Hi all you guys and gals out there! Here is the next chapter of my story, I have updated in hope of inspiring my good mate Midnight Filly to update her story. Please all readers on her story who are reading this PLEASE go bug her in reviews about updating because at school she was talking to be about stopping the story!!! And that's completely heart breaking because it is soooooo good. People who haven't read her story but are reading this look up: Midnight Filly. And then go to the story named Alls Fair in love and War,,, and matchmaking
"So he got into a broom closet?" asked Madison, trying her best to analyse the situation for a sane reason for Remus to get into a closet, needless to say she was failing miserably.
"Yes, he did it a few times actually. I didn't get a word out of him afterwards either, silent as a grave." replied Lily.
"He sounds like a nutcase to me. Pity really, I always thought he was going to make it, but his lunatic friends really have moulded him well." Commented Marie, and so the four girls sat, nodding sadly at the loss of Remus' sanity.
"Well maybe…" started Jade, who then paused to think for a while, "Nope, I've got nothing, he really is barking mad."
None of this really helped Lily at all, so they all went to bed early, laying in their beds, pondering their own thoughts, not for one second imagining the mental crisis Remus was being pushed through.
When Remus returned to his dormitory, he did not acknowledge the boys, sit down and start talking like he usually did, but he stayed silent climbed into bed and pulled the curtains around it, thinking over his suspicion.
Remus had been suspecting it for a while now. The secret glances, the over reaction at anything she did, how much she affected him. It was quite obvious that James Potter, one of Remus' best friends, was falling in love with Remus' girl friend, whether he liked it or not was of course a different story. And now, even though he liked her first and was in a wonderful relationship with her, he felt guilty that he could be so happy with her, whilst another of his friends, who had been so loyal to him, was head over heels for her.
Remus hated James Potter right now. Why couldn't he be a complete arse wipe who didn't give a care in the world for anyone else? Why did he have to be so kind and loyal to Remus in his time of need? Why did he have to become an animagus just to decrease his pain, if only slightly. Because if James hadn't done any of that. Then Remus would not be feeling guilty like he was now. And he wouldn't have to end a perfectly good relationship with the girl he was in love with.
But friends before girls, was the 'Marauder' way, even if it didn't always seem like it.
This is the decision he had reached whilst sitting in the broom closet on Lily and Remus' prefect rounds. He was going to have to end it with Lily, for the sake of his friend's heart. Gosh Remus was just too nice sometimes. But James meant too much to him, and even though he loved Lily, he loved his friends more.
But how was he supposed to do it? It would have to be face to face of course; because sending a friend is just cowardly, and something you do to people you really don't care about. Remus wanted to do it the softest way possible as to cushion the breaking of Lily's heart. Of course it would be easier if she didn't like me as much said a voice in Remus' brain.
Then the perfect plan hit him. If he was to make Lily like him less before he dumped her then it wouldn't hurt her as much. Hell, maybe she might even dump him. It would be painful for Remus to live through, pushing away the love of his life. But it would save both James and Lily from certain broken hearts. And so the plan began.
Sunday had gone by in a rush and it was now 4 o'clock. Remus has arranged to meet with Lily in the kitchens at 3.15 for afternoon tea. When Lily arrived she had asked for some chocolate ice-cream, thinking that Remus would be their any minute. So she waited to start eating. The once smooth creamy dessert was now the lake of brown goop sitting in front of her. She sighed ordered another bowl and started making a castle out of it, hoping to use the melted ice-cream as water for her mote.
Just as Lily was pouring the ice-cream from one bowl to another, Sirius Black walked through the door, there was something different about him, like his customary smile didn't quite reach all the way to his eyes.
"Hey Lily, sorry about Remus, he told me to tell you; he was really busy and needed to finish that potions essay, and kind of forgot to come." said Sirius as he sat down next to her, graciously accepting his own bowl of ice cream from one of the house elves.
"Oh, that's fine. Is he coming down now then?" Lily asked lifting a spoon of 'mote water' to her lips.
"Oh, no sorry, he says the assignment might take him a while, so yeah." Replied Sirius, trying but failing to look casual and comfortable, the truth was Remus had told him of his plan to slowly get rid of Lily, and he didn't approve of it at all. This was most probably because Remus had refused to give Sirius a reason. Remus didn't want James to know what he was doing, and Sirius by association.
"Ok, well. I think I'm going to go the. This castle doesn't really look that appetising." said Lily gesturing towards her ice-cream castle. "See-ya later"
"Sirius smiled and waved, waited until she had left the room, then started banging his head against the table. "Remus better have a good explanation for this" he muttered as he sank his spoon into the depths of the ice-cream castle.
"O-M-G! No way!" shrieked Monica Davie, a ditsy Hufflepuff 6th year, deputy head of the Joe Hellier Fan Club also known as 'The JHFC'.
"Ummm. Yes way!" screeched back Libby Hugh, also a ditsy Hufflepuff 6th year, but this time she was the 'Queen Bee' of 'The JHFC'.
"Oh My God, Oh My God, Oh My God!" they both screamed together, jumping up and down holding both each others hands, they were screaming like, well ditz's.
Jade, Lily and Marie grimaced at the noise and conjured some earmuffs to cover their ears. Madison was apparently smoking at the ears. The reason why: Joe was the reason they were shrieking like banshees. He had taken to hanging out with his fan club soaking up all the attention and Madison did not like it one bit. He was turning into a Sirius Black carbon copy and it was infuriating.
Eventually the two banshee's moved on to their table, probably to eat their half a grapefruit. But the girls didn't care, because this meant they would have at least five minutes peace and quiet before the 'Bimbo Twins' came back. They all banished their earmuffs and began casual chatter.
"So Lily how's everything with Remus going" asked Madison, trying to keep her own dissolving love life off of her mind.
"Oh yeah, um pretty good, hey Jade you still like that guy in Ravenclaw?" Said Lily, quickly changing the subject. Her own love life was not something she wished to talk about with her right now. Remus had been avoiding her for days now. In fact it was Thursday and she hadn't been alone with him since, their Saturday prefect patrol.
"Not really, there's this other guy, you see. Also Ravenclaw, I'll talk to you about him later" Jade whispered to Lily making sure that neither Madison nor Marie heard. She was unsuccessful of course.
"Who is it?" asked Marie.
"Please tell us! Please, please! We tell you!" begged Madison.
"And we need to give him a nickname…..beetroot tuna…no curried cauliflower…no pickled radish" rambled Marie. This was one of her main joys in life, giving her friend's secret crush's codenames. Extremely bizarre codename so that no one in the world will guess. Some of the past favourites are: Spinach and Jam, Rabbit, Treacle Steak, Train, Lemon-Fish, Cauliflower head, Fox, Midori…the list is practically endless.
Madison gasped "You can't name him until we know who it is! That's against codename rules; you should know you made the bloomin' things up!"
Marie shook her head sadly "and you call yourself a rule abider! If you had read the rules thoroughly you would have remembered that in page 14 there is an exception to that rule that applies to this situation."
"I, I, I think your making it up!" stumbled Madison.
"Never…" said Marie gravely "would I disgrace the codename rules like that. How dare you accuse me of such a thing? The exception is as follows: if a person whose crush is being named does not plan to give any hint at all to the crush's identification then the codename may be appointed before the persons name is known. And I think we all know that there was not an ice cubes chance in hell that Jade was going to tell us who it was seeing as…she always makes us guess."
Madison opened her mouth to speak, but all that was heard was shrieks of hysterical laughter. The 'Bimbo Twins' were back and Jades crush was forgotten. Madison clenched her fists, turned to Marie and winked. Marie replied with a nod and a completely plastic look came over both of their faces.
"Oh My God! I have elbows!" shrieked Madison. And she and Marie jumped up and down excitedly as if someone had just announced that all the candy in Honeydukes was free.
All the people around the table who had heard Monica and Libby's shrieks prior to Madison's burst, cracked up into fits of hysteria. Marie and Madison had got the faces and voices so perfect that for a second everyone had thought it had been Monica and Libby. This shut up the 'Bimbo Twins' as they abashedly walked out of the Great Hall.
Joe approached Madison. "That wasn't very nice. Those to girls are perfectly…'
But Joe was cut off by Madison 'If their so perfect why don't you date them, because it's over Joe. The End, even if you do have a perfectly refined nose!" she shouted and then proceeded to storm out the hall, shouting got the girls across the room "I'LL SEE YOU IN POTIONS"
But that was in fact a lie; they didn't see Madison in potions. For the first time in her life Madison had broken a rule, she had skipped class.
"I don't blame her" commented Jade as she added powdered ashwood to their potion, "I mean they have been all over him all week."
"Yeah' murmured Marie as she nodded in agreement, though not much of her mind was actually thinking about Madison, as much as that sounded cruel coming from a best friend. But Marie needed to be completely focused on her potion otherwise she may not be able to pass the next round of prep examinations for their NEWTS.
Marie's grade were everything to her, if she didn't get 'Outstanding' in potions, DADA, Charms and Transfiguration, she had no chance in becoming an Auror. So she studied hard and usually got good results, but just lately her Quidditch had been getting in the way and she had forgotten to hand in 2 assignments. Professor McGonagall had warned her if she forgot one more assignment she would be banned from the Quidditch team for two moths, which would mean missing the semi final against Hufflepuff.
Lily was just as much absorbed with her potion as Marie was which left Jade standing alone worrying for her friend. She needn't worry about Potions, she wouldn't be needing it to become an author, thought it did help that she was naturally good at the subject so she didn't really have to try hard to get satisfactory results. In fact Lily had been on her case about it a few times.
"You have a natural gift Jade! If you even put just a little more effort into your work you would be at the top of the class. I so envy you." She had said on one occasion. But Jade just put in enough effort to pass the subject. She had other things on her mind, like finishing her current novel. This one was a romance; between two school students who would eventually end up together, but had to go work out they liked each other first, from hate to love. Not the kind of thing she would usually write, but apparently she had inspiration, the girls couldn't figure out where from though.
In fact it was quite frustrating for the girls, because Jade wouldn't let them read any of it like she usually would. She said she wanted this story to be a secret from them until she finished the very last word.
"Jade! Jade!' said Marie waving a hand in front of her daydreaming friends face. Apparently class had finished 5 minutes ago, but Jade was off in her own little world day dreaming about things and hadn't heard the instructions to clear up. So she started slowly putting each ingredient away, extra slow just to annoy Marie, who was constantly hounding Jade on being to slow in between classes. Marie eventually gave up and walked off to History of Magic without her.
When Jade had eventually finished packing up and walked out the classroom door she found Marie there, tapping her foot.
"Oh" said Jade, with a mock startled tone, "I thought you hade gone to class"
Marie shook her head in frustration grabbed Jades hand and dragged her down the hallway to History of Magic. Jade smirked she knew that how ever slow she went, Marie would always stop and wait for her, even if she had started to walk away, because she felt bad for leaving her friend. Jade often found Marie standing in the middle of hallways halfway to class waiting for her to catch up.
"Come on, we are already late." Said Marie. She didn't really care all that much, 'History of Magic' was the number one most boring lesson ever. The teacher taught them nothing, which made them resort to reading the entire text book when it came to exam times, because they had learnt nothing in class. Who could learn anything from a teacher who drones on and on in the same monotone voice for the entire lesson not once taking a breath as he didn't need to, he was a ghost.
"Humpf, like you care anyway." said Jade indignantly.
During lunch Marie sat complaining her head lolling down at the Gryffindor table. "It's only lunch?" she moaned.
Lily and Jade, who were both to accustom to Marie's complaints, decided if they couldn't fix the problem why not have a bit of fun with winding Marie up.
"Yep" said Jade "And there is still three whole lessons to go through until it's the end of the day"
"And just think" Lily added cheerfully, "You have another whole day of lessons tomorrow before it's the weekend."
Marie groaned and put her whole upper body weight on the table, spreading her arms out to the sides, meanwhile knocking bowls of food everywhere.
"Oy watch it Marie, that was a perfectly good bowl of Jaffa cakes, and now they are sprawled all over the floor!" cried Sirius, forever the one to think of his stomach. To this Marie groaned in response.
"Actu-a-lly, now I come to think of it this could be a major break through in making sure that I get all the best food. 10 second rule!" he cried as he jumped to the floor awkwardly and started to engulf the fallen goods.
James, Remus, Jade and Lily all cocked their heads in disgusted amusement as they watched Sirius practically inhale the Jaffa cakes. Then get back up to the table.
He patted Marie on the back fondly "You have to do that more often, coz' no one but me would eat them"
And so Sirius for the rest of the meal was "accidentally" pushing things off the table, even if they were already on his plate. And when Remus enquired to the logic of dropping items that already belonged to him he just said "just to make sure no one dares steal them" and then he went on to look around the group curiously, peering into each of their faces.
They all laughed at their weird friend.
"This is not a laughing moment, for all I know you could be plotting my food right off my plate, then how would I feel? I'LL TELL YOU HOW! Heartbroken." Said Sirius changing moods between sentences, one moment shouting, the next sniffling with sorrow.
Rather than debating Sirius's rather...weird notions the group decided to ignore him and continue their meal as normal.
"Lily" came the voice of Don Stilton, the blonde haired blue eyed 7th year Gryffindor prefect.
Lily, who had been on her way back from Ancient Runes alone as Remus had rushed off without her, turned to reply but was cut off.
"I was wondering if you could please please please fill in for me in my prefect rounds tonight. I would ask Remus but whenever I see him he sort of runs the other way, I think he somehow found out about me asking him the favour." Don said in one big breath.
So instead you decided to prey upon poor unsuspecting Lily, who you know wouldn't refuse because she is too nice. Lily thought as she said "Sure, no problem." Damn traitor mouth.
And so when Lily returned to the Dormitory that evening all the girls were awake ready for their customary after patrol girl's night. One Lily wasn't really in the mood for as she knew exactly what they would be talking about.
"So Lily, what's going on with you and Remus, I hardly see you together anymore." Asked Marie as the girls all settled down in their respective beds, each holding onto a rather large bag of Honeydukes Sweets that they had stolen out of the Marauders stash, along with some Butterbeer.
Lily sighed; her last hope had been that she had been imagining it all, that Remus had not been giving her the cold should after all. But now the proof was right in front of her eyes, other people where starting to notice too. And without a reply to Marie's question Lily rolled over, silent tears etching down her face willing herself to go to sleep.
The others looked at each other, shared a silent message and all climbed into their beds, knowing that tonight Lily needed time to think on her own.
"It's Friday! The sun is shiiiiiiiining! The clouds are gonnnnnne!" sung Marie as she skipped and twirled into the great hall the next morning, she was happy and she wanted the world to know.
"Ok, so I'm glad that she is happy, but sometimes I think I prefer grumpy Marie, because at least then she doesn't sing." Said Madison to Jade as they too walked into the great hall, completely embarrassed by their friends terrible of tune voice.
The guys grimaced as the girls approached, and Sirius actually stuffed grapes into his ears so that he didn't have to hear Marie. This didn't bother Marie, as she plopped down and started to search the table for French toast her favourite breakfast food.
"Oops, sorry Mazza, looks like I just ate the last piece." Said James hoping to cause a stir and effectively stop the singing.
"Oh-Well, Nothing can put me down todaaaaaaaaay! Not even that stupid nicknaaaaame!!" sung Marie.
But she had spoken too soon; a curse in the form of McGonagall came striding up to Marie. "Miss Wallington, Mr Black, will you please follow me to my office, I have something I need to explain to you." She said primly her lips pursed even more so than usual.
When both Marie and Sirius where sat down on two hard wooden chairs, McGonagall started pacing in front of them, she was obviously quite a bit pissed off.
"Your teachers have informed me that your grades are dropping." She said, more of an accusation than a statement.
"I don't really think so!" and "Not dramatically anyway!" were Sirius and Marie's Replies.
McGonagall gave them a stern look and continued with her speech. "Miss Wallington your GPA has dropped from O's to A's"
Marie looked started at this news.
"And yours Mr Black have gone from O's to P's, and to be very plain your teachers are getting fed up with it. They know you have great potential; you are both very bright students. But Quidditch is ruling your lives, and that isn't what you need right now with mock NEWTS on the way."
Marie was nearly in tears, her marks where everything to her, she so desperately wanted to be an auror. But she could see where this was going, and she didn't like it one bit. "Please professor, I'll try ever so hard, my grades will be up in no time, you'll see." said Marie.
McGonagall nodded, "but until I do see improvement, I hereby ban you both from playing Quidditch, both on the school team or in your spare time. Your brooms are being confiscated as we speak."
... To be continued
Okay, I am sooooo sorry it took me so long to update, but I have been struck with writers block, and I needed the holidays to recover from it. And your going to hate be even more because updates are going to be infrequent due to school being back, and my TRUCK LOADS of homework I have to do. Sorry guys. But keeping checking up in me because I WILL NOT abandon this story.
Thanks to all of my awesome reviewers and readers. Please just take that little extra time to review; it really makes my day thank you.
Mad Over Mooney xo