AN: Well I'm back, (finally… please forgive me for not updating in forever!) and I'm not happy with you slackers! You stopped reviewing again! My only reviewer for chapters 4 were Letty and MoonShineMagicSsarer. (Much thanks to you both!) As for the REST of you… WHY ARE YOU NOT REVIEWING? Please, please, pleeeeeeeeeeeeease, review for this chapter:begs:

Chapter 5: Let Me Explain…!

It had been nearly a week since Lily had found out about Remus's condition. She had pestered him with questions; the foremost in her mind being when was he going to transform the next time. He had told her it would be next Tuesday (which now happened to be only three days away) and that his mood would start to get a bit jumpy in the few days prior to that. He warned her that she should probably avoid contact with him in those times, as the only people known to be able to handle his delicate moods were James, Sirius and Peter. Noticing the hurt look in his eyes as he told her this, Lily had said that she could certainly learn to adapt to his dispositions, but he had insisted that she try to avoid talking to him. He didn't want to hurt her emotionally by snapping at her or something of the like.

So, that was why, on this rainy Saturday morning, Lily was curled up on her bed in the dormitory reading a book. She couldn't concentrate on it, however, and often found herself reading the same paragraph over and over again. She kept glancing out the window at the raindrops sliding down the glass, and a song her mother sang to her as a small child began to play inside her head.

"Right now it is raining

Outside the bedroom window.

It is comforting to hear

The drops so soft and low.

To me it is relaxing

To hear the sound of rain.

The liquid flowing on the glass

Seems to wash away my pain.

Although nothing is a beautiful

As the sunlight on the trees,

Nothing is quite as sobering

As the raindrops on the leaves.

Right now it is raining

Outside the bedroom window.

The sounds now drift away,

Ever so quiet and slow."

Her mother had sung that to her whenever it was raining outside to cheer Lily up, because she wasn't able to go outside and play when it rained. It gave her a sort of appreciation for the rain, and now that she was older and not under the watchful eye of her mother, sometimes when it rained she would go out and "play" in it anyway. She debated going out in the rain, but decided against it. She might catch a cold, and with her N.E.W.T.s drawing ever closer, that was the last thing she wanted. Sighing, she went back to reading her book.

James was lonely. There was nothing else for it. Sirius had a detention with McGonagall for disrupting class by accidentally setting fire to his desk yesterday, Peter had a Charms essay that he was doing in the library (which Remus had already finished and James and Sirius were planning to do late tomorrow night to make sure they had at least something for class Monday), and Remus was spending "alone time" somewhere in the castle – James attributed that to his monthly transformation, coming in just a few days.

He glanced over at Remus's bed, which was next to his, and saw a piece of parchment sticking out underneath Remus's Potions book on his night table. James knew that Remus had been reading up on their next assignment last night before bed, but he wouldn't have written anything down, and if he did, he would have made sure it was in a safe place so he wouldn't lose it, not just sitting on his nightstand where anyone could pick it up. His curiosity piqued, James moved Remus' Potions book to his bed.

This is Remus's personal information… should I really be looking at it? James wondered to himself.

Of course you should… you're best friends, anything that he has you should be able to see, said a voice inside James's head.

Well, I guess that's right… Remus always tells me and Sirius and Peter everything, James thought, and before he lost his nerve to, he stood up and picked up the piece of parchment and started reading it. He knew immediately that it was not Potions notes, either…

"Lily,

I'm sorry that we can't talk properly, but with my transformation coming up so soon, I get really irritable. I don't want to snap at you, or anything worse than that, and then upset you. Believe me, I want nothing more than to be in your presence and be able to talk to you properly. I wish that I had never been bitten, so that we could be together properly.

And Lily, I've been thinking… I know you told me that you don't care that I'm a werewolf, but I think that maybe we should stop seeing each other… I mean, every month, I turn into a terrible monster – you saw me in Transfiguration that day - and we can't even talk to each other for days prior to that…

What am I talking about? Lily, you're the best thing that's happened to me at this school… no one's ever treated me like you do. You're so kind and caring, and when I hold you in my arms it feels as if everything is right and good in the world for once. No one's ever made me feel like that before. You make me feel like I'm a normal person. Even James, Sirius, and Peter constantly remind me of my condition by joking about it, but not you. And while you don't simply pretend it's not there, you just seemed to have… embraced it. And that's what I love about you Lily—"

The letter stopped there. Apparently Remus didn't have the time to finish it. But James did not care how or why Remus had not finished the letter. He kept staring at those sentences, and they seemed to be permanently burned into his mind… "You're the best thing that's happened to me," "when I hold you in my arms everything feels right," "that's what I love about you…"

Hadn't Lily told James, when he was walking with her in that corridor, that she was already seeing someone? And she hadn't told him who because it was Remus she was seeing! Remus knew darned good and well that Lily was off limits to anyone except him…

But it's not like you're already dating her, came that voice again. Just because you're too inept at wooing girls doesn't mean that Lily can't date other guys.

"I am not inept!" said James out loud in a shaky voice. But Remus knows that I'm trying to win Lily over… he knows it… thought James weakly, and his knees suddenly buckled and James sat down on his bed, dropping the parchment on the floor and putting his head in his hands. And right then, in that deserted dormitory, James Potter did something he had not done in a long time.

He cried.

It seemed like hours, James sat there, sniffling occasionally, tears flowing out of his eyes. His best friend had betrayed him in the worst way. James just knew that Lily was the girl for him… the girl he wanted to grow up and marry someday… and now, because of Remus, that couldn't happen. He realized that he did love Lily… more than anything else in the world, more than Quidditch, even… his tears began to slow, and he wiped his eyes, but more tears would still leak out of the corners of his eyes. Still looking at the floor, he saw that there was a tiny puddle of tears there, and he blindly searched for his wand on his bedside table with his hand. He didn't think he had the strength to lift his head up. Just as he found his wand and closed his fingers around it, he heard the dormitory door open, and his head instinctively shot up so fast that his neck cracked.

Remus…

"James, what's wrong?" asked Remus, noticing his red eyes and the tears that had recently fallen out of his eyes onto his cheeks. It had been a long time since James had actually cried… he started to walk toward his distressed friend, who merely stared at Remus for a second before slowly getting to his feet, still staring at Remus with that awful cold stare.

"Vizacium," said Remus gently, pulling out his wand and pointing it at James's face. Immediately, all traces of James's tears were gone, and his eyes were no longer red and puffy, but back to normal. This simple gesture of kindness seemed to awaken James back to what he had been thinking.

"Remus, I can't believe you did this to me…" said James, still fixing that cold stare on Remus, not bothering to thank him for improving his appearance.

"Did—did what?" asked Remus, fearing the worst. James quickly bent down and straightened again, and Remus saw a piece of parchment in his hand. His heart skipped a beat and he quickly looked over at his nightstand and saw that his unfinished letter to Lily was not there, and he knew that he had left it there last night…

"Lily! That's what you did!" said James, waving the parchment madly through the air. "You knew I loved her Remus… you knew it! And still, you have the audacity to date her!"

"Now… now, James… let me explain…" said Remus, although he didn't have the faintest idea what he was going to say… James had hit the nail on the head, hadn't he? He had known about James's love for Lily, and he still took away any opportunity James would have had with her by dating her himself…

"NO! There's nothing TO explain!" said James loudly. "You're as bad as a traitor to me, now, and I don't want to talk to you! Ever!" James then stomped away from his bed and out the door that Remus had just entered. Remus stared at the door for a minute, then looked at his trunk. Sighing, he opened it, and then packed all his belongings into it with his wand. Sirius would side with James once he told him, and then they could easily bully Peter into siding with them as well.

So then, since his entire dormitory would be turned against him, what was the point in staying there? Once his trunk was packed, he closed it, and then shrunk it until it was small enough to fit into his pocket. He picked it up and tucked inside his jeans pocket, then calmly walked out of the dormitory. He knew that James would not have lingered in the common room but instead wandered around the castle. Glad for this, Remus quickly exited the common room and walked purposely toward his destination: the Room of Requirement.

Noticing it was nearly time for lunch, Lily got up from her bed and placed her book on her night table. After exiting the girl's dormitory, she took her time walking out of the common room and toward the Great Hall, so that by the time she got there, a lot of other people would be there also. To her misfortune, "a lot of other people" included James, and when she arrived at the doors to the Great Hall, he was just strutting up to them as well. To her shock and amazement, he opened the door, but then stepped back to let her walk through.

Glaring at him suspiciously, she walked into the Hall and scanned the Gryffindor table for Margo. She had been spending the morning with Daniel doing who knows what, but had promised Lily that she would be at lunch. She spotted Margo sitting with a couple other girls in their year, and made a beeline for them.

"Hey Lily!" said Margo when Lily sat down next to her.

"Hey. You have fun this morning?"

"Oh yeah, it was all right. Dan and I basically spent the morning wandering around the castle," said Margo.

"Yeah, finding different places to snog," said a passing Slytherin seventh-year with a laugh. Margo blushed a deep red and Lily glared at the Slytherin.

"So what did you do this morning?" asked Margo hurriedly.

"Oh, I was just reading in the dormitory. I really had nothing better to do," said Lily. Margo regarded her curiously but did not say anything about Remus, as the gossiping girls around them did not know that Remus and Lily were an item.

Lily did not see Remus come in at all during lunch, and was beginning to worry about him, but Margo put the thought from her mind when she said that Remus might not be feeling well. Even Lily didn't know how close Margo had come to the truth when she said that.

AN: FINALLY DONE! I'm incredibly sorry for not updating this sooner, but I promise, I'm not going to abandon it! Review, PLEASE!

-xXx SpicySugar xXx-