Chapter Fifty-Three

January. 28th, 1977

He noticed that she was happier now, she smiled at meals, and took no hesitation in talking anymore either. Remus took great care in noticing things, he was watchful, and it fit trulybecause he couldn't take his eyes off of her. When he first met Kit she was meek and quiet, much like him in his first year before meeting his friends. Even when he and Kit started going out she was still distant.

Things were better now. She wasn't being beaten by her father. He didn't have any secrets from her. She had family, both adopted and by blood. Remus liked it this way. He liked seeing her smile, he liked hearing her thoughts and opinions on things during meals. He liked the way her hand slipped under the table and connected with his, even if hers were ice cold. Things were good. They were great even, and Remus prayed that they would stay this way forever.

"No, Regulus is still being a git. He's only putting up with me because his grade is on the line as well." Remus heard Kit say, glancing up to see her in conversation with Sirius. The two had agreed to keep things between them, at least about her parentage. They however both tried to drop hints for Regulus, if only in the hope that Regulus would stop being so inconsiderate towards her. Sirius had tried to talk Kit into writing Orion, but she couldn't and thankfully Sirius didn't push her much farther then that.

"How long until the assignment is up?" Remus asked, joining in on the conversation as he took a rather large bite of his pork chop which had been smothered in gravy.

Kit shrugged, her hand squeezing his ever so gently as she shifted in her seat. "A week or so, and we still aren't even halfway done with the potion. I think we might end up failing the assignment. Which would make things worse."

"Don't worry Kitten, if he does anything I'll make sure he knows the meaning of the term 'big brother'." Sirius stated, glancing towards the Slytherin table with his grey eyes.

"Me too." James added, looking up from his conversation with Lily.

"Well, shall we move onto a less depressing subject then?" Remus asked, and almost immediately did his hand go over his mouth, a change of subjects could only mean one thing. Quidditch, and his friends took no time in getting into a conversation about this years new brooms.

He glanced down at Kit who was glaring at him ever so slightly, "You just had to open your mouth."

"We could always go somewhere private to talk."

In the end, some place private to talk turned out to be leaving the inside of the castle all together. Since classes for the day were over, and dinner was just about done, the students were crawling all over the place. The only area of the castle to have a truly private moment was outside. The wind still nipped at their faces as they walked about, arms linked together. The snow however had thankfully melted between the weeks that had passed from their last venture outside together.

Kit glanced up as they walked, the sky was a shade of grey one would only see in the winter months, clouds blanketing the sky and hiding the sun hostage. Even though the weather was rather depressing, Kit found herself enjoying things. Staying in step with Remus however was hard. Out of the group he was the tallest, which was saying something because Sirius topped out at an even six foot. Remus had long strides, and Kit being so short, well to match one of his strides she had to take two quick steps.

He did however seem to notice this, and did slow down for her benefit, she gave a small grin; "Thank-you, for a moment there I thought I'd have to jog to keep up."

Remus shook his head, sandy brown hair falling around his face as he did so Kit made a note that he would need to get a haircut soon, and also looking up to him she made a note that the scars that marred his face were faded from the angry red tone to a off colour tone, not quite matching his flesh. "What?" Came his question, looking down at her when he noticed that she was no longer keeping up with his slow strides.

One of her hands raised, a finger traced one of his scars, from his forehead, over his nose, and down the other side of his face. He shivered and Kit canted her head to the side. "Being with you has changed my life you know."

He blinked and arched a brow, Kit let her eyes close for a moment moving in closer to him, she felt his arms wrap around her as if instinct. She let her head rest on his shoulder, let the feeling of his chest close to her wash over her, the way it raised up and down with every breath he took. "You've made me a better man." He told her, his tone soft, his voice deep.

Her hands slinked around in such a manor as to slip them into the pockets of his robe while he held onto her. She glanced up at him, "I think we've gotten sappy."

"It's better then listening to talk about brooms though isn't it?"

She chuckled slightly, trying not to get to melancholy about things. That's what Kit had been trying to do lately, every time she had a moments time to herself she seemed to think about all the bad things but she caught herself, and challenged her mind to think about her current life which was a pretty damn good one. Sure it was a little odd, her boyfriend was a werewolf, she wasn't a mud blood after all, one of her friends was her cousin, and another friend was her adopted brother. Yeah, life was weird by muggle standards...but things were good.

Even though the cold was starting to bite through his heavy cloak he didn't want to get up. In fact, Remus would have been happy if he could just freeze time all together. His hand trailed through Kit's orange hair, as her head rested in his lap, eyes lazily opening and closing as she gazed upwards towards him. The only noise that could be heard were the gusts of wind that were few and far between. And things were good, even though he could feel his bum getting wet from the ground beneath him.

"Do you think James and Lily feel like this?" He asked suddenly, so suddenly that even Remus didn't notice the words had left his mouth until after he heard his voice float in the air. His hazel eyes glanced downwards, and he could feel Kit shift her head thoughtfully for a moment.

"I think so."

"Do you think they feel each others pain?" He asked, frowning slightly. James and Lily were the only other couple that he could make a comparison to. Remus couldn't help but wonder though, now especially. They sat silent, they had been sitting silent for the past half hour, neither one speaking, but Remus felt content connected. Did other couples feel so...

"I don't know. We could be freaks of nature." Kit stated, a brow arching and a rather amused look flashing over her face for a moment.

"We are not freaks of nature." Remus told her, his finger poking her nose as he spoke.

"We are not freaks of nature says the bloke that turns into a wolf once a month." She said offhandedly. And while he would have been offended by anyone else saying it...he wasn't by her. Just another thing to wonder about.

"I suppose we shouldn't worry about it."

"We'll find out someday." She told him, the laziness coming back to her eyes as if she was going to fall asleep right there in his lap.

"I suppose we should get in."

"Why?"

"Well, getting frostbite doesn't seem like a great way to spend the evening." He pointed out to her, helping her up into a sitting position, as he himself stood, bones in his body cracking slightly. He felt off. One glance up towards the darkening sky told him why, although he really should have known even before having to wonder.

"The full moon is soon." Kit noted, glancing up at him as she wiped her robes off. Remus nodded with a sigh, he wasn't looking forward to the pain of the transformation, or the restlessness afterwards.

"Too soon for my tastes." He told her, truthfully with a sigh.

Kit's small hand slipped into his, and she reached up to give his cheek a quick kiss, her lips warm against his cold skin. He could smell her as she moved close to him to do so, it was an intoxicating smell really, strawberries, and vanilla, and something entirely Kit. When she pulled away, he couldn't let her go. Not that easy, he wanted her close to him. Within a moments time he had her up in his arms, her legs were wrapped around his waist and her arms clung around his neck if only to avoid falling down to the ground.

"I'm sorry but I'm afraid that I can't let you go." He told her, watching as her face turned a slight shade of red. He grinned, and pressed his lips against hers with cheer. She was light enough not to cause much of a problem as he walked, and there was no way he would let a full moon get his spirits down. Not on such a perfect day.

"You won't have to let me go." She said, as his lips pulled away from hers, the feeling of her warm moist, tasteful lips still dancing on his tongue. He grinned and took a few more steps towards the castle, spinning around once with her still in his arms.

"You promise?"

She nodded, her chin resting on his shoulder easily now that she was in his hold. "Never ever Mr. Lupin will you have to let me go."

"Shall we head in now then? Defrost our noses?"

"Good plan."

"I thought so."

Lily and Kit sat side by side one another hunched over a parchment. "Do you think this is big enough?" James asked the two girls. The group, of four boys and two girls were currently in the boys dormitory, the girls sitting on the floor, Lily with quill in hand, and Kit with the inkwell in her own hands (which were currently getting stained by the blue-black ink). Lily made a noise, the quill pressing to the tip of her tongue for a moment before finally nodding.

"This should be big enough, if the writing is really small." With that, the quill Lily held was dunked into Kit's inkwell, causing a few drops of ink to splatter onto her pale hands.

"Careful Lily, it's going to look like I murdered a squid if you keep your reckless quill dunking up."

"It's not like you have to hold the bloody thing..." Lily's voice trailed off, and both girls, glanced towards the boys, James and Sirius were both sitting on Peter's bed looking rather bored, and Remus was perched up in his own bed, robe wrapped around his shoulders, complete with a book in his hand, and then there was Peter who gave the girls a sheepish look before glancing down at his ink stained feet. Earlier he had kicked the inkwell over, spilling it not only on the parchment, but on the dorm room floor as well. "Okay, maybe you do need to hold it." Lily said under her breath, before starting on the writing process.

Lily had been elected by everyone to do most of the writing on the map, her handwriting had been deemed the best of the group. Remus came in second at least for the boys, but the moment Sirius said it looked like a girls hand writing, Remus took refuge with his book complaining that no one took pride in their handwriting anymore.

A few nights ago they had finally collected all the information on the castle, every room, every passageway, everything...and now they were putting to work drawing the castle out. Of course the problem would come to later, charming the paper with many different charms, but thankfully the group had Lily who not only was the best at charms, but James, Sirius, and Remus were well at the subject as well. It seemed that both Kit and Peter weren't at the best of their ability in charms. Peter seemed to hold his skills oddly enough in Herbology, and Kit kept her favourite subject of care of magical creatures. Other then that both Peter and Kit got less then average grades.

The actual drawing of the map would probably take the longest. Everyone would help out where they could, but the map actually needed to be readable, and Lily had stated that once she started on the map that she wouldn't give the quill up, and that someone would 'have to pry this quill from my cold dead hands, because I am not letting go of it.' there were a lot of words after that but Kit had stopped paying much attention to her friends tangent. Lily was known for rambling on and on, and Kit was well aware that paying attention was futile.

The scratching of the quill didn't stop until well into the early morning hours, with a yawn from Lily telling everyone she couldn't go on any longer. Which thankfully it being Saturday they didn't have to worry about awaking early for classes. Both Peter and Sirius had fallen asleep sometime during the night, Remus continued with his book, now nearly complete with it, and James and Kit had been mumbling back and forth for most of the night about anything and everything under the sun.

"You know, when I decided to help you guys I didn't know that it would be this hard." Lily complained, as she blew on the ink, willing it to dry faster. James made a noise, before slipping off of his bed to overlook the work that Lily had done.

"Aw, c'mon Lils, your helping yourself by helping us."

Lily sighed, setting her quill down to run her hands through her bright crimson hair with a nod. "I know, but I also know that I'm helping you and your pranks too."

James gave a sheepish grin, everyone knew that while the map was so the boys would know Lily and Kit were safe, everyone also knew that it was to help with pranks and keep from running into teachers, cutting back on their time spent in detention.

He felt her snuggle up to him, her cold legs pressing against his as if trying to get warmthat was the only bad part about having Kit as his bed mate, she was freezing. It could have been a hundred degrees and she would still feel like an ice cube. He gave a sigh and popped one of his eyes open, dawn was just starting to break outside, but that still didn't mean that he wanted to get up. In fact, he would be quite happy if he got to sleep in until two in the afternoon, but Kit's twisting and turning didn't help any.

"Are you trying to do the tango?" He asked finally, his voice hushed. It was amusing, but it was also rather annoying. The bed's at Hogwarts weren't made for two people, one fit comfortably, and two would fit comfortably as long as one of them wasn't trying to cha-cha-cha in the bed.

Her head lifted up, orange hair was everywhere, blue eyes bloodshot, and mouth open to speak. Although, she didn't speak, instead Kit sneezed on him.

"I dun't feel goof." Remus took a moment to blink, a brow raising in confusion before realizing what she said. A hand was brought up to her forehead, which compared to the rest of her body was a touch warm. He frowned, it had to of been being outside the night before, laying on the wet ground. Yeah, that was really healthy.

"Do you want me to take you down to Madam Pomfrey?"

"No. I want to sleep, but you feel really lumpy tonight."

"I feel lumpy?"

"Yes, your very lumpy tonight."

Remus sighed and scooted over a bit, his body protesting the lack of Kit pressing close against him, but then again his skin was also starting to tingle with warmth. Kit frowned and let her head drop onto the pillow. Remus knew all to well what it felt like to be sick, in fact most days after his transformation he felt sick. He knew what it was like, he pet her head gently and she gave a sigh.

"It's still lumpy."

Now that was cause for concern because no bed at Hogwarts was lumpy, at least not any of the beds that Remus had been on. Kit moved again, sitting up with a raspy sigh. Remus couldn't help but chuckle, not at the fact that she was sick and uncomfortable, but for the fact that when she sat up he could see what was making her side of the bed so lumpy.

"You were laying on my book."

"Your book? Why would you let me lay on your book?" She asked, her head turning to watch as Remus tossed the book onto his night stand.

"Because you make a pretty good bookmark."

"Oh gee, let's make fun of the sick person."

"Aw, c'mere. You know I'm not making fun of you." He said, his hand reaching out to pull at her, leading her body to rest against his chest once again, that comfortable weight making his eyelids drop slightly.

"Maybe I'll go cough on a Slytherin tomorrow. Let those prats get what they deserve." Was said with a sneeze, and Remus could only respond with a 'mmhm' like sound. His body was already starting to dissolve into the land of sleep. He could feel Kit's heart beating against his chest, and that was all he needed to have comfort him as he fell back to sleep.

Kit herself gave a slight sigh, wishing she could fall asleep that easy. Her head felt like it was going to implode, and she could already feel her voice crackle when she spoke. Closing her eyes she finally relaxed her body, knowing she would wake up sick was never a fun feeling but she also knew she'd wake up with someone she loved, and Remus would take care of her.

Things would be okay.

AN: It's the calm before the storm! Enjoy the fluff for now!

A) I'm sorry it's taken me almost a month to update, I've been in the middle of a move.

B) Next update should be in two weeks (I'm hoping).

C) This chapter was filled with fluff because I thought I'd show you all how happy and stuff things are. Although they won't stay like that forever...

Whee, I love you all. And next up, angst.