On Wednesday morning Remus received a note from Hagrid, the gamekeeper, asking for his assistance in the Forbidden Forest at dusk. So that evening Remus ambled, alone, down to Hagrid's hut. The cold air bit his cheeks, and he wrapped his cloak more tightly about him as he rapped on the large wooden door. Hagrid's hulking form appeared at once.
"Remus! There yeh are. Thanks fer meetin' me tonight. It's gettin' desperate." Hagrid ushered Remus back down his front steps, shutting the door behind him. He wore a heavy rucksack and carried a bucket of something viscous and sweet smelling
"What's getting desperate? What is that stuff?" Remus asked, hurrying to keep up with the half-giant's long strides.
"Oh, this? This 'ere is honeysuckle juice," Hagrid explained, guiding them into the woods. "Near took me forever ter squeeze enough out. Never mind that I had ter import 'em from overseas. Cost the school a right few galleons, too."
"What's happening? Why do you need me?" Remus was beginning to worry about where they were headed, and what creature might face them at the end of their evening stroll. He knew better than to assume that the creature might be harmless.
Hagrid's eyes grew teary and he cleared his throat. "Blasted poachers came an' took one o' the male unicorns from the forest."
Remus stopped stock still. "What?"
"Yeah, poachers," Hagrid said gruffly, pulling Remus by the arm to keep pace. "Killin' 'em an' sellin' their blood an' their horns an' such. It's despicable. As if the Death Eaters weren't bad enough, now we got regular wizards tryin' ter make a sickle like this. Come on, she's waitin' fer us." He marched with renewed purpose, and Remus trotted behind.
"Who's waiting?" he called.
"His mate. She needs yeh." Now Hagrid stopped suddenly; Remus ran into his large backside and fell flat onto the ground. Being used to this sort of mishap in Hagrid's presence, he quickly righted himself and faced the gamekeeper. Hagrid was staring him warily in the eye. "I hate ter ask yeh this, Remus. It'd be better if I brought a young girl along. But, well, I can't rightly ask a girl this sort of question. And yer the best fella fer the job. I know how gentle yeh are with them beasts. Why, you yerself was like a lost little foal when yeh firs' came to Hogwarts –"
"What in Merlin's name are you talking about, Hagrid?" Remus demanded.
"The unicorn needs someone … pure … of heart. If yeh catch my drift." Hagrid blustered on as Remus's eyes widened. "I hate ter even ask yeh, but yeh know your secret's safe with me. You know I never told a livin' soul about yer – well, yer monthly problem. An' I won't tell anyone yer still a – well, a – you know, inexperienced. With the girls, I mean, like. I mean, if yeh are. I only hafta ask yeh out of dire need. That little unicorn needs –"
"All right, all right, stop it! You're driving me crazy with your innuendoes."
Hagrid waited, his bushy eyebrows raised. Remus felt himself blushing as he fumed, staring at the cold ground.
"Lead on," was all he said. Hagrid grinned and clapped Remus on the back, causing another spill, this time onto his face. Remus leapt up and brushed himself off, running to keep up with the gamekeeper.
After a few minutes of brisk walking (and running, on Remus's part), they came to a clearing near a stream. There sat the unicorn, her legs tucked under her, shimmering silvery white in the early moonlight, her heavily lidded eyes half-closed. Dew had settled onto her back like tiny diamonds, and her ribs declared themselves in shadowy gashes along her side. Her knees were covered in mud, and her mane and tail were matted and unkempt. She was practically motionless, barely turning her head as they approached. Air puffed from her nostrils slowly, almost imperceptibly, creating tiny eddies of vapor beneath her muzzle. Remus thought he had never seen anything so lovely and so wretched before in his life.
"I don't know if it's gonna work, but we've gotta try it," Hagrid muttered. "Unicorns mate for life, jus' like wolves, yeh know. But wolves can take a new mate if they need to. Unicorns, bein' so rare an' all, don't have as much choice. But even if they do have another suitor waitin' fer 'em, mos' of 'em'll jus' spend their time pinin' away 'til they're dead."
"That seems a bit counterintuitive for the survival of the species," Remus remarked quietly.
"Yeah, well, tell that to her," Hagrid shot defensively. "Sorry, Remus. It's jus' that this pinin' away don't bode well fer her."
"What do we do?" Remus asked.
"Yeh got ter feed 'er." Hagrid deposited the bucket in front of the unicorn's muzzle. The unicorn turned her nose away, shifting slightly and closing her eyes.
Remus squatted on his knees and looked back at Hagrid for a ladle or a bowl. "What'll I feed her with?"
Hagrid sighed, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. "With yer hands, what else?" He raised his eyebrows again, this time in impatience.
Remus gazed back at the unicorn. She stared, unseeing, at the ground, paying no attention to the young man who crouched in front of her. He thought that he should introduce himself, or say something to her, before trying to feed her. He felt strangely intrusive, as if he were interrupting something precious that he had no right to witness in the first place. He moved closer to her so that his face was close to the creature's forehead. He felt her soft, warm breath on his knees, heard the quiet, regular puffing of air in and out of her nostrils. Her flank shivered convulsively from time to time in the cold, so Remus took off his cloak and gently placed it over the animal's back. Now that she had allowed him to do this, he let his hands remain on her side for a few moments. Slowly, slowly, his hands traveled up the unicorn's neck, into her dirty mane, down her powerful jaws and long face. He held her muzzle in his hands and leaned his own head toward hers until their foreheads were touching. His exhalations warmed the unicorn's muzzle and she blinked twice. They remained like that for some moments, his breath on her face, hers on his knees, until he felt the animal's jaw muscles begin to relax. He stroked her face, from her forehead down to her muzzle, and rubbed his own nose against hers. Somehow it seemed the right thing to do.
Behind him, he heard Hagrid sit down on a fallen tree, which creaked under his weight. Slowly, Remus reached one hand toward the bucket next to him, keeping his face close to the unicorn's, and dipped into the syrupy substance. He brought the honeysuckle nectar to the unicorn's mouth. It dripped onto his knees, infusing the air with a sweetness that belied the sadness and desperation that he felt. He didn't know if it was futile, but now he was determined to try to save this creature from her own bleak intentions.
His fingers waited, poised delicately underneath the unicorn's lips. She did not move. More nectar dribbled between his fingers onto his thighs. With his free hand Remus caressed the animal's mane, her long forehead, her jaw, her powerful breast. Still the nectar seeped through his cold fingers, onto his cramping knees, into the dead, dry earth.
This time Remus plunged both hands into the nectar, determined not to let any spill. He held his cupped hands beneath the unicorn's mouth once more. She had only to open her lips to lick the honeysuckle from his hands, if she would. He pressed his cheek to the side of her muzzle and looked at the creature's body. He thought he saw her tail swish, and his heart leapt. But he remained still, not daring to breathe.
The creature's breath in his hands was warm and wet, and soon his fingers were no longer cold. He turned his face back to the unicorn's, closing his eyes as he leaned his forehead on hers.
Her lips parted, and she began to lick the nectar from his hands. Remus began to breathe again. Behind him, he heard Hagrid sob.
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About a half hour later, Remus left Hagrid with the unicorn. The gamekeeper's grateful tears spilled over Remus's hands as he shook them roughly until Remus had to forcibly extricate himself from the man's grasp. Hagrid replaced Remus's cloak with a heavy blanket from his own rucksack and knelt next to the creature, which was now taking the nectar directly from the bucket.
Feeling emotional and not wanting to go back to the Common Room just yet, Remus wandered down toward the lake. The stars were bright, and the crescent moon looked down at him almost benignly. He supposed he should be pleased rather than embarrassed that Hagrid had thought Remus chaste enough to nurse a heartbroken unicorn; but, girls aside, he couldn't help wondering for how much longer he could consider himself innocent. He hadn't felt truly innocent since he was seven years old, since the night of Fenrir's attack. And now that he was considering confronting the werewolf and, by extension, Voldemort himself, he had a strange sense that his days were numbered. Even stranger was the fact that he didn't want to share his fears with James or Sirius or Peter. They couldn't possibly understand. This burden was his alone, and just now he thought he might crumple with the weight of it.
Suddenly Remus saw movement in the lake. Was someone swimming at this hour of night, in the cold, dark water? What about the merpeople, and the giant squid? He felt worry creep over him; quickly, his feet started carrying him toward the shore and his hand reached for his wand. Descending the gentle slope toward the rushes surrounding the lake, he was reminded of the night he was attacked at his grandparents' house. He felt a twinge of fear at the thought, but he brushed it aside.
Finally, through the darkness, Remus saw someone walking out of the shallows toward the tree where he liked to lounge on warmer Sundays. It was a girl, slim and sopping wet; and she was indeed wearing a bathing suit. The girl reached into her bag under the tree, drew her wand, and performed a spell on herself – probably a drying spell, as it was too cold to walk back to the school soaking wet. As he drew closer, he saw the red hair as the girl pulled on a pair of faded jeans and a chocolate colored jumper and wrapped herself in a cloak. It was Lily, and she had just turned toward him. It was too late to pretend he hadn't seen her, so he continued walking, pocketing his wand and trying to will his pulse to slow down.
As Remus approached her, she turned away from him, rubbing her face briskly with the back of one hand.
"Hi, Remus," Lily said, almost too brightly. "What are you doing out here?" She still wasn't looking at him directly. Instead, she squatted down to put her socks and trainers back on, then busied herself with a stack of papers beside her book bag.
"I could ask you the same," Remus replied, kneeling next to her. "Are you sure it's safe to be swimming here alone at night?"
"Oh, I've done it loads of times," she retorted heartily. "It's good for blowing off steam."
"What about grindylows? The giant squid? Merpeople?"
Lily stopped moving for a moment, then shuffled her books and papers again. She laughed sharply, still not looking at him. "Yeah, well. The merpeople leave you alone if you leave them alone. It's fine, really. I'm all right, don't worry." But her voice cracked on the last word. Was she crying? He couldn't see through the curtain of hair hiding her face.
"Lily?" Remus said softly, placing a hand on her shoulder. She immediately stopped her nervous movements, as if his hand had somehow calmed her. When she raised her eyes, he finally saw the tears on her face.
"I'm such an idiot," she laughed wryly. "Sorry, I don't mean to be crying like this."
"What do you mean? What happened?" he asked apprehensively. He had never seen her so shaken, and she didn't seem the type of girl who cried easily.
Lily sat cross-legged next to the trunk of the tree, and Remus moved closer to her. Still sniffling, she pulled a letter from the stack and considered it for a few moments. At last, she thrust it at Remus, as if she might change her mind if she held onto it one second longer.
"It's from my sister," she confessed.
Remus hadn't known that Lily had a sister, and he looked at her questioningly.
"My parents and my sister are Muggles. I'm the first witch in several generations," Lily explained, wiping her eyes. "Read it. Go on."
Remus looked back at the letter, which had been scrawled in dark green ink onto some gaudy Muggle stationery that had flowers all over it.
Dear Lily,
Don't come to my piano concert that weekend in April. Don't talk to Mum and Dad about it either. Just don't come. You can magic up a cold or something, so why don't you do that. I'm tired of them doting on you. It's my turn now, this is my moment, don't spoil it. And this summer keep your freakish talents to yourself in front of my friends, I don't care what our parents say, it won't be amusing to anyone. I know you're allowed now, but just keep it to yourself. I've met a nice bloke Vernon who is at university, and I don't want you scaring him off, so have a heart for once. If you have any human feelings at all, you will do what I ask.
Petunia
Remus couldn't imagine anyone speaking to Lily this way, much less her own flesh and blood. He lowered the letter and sighed. For a few moments he stared out at the water; gas bubbles, floating up from the muck at the bottom of the lake, made little ripples that spread slowly along the surface toward the edges and disappeared. He turned to look at Lily, studying the silent tears rolling down her cheeks, dripping onto her collar.
"I should have known it would come to this, eventually," Lily mumbled, her eyes unfocused, gazing out toward the lake.
The phrases freakish talents and human feelings circled and recircled his thoughts. How many times had people looked at him as a monster, as less than human? And here was Lily's own sister, treating her as a freak, too. He felt angry and protective. He had to choose his words carefully; after all, Petunia was still Lily's family.
"Lily, you realize this letter is rubbish, don't you?" he said, finally finding the words he wanted to say.
Lily shook her head. "No, she's right. My parents treat me like a performing dog sometimes. They never stop, they're so … I don't know … impressed? Proud? Afraid? I don't know what." She sniffled miserably, keeping her eyes on the water.
"Your sister is jealous. She can't help it," Remus began. He reached across Lily's legs to put the letter back on her stack of books and parchment, and he couldn't help feeling the warmth of her body as he did so. Quickly he sat back, forcing himself to focus on her face. "She's older than you?"
Lily nodded, a quick jerk of the head as she continued to cry quietly.
"She's older, and you're supposed to look up to her. But she can't do what you do. And, with as talented as you are, she probably feels like you don't have anything to look up to."
"But I do!" Lily cried. "She's really witty – or can be when she's not upset with me. She's the most organized person I've ever met. She plays the piano like a dream. I could never do that. And she can really cook, I mean Muggle cooking, and that's hard to do. I can't do that to save my life. Lord knows she and Mum have tried to teach me. And – "
"Yeah, but she knows you don't need to do it the Muggle way," Remus said soothingly. "She probably thinks you've got it made as a witch. She doesn't realize how hard it can be. I'll bet she has no clue about what's going on with Voldemort and the Death Eaters."
"Remus," Lily exhaled heavily, "I feel like an outcast in my own family. My sister hates me because I'm a witch, and my parents only make it worse. They don't mean to, but they've treated me differently ever since we got the letter inviting me to Hogwarts."
Remus knew all about feeling like an outcast. Lily looked at him beseechingly and he thought his heart would crack in two. He had to find a way to stop those tears from falling, but he didn't know what else he could say to her. Before he knew it, his arm was around her shoulders, pulling her to him. He leaned back against the tree and let her cry into his shoulder, her narrow arm snaking its way around his waist. He felt a thrill course through him at her touch, and he tried to block it from his mind. Remus drew his wand and conjured a small fire in front of them; then he magically sapped the light from it so that it was a faint blue, barely visible to anyone who might be looking from the school.
The warmth of the fire and of their two bodies nestled together seemed to comfort Lily. Eventually her sobbing abated and they merely sat there, watching the blue flames. Her sniffles slowly became smooth, calm breathing once more. Remus was acutely aware of the smell of her hair, like water lilies and bed linens. He didn't want to move, to exhale, to do anything that might cause Lily to stop leaning against him. He was astonished at how comfortable this felt … how right. He couldn't imagine Lily with James – he just couldn't – not now, not in this moment. How would James have handled her problem? With jokes and roughhousing?
Lily wiped her face on the back of her hand again. Remus didn't have a handkerchief, so he dabbed at her cheeks with the bottom of his Gryffindor tie. She laughed, a soft, silent chuckle; and he felt his lungs start to empty and fill with air again.
"You smell like honeysuckle," Lily observed. Remus grinned. It took every ounce of willpower in him to keep from kissing the top of her head. Slowly she extricated herself from his embrace and sat back, looking squarely at him through puffy eyes. Her nose was almost as red as her lips. He'd never seen her look as unabashedly beautiful as she did now. "That did my soul good," she told him with a little smile.
Remus smiled back. Mine too, he thought.
Suddenly Lily placed one warm hand on his scarred cheek and lingered there for a long moment, looking into his eyes. His heart began to race, but he couldn't move a muscle. Her pupils were large and dark in the dim moonlight, and their faces were very close together.
"Where did you get these scars?" she asked gently.
This was the last question he had expected. He sat silent for many heartbeats, considering. Somehow he couldn't bring himself to tell her the lie he told everyone else who asked, the lie about a tiller accident on a farm.
"One day I'll tell you," he said quietly. And as the thought left his lips, he realized he meant it.
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The Common Room was still full of students finishing homework and chatting when Remus and Lily arrived. Remus sat near James, Sirius, and Peter; and he tried not to watch as Lily disappeared up the girls' stairwell.
To take his mind off his interaction with her, Remus immediately joined his friends' conversation. James and Sirius were planning a prank on the entire Quidditch team for their next practice, and they had finally caught up with Peter and recruited his help. Sirius had somehow gotten hold of a dozen Cornish pixies and had stuffed them into a hollowed-out log just inside the Forbidden Forest. Peter and Sirius would transport the log to the Quidditch Pitch before Monday's practice, then release the pixies once all players were in the air. Remus rolled his eyes, but nonetheless he felt a surge of affection for his friends. He was grateful for the familiar antics and sophomoric distractions.
When the plan seemed to be in place, Remus excused himself for bed. As he ascended the stairs, he absently fingered the bottom of his tie – the tie which, an hour ago, had wiped away Lily's tears. Something had shifted inside him, and he didn't know what to make of it. He was filled with a strange combination of elation and confusion, and he knew it wasn't good. Things suddenly felt complicated. He and Lily had crossed some unseen line – a line he hadn't even known was so near, much less that he would find himself stepping across it. He was certain that James had never gotten this close to Lily, and it made him uncomfortable. He felt responsible for protecting James's feelings – what would James say if he knew that Remus had just spent an hour with Lily, letting her cry? How would he react if he had seen how blatantly Remus had disregarded James's feelings for Lily while his arm was around her shoulders? He felt very ungenerous indeed, and his cheeks reddened.
After changing into his pajamas, he flopped down on his bed and tried to look at it logically. He hadn't planned to meet Lily at the lake; he had simply happened upon her in an emotional state. What was he to do, push her away? Tell her, sorry, I can't listen to your troubles because my best friend is crazy in love with you, even though he acts like an imbecile in front of you? Sorry, not my problem?
And yet Lily had shared something important with him. Why? She could have bustled back up to the school. Why had she decided to stay, to show Remus the letter, to cry in front of him? Was it his fault that James could be an oaf sometimes? Was it his fault that she didn't trust James with her secrets? No, he decided.
But he had to be careful. James, Sirius, and Peter were his best friends, his only true friends in the world. They had bolstered him, encouraged him, put themselves in harm's way for him. If he let anything threaten his relationship with James, both he and James would suffer. But James had Sirius, and the two were even closer now that Sirius was living with the Potters. He would probably lose both friends, and Peter, too, if anything happened with Lily. And Remus would never find as good a friend as James, he was certain of that.
He resolved once and for all to steer away from Lily, because clearly his feelings for her were too strong to keep themselves in check when she was near. With that pledge made, he drifted off to sleep, the smells of seaweed, algae, honeysuckle, and bed linens still lingering in his nostrils …
… Remus was in a rowboat on the lake behind his grandparents' house. He lay flat on his belly across the seat with his arm dangling over the starboard side, trailing his fingers lazily in the cool water. He was alone, content and peaceful. The sun sparkled on the eddies created by his fingers, their bright reflections making him squint. The water looked like liquid crystal, cool and untouchable; and yet his hand was immersed in it, mapping out temporary designs, leaving no trace. Warm air infused his body with the scents of the lake, fecund and mysterious. His eyes opened and closed sleepily …
… and he noticed that he was no longer at his grandparents' lake, but at the lake near Hogwarts. It was nighttime. Stars pricked the black sky, and lights glimmered from the castle. His hand felt something like seaweed wrapping itself tenderly around his fingers. He peered over the side of the boat. Sodden red-orange tendrils insistently wove themselves through his fingers, like a child's string game of cat's cradle. He tried to recognize the pattern, the message, but it was unknown to him. He began to realize that the boat, with him in it, was being pulled by these tendrils toward a small island in the center of the lake. On it sat Lily, alone and waiting, her fiery locks winding wildly into the sky and beneath the water, grasping at constellations, probing the murky water, reaching for him. She stood and watched him keenly, her green eyes brighter than he'd ever seen them, her face smooth and unflinching. He knew she must be the goddess of that little island; he must not approach. Yet she was asking him to come to her. He shook his head. And quick as a flash she dove into the water, submersing herself beneath the waves of her own hair, which even now tugged at him gently …
… His hand reached deeper into the water. He couldn't see her. In horror, he felt his hand become clawed, sharp and murderous; he tried to pull it out of the water before she emerged, but it was caught by her hair. Lily surfaced next to the boat and placed a hand softly on his face, her eyes fierce with longing. He finally yanked his traitorous, clawed fingers free from the water and the hair and the game of cat's cradle – but now the hand reached for her smooth cheek and began to trace its own bloody pattern …
Remus awoke with a start, panting, an unvoiced scream tightening his throat. The bedside clock said four in the morning. He closed the bed curtains and tried to regulate his breathing. Putting his hands behind his head, he lay awake for a long while, miserably thinking of Lily.