O'er His Heart, a Shadow Fell

"I'm going to drop out." Remus said. The three boys had been sitting silently in the common room, which was empty, given the late hour. Even though they'd dried off quickly, they were still wrapped in extremely soft white towels as they watched the fire burn in the hearth.

"We know." James said in response.

"I'll do whatever it takes."

"We know." It was Sirius who spoke that time.

"She's gone."

"We know!" James and Sirius both finally snapped. For a while, they looked at eachother, awestruck at their outburst. Sirius was the first to speak.

"Sorry, Moony."

"Yeah, mate. We feel for you, truly."

"But that's the eighth time you've told us that she's gone."

Silence.

Silence.

"She used to do this thing with the fire-" Remus began.

"We know."

"I always meant to ask how she did it, but I never did." He finished, ignoring the interruption he'd been expecting.

He heard someone behind him whisper some Latin that he couldn't quite make out, and he twisted his torso in his seat to see who it was. Lily Evans was standing there behind him, wearing striped flannel pajama pants and a pink tank top. Her hair was disheveled and she'd clearly just woken up, but she was definitely awake. He turned back to the flames to see the flickering shapes of a fox jumping back and forth over a sleeping puppy.

"I've always wondered why, of all things, she'd choose to make that." Lily said, moving to sit beside James.

"'The quick brown fox jumps over a lazy dog' is the most commonly used muggle pangram."

"What the hell is a pangram?" Sirius asked blankly

"We would use 'the wizards quickly jinxed the gnomes before they vapourized'" He explained. "It's a sentence that uses all the letters of the alphabet. Quill manufacturers use it to test their products. She loved testing the fluidity of language."

"Is that why she spoke, like, twenty of them?" Sirius asked as James grabbed a piece of parchment and a quill from the end table beside him and started writing.

"Yeah, she was obsessed with the fluidity of language. Are you seriously checking to make sure I'm right?"

"Yes, he is." Lily, looking at what James was writing. "and you are."

"No he's not. There's no N"

"It's at the end of 'brown,' stupid." Lily pointed at the page.

"Oh."

"You're an idiot. I don't know why I'm dating you."

"Thank Tillie for that." James smiled, but Lily punched him in the arm. "You really are an idiot." She hissed, nodding at Remus, who was slouched over again. "He was just starting to lighten up."

"Sorry, Moony." James said.

"That's not going to change anything." Lily said, frowning at her boyfriend.

"Look, Remus." She said, reaching over and patting him on the knee. "After you two spent time together, she was so happy. I can't imagine loving someone as much as she loved you—and you hush" She added to James when he opened his mouth to protest.

"Anyway, I know you loved her just as much. You two had something special. But we also loved her. She was dear to all of us. She set me up with James, and Felicity and Sirius too...kind of. None of us understands why she left. It doesn't make sense. But sitting her, crying about her being gone, will change absolutely nothing. So suck it up and let's figure out what to do." Her voice had been soothing at the beginning, but by the end had turned more forceful.

"There's nothing we can do." Remus said.

"That's it." Lily said, throwing her arms into the air. "You're impossible! If you keep this up, no one will help you with anything. So cut it out, Remus, or we're all going to go fucking insane!"

Remus was shocked into the most clarity he'd had that night.

But even as his consciousness sped to the present, he still remembered.