A/N I feel so ashamed for how rare my updates are…. Sooooo ashamed. Oh well. Here's a new one. Sort of Lily-centric, for those who like her.

Chapter 12: Lilies, Hyacinths, and Petunias

Sunday, on this particular week, was to be James' rejection of the week. Lily, in an act of harshness uncharacteristic even of her on her worst of days, poured her pumpkin juice over his head as soon as James approached her, without even letting him get a word in. Sirius would not stand for it.

For reasons mostly involving the fact that James had a copy of Lily's schedule posted on their door, Sirius knew her to have a free the final block of the day, and thusly opted to corner her as soon as possible during it. He found her reading by the lake—a very Lily, but even more Remus thing to do. He nudged her to make his presence known, and put on the sternest dog-face possible to make very clear that this visit was neither one of trickery nor friendship. He wanted to know why James tasted like pumpkin when he licked him, and he wanted to know now.

"I suppose you'll be here to speak on behalf of your boyfriend then?" asked Lily, unsurprised at the further meddling of the second most annoying marauder. Sirius glared. "Like it's any of your business," she said, in what would've been called a snap, had it had more conviction or venom.

Sirius longed to demand why she hadn't had the common decency to hear him out—what if he had been trying to ask her a homework question or to pass the bread?—but he knew he couldn't. He had had half a mind to bring along Remus after school for translation's sake, but Remus liked Lily, he'd be too easy on her, and it would require waiting. Sirius, after seeing James' pumpkin covered, dejected face after lunch, was in neither a patient nor forgiving mood. So he continued to glare.

"You know, glaring at me isn't gonna get your point across any better. Why don't you just transform and—argh. Whatever. I know what you're going to say: 'you didn't need to pour juice on him!' 'That was out of line.' 'he's really not so bad.' 'just one date to make him feel better.' You know what? I don't want to hear it. You prats are always around me! Don't you think I ever want to be alone? Why do you think I'm by the bloody lake? Now bugger off!"

Lily was upset. Lily was never this upset. Lily was snarky, hurtful, sarcastic and occasionally flustered or irritated by James or Sirius—sometimes Peter, but usually when he was around James—but she never got like this. In retrospect, maybe someone who knew Lily better and could talk would've been a good plan.

It was evening when Sirius got Remus' attention with a whine. Being simultaneously angry and concerned for the girl he considered sort of his friend, Sirius was not yet ready to let that day's happenings go.

"What is it, Sir?" asked Remus, worried at the look in Sirius' face. "Are you sick? What's wrong?" Sirius shook his head and pointed from their room to where he knew Lily's room was on the opposite side of the tower. When Remus looked baffled, Sirius realized that, without context, it would seem he had been gesturing at a wall. He instead got off of Remus' bed and padded over to the door where he gestured insistently at the slip of paper they had dubbed "the Stalking Calendar"—the one with Lily's schedule. Remus looked confused for a minute more, but then asked, "What's up with Lily?"

The pair found the redhead at her favorite table in the library, one which she and Remus sometimes shared, pouring furiously over Divination homework. Remus rested his hand gently upon her shoulder, and she flinched. Looking up, her mood soured, which, while common while in James' company, was rare in Remus'.

"Brought backup?" she asked, looking down to where she knew Sirius would be.

"Sirius said something was wrong."

"Are you two psychic now, then, or something?" she asked, looking back to her homework in an apparent attempt not to care about the interrogation.

"Lils… what's up? I know James is a prat, and you're always the first in line to let him know it, but that wasn't like you today." Remus sat across from her, and Sirius curled up at his feet, listening from below the table.

"What's it to you?"

"Um…Would you rather 'James is my friend and he's still washing juice from his hair' or 'you're my friend, and I want to know what's wrong?'"

"Fine!" shouted Lily, earning an automatic, mechanical sounding 'SHHH!' from The librarian's desk. "Here," she said, in a lower voice, taking a crumpled envelope and shoving it into Remus' hand before pulling her book stubbornly in front of her face.

In the envelope was a card, decorated beautifully with enchanted moving patterns of purple flowers—petunias, Remus thought—growing and glittering from every side. Remus read to himself:

Dearest Petunia,

Happy 18th! I bet Mum and Dad have already started baking you your favorite chocolate cake when you get this. Eat an extra piece for me! Oh, how I miss birthdays at home. How are things there? I haven't heard from you in a while. Sorry I don't write more often. School's really busy. We're learning some cool stuff though. Just the other day, I learned how to cast spells without saying a word! How's school and everything? Are you doing better in English? Mum was really worried about that grade last I heard. Anyway, send my love to our parents! Have a great birthday, sis!

Love,

Lily

PS The necklace enclosed is from Hogsmede. The pendant's supposed to grant you good luck and health and youth and stuff. And it's your favorite colour! Hope you like it.

Remus stared at the letter for several minutes, struggling to make out each word. On top of Lily's impeccable handwriting was brandished a word in large, scribbled, angry, black letters: FREAK

A moment's more investigation revealed there to be more in the envelope. When Remus tipped it further toward his hand, some pieces of string, a bunch of shiny pink beads and a beautiful, antique pendant with a pink gem in the middle fell onto his palm and some onto the floor.

"Oh, Lily…" he said, sympathy in his voice as he rose and circled the table. He wrapped his arms around her and was surprised to feel tears fall on them. Sirius, unaware of any of the goings on apart from the crying, emerged from beneath the table to lick Lily's hand and nuzzle against her. "Muffliato," whispered Remus at the entrance to their aisle, and Lily broke down, crying into his arms.

When Remus entered their room a half hour later with Sirius behind him, he walked directly toward James. "Prongs?"

"Moony?"

"Do me a favor. Lay off Lily for a while. Or… or better yet, do something nice for her."

"Why, what happ—"

"Just take my word for it. She doesn't need a stalker right now, she needs a friend."

Lily awoke the next morning to find her roommates giggling excitedly by the door. When she came to investigate, a bouquet addressed to her. It was made up of hyacinths and lilies.

Lily,

Sorry for whatever I did to earn me the pumpkin juice. I'm sure I deserved it. Even if the pumpkin juice was just sour, feel free to use my head as a waste bin for it any time. By the way, even though I can't see you right now and you just got out of bed, I know you look beautiful.

-Your not-so-secret admirer

Lily looked the note over fondly, finding the boy's comments cute in spite of herself, and carried the flowers into her room. It took her a moment, but then it dawned on her: Hyacinths meant "I'm sorry." The sap must've gone through the trouble of looking that up! The very thought made her laugh out loud.

It was Monday when Sirius next relapsed into illness. He vomited once in the morning and was generally woozy and nauseas after waking up, but a quick visit to the hospital wing, for which Remus sacrificed breakfast, and Madame Pomfrey declared him to be a drama queen who was in no actual pain and just needed rest. Rest, of course, meant another day of confinement in the dorm. This lead to something altogether more dangerous than illness: thinking. And far too much of it.

Sirius, being far too tired to go about his usual tom foolery, decided to snuggle up in Remus' bed and, as he was expecting no visitors until lunch, found himself with more time than he knew what to do with. This time was occupied by thinking. More specifically, thinking about the owner of the bed he was resting in.

He had gotten his hopes FAR TOO HIGH, decided Sirius. He had heard Moony was gay and positively leapt with joy, instantly deciding this meant he had a real chance, without ever considering that gay people could turn each other down, too. Just cause it turned out Sirius was in the half of the population that Remus could plausibly find attractive did not mean his chances had actually increased. Well, argued a logical part of his brain, his chances had increased, but just from 0% likelihood to astronomical unlikelihood (approximately .000000001% chance).

Sirius spent the next hour trying to calculate his exact chances with Remus when he ruled out those with a language barrier, the too young, the too old, and the death eaters. Though he had never been good with math, Sirius decided that the numbers still did not bode well, and proceeded to brood (which was like what he had done up until that point, but with fewer coherent thoughts and more occasional growling noises to himself).

A knock came at the door. "Lunch," announced the quiet yet startling voice of Remus as he opened the door with his elbow. Sirius was so anxious not to seem like he'd been moping that he overcompensated by over-exaggerated enthusiasm, got twisted in the blankets, became dizzy, fell to the floor, and fainted or knocked himself out.

Sirius awoke to find himself being stroked, lying across a comfy lap with an ice pack on his head. Opening his eyes, he saw on Remus' watch that he was already ten minutes late to his next class. Alarmed by this unusual display of tardiness, Sirius nudged pointedly at the wristwatch, in case Remus hadn't noticed.

"I know," said the werewolf in a soft voice. "I needed to make sure you were fine, first. Here," he moved the food he had brought over to near Sirius' face. "Eat something. You didn't have any breakfast." The look in his eyes and the tone of concern in his quiet voice made Sirius feel the intense urge to prove that he was alright so that Remus would stop worrying and not miss class, but as soon as he made an attempt to sit up, perhaps a bit too fast, Sirius felt dizzy and sunk shakily back into his place on Remus' lap.

By the time Remus was satisfied that Sirius would be fine on his won, Sirius had had to eat half the food he had been supplied with, get up all on his own, and show that he could walk fine. The lycanthrope still looked hesitant as he walked through the door, reminding Sirius of something or another involving rest or drinking fluids, but Sirius urged him out and wondered how Moony would explain being 30 minutes late to a class. Sirius had barely gotten Remus out the door convinced that he felt fine when he stumbled hastily into the bathroom and vomited into the toilet. He proceeded to flush and take a nap right there on the cool, tiled floor.

Remus was almost to class when someone stepped out in front of him, blocking his path completely.

"Lupin," drawled Snape, in some sort of greeting.

"Severus," replied Remus as politely as possible before attempting to sidestep the slytherin.

"Lupin," repeated Snape, "I know you lot are up to something. Now, I'm only going to ask this once: Where. Is. Black?" he asked, punctuating each word with a small step forward that would have been intimidating had it not been for Remus' superior posture gaining him at least an inch of height above the boy.

"Why, exactly, is that any of your business?"

"Because I, it would seem, am the only person in this school that has noticed that every single thing that occurs around you lot ends. In. Chaos." Upon these words, Snape drew himself up to his full height and matched the boy now standing uncomfortably close to him. Had it been a different marauder in his place, Remus knew that they would've made some comment expressing concern that his long, greasy nose was invading their personal bubble. Remus kept his lips sealed on the issue and instead proceeded to lie with all of his might.

"If you must know, Sirius is visiting a dying friend. Far away." Remus hoped the sweat he felt on his brow was imaginary.

"I shall ask Regulas about this," responded Snape readily.

"Regulas doesn't know. No one in the family does." Remus was truly nervous now, and the best he could do was pray that his exterior looked calm.

"How very…" Snape gave him an appraising, condescending look up and down, "convenient. That's all. Oh, and hurry up. You're late for class." With that, Snape turned on his heel and stalked off to enjoy the rest of his free. As he did so, his cloak billowed behind him in a way that even Remus had to admit was impressive. The boy stood rooted to the spot for several moments before remembering that he was, in fact, late to class, and running to get there. When he ran in out of breath and took a seat by his two friends, the pair smirked like Christmas had come early and they had been bought Zonko's. This being a first (unexcused) offence in six years, he was not given detention. Now his friends just looked shocked.

A/N Sorry it's a bit shorter than previous chapters. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. Got a bit of Lily stuff goin on :) and of course DRAMA with snape! Will he find out their secret! (over dramatic gasp!) WHO KNOWS! Find out next on Padfoot: the WEREDOG! (please review!) xoxoxoxo