Word count: 3,037

Chapter 6

We Could All Use a Hand

It was supposed to be just another walk to Charms class, but instead, the sounds of a scuffle had James and Remus glancing between each other before rushing forward to find the cause.

Rounding a corner, they found a young Ravenclaw boy sitting against the wall, his arm clutched to his chest. He poked at it as they approached and hissed in pain.

"Easy now," James said in a calm voice, crouching down to the boy's level.

Remus scanned the hall for signs of whomever had attacked, but he couldn't find any. They had attacked and run, which was as frustrating as it was unsurprising. The fact that someone could be so cowardly made Remus hate them all the more.

The sound of shoes tapping hurriedly against the stone could be heard, and Remus' fingers flexed around his wand before Lily rounded the corner, breathing heavily.

"Some students said they'd heard something," she explained as she, too, hurried towards the boy.

She knelt down beside James and didn't hesitated to begin inspecting the boy's arm. He let out another sharp hiss of pain, and Lily's cringe mirrored his.

"You're a second year?" James asked as Lily used her want to assess the damage to his arm.

"Yes," the boy replied.

Remus raised an eyebrow, unsure how James had been able to correctly identify the boy's year when Remus couldn't recall having seen him before.

"What's your name?"

"Bryan," the boy hissed as Lily waved her wand over his arm.

He flinched away from Lily reflexively, and she didn't make a move to take his arm back.

"You have to go to the hospital wing," she said. "Madam Pomfrey needs to look at that arm. This isn't something that can be healed with time."

Bryan hesitated before nodding and accepting James' and Lily's help with standing. He wavered a little, still not over the shock of what had happened, but he steadied himself quickly, keeping his shoulders straight.

"Did you see who attacked you?" Remus asked.

"No, they used a spell to obscure their faces."

Speaking made him face the full reality of the attack for the first time, and he blinked tears away as he continued speaking.

"All I know is that they had green ties. They didn't hide those. And they were tall. Probably sixth or seventh years."

James placed a hand on the boy's shoulder, prompting the boy to take a deep, shaky breath.

"Do you know why they might have attacked you?" James asked.

Lily flinched as if she already knew the answer and found it to be an unpleasant one to discuss. Remus took a step closer to stand by her side.

"I'm a Muggleborn," the boy said, keeping his eyes averted from them. "They were calling me a Mudblood and saying I should be with 'my kind' instead of at Hogwarts."

James' jaw tightened, but Lily's gaze held only sadness as she wrapped an arm around the boy's shoulders and kept him tucked into her side. When she spoke, it was towards James, and her voice was firm.

"Take Bryan to the hospital wing, will you?"

Most of James' anger dissipated as he took on his new responsibility with a slight nod. He motioned for the boy to come with him and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. As they walked away, James kept up a steady stream of talk.

"Professor Dumbledore will sort it out," he said. "Just wait and see. Dumbledore knows everything that happens in Hogwarts. He'll figure out who they were, and he won't stand for what they did. Don't worry."

Lily frowned as she watched James and the boy disappear around a corner. With a sigh, she turned around and seemed to remember that Remus was still there for the first time.

"I'll go to Dumbledore and explain," she said. "Could you let Flitwick know why James and I aren't in class? I'll find out where Bryan was meant to go from Dumbledore."

"Of course," Remus agreed.

Though he wasn't sure if it was the right response, he couldn't help himself from saying one last thing before they parted ways.

"Be careful."

Lily smiled sadly at him. She didn't say anything, but she gave him a slight nod and echoed the sentiment with, "You too."

"I'm not a Muggleborn," he pointed out, feeling the familiar dread in his stomach that came every time there was the slightest possibility that his secret had been discovered.

Lily gave a slight nod.

"We can all afford to be careful," she said before she, too, had disappeared down the hall.

Remus watched the corner she'd gone around, unsure how to feel. Memories of Lily with Snape drifted through his memories. Snape, the only student who knew the truth whom Remus didn't fully trust. There was no telling what things he'd said to Lily over the years.

Remus shook his head to rid it of the thought. It didn't matter as there was nothing he could do about it. His current goal was getting to Charms and trying to pass his NEWTs. That was all he could do.

Twenty-four inches about how simple changes could turn a healing potion into a poison. Remus felt like he was going to yank his hair out if he kept tugging on it in his frustration.

It had been a mistake to continue with Potions in his N.E.W.T. years. He'd realized that by the end of his first lesson in sixth year. He'd barely managed an E on his O.W.L.s, and his own surprise when he'd gotten such a score had made it seem like continuing was a good idea. Potions was certainly useful, and Remus needed all the qualifications he could get if he had any hope of getting a decent job.

But his E had been the result of intense studying that had nearly driven him mad during his fifth year, and the material had only gotten harder since. Perhaps the smart thing would have been dropping the subject after sixth year, but his own pride hadn't allowed him to do it.

"Mind if I sit here?"

He glanced up to see Lily standing across from him, one hand on the back of an empty chair.

"Course not," he said, trying to turn his frown into a smile though his mind remained preoccupied.

"Is that Slughorn's essay?" Lily asked as she sat down and began pulling her things out of her bag. "You look like you want to set it on fire."

"I admit that would be satisfying, but I don't think it would solve my problem."

"No, I don't think burnt essays get passing grades."

"Still," Remus said with a smirk, "it might not make much of a difference for me."

Lily paused from uncorking her ink to scowl at him.

"You're not as bad at Potions as you make it seem, Remus."

"If you think that, it's only the result of my blood, sweat, and, occasionally, tears."

"That's all it is for anyone," she replied, not looking up at him as she scribbled on her parchment. "The only difference is some people enjoy the work and others can't stand it. No one gets good at anything without dedicating themselves to it. If you think I'm better than you at Potions, it's only because I have more fun with the work than you do. And you have more fun with Defence than I do."

She glanced up at him with narrowed eyes.

"I assume you're finished with the Defence essay I've managed to put off so far?"

Remus couldn't help but chuckle as he nodded, and Lily groaned, leaning her head against her hand.

"See, I wouldn't have taken N.E.W.T.-level Defence if it weren't for everything going on. I know it's an important subject, but I'd much rather be brewing a potion than trying to remember which spell is most effective against a grindylow attack, especially when I don't imagine I'll be meeting many grindylows. I can't even swim."

Defensiveness bubbled in Remus' stomach. This wasn't the first time he and Lily had had a conversation such as this, but he couldn't resist arguing back each time.

"It's still handy to know though. You're more likely to encounter a grindylow someone wants you to meet than find one randomly, which means you were probably thrown in the water. Ergo, it doesn't really matter if you can swim or not."

"Doesn't it? If I take out the grindylow, I'll still drown. Perhaps I should be taking swimming lessons instead."

"Well, be that as it may, you probably stand a better chance with the grindylow than I do this."

He waved his hand over his Potions essay, which was currently a whole five inches long, far below the minimum length requirement.

Lily motioned for him to hand it over, and Remus fidgeted nervously as she read it closely, frowning slightly as she analyzed his work.

"This is a good starting point," she said once she'd finished, "but you're glossing over concepts too quickly. You need to expand here and here."

She drew asterisks to mark the areas she was talking about.

"If you explain those points adequately, you should have at least another six inches. Have you read Fadwell's Guide to Brewing Poisons? It's a great resource for this essay. I quoted it at least three times in my own paper."

"No," Remus admitted. "I've only been looking at sources on healing potions. I didn't think to look at poisons specifically."

Lily hummed in response. She motioned for him to stay and scurried towards the Potions section of the library. She was back within seconds, apparently having had no trouble locating the correct book, which she had clutched in her arms.

It was one of the older books in the library's possession, with its cover only held together with magic. When Lily opened it, it crackled. The lettering was an elegant flowing script that hinted this book had been transcribed orally with a magical quill instead of with the printing presses that had been adapted from the Muggles' invention more than a century earlier.

"Reading about poisons may not be for everyone, but if you're going to, this is the best resource on them in the library. And in this case, you very much need it. It helps to come at it from both sides, not just from the starting point of healing potions. Slughorn's told me that himself. If you do that, I'm sure he'll give you extra points for your thorough approach."

Part of Remus wanted to reject the book just so he wouldn't get preferential treatment from Slughorn, but of course, that would have been stupid. Instead, he tugged the book closer.

"Cheers," he said as he began scanning the book in search of the relevant pages.

The handwriting took longer to read than print would have, but he was able to find an interesting section that discussed poisons which couldn't be reversed with healing potions, and just as Lily had said, it proved useful for expanding his argument. He had added another ten inches to his parchment before he thought he'd gotten as much use out of the book as he could.

Glancing at Lily, he saw her intensely focused on her Defence essay. Her brow was furrowed as she concentrated, but she felt his eyes on her and looked up at him with a smile and one raised eyebrow.

Remus' shoulders ached after being hunched over the table. He leaned back, stretching, and asked Lily the question that had been swirling through his mind since the beginning of the school year.

"How is working with James going? He hasn't thoroughly pissed you off yet, has he?"

Lily welcomed the break as much as he did, laughing as she laid down her quill.

"Honestly, no," she admitted, pursing her lips as she thought. "I was nervous when I found out he was Head Boy. After all, he wasn't a prefect, and he doesn't have the greatest track record of following the rules. I thought Dumbledore had made a huge mistake."

"'Thought'? Past tense?"

Lily grimaced. Remus watched her hands as she fiddled with her quill.

"He's doing a better job than I expected."

She pushed herself back from the table with a huff, flopping against the back of her chair.

"Last year, I thought I had a pretty good handle on him. I knew what he was like. But now, I feel like I'm meeting an entirely different person, and that's weird."

She leveled Remus with an analytical gaze not unlike the one she'd shown his essay earlier that evening.

"I can't figure out if I was missing something before or he's changed."

Remus snorted and leaned forward, his hands clasped together on top of his essay.

"He's not an entirely different person, but he's not quite the same as he always was either. He's growing up, I guess, but what you're seeing now was always there. He just didn't do a good job of advertising those parts of him to a lot of people."

Lily nodded as her unfocused eyes stared at something over Remus' shoulder.

"He saved Severus in fifth year," she blurted out, smiling self-consciously once she realized what she'd said.

Remus' eyes widened at the sudden direction their conversation had taken, but Lily hurried to continue speaking before he could say anything.

"I don't know the whole story. Only bits and pieces. All I know is something bad happened and James was the one to save him. If I ever actually believed he was a bad person, I couldn't have after that."

Though his stomach was twisted into knots, Remus couldn't help but smile.

"He's a good guy," he said. "Obnoxious and immature a lot of the time, but good when it comes down to it."

Lily's smile was strained, but at least she was smiling.

"Has he only stopped tormenting Severus to impress me?"

Remus took his time with his answer, knowing that his answer could make or break how she treated James in the future.

"No," he said. "I don't think so. As far as I can tell, the idea of taunting Snape isn't as desirable to him anymore. With the war and everything… It feels different now."

He took a deep breath before continuing.

"I think it's put things into perspective for a lot of people, including James. Dangling someone upside down doesn't seem funny when you've read about it happening to people just because of who they are."

Lily's lips were tight as she offered a short nod.

"I could have told him that years ago."

"I know," Remus said with a slight smile. "And he should have listened. He'd probably tell you that himself. But in the most fundamental ways, James is the same as he's always been. His ideas of how to right wrongs have shifted, not the morals driving his actions."

Lily didn't respond as she chewed on the inside of her cheek. Remus began to fill his bag, deciding that she should be left alone with her thoughts.

He paused before he left.

"I'd feel bad if I didn't lay it out there that James has probably considered your approval as a nice bonus to not cursing Snape. Even if it wasn't his primary motivation. Just so you know."

Lily frowned.

"Figures," she muttered, but she didn't look as angry about it as Remus had worried that she might be.

He offered her one last smile before he left her alone with her thoughts.

They had heard the news before Remus' paper arrived that morning. It was the only thing anyone in the school could talk about: the Minister had resigned after someone spread the information that there was a squib in his family.

Remus felt nauseous as he stared down at his sausages. He knew that not eating would make him feel sicker in the long run, but that wasn't doing much to get him to eat.

"Since when does having a squib in the family mean you're unfit to be Minister?" James asked while scooping scrambled eggs onto his plate with too much force and inadvertently splattering them onto the table. "There's nothing about being related to a squib that makes someone unfit for office. This is ridiculous."

"But not surprising," Remus interrupted, looking down at his plate. "With all the backlash against Muggleborns and...others, it's not surprising they'd start going after squibs too, is it? A lot of the purebloods are probably more scared of the squibs than they are Muggleborns. The squibs could be their children."

Sirius snorted and waved his fork, speared with a piece of sausage, around in the air.

"My parents might have feared that at some point but not as much as they feared me or Regulus eloping with some Muggle just like dear old Andromeda did."

"Wait." James' brow furrowed. "I thought your cousin married a Muggleborn, not a Muggle."

Sirius shrugged.

"It's all the same to my parents. I honestly don't know if they can comprehend the difference."

The joke led to a minute of back and forth between James and Sirius about how stupid Sirius' parents were. Remus didn't listen, too engrossed in his own thoughts.

Things had been bad before, but the Minister losing his job for something like this meant things were worse than he'd imagined. Before, everything had been done outside the confines of the Ministry and had been, at least publicly, condemned by those in power. Now the sentiments were enough to have an actual impact on the exact institution meant to defend against such things.

Remus laid his spoon down, unable to stomach the idea of eating more of his porridge.

He jumped when he felt James' hand on his shoulder. Looking up, he saw his friends watching him with frowns. He tried but failed to offer them a genuine smile, and the hand on his shoulder became and arm wrapped around both shoulders.

In the bustling Great Hall, none of them said anything more, but Remus felt calm enough that he took another bite of his porridge, testing his resolve.