A Short Guide to Marauding

by Mireille

Here is a tale of MWPP as they have begun existing to me. Sirius is a screwball, Remus is a golden boy, James is an endearing jerk, Peter is number four, and this is their seventh year. [COMPLETE] (and freshly edited - 52203)

2. Potion Making

Chapter 2 – Potion Making

Sirius was in his own little corner of heaven; more specifically, he was in his potions lab.  Professor Paquerette had given him the use of the abandoned workroom the year before, saying, "You have an innate talent for potion making, Sirius."  The memory could still make him smile.  He couldn't recall the exact number of extra-credit potions he'd concocted in here, but the number was astronomical; Sirius had never earned less than 125 percent in Potions class, which everyone thought must be some kind of school record.  But to Sirius, the grade was secondary.  He did what he did because he loved potions and making them more than anything on earth, and he wanted to do exactly that until he died of old age.

Tonight, Sirius had set himself an unusual challenge.  He intended to make a potion that would peel off the top layer of one's skin to preserve a kiss.  (He was well aware that Lily's kiss was long washed away, but this was exactly the type of potion that he could peddle secretly in the halls and earn a considerable profit.)  Making a potion that simulated the effect of a bad sunburn was second-year work.  Making a potion that peeled off an unbroken sheet of skin from one area was approaching artistry.  For instance, such a potion would have to be applied externally, not taken internally as was most often the case, and Sirius had spent an entire weekend researching the subtle differences in composition that this required.  This consideration and a thousand others had occupied his thoughts almost exclusively since Halloween Eve, to the continual astonishment of his less dedicated friends.  Now at last he was ready, he had an entire Friday night to himself while his friends were at the Three Broomsticks, and he could finally treat this problem with the intensity it deserved.

A shadow flicked across the door and he froze.

Sirius's first thought was of the mad stalker demon-ghosts that purportedly roamed the halls after curfew.  So were his second and third.  Then he remembered that James had found a draft of the mad stalker demon-ghost legend in Filch's personal files.  Also, ghosts couldn't cast shadows.

The culprit, then, was corporeal.

Lily?  He dismissed the fantasy immediately.  James had mentioned that she was going to the Broomsticks too.  Often, and loudly.

Snape?  The idea had merit.  He frequently avoided the crowd scene and wasn't likely to be out carousing.  He also, Sirius remembered unbidden, knew about the potion from that other disastrous evening.  Actually, Sirius had been referring to Remus's potion, but quite frankly he considered any of his potions worth stealing.

Sirius pondered his options.  Since Snape and he were equally adept at potion making, he knew that within an hour or so, Snape could produce an accurate list of the ingredients in any potion he might choose to make.  Snape would know on sight any of the more unpleasant potions, in fact was probably better versed on the subject than Sirius himself.  Anything illegal was also out, because Snape would run to the headmaster with it and Sirius would lose his considerable research privileges.

There seemed only one course open to him.

Sirius went ahead with his planned project.  If he was not successful, it wouldn't matter.  If he was, let Snape try to ferret out the formula.  It would at a minimum keep him occupied with something other than tormenting innocent Gryffindors.

Meanwhile, things were getting interesting for his three friends.

The evening had begun normally enough.  James, Remus, Peter and Lily had gotten a table at the Broomsticks, and all of them but Remus had enough butterbeer to get more than a little tipsy.  (Butterbeer was generally the strongest drink Madam Rosmerta would serve students, except of course on Halloween.)  Eventually James asked Lily if she wanted to go back up to the castle with him, and she said yes.  The implication was clear; Remus assumed that they would be exploring the view from the Astronomy tower, one of its many amenities.  Remus was fairly unusual in that he actually visited the Astronomy tower to look at the stars (occasionally being reminded of his relative insignificance reassured him).  However, he tended to avoid it on weekends because the other stargazers were a little distracting.

So he and Peter, having decided that the Broomsticks was getting dull, followed Lily and James up to the castle about fifteen minutes later.  Neither one was surprised when they entered the common room and Lily and James were nowhere to be seen.  They played endless desultory games of cards until James arrived, shortly before midnight.

"So," Peter said, slapping a card to the table.  "How'd it go?"

"I think I screwed up a little," James confessed, sitting down heavily.  "We were going out east, you know, and we went down the wrong corridor –"

"You help write our map and you still get lost going to the tower?" Peter said gleefully.  "That's classic."

"You can't talk," James snapped.  "I didn't notice you going easy on the butterbeer either, pal."

Remus grinned.  "So you help write our map and you –"

"Okay, enough," James said.  "You want to hear the story or not?  So this corridor goes straight to the dungeons, and a light's on in one of the rooms there.  Obviously I know who it is, but Lily doesn't and she goes to look, but she can't see in.  So she asks me who it is, and I tell her and she asks what he's doing.  Then I tell her about your potion –" meaning Remus – "and how hard it is, how long Sirius's spent on it, and she says that sounds like something Snape might want to hear about, seeing how he's into potions too –"

"And what'd you say?" Peter pressed.

James closed his eyes.  "I said something like, 'Whatever makes you happy, sweetheart.' "

"You little shit," Peter said.  "I can't believe you did that.  Now Snape'll be trying to come up with it himself and take all the credit.  You didn't tell her any of what didn't work, I hope."

"I might have mentioned one or two –"

"Sweet Merlin!"

"Really," Remus interrupted, "does it matter who discovers it as long as someone does?"

"I guess not," Peter said.  "What am I saying?  Of course it does.  We Gryffindors have our pride, after all."

"Yes, and that's about all."

"Guys, I feel like a real turd," James said.  "Can we please not tell Sirius any of this?"

"Not tell Sirius any of what?" he said, coming up and taking the last chair.

"Sirius," James said.  "How's the potion coming?"

"What, the one for Remus?  I spent some time on it, but I'm about ready to give up," Sirius sighed.  "The best I can do is make this potion that leaves a shiny coating on whatever it touches.  Look."  Sirius held out his hand.  "I dipped my finger in by accident and the stuff won't come off."

"Merlin's wand!" Remus said, snatching Sirius's hand.  "Is that gold?"

"No holding hands now – good God, it is," James said.

Sirius snatched his hand back.

"You've made a freaking Philosopher's Stone," Peter said reverentially.

"No he hasn't," Remus said.  "This is better."

"We are going to be so incredibly rich," James said.

"We?" Sirius said.

"How'd you do that?" Peter demanded.

"Not here," Remus said.  "Anyone could hear us and tell Snape or someone."

"Who would?" James said, laughing.

"Lily, for one," Peter snapped.

"What's all this?" Sirius said interestedly.

"Oh, I'll fill you in."

"Let's go up to bed, shall we?" Remus interrupted.

The others agreed without a word, and they made their way toward the dormitories, exchanging goodnights with most of the rest of the common room.  Only when they were alone in their tower-tip dorm, sprawled on their respective beds and protected by an arsenal of privacy spells, did the conversation continue.

"So how did you do it, Sirius?" Remus wanted to know.

Sirius rested his forehead on his folded arms.  "I'm not exactly sure," he said into the covers.

"What d'you mean?"  All of them knew how meticulous Sirius was in keeping records of his experiments; there was a pile of them threatening to swallow his armoire.

"Well, I didn't want Snape to find out what hadn't worked, so I put all my papers in a cupboard and locked it with that magical lock I bought a few months ago, and then I remembered I'd lost the parchment that had its magic word."

"So you know, you just… don't know," Peter said.

"Exactly."

James put his head in his hands too.  "And there's no way to break the lock?"

No one even bothered answering that question.

"Oh, I'm such an idiot," Remus realized.  "If I'm ever this dense again, smack me."

"Why?" Sirius asked, mystified.

"Accio parchment with the magic word on it," Remus said, which made everyone snicker.  However, it ceased to be funny when the parchment failed to arrive.

"Did you throw it away, you fool?" James bellowed.

"Possibly," Sirius muttered.

"Oh, lay off, James," Remus said irritably.  James looked astonished and Sirius grateful.

"Sirius, forget about that potion," Peter said.  "Just work on Remus's so we can show up the Slytherins."

"Yeah," Sirius said.  "Right, I'll work on it tomorrow.  There has to be something I haven't tried."

"Sirius," said Remus carefully, "have you thought that it might not be possible to cure lycanthropy?"

"The idea had occurred to me," Sirius admitted.

"Damn," Remus said emotionally.  "I was hoping you wouldn't say that."

"Yeah," James said, "I mean if a million brainy wizards haven't been able to find it yet –"

"And witches," Remus said.

"Good God, do you want me to kill myself or not?"

"Come on, Sirius," said Remus, alarmed, "don't joke about stuff like that."

"If I wanted to die, I would have jumped off the Astronomy tower a long time ago."

"Personally, I'd take poison," Peter said.

"Avada Kedavra for me!" James said enthusiastically.  "I want to look good at my funeral.  How about you, Remus?"

"I don't care," he said, "so long as it's quick.  But James –" he remembered the doxy's words – "be careful what you wish for."

Remus wished he had taken his own advice.

* * *

Meanwhile, Lily and her dormmates were having their twice-weekly group therapy session.  It had been Sibyl Trelawney's idea to hold them; she wanted to be a psychiatrist when she graduated, and the others agreed to do it because it meant hearing everyone else's private anxieties on a regular basis.  Lily had asked to go last, because she had so many of them, but sitting there in Sibyl's pink chair with Sibyl giving her a shoulder massage, Lily realized she didn't want to talk about anything that was on her mind.  Unfortunately, there she was in the chair and there were her roommates all staring at her with big mascara-rimmed eyes.

"God you're tense," Sibyl said, kneading away.  "Do you have something specific on your mind?"

"Well yeah," Lily said.  "I mean, you guys know sort of what's been happening, right?"

They all shook their heads mutely; Samantha, Aileen, Kate and, though she couldn't see it, Sibyl.

"You don't?" Lily said.  "Oh, shit."  So she gave them the essentials of what had happened Halloween Eve and since.  They scooped it up like ice cream.

"So how do you feel about all of this?" Sibyl asked in her most soothing, professional tone.

Lily's shoulders slumped under her fingers.  "I don't know.  I mean, James has really been paying me a lot of attention –"

"He's not bad," Kate said judiciously.

" – but I can't forget how Severus kissed me."

"How was it on a scale of one to happily ever after?" Samantha wanted to know.

"Are you sure it was him?" asked Aileen.  "I mean, he is –"  She wrinkled her perfect, petite nose.  "You know."

"Somewhere between amazing and incredible," Lily said, "but Sirius said he thought it was Severus, so…"

"You trust Sirius?" said Sibyl.  "I wouldn't trust him with a Knut unless it had to do with Potions."

"He was actually really nice," Lily said.  "I don't think he's as bad as you think he is."

"Halloween Eve?" Aileen said.  "Didn't you say you were going somewhere with Rob Avery?"

"Right," Lily said, "but I remember kissing him and it was nowhere near amazing."

"How was it on a scale of negative one to horror movie?" asked Samantha.

"Right around soggy bread."

"Ugh."

"But Severus?" said Aileen.

"Do any of you guys remember going down to Hogsmeade last New Year's?" Sibyl asked.

The other four glared at her.  "In case you've forgotten," Kate said, "you are the psychoanalyst or whatever you are and this is Lily's part of the session."

"Wasn't it Severus I kissed at midnight?"

"Right, I remember because I told you you were either desperate or brain-damaged," Aileen said.

"Yeah, and I told you it was none of your damn business who I kissed, because I wouldn't admit that Severus was ugly and a bad kisser."

They grinned at each other, pleased at having solved the mystery.

"How bad compared to Rob?" asked Samantha.

"I never kissed him," Sibyl shrieked, forgetting all about psychiatry and professional detachment.

"Oh yes you bloody well did," Kate interrupted, "and that wasn't all."

"How far'd you get?" Samantha asked.

Sibyl went furiously red.  "The point of all this," she said loftily, "is that Lily could not possibly have kissed Severus because he is physically incapable of an amazing-level kiss."

"Thank you," said Aileen.

"So who was it?" Kate asked.

"You guys," Lily said, "I wasn't finished.  I think Remus likes me too."

They reacted with surprising calm.  "Ohmygawd," they shrieked as one, then –

"How do you know?"

"Do you like him?"

"How could she not?"

"What about James?"

"Did you maybe kiss one of them?"

"Which one do you like more?"

"I don't know," Lily yelled, which shut them all up.  "I don't think he even knows he likes me yet.  But you should see him blush when he talks to me.  It's the most incredibly adorable thing."

"You are so lucky," Kate sighed.  "I've had a crush on Remus for just about forever."

"You have?"  This was news to Lily.

"Yeah, I think everyone does."

"I don't," Sibyl said in a superior tone.  "I never have liked him.  There's something very funny about him."

"Yeah," Lily said.  "He does have this really dry sense of humor, you know?"

"Did you kiss Remus?" Kate asked.  "Because I mean he didn't like you before then, did he?"

"Neither did James."

"Damn."

"Boy, if James ever finds out about Remus, he is going to be so pissed," Sibyl said gleefully.

"If I find out you told him, I'll get Sirius to make a potion that turns your contacts into tadpoles, see what I mean?" Lily said.

"Yeah yeah yeah.  You are no fun, you know that?" Sibyl said.

"Don't tell me Sirius likes you too," Kate said.  "Not that he's so great or anything like that. I mean the braces are really a pain when you're trying to snog a guy, but it still wouldn't be fair because James and Remus are both wow."

"Very wow," agreed Samantha.

"You mean you actually tried to snog Sirius?" said Sibyl.  "How did I miss that?"

"You didn't, because I didn't," Kate said.  "That was Aileen, when she was flunking out in Potions."

"Oh yeah.  No, wasn't that Snape?"

"I never kissed that slimy bastard," Aileen yelled.

"Sirius couldn't possibly like me, you guys," Lily interrupted.  "He's so caught up with making Mesmerizing Potions or whatever it is he does that he probably thinks people go to the Astronomy tower to look at the stars."

"Oh my God, Lily," said Kate.  "Don't tell me you don't know about Sirius."

"Know what about Sirius?"

Sibyl grinned.  God, she loved this.  Spreading malicious half-true gossip about everyone she knew was the work of a lifetime, but how fulfilling it could be.

* * *

Remus had had his first bout with insomnia during his second year.  It had been during Christmas break, when it seemed that he was the only student left in the school, and he stayed awake night after night staring out the window and thinking until he nearly collapsed into his own head.  That was when he decided he needed to do something to pass the time, and that was when he had begun writing A Short Guide to Marauding.  It was his account of everything that had happened to him and his friends, starting on their first day of Hogwarts, when they had been the only four boys sorted into Gryffindor and were therefore destined to share a dormitory for the next seven years and become the best of friends.  In the five years Remus had been writing, it had gobbled up several ordinary Muggle notebooks, which Remus found more compact than parchment rolls. 

His friends constantly asked to read it, but Remus always put them off some way or another.  He was not writing it to be read by anyone other than himself some time in the untouchable future.  He was not writing it with any consideration of style or artistry.  He was not even writing it primarily to remember, although it had often proven useful there too.  He was writing it because he had felt compelled to do so, back in second year, and because he continued to feel that way.  Some things were too important to be left unspoken, and that was what Remus wrote about.  He would never have called himself a writer, because they were creatures of myth and legend, but they put words onto paper one at a time, the same way he did.

Lately, Remus had been having another spell of insomnia.  It wasn't because he didn't trust Cilantro with his life, although he didn't; he felt more as if he had forgotten how to turn off the switch in his brain, or simply didn't want to.  Tonight was one of those nights.  It was nearly two-thirty on Sunday morning, and Remus was sitting at his desk, which faced the window and afforded a view of the countryside to the south.  He was writing, but on a roll of parchment using his best quill.  Actually he was twiddling his quill and gazing out the window in search of a word when Sirius came in.

Remus whirled at the sudden noise and saw only a shadow in the shadows.  "Who is it?" he said, his voice hoarse and louder than he'd intended.

"It's just me."  Sirius moved into the circle of light that Remus's floating candle cast, and looked down at his glistening words.  "That isn't your story."

"No, it isn't."  Deliberately Remus swept his hand across the words, smearing them beyond recognition.  His palm was green with words.

"Why'd you do that?" Sirius asked without anger or regret.

Remus looked up at him, both of them half-shadowed and strangely distant.  "Some things aren't meant to be put down in words.  What're you doing up?"

"I was watching the rain," he said almost defensively.

"Why?"

"The same reason you look at the stars," Sirius said.

"How can you know why I look at the stars?"

"I don't," Sirius said.  "That's what I mean.  I don't know why I watch the rain either, I just do.  I don't know why you're writing that story, but I know it's the same reason that you watch stars and I watch rain and James plays Quidditch."

"Because I have to," Remus said.

"Exactly."

"Sirius, have you ever been in love?"

"I used to think so," he said, "but then I started wondering if it was really love, and I realized that if I couldn't decide if it was or not, then it probably wasn't."

"I wish I couldn't decide," Remus said.  "I mean, I can't decide, but it's like deciding isn't even my decision.  I feel like it's another one of those things that I do because I have to and no asking why."

"I know you won't tell me," Sirius said, "but I have to ask anyway."

"You're right, I won't tell you."

Sirius knew that tone, and he knew not to ask.

"Sirius," said Remus at length, "is there any kind of potion to stop me from loving her?"

"It depends," Sirius said.  "There are a lot, but they all work on the assumption that love is curable only by death."

"Damn," Remus said.

"There are some that would help you forget.  I mean, they don't make you stop loving someone, you just wouldn't realize how you felt about them –"

"That would be worse," Remus said.

"Anyway, anything strong enough to help you would probably be illegal," Sirius said.

"Great," Remus said.  "I guess I'll take care of this the old-fashioned way."

"How's that?" Sirius said.

"Oh, I think I'll let her break my heart."

"What, you mean she doesn't love you back?"

Remus grinned bleakly.  "Not anymore, if she ever did."

"Remus, what are you on about?" Sirius demanded.

He sighed, and told Sirius all about Lily.

"Oh, wow," Sirius said when he was through.  "I sure hope it's worth all this."

"So do I," Remus said.

"Listen, I'll try to make you something, okay?  But no promises."

"Thanks, Sirius."  Remus smiled at him wanly.  "I think I'm going to bed."

The next morning at breakfast, James told them all about his dream.  Lily and Remus were in love, and Sirius was making them a Happily Ever After potion.

"Isn't that crazy?" James said gleefully.  "I don't know where I get all this stuff."

"Can't imagine," said Sirius.

Two days later, James was missing.

It had been Peter's job to wake them mornings ever since they had discovered that he had some sort of amazing internal clock.  (It wasn't until a couple of years after graduation that they found out he had trained his toad to leap onto his head when it was time to wake up.)  Tuesday morning he was up and dressed on time, then he went around the room yanking everyone's curtains open.  James's bed was empty.

"Hey," Peter said, then repeated himself more loudly.

"Urgh," said Remus.

"Sweet heavens above, I dreamed I was a Bludger," Sirius said.  "I don't suppose there's any Headache Brew left over, is there?"

"You two, James isn't here," Peter said.

"Huh?" said Remus.

Sirius sighed.  "Are you sure he didn't fall asleep under the Invisibility Cloak again?"  He swung his feet out of bed and padded over to Remus's desk.  "Did you leave it over here?" he asked the window, sifting through piles of parchment.

"No, I can't hear him breathing," Peter said.  "D'you think he's going to try scaring us with the poltergeist trick again?"

"James never repeats himself," Sirius said.  "His tricks are endlessly fresh and flawless.  Remus, what in heaven's name is this?"  He held up a partially decomposed mouse in a plastic bag.

"What?  Oh, that's a partially decomposed mouse," Remus said, coherent at last.  "You seemed to have forgotten it on my chair last full moon, so I was planning on returning it to you.  What's the problem, Peter?"

"James isn't here," he snapped.

"Well, why don't you check the map?" Remus said mildly.

"Oh yeah."  Peter hurried over to the map, which was conveniently posted on the wall, and reported, "I don't see him anywhere."

"Let me see."  Remus went over to the map too.

"Damn, it's all gone."  Sirius uncorked the bottle and slurped at the inside.  "Not a drop."

"I'm going to Dumbledore," Remus said.  "This is serious."

"I agree," Sirius said.  "Find out if he has anything for headaches."

"I'll go, I'm already dressed," Peter offered.

"Okay," Remus said, and Peter promptly left.  "Sirius, must you?" he added.

Sirius stopped slurping.  "But my head hurts," he whined.

"There's still a bit left of that Headache Brew you made me.  It's over there on top of the cabinet."

"Then what's this?" Sirius asked, staring at the bottle in consternation.

"Oh, probably my economy-sized ink bottle," Remus said, trying not to smirk.

"Merciful heaven," Sirius groaned.  He curled up on the floor and squinched his eyes shut.  "I think I'm going to die.  Was that the multicolored kind, by any chance?"

"No, you know I only use green," Remus said from behind his bed curtain, where he was getting dressed.

"It tasted like multicolored, though," Sirius insisted.  "Are you sure?"  He got up to check, and took a gulp from the bottle on the cabinet, which he fervently hoped was Headache Brew.

"Fairly sure," Remus said, emerging to put on his robe and run his fingers through his hair a few times.  "Why d'you ask?"

"I need to know these things, Remus," said Sirius impatiently, sniffing the bottle.  "You're right, it is green.  I should have recognized it right away."

The door flew open and Dumbledore walked in.

"Sorry," Peter said, scuttling in after.  "He wanted to see for himself."

Dumbledore had already found the map and was examining it through a pair of blue-tinted glasses.

"Fascinating," he said at length, straightening up and replacing his usual glasses.  "I suppose you are well aware that magical surveillance is strictly forbidden to students, but I could certainly find uses for such a magical object myself."

"If you want it, Professor, it's yours," Remus said quickly.

"Oh, I have no intention of enforcing the rule," said Dumbledore.  "If I punished students for exhibiting creativity and talent, this school would hardly be worth running.  However, if you could find the time to explain the map-making process to me, I would be enchanted."

"Anytime, Professor," said Remus, relieved.

"But I find that, as Mr. Pettigrew informed me, Mr. Potter is nowhere to be found on school property, and this absence is quite unlike him.  Unfortunately I can spare no one to search for him just yet –"

"Can we?" Sirius interrupted.

Dumbledore blinked.  "I beg your pardon?"

"Can we go search for him?  We're his best friends, so we'd have a better chance of finding him than any of the teachers do –"

"What about your classes?"

"I'm sure Professor Binns would excuse us," said Remus.

"History of Magic?  Very well, but I do not wish to send out another search party after you, do you understand?"

"We'll be back by lunch, with or without James," said Sirius.

"Then good luck."  Dumbledore gave them all a final swift glance and strode from the room.

"What luck," Sirius said gleefully.  "No History of Magic for us today."

"And lucky that we have a chance to get to him before the teachers do," Remus added.  "He might be Prongs, you know."

Both Sirius and Peter understood him to mean that James might be in his Animagus form; they looked equally thunderstruck.

"Hadn't thought of that," Sirius said shakily.

"Lucky I did," Remus said.  "Anyway, we'd better be off.  Let's take the tunnel behind the mirror so we won't have to pass those trolls at the gate."

With James gone, Remus was the undisputed leader, so the other two accepted his advice without question.  Anyway none of them really wanted to explain to the guard trolls where they were going or why.  These particular trolls, there to guard against menaces everyone refused to think about, were much smarter than your average troll, and a wandless Confundus charm had absolutely no effect, as the four friends had recently learned.

So they walked quietly down to the fourth floor, more quietly than usual because they all knew why the trolls were there, though they went along with the pretense that he did not, in fact, exist; Remus thought often that he didn't exist only in the sense that dragons didn't exist in the Muggle world.  But he kept his thoughts to himself, where they did no one else any harm, and tried not to think where or how they might find James.

The tunnel brought them out at the main entrance to Hogsmeade, and there they split up, Remus to search the village and Wormtail and Padfoot to scour the countryside.  Remus spent nearly two hours wandering the village, weaving in and out of every shop and restaurant, looking surreptitiously in every alley.  In one of these he heard the scrabble of tiny claws behind him and whirled around to face a rat he recognized as Wormtail (his tail dragging behind him on the ground looked astonishingly wormlike, hence the nickname).  Wormtail jerked his head to the north, then scratched his claws frantically on the ground.  Remus understood, and hurried after the rat out the north gate and up into the nearby hills.

They were sitting together on the floor of a cave. Sirius's arm was around James's shoulders, which rather worried Remus; James would never have allowed such a thing in his normal state.

Remus sat down next to James and asked quietly, "What happened?"

"I woke up around four and couldn't get back to sleep," James said.  "I was thinking about stuff and it suddenly occurred to me that I didn't deserve Lily.  I know it sounds crazy, but I couldn't get that thought out of my head and the more I thought about it, the more it made sense."

"That's not true," Remus said too softly for either of them to hear.

"It was starting to drive me mad, so I went out for a run.  I don't think I stopped until the sun came up.  Then I came in here and fell asleep and next thing I knew, here was this wet dog nose in my face."  James grinned at Sirius, but it was obviously forced and Sirius looked at him without smiling back.

"Don't give yourself any crap about not deserving her," Sirius said.  "That'll drive you batty faster than a week in hospital."

"I know that," James said, "but I can't help thinking it's true.  What d'you say, Remus?"

Remus just shook his head.  Lily wasn't his favorite topic of conversation; already he could feel his words draining away.  "I think," he said at last, "if you treat her the way she deserves, then you have nothing to worry about."

"Well said, as usual," Sirius said too enthusiastically.  "Now, since we told Dumbledore we'd be back before lunch, I imagine he'll be expecting us soon."

He was, but in later years Remus could not have said how James accounted for his absence, save that Lily's name was not mentioned.  Whatever James said, he wasn't punished for it, Remus remembered that, and later that evening when he went down to the library to pick up a few books for their History of Magic work, and Lily cornered him between Magical Creatures and Animagi (Reference Only!!).

"Is James all right?" she demanded, her extraordinary eyes fixed on his face, and he thought with a sudden chill that someday she would no longer shine with youth and beauty, but she would still have those eyes.

"I guess so.  Yeah, he's fine," Remus said.  "Do you love him?"

She seemed to sense the import of his question, because she thought about it for a minute, then said, "I like spending time with James, he's a great person, but no more than you are."

Remus had no idea how to respond to that, but he was spared the necessity when Lily continued.  "Remus," she said, shy, almost hesitant – did she talk to James like that? – "did I see you on Halloween Eve at all?"

It was the second-most painful thing he had ever done, but he lied to her.

"No, it was James."

Then he told her the truth, that he'd been locked away that night because of what he was, and the most pain he experienced in a lifetime of it was knowing that she would never again look at him the same way.

"All I ask," Remus said, "is that you keep my secret.  Can you do that?"

"Of course," she said.  "For your sake and James's, I will."

"Would you swear it?"

"On whatever you like."

"No need, I trust you," he said, and smiled a sudden bitter smile because he knew she could no longer say the same of him.  "I hope I answered your question," he added, a touch of malice he normally would not have allowed himself, then picked up his books and left.

Lily stood there in the aisle for a minute, too heart-bruised to ponder what never had been and now never would be.  She had forgotten why she was there, what she had been thinking minutes ago, because it was suddenly and horribly irrelevant.  She went slowly back to the common room and sat down with James and Sirius and Peter, Remus having become mysteriously exhausted, and later that night she let James kiss her for the first time, wondering why it seemed so different but refusing any longer to consider it.  She went to bed early and stared up at the canopy of her bed, feeling as though someone was dead, feeling as though she should cry but her tears were frozen unshed.

Sybil had had no idea how right she was about him.