Year of the Wolf

16. Growing Up

The attack in Wales soon fell from regular conversation, even if it didn't fall from memory. Things slowly returned to normal as summer approached and the weather improved drastically. Long wet spells made way for sunshine and cloudless skies, and they spent most of their free time revising by the lake (well, Remus and Peter revised, James played with a stolen Snitch, and Sirius napped - Remus was almost annoyed that they would probably still get "O"s in everything anyway).

There was a certain relaxing mood that followed the examinations, and there had even been one last Hogsmeade trip squeezed into the last few days of term, owing to the good weather. That and, Remus suspected, the teachers were starting to get a little annoyed with the fifth years' celebrations and probably yearned for a day of peace.

It was the day before the scheduled Hogsmeade trip, and Remus was surprised to find Lily Evans with Mary Macdonald in a somewhat sheltered area of the castle, looking rather forlorn. When she saw him, she looked away immediately, and Mary threw him an apologetic look.

'Is everything okay?' he asked, joining them where they sat. Lily didn't look up, but he saw her hands clench into fists.

'I'd have thought you'd be with your friends,' she said in an accusatory sort of way.

'Uh...James and Sirius are flying round the Quidditch pitch with Reed and some of the seventh years,' he said. 'Peter's cheering them on. Did something happen?'

Her hand unclenched, but she still did not look at him.

'She fell out with Severus,' Mary explained with a sympathetic hand on her friend's back. 'For good this time.'

'For good?' He could not hide his astonishment. 'Lily, whatever happened, I'm sure you can fix it.'

She laughed humourlessly.

'I don't want to,' she said. Her voice was not nearly as heavy as he would have expected. 'I'm not upset that we're... It's been coming for a long time. We're just too different. He's so deep into the Dark Arts that there's just no coming back for him. I've known that for a while now. He hates what I am, and I despise what he wants to be. We're old enough now that that's a huge problem.'

Remus patted her shoulder, and she didn't flinch. She sighed, and sat up straight, and he saw that her eyes were dry.

'He was the first friend I ever made in this world,' she said. 'It just feels so...odd.'

He could see that it was not the loss of her friend that hurt her, but rather the realisation that she was unable to save him from himself.

'Lily, I have a lot of respect for you,' he said. 'You know who you are, you know what you are and what you want, and you've walked away from this old friendship for a good reason. Sometimes, it's better just to let go.'

'Yeah.' Her voice shook this time. 'He's probably going to end up a Death Eater. And they kill people like me for fun. People like my family...'

'They'll be okay, Lil,' say Mary, though she sounded unconvinced.

Voices and laughter entered the hallway, but the girls were too focused on the conversation at hand to notice. Until one voice in particular drifted over, and Lily snapped her head up so suddenly she could have given herself whiplash.

'Honestly, Reed, I don't know what we're going to do without you.'

James's hair was a state, and Remus knew that for once it was because he had actually just gotten off a broom, rather than he had messed it up to be that way. His glasses were a little lopsided, as they sometimes were, and Sirius held the struggling Snitch as he walked beside him, Reed and a couple other seventh years walking with them.

'You can come watch one of my games when I'm signed, that's what you can do,' laughed Reed. 'Learn from a pro.'

Remus waited for it to happen, the moment James saw Lily sitting there and inevitably made a complete arse of himself. He wondered if he would be able to let him this time.

It happened slowly, and for a moment he thought that the group would have just walked straight past. Reed did, as did the other seventh years, but James slowed and Sirius looked around for the source of the distraction. Sirius saw her, and he looked to the Snitch in his hand, then to James, then back to the Snitch with a curious expression. Suddenly, he opened his hand and the small golden ball flew around James's head before shooting off down the hall. James seemed not to have noticed.

'Afternoon, Evans,' he greeted. He may as well have tipped an imaginary hat for all the suaveness he tried to pull off. But he frowned when he saw her expression, retreated into himself just a little. 'Everything okay?'

Lily rose so suddenly that Mary gasped, and she drew herself up to James's level, which was quite a feat given that he was starting to catch up to Sirius in height.

'Get lost, Potter,' she snapped.

Perhaps she was not quite as unaffected by what had happened as Remus had initially thought. This was assuming, of course, that the dissolution of her friendship with Snape had occurred as a result of the recent confrontation by the lake.

'Lily, will you just calm down!' Mary cried, trying to pull her friend away. But Lily continued to glare at James, a look of righteous anger in her eyes.

'You don't even think about the effect your behaviour has on other people, do you?' she fumed. Mary shot a pleading look to Remus, who rose to his feet ready to help her if he needed to. 'You just don't stop to think-'

'She's not angry at you, James,' Mary interrupted, and glared a look of warning at her friend.

'Yes I am,' Lily insisted.

'No you're not,' Remus said, holding back a groan. He knew that this wouldn't be worth it, not at all, but he couldn't help himself. 'You're trying to find someone to blame for your falling out with Severus, and James is the perfect candidate.'

She shot him a poisonous look.

'There is no-one to blame for that but Severus. He made his choice, I made mine. It's who we are.'

James looked stunned.

'You fell out with Snape?'

'That's none of your business,' she said. And she didn't even sound angry any more, just fell back to where she had previously sat with a sigh.

'If he's upset you, I want to make it my business,' James snarled.

To Remus's surprise, when Lily looked at him it was with a sad sort of look, like she didn't really have the energy to say what she wanted to.

'I'm not giving you a reason to hex him, if that's what you want. You hex people just for the fun of it, you're-'

'We don't hex people for the fun of it,' James defended. He looked rather unperturbed by this suggestion, but sought to straighten it out anyway. 'They always deserve it.'

'And what did Severus ever do to deserve it?' She was getting angry again. 'You said yourself, "it's more the fact that he exists".'

James opened his mouth, but had been rendered speechless by her using his own words against him. It was rather flawless, Remus had to admit. Because James hated Snape for his love of the Dark Arts, but he also hated him because of his closeness with Lily, and he would never admit that, not to her.

'You saw what Snape did to James in January,' Sirius said. 'Sure, Prongs is no saint, but neither is Snape. It wasn't exactly the first time he's cursed us. We just prefer an audience.'

He grinned, and Remus got the impression that he was really hamming it up to take the heat off James.

'Just go away,' Lily sighed. But it was she who left, and James stared wistfully after her.

'She's just upset,' Mary said. 'She's been out of sorts ever since the attack in Wales. Her sister hasn't been writing back - she's fine, her parents have written, but...' She sighed. 'Don't tell her I told you that, okay?'

'Come on, Prongs,' said Sirius. 'One more go round the pitch?'

James heaved a sigh and shook his head.

'Nah, Padfoot, I think I'm just going to head back.'

A worried expression fell upon Sirius.

'I shouldn't have said the audience thing.'

'No,' James said, and he smiled. 'It's not that. It's okay mate, it's nothing you said. Just feel like being alone right now.'

Sirius nodded, but there was something about James's defeated demeanour that didn't sit well with Remus, which meant that it couldn't sit well with Sirius.

'I let the Snitch go.' Evidently, he was going down the "please just be mad at me...it's better than this" road. But James just shrugged indifferently.

'It was a stupid thing anyway.'

AN - Please review :)