AN: WHERE ARE MY REVIEWERS? I only had one reviewer for chapter 5 (Thanks MoonLightMagicSsarer!) Look people, I'm sorry it's been taking me a while to update, summer's been busy, but this is ridiculous! You really need to review so I have some incentive to continue writing this story!

Chapter 6: I Love You

Remus looked around his new sleeping quarters with eyes laden with sorrow. Nothing seemed to be going right for him lately… the only thing good in his life was Lily, but because of her, everything else was going wrong. His grades has slipped just slightly, because he would spend his classes daydreaming about Lily rather than paying attention… his friends had shunned him because he had "betrayed" James… and, his transformations kept him from seeing Lily properly. So now, here he was in the Room of Requirement, running from his troubles so he could be somewhere alone.

When he had conjured the room, he had simply told it to give him a place where he could stay for a few days. The room definitely listened, and gave him something that resembled a hotel room. Along with a twin bed, night table, and dresser with a mirror, he was given a bookshelf, a reading chair, a small table for homework, and a tiny closet that could hang a few sets of dress robes and several cloaks. Sighing heavily, Remus removed his trunk from his pocket, returned it to its normal size, and started unpacking his things.

He had a bad feeling he would be here for more than simply a few days.

Lily was really worrying about Remus when she did not see him at dinner, and more so when he was not in the common room that evening. Margo kept trying to tell her that maybe Remus was ill and didn't want to eat, or that maybe he had a boatload of homework. Lily was not convinced, as the last time she had seen Remus he seemed perfectly fine, and the seventh years had been given hardly any homework for the weekend. She could hardly attribute it to part of his transformation and him being moody, because she had never noticed him skipping dinners before except for one night a month.

Wait a minute.

Skipping dinners… Remus wasn't skipping dinners at all! He simply wasn't dining with the rest of the school…. Struck with sudden inspiration, Lily leapt out of the armchair she had been sitting in.

"And just where are you going?" asked Margo.

"Tell you later, I'll be right back!" called Lily over her shoulder as she dashed out of the portrait hole.

"James?" came a small voice from across the dorm. The owner of the voice was sitting gingerly on the edge of his bed.

"What, Wormtail?" snapped James, who, if it weren't for his tense facial features, would look quite relaxed leaning against his headboard.

"Aren't you… worried... about Remus at all?" asked Peter tentatively. He had hardly finished the question when James responded.

"No."

"But James, he hasn't been around since you confronted him, maybe—"

"Oh, give it a rest, Peter," said Sirius from his bed, where he was lying on his back, his head by the foot of the bed and his feet propped up on the headboard.

"I just think that maybe you were a bit harsh on him…"

"Honestly, Peter, are you with me on this or against me?" asked James, sitting up straight and glaring at Peter.

"Well, I'm with you, of course…" mumbled Peter, trailing off. All three boys were silent as they stared at Remus's empty bed, each with different thoughts on their minds.

"I'm going to take a walk," said James abruptly, and he rose quickly from the bed and strode out of the room.

"Do you think we should go with him?" asked Peter after a short silence.

"No, just let him be," replied Sirius.

"I think maybe he's going mad, Padfoot…" said Peter, settling himself on his bed more comfortably, a signal that he wasn't going to leave the room.

"No, he's not going mad," said Sirius. He paused, and then continued, "He's just suffered a severe disappointment." Peter noted how Sirius had not cracked a joke or made a single sarcastic remark since James had told them about Remus and Lily.

It was a mark of just how serious the situation was.

Remus looked at the clock on the night table in his new room. It was eight o' clock. Dinner was long over by now, and Remus wasn't even remotely hungry, but he knew he should eat. He pondered for a moment on eating or simply starving himself until morning, made up his mind, and rose out of the reading chair, heading for the door. He knew the kitchen elves would be more than willing to give him some food; the only thing he was worried about was running into the rest of the marauders getting an after-dinner snack.

It was a long walk down to the kitchens, since they were below the Great Hall and the Room of Requirement was on the seventh floor, but he got there after about a half hour, and by then his stomach was beginning to rumble with hunger. He gratefully tickled the pear in the portrait of fruit that served as the door to the kitchen and stepped into what seemed like a sea of house elves, all bustling about doing their after-dinner duties. Several of them rushed over to Remus when they caught sight of him and asked him what "Mister Lupin" wanted to eat.

A few minutes and several tea trays later, Remus was sitting by the kitchen fire surrounded by muffins and biscuits, cups of tea and marmalade, and a wide assortment of after-dinner mints. He had politely asked the house elves to leave him by himself for a while, and they obliged, being as quiet as possible while going about their jobs. Being in such a comfortable and warm atmosphere had taken his mind off of his betrayed friends and it was now on Lily.

He kept thinking about her and remembering her fabulous personality, her stunning beauty, her great sense of humor perfectly balanced with a sense of reality. The wonderful qualities she possessed was enough to make any guy stagger and fall head-over-heels for her; which, Remus said to himself, was exactly what he had done. But he was different, he told himself sternly. He didn't just go for the outside appearance, he really cared for Lily, he really loved her, he really wanted to— Remus stopped mid-thought.

Did he just say he loved Lily?

He ran through all his thoughts again slowly, and he came to the realization that his love for Lily was quite a real thing. He would do his utmost to protect her, he cared for her with all his heart, he felt an indescribable joy whenever he was around her, he found himself longing to be with her every second of the day—

"Remus?"

Remus jumped in surprise and dropped the muffin he had been holding. He whipped around to find Lily standing hesitantly in the doorway of the kitchen.

"Lily…" said Remus, and he realized that his voice had an unexplainable quavering huskiness to it. He cleared his throat uneasily

"Um, may I join you?" she asked. He noted the complete lack of eloquence in her mannerisms with amusement.

"Sure," he said, in a much clearer voice, and he watched her walk over to him and sit down amidst all the snacks.

"I realize I shouldn't be around you, but—"

"Lily, no," he said, turning to face her. "I don't care. I want to be around you… no, I need to be around you… I need you for me to survive…"

"Because you love me."

Remus was more than a little startled at this abrupt statement from Lily. Had he really been thinking so loudly that his thoughts could he heard by someone else? Lily smiled.

"You were mumbling… I've been standing in the door for about five minutes or so," said Lily, as if reading his mind. "You just seemed so intent that I really didn't want to interrupt you, plus I was curious, but I knew that I really shouldn't be eavesdropping…" she rushed on.

"It's okay," he said. "Really," he added, catching the look on her face. Although he should have been insulted at this disregard for his privacy, Remus found he didn't much mind the intrusion. There was an awkward moment where neither of them said anything.

"Did you mean it?" asked Lily quietly, hugging her knees to her chest and gazing into the fire.

"Mean what?" asked Remus distractedly.

"Do you really… love me?"

"Yes," replied Remus without hesitation. Lily really had to admire his guts at being able to admit that.

"Wow…" she whispered.

Another awkward silence.

"I think I love you, too…" she said. Remus, who had also been staring at the fire, turned his head to look at her suddenly. Lily turned her head away from the dancing flames as well and saw the desperate look in his eyes that spoke better than words ever could. He was asking, in its simplest form, if she was telling the truth. Her emerald eyes sparkled in the firelight as she smiled slightly and tilted her head toward Remus slightly. He hesitated only for a second before he leaned forward and captured her lips in his for a long and passionate kiss.

Neither of them noticed the many sets of tennis ball-sized eyes watching them, each pair belonging to a house elf, and each house elf smiling. But there was one elf that was not watching the couple by the fire, one house elf that was not smiling. Instead, this elf's vision was focused on the normal-sized eyes in the doorway of the kitchen.

And those normal-sized hazel eyes were brimming with tears.

James paced around and around the Honeyduke's cellar. His hair was incredibly messy, even more than usual. His clothes were patched with dirt, he was sweating profusely, and his breath reeked of stale butterbeer. In simple terms, James Potter was a wreck.

And he did not care in the least.

There was only one thought running through his head at the moment, and it was only three words long, but it tore him apart until he felt like he couldn't live any longer.

Remus kissed Lily, Remus kissed Lily, Remus kissed Lily… This ran through his head thirty-four times, but the thirty-fifth time, his mind switched it around.

Lily kissed Remus.

This caused him to break down completely, and he sank to the stone floor of the cellar, leaning up against a crate of Fizzing Whizbees, sobbing uncontrollably. He had never cried so much in one day… but then again, he had never had so many reasons to cry this much in one day. He had only been sitting there a few minutes when he was startled half out of his mind by the very abrupt presence of light. His head, which had been resting on his knees, was now staring fixedly at the cellar stairs, where there was an elderly woman standing with her wand held aloft, a bright light at the tip of it illuminating the room.

The first thought that James had was RUN! But he sat rooted to the spot, staring at the owner of the candy shop that he so often used as a haven when he was upset or needed time to think.

"Well," said the woman after a minute, "I don't think you're a robber, considering that you're still sitting there and not halfway to London… but what in Merlin's name is a young man like you doing in my cellar at nine o' clock in the evening?"

Still, James could not say or do anything. Had he really been sobbing so loudly that someone had been able to hear it upstairs? The woman took a step down on the stairs, and suddenly, as if being removed from a trance, James found himself able to move again, and he jumped to his feet.

"Now, now, no need to get excited, I'm not going to hurt you or turn you into the authorities or anything," said the woman, continuing to step down the stairs. James, now deciding that it was best to stay put, waited until the woman was directly in front of him.

"Now, can you talk to me?" asked the woman with a smile.

"Er…" said James.

"There we go, now, how about your name?"

"James. James Potter," he replied.

"And why exactly are you in my cellar?"

"I… er… well… I go to Hogwarts…and—"

"And how exactly did you get here if you're supposed to be up at the school?" asked the woman. Although the woman was speaking kindly, James still rather felt like he was being interrogated for a crime of serious offense.

"Er…" he said again. He glanced at the floor where there was a stone that lead to the secret passageway to Hogwarts for a second before looking back at the woman, prepared to lie and say that he snuck out of the castle. The woman, however, had noticed his glance to the floor.

"Ah," she said. "I didn't think anyone knew about the Dissendium passage, but apparently I've been proved wrong."

"Well, I guess there's no point in denying it then…" said James after a moment.

"But why would you sneak out of school?" asked the woman.

"It's kind of a long story… very boring, too," he added at the look in the woman's eye that clearly said she wanted to know more.

"Come on, dearest, come upstairs where it's comfortable, and you tell old Mrs. Honeyduke all about this 'long and boring' story of yours…"

James, feeling that he was in for a long night and a whole lot of trouble at school in the morning, reluctantly followed the woman back up the cellar stairs.

AN: Well, that was fun! I hope you all liked that chapter, especially the end… him being discovered in Honeyduke's came to me in some brilliant stroke of inspiration that I can't help but to be grateful for. PLEASE REVIEW!

-xXx SpicySugar xXx-