Thank you to all that reviewed,very much appreciated!

This Love

Chapter Five – Confessions

Ally lay on her bed, wrapped in white linen sheets, listening to the pitter patter of rain on the window, content that she was warm and happy. She closed her eyes and simply delighted in the joys of weekends and sleeping in.

"You can't stay in bed forever," said a quiet, amused voice. Ally opened one eye and peered out. Remus was laying next to her, looking at her with her hazel eyes. "You'll get bored," he teased. Ally closed the eye she had opened, feeling quite content to stay where she was. After all, Remus's bed was far more soft and comfortable than her own, which is where she would go if he made her get up.

"Then tell me a story," she implored, wriggling her toes and relishing in his closeness and his bodyheat. Remus sighed, and seemed to brace himself for something.

"Ally...I should tell you about my past, it's not right you...get involved with me unless you know," he said. Ally frowned, I'm already involved, she thought. "You know I went to Hogwarts, didn't you, when no other werewolf would have been allowed in. That period of my life remains the happiest and the saddest," he paused, reflecting.

"Why was it the happiest?" asked Ally, hoping to make him relive happier memories. Remus smiled in response to her question and absentmindedly stroked her hair, not looking at her but at the ceiling.

"I had three great friends, who knew about my condition and remained friends with me nonetheless, we were more like brothers than anything," he told her, and she could see tears forming in his eyes.

"Where are they now?" she whispered, tentatively.

"Peter Pettigrew is dead. James Potter and his wife are dead. Sirius Black is in Azkaban," said Remus quietly. Ally sat right up, as if she couldn't take this lying down. Clutching the sheet to her chest, she went over this in her head, taking in the names of people who were famous (or infamous in Sirius Black's case). Ally was barely ten when The Boy Who Lived had defeated Voldemort, but it didn't make it any more poignant.

At first she thought, he was friends with Sirius Black? And he's a werewolf, how much more is there that I don't know? Then she instantly regretted thinking that, realising the James Potter had trusted Black too, and Remus was not evil by association. But Black was evil, she knew that he had killed, was is twelve Muggles, with one curse, utterly destroying his friends, and had betrayed his friends. Remus had been one of his friends.

Then she realised that James and his wife had died late at night on October 31st and Peter died on the 1st of November and Black sent to Azkaban; Remus had lost all his friends within twenty four hours! Ally had been staring straight ahead, her eyes wide and her thoughts rapidly shooting through her head. She now turned to look at Remus, who was leaning against the headstand with that horrible accepting expression that Ally hated.

She threw herself at him, hugging him close, her head against his chest. She could not possibly imagine what Remus had been through, what he still went through with his lycanthropy and he was still so much stronger than her.

Remus wrapped his arms around her. "It doesn't matter to you?" he asked in a faint murmur, as if he needed assuring of the fact. "That I was friends with Black, that I'm a werewolf?" Ally pulled back.

"Of course I do!" she exclaimed. Remus let his arms fall from around her and glanced sharply at her.

"I don't need you pity-" he started.

"Remus," she warned. "I don't pity you. I admire your strength. Of course it matters to me that you rip yourself apart once a month and are in great pain. Of course it matters to me you lost people in the war. How could it not?" she asked, almost in tears. She wiped them away, embarrassed she was crying.

It felt strange to her that she cared so much about him. She loved her family and her friends, but she felt protective of Remus in a way she had never felt before. While she felt exhilarated by these new feelings, she also felt anxious, because he had such a past and so many issues, and she felt that these strange new feelings were too strong, after all she had never been in love before.

Remus was looking at her in that way he had, like he was trying to look through her, to her soul and discover all her secrets. Maybe she should tell him then.

"I've got secrets," she said, abruptly, looking at his dark blue eyes, wondering how he would take it. He blinked, surprised. "You might want to hear them before you decide to become involved with me," she continued. He opened his mouth to say something, but she never found out what it was he would have said as he closed it again. She bit her lip. "My parents are not married. My mother was in Gryffindor, your old house, and my father...was in Slytherin. It was at a celebratory prefects party at the end of their seventh year, just after they graduated, and they got drunk, very drunk," she said, a little bitter. She did not like the idea that she was unplanned, and unwanted, when her parents were younger than she was now.

"That's nothing to be ashamed of," argued Remus, who seemed a bit subdued. He was thinking that she must trust him to tell him her secrets, even if this secret was not very big, it was obviously important to her.

"You haven't heard who my father is yet. Trust me, it's not pretty," she warned, her usually smiling face serious. Remus smiled encouragingly and thought, but you are. "Lucius Malfoy," she revealed.

Remus went into shock.

Ally Summers, who shared his chocolate obsession, who teased him about being tidy and reading boring books, who wore her hair in pig tails and painted her nails all different colours and knew all the lyrics to the latest Muggle songs, especially if they were rude, was the daughter of Lucius Malfoy, a pureblood Deatheater?

"It can't be true!" he exclaimed, looking into her face for denial. Ally raised one eyebrow.

"That's what he said. I've had tests, though. I'm his daughter, although I've never met him, fortunately," she said bitterly. Remus sighed.

The white blond hair, the pale skin, the pale grey eyes, it all made sense. She did resemble him...but then again she did not. Ink stained her fingernails, her eyes were warm, pleasant and full of laughter most of the time, her lips constantly smiling, and she had faint laughter lines. Her mother was Muggleborn, and you would think that Ally was too, because she seemed utterly engrossed in both worlds, Muggle and Magic. She did not seem to mind that he was a werewolf, was poor, and older than her. They talked about famous writers, most of whom were Muggles, that most wizards thought were ludicrous and would be ashamed to own copies of Dickens.

She wasn't like him at all, and she shouldn't be judged on something that wasn't her fault, he decided, and told her so. She smiled and kissed his lips, and melted into his embrace. But somewhere at the back of her mind, she felt uneasy, for she had not told him her biggest secret, and she did not feel he truly trusted her with his.

What do you think? I feel I've made Ally a bit more three dimensional character, because she seemed a bit flat, but she still has some character growth to do, and her big secret to reveal. I'm not sure if i've portrayed Remus true to the books, but by my way of thinking, it's still a couple of years before the third book and Remus is a slightly different and younger person. It's going to get slightly less fluffy, and I can't promise a happy ending. Which sounds depressing, but I have a sequel in mind...and some major plot twists.

On a less morbid note, thanks to everyone who reviewed.