Remus:
After a rather violent quidditch tryout, Saturday passed without much of an incident. Unless you counted Sirius refusing to acknowledge James in any way. Remus couldn't exactly blame Sirius for that. The tryout was a disaster. Though James had eventually chosen his team, it wasn't without many injuries. Having walked to and from the hospital wing several times with injured students, Remus wasn't too fond of James himself. He understood his friend's intentions trying to get the best team possible, but would a lap around the pitch to weed out the people who couldn't fly have taken that much time?
He was almost finished with his potions essay when Lily Evans tapped on his shoulder. "Ready for rounds, Remus?"
"Of course." He responded, rolling up the parchment. "I needed a break anyway."
"Transfiguration?"
"No. Potions. I finished transfiguration on Wednesday."
"Ah," Lily responded as they made their way out of the portrait hole, "I was just working on the Transfiguration essay. Not exactly a fun Saturday activity. Stupid transfiguration."
"Stupid potions. At least transfiguration involves wand work. Potions is basically muggle chemistry."
"I forgot you understand the muggle world."
"Yeah. I suppose that is rather rare here," Remus admitted. "They really should hire a more interesting muggle studies professor."
Lily laughed. "Yes, I suppose that would I'm not sure even the most fascinating professor would convince some purebloods to sign up."
Thinking of their classmates (mostly Slytherins) who got endless enjoyment out of torturing their muggleborn classmates, Remus shook his head. "Lily," he said carefully, "I hope you aren't letting the crazy purebloods get to you. They really aren't as big of a group as they would like you to think."
"Oh I know," Lily said, staring at her feet as she responded. "But they are loud. And I can't help but wonder how many of them hold those beliefs privately."
Remus sighed. "Merlin, I hope not. I hope more prominent pureblood families come out against this pureblood superiority movement."
"More prominent pureblood families?" Lily questioned. "Who has come out?"
Remus stopped in his tracks. "You didn't see yesterday's Daily Prophet?"
Lily stopped a few feet ahead of Remus, turning to face him. "I read the front page?" She responded questioningly. "What did I miss?"
"James's mom - she was very high up at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the Ministry of Magic before she retired. She's very highly regarded. She wrote a letter that was published in the Daily Prophet yesterday. She gave James a heads up of course. Not that he seems to fully grasp the danger of his mother coming out supporting muggleborns and muggles. But a lot of people are talking."
Lily was about to respond when there was a shuffling noise around the corner. Pulling out their wands at the same time, Lily and Remus turned the corner at the same time. Turning the corner, they came face to face with 4 terrified first year students. A small redhead girl walked straight into Remus. Luckily Remus, being a rather graceful guy, was able to catch the small girl before she fell backward.
Running into two prefects clearly wasn't what these 4 Hufflepuff girls had hoped for, but they didn't try to run away like many of the younger students when they were caught. They just looked back and forth between the two Gryffindor prefects, clearly not at all sure what to do.
"So," Remus broke the silence, "What are you four up to tonight?" Remus was doing his best to keep his stern prefect voice from betraying his inner rulebreaker. He took his duties seriously, but he was a very kind and forgiving person. And with friends like his, he empathized a bit with the rulebreakers they found on patrol. He had been in that place many times before he and his friends had perfected sneaking around the castle after curfew. Developing the map had helped them immensely to avoid interactions like these. These girls seemed more timid than most curfew breakers he encountered, but they were Hufflepuffs.
The girl directly in front of Lily spoke first, "Um. I'm very sorry sir. We are very lost. We were in the library trying to figure out our herbology homework, but none of us are very good at identifying plants." The other girls nodded nervously. "So we left the library when it was closing, but we seem to have taken a few wrong turns and we have no idea where we are."
Lily and Remus exchanged glances. He hoped she could see his pleading look. These weren' hardcore rulebreakers. They deserved some leniency. He was also doing his best to keep from bursting out laughing at being addressed as "sir." He could tell she found it pretty entertaining as well. She rolled her eyes at him before turning back to the girls.
"Alright. It's only 30 minutes past curfew. We can let you off with a warning this time, but if it happens again, we won't be so forgiving." The girls looked very relieved at this and all four were nodding along with Lily.
"But we can help you get back to your common room." Remus assured the girls.
Remus and Lily walked the girls back to the Hufflepuff common room with Remus pointing out landmarks to remember and basic routes to places they would need to remember. After a very grateful goodbye from the first years, Remus turned to Lily and suggested a quick trip to the kitchens since they were right there.
"You know where the kitchens are? I really shouldn't be surprised by that." Lily responded.
"Of course! We visit the kitchens all the time. The house elves are great. Come on, I'll show you." He dragged her towards a painting of a bowl of fruit. He tickled the pear, and watched Lily's face as she saw the Hogwarts kitchen for the first time.
She was clearly shocked. It was quite a scene. The kitchens were massive. Directly below the Great Hall and with tables laid out in the same places, the kitchens were, in Remus's opinion, one of the most fascinating places in the Hogwarts castle.
They were immediately greeted by multiple house elves asking what they wanted. "I could go for some chocolate ice cream. Lily?"
"Oh I'm not that hungry."
"But Miss! We can get you whatever you want, Miss!" Squeaked an eager house elf.
"Oh I don't want to be a bother," Lily said.
"Oh it's no bother at all, Miss! What would you like? Ice cream? Cake? Leaf makes fantastic ginger biscuits!"
"Really, Lily. Whatever you want." Remus assured her.
"I guess I'll have some chocolate ice cream as well."
"Yes of course! Make yourselves comfortable, and we will bring the ice cream!"
They sat down. "I feel like we are shirking our responsibilities as prefects," Lily commented.
"Well we just went above and beyond by teaching first years how to navigate the castle. We deserve a reward." Remus replied.
"I suppose that's true," Lily allowed. Soon they both had ice cream in front of them. As they started eating, Remus noticed the flash of sadness on Lily's face that he had seen a few times since the start of the school year.
"What's on your mind?"
"Hm?" she responded.
"You've seemed a little down lately."
"Oh. Well, you know. Homework…"
He knew she was lying, but he didn't know how to get her to open up. They had never been particularly close, but he worried that Lily was being so private that she wasn't opening up to anyone. But he understood that because he could be the same way.
"I don't know. I always find the transition between home life and school a little challenging." Remus started. "It is nice to get away from the family issues when school starts, but I don't know… it just feels like some of it sticks with you regardless of the distance."
"I can understand that," Lily said. He could tell she was being careful not to give anything away about her own family life. "How was your summer really, Remus?"
It was nice to have Lily. She had figured out about his lythancropy the previous year when they were paired together for rounds, but she hadn't judged him at all. Before he knew it, he was telling her all about his parents' disagreements and the blame and guilt about his becoming a werewolf.
"So Lily. How was your summer really?" He turned her own question back on her.
"My parents got divorced." She said quietly, staring at her ice cream.
