,' she answered absently. 'But who's counting?'

Remus felt his eyebrows shoot up his head. 'Twelve?'

She crossed her arms and grinned. 'Make sure to keep it away from Sirius.'

'Oh, no way in hell is he getting his hands on these. I'm stocked for a lifetime!'

'Definitely fair, then,' she said, smirking.

I love these guys too much. Waaaaay too much. And also, the Lily/Snape spats won't be major until "the" fight, alright?

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