Chapter Thirty: Cursed Cherubims

Lily was a bit bummed to find Remus had snuck out of the party though she supposed it was to be expected. With some difficulty, she had observed James convincing Sirius not to go after Remus soon after he had disappeared the young werewolf seemingly unaware that he would be even missed at all. Lily had thought about going after Remus herself but she knew he wasn't a fan of crowds and if Sirius could leave Remus be, which she took to be growth on Sirius' part, then so could she. Lily had a lovely weekend and true to her word Mary had begun to hang out with her and Marlene and Dorcas more. Lily didn't see much of Remus for the next week but when she approached Peter about it, as he was the only other one of that group she could stand, he had said Remus had come down with a bug. Lily was, of course, skeptical of this but neither James and Sirius seemed overly concerned and when pressed for more information Peter explained that Remus had just been sleeping an awful lot lately. Lily supposed it made sense since even when Remus sat next to her in class it was like a part of him wasn't there. It would have been concerning but when she had gone to Professor Corbyn about the matter the older man had gently pointed out that Remus was probably adjusting to the fact all his close friends accepted him and that Remus was handling the grief about the Whomping Willow by staying away from everyone.

Lily didn't at all understand the first half of what Professor Corbyn had tried to explain but she certainly trusted his opinion of the matter. In regards to the Whomping Willow that made a great deal more sense since for that whole week it had been the hot topic around Hogwarts. Lily knew most of the older Hogwarts students didn't really care about the Whomping Willow but there were just enough of them trying to impress the foreign students that it was unfortunate indeed. Lily had attempted to get Professor Sprout to stick up for the Whomping Willow but the portly lady seemed to have bigger concerns on her mind, though what they were she would not share with Lily. Frustrated by the way the petition was affecting Remus, Lily had attempted to round up enough people to fight back on the petition but students either didn't care at all or thought the Digores students had a point.

After talking to multiple professors resulted in no change Lily decided that she would go to the headmaster herself. She was more than a little nervous as a bored Ravenclaw prefect led her to the office. But keeping in mind this was for her dear friend Remus she summoned enough courage to enter. The last time Lily had sought out Dumbledore's help she had not been in his office but the headmaster had been much easier to find last year. This year the older wizard seemed to be out of the castle entirely or speaking to one or both of the foreign headmasters. Lily had even gotten used to the headmaster hardly showing his face around mealtimes!

"Come in Miss Evans," the old headmaster called before her knuckles could rasp against the door. Letting out a barely incoherent squeak of surprise Lily gathered herself and walked inside the room. She soon got lost in the sea of wizarding trinkets and books though perhaps the most exciting item was the pensive that was in the far right corner of the room. Dumbledore was stepping away from the large pensive and as the secret compartment of the room swung around the headmaster winked at her. "It helps to have one for memories."

"Oh yes, Headmaster I imagine you have a lot of them," Lily nearly squeaked again, her face going as red as her hair, "not to say you're old or anything sir I only meant…" But Lily did not need to worry about offending Dumbledore who only chuckled in amusement.

"Nonsense, Miss Evans I am as old as they come. Well except for my friend Nicolas perhaps."

Lily nodded politely, having no notion who could possibly be older than Dumbledore if her copy of Hogwarts of History was indeed correct. Though Lily supposed not much was known about the headmaster and she figured he quite liked it that way.

"Now then Miss Evans please sit and help yourself to a toffee," Dumbledore offered and slid a tin of toffee over to her the brown clusters sticking together slightly so that she had to pull extra hard to get one to break away from the clump. "What can I do for you, Miss Evans?"

Lily was glad she had not yet popped the sticky toffee in her mouth and instead had pinched it between her fingers sitting straighter in an attempt to make herself look older than she was. She hoped that being a teenager now would mean that some adults would take her seriously when before they might not have.

"It's about Remus, headmaster. This dreadful petition about the Whomping Willow has got him terribly upset," Lily explained, unable to keep out of her voice how sad this in turn made her. She had been unsure what to expect from Dumbledore. The last time Lily had told the headmaster something about Remus, back when those nasty letters were being blamed on him, the old man had seemed genuinely surprised. This time however the headmaster did not seem surprised in the slightest. He leaned back in his chair, his half-moon spectacles sliding down his crooked nose as he sighed.

"Yes, I imagine he is," the old man mused leaning forward and folding his hands together.

Lily was caught off guard, "you….you knew?" she sputtered.

"You will have to be a bit more specific Miss Evans as you will find I know rather a lot," Dumbledore replied, his eyes twinkling in amusement. Lily shook her head as surely no adult who knew a child was suffering would do nothing about it, right? Lily wasn't sure Sprout knew about Remus but both Corbyn and McGonagall knew and had both attempted to talk to Remus about the Whomping Willow matter. Lily reminded herself that maybe Dumbledore had done the same. But she didn't think so somehow.

"I meant….I was just surprised you knew how much the petition was hurting, Mr. Lupin. Surely there is something you can do about it?" Lily asked her voice faltering slightly. She shifted in her seat which seemed much too big for her, determined to look the part of a confident teenager, even though she wasn't at all confident anymore.

"There are a great many things I can do about it but I think you will find the better question is what I should do about it?" Dumbledore asked and Lily found the roundabout way he was talking downright infuriating. Dumbledore knew and had done nothing? But he was the headmaster!

"Stop the ridiculous petition!" Lily snapped, her frustration getting the better of her. She tried to calm down not wanting to be nasty like Petunia. "I only mean that perhaps if you stopped the petition Remus would be able to relax some. It must be dreadful for him hearing it in the halls after classes."

"If only it were that simple Miss Evans. But I think you would be wise to eat your toffee as it is melting in your hand." Dumbledore pointed out and busied himself organizing some letters as Lily popped the candy in her mouth and licked the excess toffee off her fingers feeling foolish.

What did Dumbledore even mean?

Lily had thought the matter through several times and she couldn't at all see why it wouldn't be that simple. After a while of fuming quietly while waiting for the headmaster to stop his sorting Lily scooched her chair forward so that Dumbledore glanced up at her. The headmaster smiled as if Lily was a dear friend of his and the kindness in Dumbledore's eyes made her feel bad for doubting him. Of course, the headmaster of Hogwarts would have the very best intentions with all his students! Besides, if Dumbledore had proved that with anyone it was with Remus who always spoke highly of the headmaster explaining there was no one else who would have given him a chance to attend school.

"I'm sorry Headmaster. I don't understand how it's not simple," Lily spoke politely once more, folding her hands in her lap to prevent her from reaching for another toffee.

"An excellent point Miss Evans," Dumbledore replied encouragingly as if Lily was asking a particularly clever question in class. "You will find that the student body has a mind of its own. If I were to ban the petition going around I suspect you would find the topic of conversation would persist longer. No, Miss Evans, sometimes it is easier to let the changing times bring the needed distraction from other more unpleasant ones." Dumbledore explained pausing to lick an envelope. "Now I do believe a certain Holiday is on Wednesday which as luck would have it is a mere short three days away."

Lily frowned, unable to think of any such holiday, then what Dumbledore was hinting at sunk in.

"You think Valentine's Day will make people forget about the petition?" she questioned finding that very unlikely. If Lily had been fighting for something at Hogwarts to change, some sort of advocacy, then a stupid holiday like Valentine's day wouldn't change that.

"I think that you will find that an excuse to celebrate love will do the trick. And I assure you Ms. Evans that this Valentine's Day will be as elaborate and fantastic as Hogwarts can supply," Dumbledore assured her giving her another kind smile that left Lily feeling better.

"...I see. Thank you, headmaster. Sorry for bothering you" And doubting you, she added silently to herself.

"Not at all, Ms. Evans. I ever so enjoy the example of young youths looking out for one another. Mr. Lupin is very lucky to have you as his friend."

Lily felt equal parts pleased and embarrassed at this and wished the Headmaster a good rest of his weekend before leaving, thinking on if there was anything she could do that would make Valentine's Day remotely pleasant for Remus. Lily would have given chocolates to her friends who were boys again but she wasn't sure she could survive the teasing Marlene would give her over it. The dreaded holiday would mean that Marlene would at the very least annoy Lily all day about dating and crushes and other such nonsense which still seemed so far off into the future that it was almost laughable. Lily supposed that she could put up with it with a smile on her face if it meant the talk about the petition would stop. As long as the moronic James Potter didn't do something to prove how few brain cells Lily suspected he actually had in that arrogant head of his she supposed she could survive the day. She just hoped with all her heart that Dumbledore was right.

…..

There were Valentine's Days at Hogwarts and then there was whatever the mess that February 14th, 1973 was.

One might have assumed having little cherubim enchantments flying around would be sweet and delightful. But someone- rumors were that it was Fabian Prewett and Patricia Rakeburn- had made it so that instead of delivering poems and songs the gold little statues delivered a mix of accurate and inaccurate love confessions that left the entire school in turmoil until the confusion could be sorted out properly. While both Patricia and Fabian denied the whole thing neither would lie and say that they had not enjoyed Hogwarts metaphorically burning to the ground as love rivalries and betrayal swept the halls of Hogwarts. It was just the sort of thing that Patricia lived for, especially since she could not get a decent Valentine's Day herself. Not with Amelia smooching some unimportant Hufflepuff boy in a fashion that made Patricia certain her horrible roommate was trying to make her jealous. Well, Amelia succeeded and Patricia was really really jealous. So she decided the logical thing to do would be to destroy everyone's Valentine's Day, in a more or less harmless way anyways. Luckily, it didn't take much to sell Fabian on the idea. Then with the brainpower of the two of them, it hadn't taken long to come up with something appropriately dubious. Plus the nicked roster of students' names, that Gideon had created in order to diligently hunt down the eggs needed for more time for the second task helped tremendously. Gideon was going to kill the two of them but Patricia didn't care and Fabian had not been aware of the extent of chaos Patricia's actual idea would cause. So the rather hellish Valentine's Day turned out to be the perfect way to nurse her broken heart.

…..

Sirius dodged one of the golden demons in a foul mood. He was pretty sure that if one more of those little devils approached him with some other strange girl's love confession that he would learn bombarda solely for the purpose of one day destroying every single cherub that dared to take flight in the Hogwarts halls.

"Bombarda," Sirius shouted hopefully, unsurprised but disappointed when nothing happened.

"Roses are red, violets are blue, and Charlie Hughs luuuuvs you," spit out the golden terror in a sweet melody that Sirius rolled his eyes to until he heard the name. Bloody hell, that was a bloke's name! This stupid prank was getting really old. Sirius felt bad for whoever Charlie was since it was simply moronic to think that the confession was anything besides bogus. No guy would ever dare do something like this. Still, hearing the bloke's name brought forth disgust and a sort of curiosity that Sirius quickly brushed away making his way down the main staircase instead. He listened to the sobs as some older Slytherin girl slapped some Ravenclaw guy hard accusing him of cheating and refusing to listen to the frustrated justifications. Sirius did his best to ignore the drama popping up like Devil's Snare in the dark and entered the Great Hall where there were twenty cherubims buzzing around and double the number of students shouting at one another or trying to sort out if confessions had any basis in reality or not. Sirius swerved out of the way as poor Frank rushed to the table looking as if he was being chased by an angry dragon.

"Bloody hell this is insane," James grumbled around a spoonful of peas. Peter sniffed his beady eyes full of tears since he seemed to be the only one wanting to get a badly presented poem from the deadly sirens. "For the fifteenth time Peter just because you don't get any doesn't mean no one likes you," James groaned, catching the boy's teary eyes.

"Easy for you to say you wanker you've had more love confessions than any of us," Peter grumbled and James sat straighter grinning like a mad man. Sirius whacked the back of his friend's head before sitting down next to him.

"How many did you get? I bet I got more." Sirius bragged, grabbing the roll off of James' plate since the platter was much too far away for his very sore arms to reach.

"Five," James boosted, sticking his elbow into Sirius' side but he was also sore so it was a fairly weak attempt. If only the two of them hadn't gotten quite so carried away scrimmaging on their brooms. Having a one on one Quidditch game seemed like a grand idea when the two of them had been bored after classes Monday; Peter hanging out with Marlene and Remus doing what the boy seemed to do all the time lately, sleep. At first, Sirius had been annoyed by it but Remus didn't seem depressed or sick, their friend just seemed exhausted. A type of unshakable weariness hung off Remus so persistently that when the three of them had dragged their friend outside he had collapsed onto the ground refusing to take one more step with what would have been laziness from Peter but which just seemed concerning from Remus.

There was nothing to do about it and as far as Sirius could tell their tired friend was actually sleeping and not just pretending to. Either that or he was reading those strange books of his which appeared to be about healing spells, memory spells, and the properties of unicorn hair and blood. All boring topics. But when Sirius had suggested Remus read about something cool like Quidditch the boy had just shot him a disapproving look that made him look a great deal like Madam Pince.

"Sirius I said I got five," James reported, nearly done with his soup that Sirius eyed hungrily.

"Bloody brilliant. Peter, dish me up some soup," Sirius stated, taking another big bite of roll. "Mmf goth six," he explained with his mouth full as Peter dished him out some soup and handed it to him.

"Six, you did not get six," James bickered.

"Did too," Sirius goaded, taking a big slurp of the warm broth. James opened his mouth to protest some more but changed his expression to a dopey grin as Lily stomped over.

"Potter!" she began heatedly, her face a cherry red. Sirius laughed already knowing what was coming.

"Why hello Lily. Lovely day today isn't it. Might I add you look lovely today and ..." James was forced to trail off as Lily picked up a roll and shoved it into the boys' mouth to get him to stop babbling like the bloody fool he was.

"You have sent me ten…..ten valentines day poems with those awful cherubims, each more idiotic than the last," Lily snapped her hands on her hips. She opened her mouth to go off on the now rather pleased-looking boy but stopped abruptly as Remus walked by and took his seat wordlessly behind Peter whose snickering at James' expense had cut off as quickly as Sirius' had. Remus had seemed under the weather lately, a bad cold which was his excuse for why he had been sleeping so much. But now he looked pale as death, the dark circles under his eyes making it hard to believe their friend had been doing much sleeping at all lately. Sirius swallowed unsure what to say but James didn't hesitate to scoop up some soup and place the bowl in front of Remus along with a mug of tea.

"You need to keep your strength up mate and you should go see Madam Pomfrey," James suggested. Now had Sirius, or maybe even Lily suggested such a thing Remus would have grown defensive, and if Peter had suggested it more likely than not he would have been ignored. But James, bloody James Potter got away with everything! Normally Sirius would be sore about the unfairness of it all since James seemed to have life made for him in a way Sirius could scarcely dream of. But this time, as Remus weakly nodded and even allowed James to escort him there Sirius was too bloody relieved that Remus had listened to someone to care. He thought about following them but he wasn't sure he could prevent himself from trying to figure out what on earth Remus had been doing if not sleeping and he didn't want to jeopardize Remus from going to see the matron. Sirius wondered why he hadn't noticed before and was certain that Remus had appeared to have color on his cheeks and no bags under his eyes just yesterday. Sirius wasn't feeling hungry any more and was about to ask Peter why he looked so guilty when a particular loud sniff from behind him made him realize Lily was still there. He turned around ready to snap at her about trying to butt into a private conversation that she had no place being a part of but saw she was crying, tears streaming down her cheeks. He faltered unsure what to say but knowing James would pummel him if he didn't at least attempt to be 'chivalrous' to Lily or any girl in distress really.

"Oh come on don't cry, you big baby. He'll be alright. I don't know how much you noticed last year but he got sick loads….especially ..." Sirius glanced around and lowered his voice, "around this time of the month."

"He seemed alright yesterday though it must be truly awful for there to be such a dramatic change like that," Lily fretted and Sirius frowned knowing she had a point. Remus had been sleeping a lot but he had seemed altogether fine...until today. Sirius felt like he was missing something but wasn't sure what. That wasn't really anything new when it came to Remus. Since their argument a few weeks ago Sirius had maintained his position on if their stubborn friend wanted help then he could ask. However, Remus really made it hard not to want to pry.

"Well, maybe he found a spell or something that can make him appear better than he's feeling?" Peter suggested hesitantly his eyes darting away as Lily and Sirius turned their attention to him.

"Oh I hope not," Lily fretted and Sirius nodded in agreement despite hating to be in agreement on anything with Evans.

"Can you imagine how terrible that would be Peter? Especially because the moron seems plenty content to drop dead if it meant not inconveniencing anyone in the process," Sirius muttered jokingly though it wasn't very funny. Sirius wasn't sure if the fact that he wasn't entirely joking about Remus made him more concerned or more pissed off about his friend. Suddenly something was slammed against his head and he yelped, convinced it must be someone in his family and getting ready to throw a punch with tears in his eyes from the force of the book being slammed into his skull. It wasn't Narcissa or Regulus though, it was a ticked-off Marlene who turned her attention to Lily with no explanation whatsoever about why she whacked Sirius with a book, and hard too.

"Come on Lily come back and sit with us, boys aren't worth the effort especially ones that make you cry," Marlene sent a glare at Peter who cowered in his seat,

"I didn't make her cry," Sirius shot back but Lily was smiling at Marlene as if Sirius had made her cry and Marlene was whisking her friend off with another withering look at Peter. "I hate girls Peter, I really do hate them. What was that about anyway? If she's ticked off at you why did she beat me," Sirius grumbled and Peter shrugged looking helpless.

"I don't know. I didn't do anything wrong….," Peter mumbled though his guilty face said otherwise.

Sirius puzzled over that for a bit since it was easier than puzzling over Remus. He was certain Peter must have done something for a reaction just like that. But then again Marlene seemed crazier than most, she had proven that many times over.

"Well, did you get her anything for Valentine's Day?" Sirius asked, pushing his soup around as if he was going to eat it. Peter paled and fidgeted in his seat.

"Well….no…..I sent her a poem…..I didn't even think we were dating. Marlene suggested we take a break, whatever that means."

Sirius let out a scathing laugh. "You've got a lot to learn about the "fairer" sex mate."

"I thought I'd be upset about not having a girlfriend anymore but really I'm glad," Peter admitted guiltily and Sirius figured that's what the boy's guilt had been about in the first place. "I just…..it felt like she was going to murder me Sirius...like actually murder me," Peter gulped and Sirius had to use all his self-restraint not to laugh at his friend who sincerely looked fearful about it.

"That's what girls do," Sirius began with all the wisdom he had gleaned from his mother and older cousins, "they put a collar around your neck….don't go all bug eyes Pettigrew I didn't mean literally. But they train you and change you and before you know it you are someone else entirely."

"Then why would anyone want to be with them!" Peter cried out horrified.

"Dunno," Sirius admitted with a shrug, glad that Peter seemed less guilty now. He wasn't about to deal with another one of his friends blaming themselves over nothing.

"But aren't we all gonna have one eventually...a wife I mean," Peter whispered as if 'wife' was a taboo word. Sirius grinned, enjoying Peter coming to him for expertise even though Peter had been the one to win the little dating competition they had conducted when they were all much more immature than they were now. Of course, it was easy to feel bitter towards romance in general at the moment as they were literally sitting in the middle of the chaos of the cursed holiday dedicated to it.

"We all have to do things we don't like Petey old boy," Sirius departed the wisdom while miming that he was smoking a pipe and Peter laughed.

"Some more than others", Sirius thought depressingly as he caught James' eye who was re-entering the Great Hall just in time for the meal to be over and who shook his head at Sirius sadly. Some a lot more than others.