Unrequited Love

Rating: G
Theme: Very angsty. Like you don't know when he'll burst.
Writtenby: Mee.... Gina!
Spoilers: I don't know if it's really a spoiler... I think many people have already suspected about Remus' old crush on Lily. I guess it wouldn't hurt to keep on your toes though.
Disclaimer: I think you can already tell by my name that I am not J.K. Rowling - who has all the rights to owning the Harry Potter characters. Thus, you get that Remus, James, Lily, Sirius and Peter and WHOEVER in this story do not belong to me! My piece is done! Now you may read :)
NOTE: I entirely welcome reviews, bad or good! It'd be absolutely lovely if those who read this wasted about ten seconds of their life to write a comment. It's very appreciated!

Remus stepped into an empty compartment on the Hogwarts Express as a string of sweat rolled down the side of his face. Hogwarts. He'd been waiting his whole childhood to finally get the chance to go to the school his father had talked wonders about.

'You'll do them right. My boy will be the smartest of 'em all, eh?' He had laughed and said, patting his young 7-year-old son on the back. 'Hogwarts won't know what hit them.'

As Remus sat, looking out his window, he thought over all the things he'd do at school. He also secretly wondered how he'd be able to be … domestic.

'Dumbledore's the best Headmaster Hogwarts has ever had.' His father would boast to anyone who would listen. 'Considering my sons condition, he was gracious enough to let him go to the best bloody wizarding school.'

His condition. Remus winced and looked down for a minute. Would it ever go away? I wish it would, he thought, filled with melancholy. I just wish I could be normal. He looked back up and got ready to settle in when he saw a girl with rich red hair walking across the platform beside her parents. She had the most beautiful emerald-green eyes and her smile radiated her obvious cheerful persona.

'Wow.' Remus continued to stare out the window as the girl kissed her father goodbye and indulged in a five-minute hug with her mother.

'Goodbye!' He could hear her tinkling voice say as she waved to them and stepped on board.

He quickly turned around and tried to look casual as she walked by his compartment, her figure gracefully gliding across the other side of the distorted window frame.

He sighed and relaxed, hand loosely hanging at the edge of his seat. He looked up just as a messy black-haired boy came obnoxiously bursting in.

'Hey.' He said.

'Wotcher! No one's here, right? You're alone?'

Yeah, alone, he thought miserably, but gave a small smile. 'Yeah, it's just me.'

The boy nodded and threw his baggage to the corner of the compartment with a loud crash sound erupting from inside his things.

'Don't worry about it.' He reassured him as Remus looked at it with wide eyes. 'I'm James. James Potter.'

'Remus Lupin.' He said, holding out his hand.

James stared at his hand for a second, then laughed heartily. Remus quickly withdrew it, embarrassed.

'Are you from one of those fancy homes where you refer to your parents as "mother" and "father" and you've got a portrait of dead family members plastered over the walls in every room of your house?' Sneered James.

'Hardly.' Remus mumbled, not liking the accusation. 'Perhaps I should leave --'

'No, don't.' Said another black haired boy as he came in. 'He's just a git. You get used to it after a while.'

The boy's entrance had been equally as rude as James' but he seemed to make it look a lot … cooler. He had similar hair as James, but his fringe fell across his forehead with a sort of masculine grace, whereas James' was just a good old mess.

'Sirius Black.' He said, grabbing Remus' hand and shaking it firmly. 'Just so you know one of us isn't a prick.' He winked.

Remus laughed while James looked out the window, clearly zoned out and appeared to have not heard a word of their conversation. He turned back to Sirius, who was whistling to himself as he waited for the train to move.

'So are you from an all-wizards family?' He asked simply.

Sirius paused as his face immediately grew far too dark for a young boy to be able to express. He didn't answer.

'I'm sorry.' Remus quickly apologized. 'If I've offended—'

'No, don't worry about it,' Sirius replied gruffly. 'Yeah, I am. But don't think I ever asked for it.'

And that was the end of that discussion.

After James' head came back from being amongst the clouds, Remus grew to find that he wasn't as arrogant as he had first appeared to be. He was quite funny, actually, and really entertaining. Sirius was as well. For the first time on his stay on the train, Remus smiled.

I've got friends.

And what great friends they were. Shortly after arriving at Hogwarts, a timid little boy had the misfortune of crashing into Sirius at the entrance. In hopes of avoiding a fist fight, Remus had jumped in between the two and introduced himself. The boy had looked quite relieved and told him that his name was Peter Pettigrew. From then on, he tagged along with he, James and Sirius. They'd come to find his eagerness and vanity very entertaining and eventually became friendly with him. The four boys remained best friends, even as they entered their seventh year.

'I've made a decision today.' James announced as Remus battled Sirius on Wizards Chess.

'Oh, yeah?' Asked Sirius distractedly, frowning as Remus took one of his knights. 'What it is then?'

'I'm asking Evans out this evening.'

Remus face blanched slightly and his hand turned cold. With one great swipe, Sirius' pawn was knocked away with one of his own. 'That's what you said two days ago.' He said quietly to James.

'Oh yeah … but that was just a joke. This is real.'

'So what makes this different from your other proclamations of blissful puppy love?' Sirius asked, smirking as he moved his chess piece.

'Well,' James said and grabbed a chair to sit on the side of the table between Sirius and Remus. 'Here's the plan. I go up to her, right? I go, "Oi, Evans, I've got something to ask you about this little prat in 2nd year who's—"'

'That won't amuse her,' Remus said, again in a quiet voice as he continued to beat Sirius.

'No, you're right.' James thought over it, then slammed the table just hard enough to make the chess pieces jump up a bit. 'Okay! So I'll go, "Evans, I've got this theory about a punishment for—"'

'Why don't you try saying her name for a change?' Remus suddenly said loudly.

Sirius stopped in motion to command his castle and eyed him carefully while James looked irritated. 'Okay. So I'll go, "Lily –"' James shot Remus a Happy now? Look. '"I've got this theory about a punishment for these 2nd years. Right? Because we're Head Boy and Girl, and I figure, we've got to make them understand that we won't take their nonsense. So why don't we put out 'heads' together to consider ideas… say… tomorrow night?" What do you think?'

Sirius snorted and moved his castle. 'I think you're a prick. "Why don't we put our 'heads' together"?'

Remus stayed quiet and avoided looking at James. He imagined asking Lily out himself.

'Hey, Lily. I was wondering if … if you had no plans for tomorrow …' But before he would even get the words out, she'd burst out, 'Oh, Remus, but of course I've got nothing lined up! I've been waiting forever for you to ask me!' And then she'd hug him and he'd smile and she'd smile and all would be good.

He cracked a smile at his immature daydream and moved his pawn. 'Checkmate.' He said contently to Sirius as he cursed so loudly, a few third year girls nearby looked horrified and scurried off to their dorms, whispering among themselves.

'I think I'll head in for tonight.' He said, standing up as James muttered what he would say to Lily to himself and Sirius continued to swear.

Sirius stopped and jumped up. 'I'll come with you.' He stated. It wasn't a question.

Remus nodded and they walked up to their dorm without saying a word. Feeling a bit awkward, he started, 'If it's about me winning --'

'D'you fancy Lily, Remus?' Sirius shot at him out of the blue.

Feeling himself turn red, Remus tried brushing him off. 'You're mixed up. James it the one who --'

'You didn't answer my question.' Accused Sirius. 'D'you fancy her?'

'I'm tired.' Remus said as they reached their dorm, getting embarrassed and annoyed by his rude line of questioning. 'Good night.'

He quickly got changed and climbed into bed without another word. Why didn't you just tell him the truth? A sly voice in his head jittered. It would have probably shut him up.

Yeah, but what I did also made him stop, didn't it? Another voice snapped back.

Remus groaned and smothered his face into his pillow, not wanting to think about his silly crush on the girl he knew his best friend had liked for the longest time. But you've liked her for a long time too, the voice said again. Longer than he has, in fact. Why don't you just take her from him? It would serve him right. He doesn't deserve a nice girl like her.

Although he didn't want to admit it, deep down in the darkest corner of his heart, he agreed.

'You can't keep things to yourself your whole life, Moony.' Sirius' voice suddenly said quietly behind his hangings. 'You'll go insane.'

After a moment, the light switched off and half an hour later, Remus could hear Sirius' snores boom across the room.

The next morning, Remus woke up looking weary. He glanced at his calendar and took note of the tiny full moon at the top of the corner of the square that was Thursday. Two days from now. Apprehensive of what was to come, he stretched and exhaled and got changed into his school robes. Afterwards, he rubbed his eyes to get rid of the morning blurriness and made way to the Great Hall for breakfast.

'Hello Remus.' Peter's voice said in greeting as Remus took a seat next to him. Peter was always a bit more relaxed around him than he was with James or Sirius. It's because I'm not as cool as they are, he thought to himself.

'Hey.' He said wearily and took a toast. 'Where's James?'

'Over there.' Peter said, and nodded towards the end of the table. 'Talking to Lily Evans. She's so pretty.' He said admirably with a hint of jealousy. 'The hero always gets the girl.'

Remus 'accidentally' stabbed the butter with his knife so violently, that it went flying through Nearly Headless Nick and hit a girl in the eye. Normally, he'd apologize and offer to take the girl down to the Hospital Wing, but his eyes were laid on James and Lily.

She had crossed her arms and tapped her feet irritably as James talked, but slowly seemed to warm up. She grinned and said something to him and he started saying something back eagerly, but stopped and ruffled his hair, approaching her differently in an attempt to look like he asked girls out every day. Remus watched as she laughed and pushed James' shoulder and walked back to her friends.

'Hello, Remus!' She called over before she sat down, her striking eyes piercing into him. 'Morning, Peter!'

He waved back, beaming, but stopped smiling when James came back also and sat down from across him.

'Went well?' Remus asked, uninterested to hear James' side of the story but not wanting to be a bad friend. His eyes immediately looked down at his untouched toast.

'Oh, yeah. She talked about how if I wanted to ask her out, I might as well just spit it out because stalling just annoys her. But I think she liked it.' He smirked and went to pinch Remus' toast when Sirius came in. James stood up immediately and cupped his hands around his mouth.

'Padfoot! Over here!'

Sirius walked over, still yawning and dropped down onto the seat next to James.

'What's going on?' He said, eyelids still drooping down every so often.

'S-Sirius!' Peter squeaked excitedly. 'Here, I-I saved some bacon for y-you –'

'I just asked Evans out.' James declared pompously.

Lily. Remus thought angrily. Just say her na---

'Lily, you mean.' Sirius said, voicing his thoughts. 'If you're going to start dating her, you're going to have to get accustomed to saying her name, mate.'

Remus could feel Sirius' knowing eyes on him again and he looked away at the Bloody Baron as if he was the most interesting thing in the world.

'Right. Yeah.' James said stupidly and accomplished stealing Remus' toast. 'Anyway, we're meeting up tonight. Looks like she can't do anything tomorrow because she's got to study for a test.' He scoffed. 'Studying.'

At that moment, Lily had stood up and said something to her friends. Remus could just make it out as her mouthing 'Washroom.' She turned and walked out of the Great Hall, her red hair fluttering behind her.

He looked back at James and Sirius, who was still looking at him in that way of his.

'I've got to go.' He said, standing up. What are you doing? The sensible voice in his head retorted crossly. Sit back down! 'Washroom.'

He made his way to the doors, but just before he could push them open, he felt a hand on his shoulder, spinning him around.

'Remus,' Sirius said in a deadly serious tone. 'You had your chance, mate.' He lowered his hand and looked at him in an almost gloomy tone. 'It's too late.'

Remus remained still for a minute as these words sank in. He then pushed the door with all his might and ran out into the hallways. He stopped and watched powerlessly as Lily walked down the corridor with the utmost sophistication. She never zig-zagged in her stride, it was almost as if she was walking on an invisible tightrope. Balanced and poised.

He opened his mouth to call out those three little words that have been torturing him for 7 years… just to hear himself say it. But he couldn't bring himself to do such a thing.

It's too late, Sirius' voice echoed in his mind.

So he simply stood there, watching as she turned a corner and made her way for the girls lavatory. After a moment of defeat, he turned around, and opened the door. And he returned to the world he would have to live in.