Lily didn't show up for study group that evening so Remus was forced to walk back to the tower with Twycross who kept asking him (as delicately as she could, as nosily as she could) what exactly he did have. He just remained silent until she snapped at him that he didn't have to be so rude, then stomped off ahead of him. Once in the common room Remus asked Colgate and Inkwood if they had seen Lily. They frowned at each other then Colgate said Lily had been in their dorm for a while.

He hesitated, partially wanting to ask them to go get her, partially not wanting to disturb her. "Wh-when you see her, t-tell her that..." But what would he have them tell her that he didn't already say? "That I h-hope to see her tomorrow."

The two girls giggled. "We have class together," Inkwood pointed out. "Of course you'll see her."

Now Remus began blushing. "Er, w-well I mean-"

"I know what you mean," Colgate promised, her brown eyes sparkling behind her horn-rimmed glasses. "I'll tell her."

They giggled more as he walked off, wishing he understood girls a bit better.

()

Remus didn't really get a chance to talk to Lily until between Charms and Herbology the next day. He lagged behind his other friends and Lily indicated for Colgate and Inkwood to walk ahead, so they were alone. They walked silently through the corridor for a moment or so then Lily finally said she had talked to Snape. It hadn't gone well. Remus wasn't surprised at all.

"He says I shouldn't be friends with you, that I'll get sick too," she said, arms folded tightly across her chest. "I told him it was genetic and not anything like that-like, catching, I mean-but he wouldn't listen." She hunched her shoulders, her red hair falling across her face. "He also said you were..."

"Were?" he asked. She remained silent but he easily guessed what the other issue was. "Crazy?"

Her head jerked a little. "Yes."

"He said as m-much in class, and lots of people call me that anyway." Remus thought he preferred Loopy to Baby in all honesty, but he decided not to say that. "Look, um, I'm n-not mad about it. I mean, I-I am a little but I know you're friends with him and I'm not going to ask you to choose between him or me, and I d-don't want you to be mad at him because of me."

"I'm mad at him because of him!" Remus recoiled back at how sharp her voice got. "I'm mad because he said those things! And he doesn't even understand what he said was so wrong! That's the worst part. He thinks it's perfectly reasonable. I just don't know what to do."

Remus had no idea what to say or how to help. He wished he did, but while he didn't appreciate what had been said he could understand why Snape didn't want Lily around him assuming he was all diseased. Really, deep down, the hardest thing was Snape was right. Lily probably shouldn't be around Remus.

"Maybe t-try talking to him tonight, after some time for him to cool down?" he suggested.

"I guess." She didn't sound too confident though, and looked sad the entire rest of the way to Herbology.

What do I do to help? he wondered. A very faint part of him knew it wasn't really his fault however he felt entirely at blame for what happened, for causing a rift between her and her friend.

()

Saturday was exhausting. The four boys stayed in their dorm pretty much the entire day, working on practicing the spell to put on a door so when someone walked through they were hit with a jinx or hex. They were practicing with a simpler spell: the tripping jinx, which they all had down pat, even Pete. Remus focused on making the doorway spell-activated while the other two put the tripping jinx on the door. They had to keep their concentration, and their wands pointed at the door... or so the book said for beginners at the activating spell. But no matter how hard they tried Peter was able to walk through the door normally.

"I said it would take a while," Remus said in the afternoon. They were all sweaty, tired, and a little grouchy.

"Maybe I should try putting the activation spell on the door," James said loftily. Remus snorted but didn't argue. James started up the spell while Sirius and Remus put the tripping jinx on the door. Peter went out and back in without trouble. He shrugged, spreading his arms out. James swore under his breath, flinging himself on his bed. "This is dumb, we can just put the hex on people regularly."

"But this way we can get multiple people at once!" Sirius argued. "Imagine doing this on the door to the Potions classroom. All the Slytherins. Maybe even Sluggy."

"Ew, imagine bat-bogies from Slughorn!" Peter said and James began gagging at that thought.

"I only made the suggestion, you don't have to follow it," Remus said.

"No, no, you're right," James relented. "It would be more fun this way. All right, lads, let's try again."

By the time supper rolled around Peter said he sort of felt his feet feeling weird when he walked through the door which was more than Remus ever expected (he sorta suspected Peter was lying). Down in the Great Hall, shortly after they got there, Snape suddenly yelled out as his boogers began crawling out of his nose. Remus saw James slipping his wand back up his sleeve, grinning from ear to ear. Many students laughed (including Slytherins) as Snape tried batting away four bat bogies that were trying to attack him. A Slytherin prefect rescued him, getting rid of the bogies. Snape clutched at his face, eyes darting to the Gryffindor table. James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus were all very innocently eating their food.

"You know," Sirius whispered after a moment, "I was expecting bigger bogies out of that nose."

James spit his water out all across the table, spraying Remus and Peter who were sitting across from them, but they were too busy laughing to really care much.

()

The next few days were full of snowball fights, practicing their big prank, tripping Slytherins, and Remus doing his hardest to avoid Snape. On Tuesday evening Remus was terrified Fawley would still be angry with him however she didn't even mention anything that happened the week before. However... she did see the plans for their Big Prank and Remus was worried she'd go to Dumbledore about it, ruining everything. However she merely shrugged, saying it wasn't any of her business. She wasn't a staff member of Hogwarts so there was no need. She had a slightly wicked smile on her face as she said this. Remus remembered she permanently gave her ex donkey ears so he supposed she had a streak of trouble-making and revenge in her that made her a little on his side about the prank, even if she was still vexed by his continuing his friendship with Sirius Black.

When Remus got back to the Gryffindor tower, Lily was waiting for him. She looked rather nervous as she yanked him to an alcove where they could be relatively alone. "I talked to Severus tonight," she said, hands fidgeting as her eyes were focused more on their shoes than him. "He's been very upset about the whole thing and feels bad."

Does he really feel bad or is he upset that he upset Lily? Remus couldn't help but wonder.

"He-he said he's sorry." Lily finally looked up at him. "I told him he needed to tell you except I don't think he will. But he does feel bad." Her hands began wringing now. "I-see, he..."

"Lily, if you've forgiven him it's f-fine," Remus said quickly and a look of guilt flushed across her face. "I'm not upset about it. He doesn't need to apologize to me cause I don't think he'd really mean it an-nyway, and we-both know it."

"Oh, how can you be so..." She studied him as she thought of the word, and Remus felt sick that she might say something like weird, or freakish, or crazy. Lily wasn't like that, but he couldn't help worry she'd say it anyway. "You're so nice about this when he was absolutely rude to you! You sound so... grown up."

He began laughing suddenly then clamped his hand across his mouth, trying to stop. He thought the laughter sounded rather crazy. "I'm not intending to be!" he managed to get out from between his fingers, erasing all previous maturity with his giggles at the thought of being the 'grown up' in this situation. "I just don't see the point in forcing him to make an apology neither of us believe in or-or-or care about."

"You're really different." His giggles died. "In a good way," she added quickly, "not in a loopy way."

Time to change the conversation. "You know, we never really got a chance to talk about how your holidays went...?"

They sat down as Lily talked at great length about her time home. Her parents had taken her home from Kings Cross and she had been so excited to see her sister but her sister barely talked to her at all. Lily tried to coax Petunia to do stuff with her but Petunia simply ignored her, or told her to go away. On Christmas morning when Petunia opened up her present, she liked it until Lily told her it was magicked. That was when Petunia threw it out the window.

"Mum and I searched for it but couldn't find it," Lily said, voice quavering. "She-she says we'll be able to find it in the spring when the snow melts, and she'll keep an eye out for it. Not that it matters." She reached up, brushing a tear away from her cheek. "I don't know what I'm doing wrong. She-" Now Lily stopped and drew her shoulders back. "I'm sorry, I'm bothering you with all this."

"You're not b-bothering me," Remus promised.

"She keeps calling me a freak." Lily's voice dropped and now she hunched over in her seat, pulling the end of one of her braids to her mouth.

"Like in the letter?"

"She called me that before, on the train platform in September, and before. She... really hates magic. I keep thinking I can make her see how beautiful it is-like the bracelet-but I dunno if she will. She wouldn't even say goodbye to me before I left."

"I'm really sorry." He shifted a bit then leaned forward, dropping his voice, remembering what Fawley had told him a week ago. "You're not doing anything wr-wrong though."

Lily reached out, her hand on Remus's hand. "Thank you. You're such a good friend, I don't-"

She was interrupted by Spinnet who was walking by with Struthers, spotting them in the slightly hidden area. "Hey Lupin, having some private time with your girlfriend!" Lily and Remus both jerked backwards, both of them blushing as if they had been caught doing something worse than not-even-holding-hands. Several other students glanced over curiously as Spinnet began laughing.

"Tussisiam!" Lily snapped, flicking her wand. Spinnet's laughter turned into loud coughing. She got up, tossing her braids back, and stomped off to join Colgate and Inkwood.

Remus got up as well, grinning as Spinnet got tears in his eyes from his coughing. He slowly pulled out his wand, putting on a face like he was considering helping Spinnet, then tucked his wand back into his pocket and went up the boys' staircase.

()

The next day, all the Gryffindors got super excited when Dedenne started talking about the Knockback Jinx however they promptly grew disappointed to hear they wouldn't start practicing it for another couple weeks; Dedenne wanted them to get better at the shield spell first, and they spent the last twenty minutes of class shooting sparks at one another while the other used the shield. Remus hated this, the memory of the first time still burning in his head. He was extra careful with his own sparks, knowing the smallest thing could get him in trouble. Too many sparks, too few sparks, sending them too far, his partner unable to do the shield spell, if his partner messed up their own sparks he suspected he'd be blamed for that

Course after class James, Sirius, and Peter were all talking about the Knockback jinx, begging Remus to look it up for him, staring blankly when he reminded them it was in their Defense book. "For Pete's sake, are you all allergic to reading or something?!" He pulled the book out, flipping rapidly through. "There." He held it open for them to see. "Right there."

"Flipendo," Sirius read out. "S'that how it's pronounced?"

Remus looked back at the page and nodded. "Yes."

"Excellent..." James rubbed his hands together. "Let's go find somewhere private to practice!"

"I don't wanna be the target this time," Peter whined.

James threw his arm around Pete. "But you make such a good target!" he insisted as Peter groaned.

It was sleeting pretty bad outside so they decided to find an empty, abandoned classroom for practice. Remus didn't feel too good as they went down a third floor corridor. "We're not supposed to b-be in these rooms," he said, ignoring completely the fact that before he was friends with them he spent plenty of time in places he probably wasn't supposed to be to avoid them.

James pointed his wand at the door. "Don't be such a dweeb. Alohomora!" The lock clicked open and the four boys slipped inside, locking the door behind them.

The classroom was very old and dusty. The desks and chairs were stacked up against the far wall, and there were heavy draperies covering the windows. It was also very dark. Peter started going for the curtains but Sirius stopped him, pointing out if anyone saw from outside they'd be caught. James tried prodding one of the candles with his wand, using the fire spell, which didn't work (Remus was a little relieved it didn't work, he easily saw the whole room just catching fire).

"Guess we just practice in the dark," James said.

Remus made his way over to the big desk near the front of the room. He could feel his eyes adjusting, the wolf eyes letting the room come into better view. He pulled out one of the drawers, set it on the desk, then pointed his wand into it. "Frigis inflamari." Blue flared up in the drawer, making the room a bit brighter though creepy.

"You could have lit the candle," James said.

"Doesn't work so well with that," Remus explained, pulling out another drawer. "It doesn't actually really burn things and I'm not good enough to get it settled on such a small surface as a candle." He put the second drawer on the other side of the room, also filling it with the blue flames. "Nope," he answered when Peter asked if it would burn the wood the flames sat in. "It might singe them a bit. There, that's better." The whole room looked very eerie in the blue light but at least they could see.

"Wicked," James said. "All right then, let's see how this knockback thing works."

They sat down on the floor near some of the flames, listening as Remus read out the instructions in the book. He demonstrated as best he could how he thought the wand movement went, hoping he understood the pictures correctly. They got back to their feet and James did the movement at Peter. "Flipendo!" Peter flinched but nothing happened. "Flipendo!"

"Flipendo!" Sirius tried.

Remus watched them go at it for a moment with a smile then cleared his throat. "You-you do realize we're probably gonna be starting on smaller targets first. A lot smaller."

James brushed some hair from his face then pointed his wand at Remus. "Flipendo!"

Remus rolled his eyes. "Very funny," he grumbled as the other three giggled. "I was meaning something like this." He rummaged around his bag till he found the nearly empty box of Bertie Bott's that Peter gave him. He tipped the remaining beans into the bag with the fizzing whizzbees then set the now empty box on the floor. He pushed back his robes sleeve and focused hard on the box, picturing it going flying as he readied his wand. "Flipendo!"

The box was knocked backwards. Not the wild fly-back that Remus had hoped for but it was something.

"FLIPENDO!" James shouted and the box was knocked around.

"Flipendo," Sirius said rather lazily and the box was flicked away from him.

"Flipendo!" Peter tried and the box didn't move. His face fell. "Flipendo! Flipendo!"

"It twitched a little there," Remus said encouragingly.

They spent the next hour knocking the empty box around. Remus, James, and Sirius got quite talented at getting the box to go spinning backwards through the air by the time they got bored, while Peter just managed to knock it down when it was standing. He was clearly discouraged, but Remus told him he should be very pleased with being able to get it to fall over after such a short period, reminding him that they'd be learning this spell over the course of several classes.

"You guys can make it go through the air!" Peter complained as Remus got rid of the blue flames, and they left the room.

"Not everyone's as talented as me," James said in what he probably thought was a comforting manner.

"Not everyone's got as big an ego as you," Remus found himself saying then quickly covered his mouth. He'd been thinking it, just didn't intend on saying it, and now he went and probably totally offended his friend-except Sirius was laughing so hard he couldn't breathe and James was grinning, messing up his hair, muttering that that was probably true. Remus's shoulders sagged a bit with relief that he hadn't made James angry. He still felt uneasy with teasing them, not sure where the line was between just-teasing and gone-too-far. He had an idea of where it was just didn't have a feel for it quite yet. He considered sometimes asking them to help him-give him advice-however definitely didn't want more proof to them that he was so different and odd and-well, loopy.

"Look at that. It's awful!" James suddenly said. Remus looked up to see they were passing by a side corridor and a little ways down stood Lily and Snape talking. Then suddenly James was dragging the three others to the side, ducking out of view. James peered around the edge of the entrance to the corridor with his wand ready. "Nasusmusca!" he hissed out then to Remus's surprise, "Nasusmusca!" He had hit both of them? Remus could hear loud shrieking and goopy flapping while James whirled around, pushing at his friends, whispering. "Go! Go! Go!"

James, Sirius, and Peter ran ahead laughing hard. Remus hesitated for a second then hurried after them, knowing he'd probably get blamed if Snape spotted him. "D-did you hit Lily too?" Remus demanded as they ran up a flight of steps.

James cast a sideways glance at him. "Well, yeah! She defended that git last week, and if she's gonna be friends with him...!"

"Yeah, she's a traitor," put in Peter, and James nodded.

"She g-got m-mad at him too, you know!" Remus found his stutter returning as he grew upset, which only made him more upset. "I'm n-not saying let him off th-the-the hook b-but don't go attacking her fo-for it."

"You want us to go back or something?" Sirius inquired.

"N... no..." He knew that would just cause way too much trouble and most likely another fight. "Just-all right, you-y-you've gotten your rr-revenge, all right?" Again, he added silently, since this was the second time this week Snape was given the bat-bogey hex from James.

"All right," James agreed, spinning his wand in what he thought was a cool manner but he just dropped it and, since they were on a staircase, it went clattering down. He had to chase after it with a very sheepish face while the other three snickered.