((This is the last chapter... Sorry it's taken me so long...but the position JKR's poor little characters have stumbled into is a very delicate one...I didn't want to leave them with any permanent emotional damage -grin-. All my love, Lizney Wolf))
To Know True Love Chapter Five Rapture through Rage
The usually sparkling green eyes of one—usually congenial—Ms. Lily Evans burned with little less than contempt as she gazed down upon the withering mess that was Peter Pettigrew, lying at her feet. She'd been raging on for a bit longer than ten minutes until the crestfallen boy had been reduced to merely a groveling form staring up at her. Her face was red with fury and her hair was blowing around her as she paced back and forth, dust rising up around her feet, giving her the look of a goddess instilling her wrath upon an unworthy subject.
Remus had made very sure that he did not cross her path. He was content with leaning dejectedly in a corner and watching the scene with something close to bemusement. Of course he'd been angry when Peter had plowed into the room. Of course he was distraught. Of course he was scared...but it was nothing like the rage currently radiating from Lily's entire being.
"How dare you, Peter Pettigrew!" Lily's voice rose, a few octaves too high to be her normal airy tone, as she rounded upon him again. "Spying on your friends like that! Simply abominable!"
Truly, though, it wasn't so much the spying that disturbed her...it was the discovery. He could have spied all day and all night and she wouldn't have minded if she hadn't have known. It was the fact that he had presented himself, so that Lily knew that someone had seen her and Remus...together. That was what bothered her, though she would never admit it. Ignorance was bliss, as she herself had quoted before. Knowledge was power, but with power came sacrifice.
All this, however, was too focused, too analytical for her to voice in her utter vehemence. For now she would stick with shrieking uncontrollably, it kept her mind off of what she had done.
"What were you playing at, Peter? Opening the door like that! Bellowing for the whole school to hear! You've no tact, Peter, none at all!" She made a move as if to snatch him up by his collar. Peter scurried farther away, thumping into the wall below the blackboard. His eyes were bright and teary, his cheeks glistening and red.
This was Remus' cue to intervene. He came up behind Lily with a calm expression across his pale face, looking upon Peter with disapproval and pity. He wasn't about to let her raise a hand to the boy...she would only regret it later.
"C'mon, Lily, give the boy a break." He took up her hand, which was still searching for an invisible shirt collar in the air in front of her. "He didn't mean anything by it...this is Peter, remember? Good old Peter," a desperate noise somewhere near a growl sounded in the back of the red- haired girl's throat, "Calm down, Lily."
There eyes met then, her fiery ones to his tranquil amber gaze, and she slackened dismally.
"I'm sorry, Peter." Her voice was soft and empty of anger and she still held Remus' gaze, as if she were drawing composure from its depths. The edges of her mouth twitched into a humorless smile, and Remus knew that Peter had suddenly been forgotten to her.
"I'm so sorry." Remus knew the words were directed toward him without her saying so. "I shouldn't have done this..." She ran a hand down his face, studying his features as if this was the last time she would see them. As if she was learning every angle of his face to keep in her memory.
"No, Lily, it's my fault...I shouldn't have said anything about...us..." Remus could feel his heart rising in his adam's apple. The inevitable end to their dream relationship had come much sooner than Remus could have ever imagined. It was stupid of him to act upon his emotions...Lily loved James...Remus loved Sirius...it was just the way things were and the way things had to stay. Remus was foolish to tamper with the flawless situation the friends had found themselves in. He'd acted on impulses and now he risked loosing everything and everyone he cared about because of it.
"Remus, don't say such a thing!" Lily's voice was sharp, but she was smiling. "If you hadn't done anything about it, than I would have..." Her eyes sparkled with all the mischievousness of a true Marauder. It took a moment for the weight of her words to sink into Remus' befuddled mind, but when they had he was taken aback. His eyes widened and she giggled satisfactorily.
"I love you, Remus..." Lily's voice was back to its normal sultry, satisfied cadence. Remus shook his head, nonplussed.
"Lily, I know...I love y--"
"No...Remus, I don't think you understand." Her hand ran through his hair and she encircled her fingers in his thick tendrils. As she spoke she tightened her hold around his tresses for emphasis. "You silly little wolf...I love you, Remus...I think I always have. I should have told you sooner," her smile never faltered although she shook her head as if disgusted with her own bashfulness.
"You're wonderful, Remus, you really are." Lily's voice was so low and Remus scarcely heard what she was saying, but he listened with rapt attention, bringing his face closer to hers.
Peter shifted uncomfortably under the blackboard, though he dared not flee. They were quiet now and he couldn't hear what they were saying, but as long as no one was yelling at him than he'd be buggered if he was about to break the silence.
"I love you, too, Lily." Remus' voice was strong, but quiet, and he was smiling so widely that his cheeks ached with his own foolish happiness. Even as he said it though, her smile faltered and disappeared. Tears stung at Lily's brilliant green eyes, her cheeks reddening with melancholy. She shook her head slowly and Remus instantly knew where the conversation was heading. His stomach fell through his feet and his smile was replaced by a look of crude acceptance.
"But I love James, too...I love James more, Remus..." He had expected her to push him back and insist on going to the common room straight away to find her rightful suitor. She, however, decided it would be better to finish what they had started. Pulling herself up to him, she closed her mouth around his with such force that Remus stumbled back, catching his feet unsurely.
Remus sighed, melting against her one last time; smiling in spite of himself and loving everything about her, from her flowery scent to her fiery emotions.
It was too soon when she pulled way, her face flushed and her eyes wet with tears. Remus wiped his eyes, not quite sure whose tears had grouped there, slowly running down his burning cheeks.
"We should go to the commons now." The timid voice shocked both Lily and Remus, and they rounded on a morose looking Peter with surprise. He had gotten to his feet, looking oddly forceful, as if he had been practicing the line in his head, waiting for just the right time to say it. "Now," he repeated with a small squeak.
Remus turned away from him, ran a finger across Lily's cheek to wipe away a patch of tears that had collected there, and then nodded solemnly. "He's right, Lils. They'll have wondered why we didn't show up to dinner...."
She grinned sheepishly, "We'll have to come up with something, eh, boys? A right good story," Her gaze fell upon both Remus and Peter in turn. Peter shrunk away, nodding guardedly. Remus gave a hoarse laugh, nodding as well.
Remus turned away, pulling open the classroom door. Only then did he realize how stifling it was in the small, dusty room. The hall outside seemed utterly frigid. The sweat on his brow and the tears that still stained his cheeks froze uncomfortably, but he continued to smile as he beckoned the other two into the empty hall.
He took up Lily's hand as she passed, and that was how they walked all the way back to the Gryffindor common room. Her small, thin hand tucked into his large, warm one.
Peter watched them disdainfully, caught between loyalty toward James and equal faithfulness for Remus. Instead of fighting his own inner battle in wondering whether to pull the two apart, he stuffed his hands into his pockets and walked the rest of the way with his eyes upon the stone floor.
As Lily and Remus continued on they made up a rousing tale of treachery and torture, riddled with illegal animals and escaped convicts, sprinkled with deceitful glances and narrow flights for freedom. Where had they been all night? Anywhere and everywhere, according to their fanciful account.
In the end, however--when Sirius and James had pounced upon them in worried welcomes--the two reassured everyone that they had simply been studying late in the library. Lucky Peter had showed up, or they would have never realized the time.
Peter never discounted their story, simply nodding along in estranged-- almost frightful--agreement.
"We got loads done, though, didn't we Remmy?" Lily was perched on James' lap, her eyes sparkling with what seemed to be eternal bliss in the arms of the man she loved. Her gaze met Remus' and he nodded, a small sadness rising in his chest.
"Oh! Yes...we'll be plenty ready when the N.E.W.T.'s come around. Too bad you two couldn't have been there with us," Remus' voice had a forced kind of heartiness, but he truly was happy to be back in the warm common room, leaning casually on Sirius' shoulder. He could even smile with glee at the disgusted looks that came upon James' and Sirius' faces when he mentioned any level of studying.
This, of course, brought about a fresh speech from Lily about how a Head Boy was supposed to set an example for the rest of the school. How getting good grades was part of this example and James should be proud to study. Her hand also found its usual place on top of his unruly mop of hair, trying in vain to flatten it down.
Remus grinned contentedly; everything was as it should be, as it had always been and as it always would be. He cuddled down into Sirius' warmth and was happy to find the other boy's arm come securely around his shoulders.
The group stayed like this all night and well into dawn. Lily talking non- stop, James listening with a pained look of determination on his face; Sirius and Remus watching on and sniggering at—what Lily called— the most inopportune moments; and Peter watching them happily from his place on the scorched hearth rug.
Whenever Remus looked back at a time in his life when he was the happiest, the most content with the world around him, he remembered this time. With the scarlet fire burning bright into the night and their laughter carrying him into an ecstasy unlike anything else he had ever experienced.
((I'll admit, the plot becomes a bit convoluted, but I enjoyed writing it nonetheless. So, tell me, is it everything you'd hoped it would be? Please review. If you review, you may even get a bonus chapter! It's a gift-with- purchase type dealio, my little pretty's!))