7.5 - The Memories They Deserved
Lilly Evens carefully threaded the multi-colored beads onto a bit of twine. She'd worked out a color system...Red for her, green for her friends, blue for anyone else. She hadn't gotten things quite right yet; the memories had a tendency to wander off on their own and do things that never happened, which was interesting in a dramatic sort of way. They were sometimes far-fetched; she'd never wind up with Sirius as long as she lived, yet in one of her test beads he and her had wound up hitched with an entire clutch of admittedly handsome children.
A bit of hair got in her mouth, and she absently spit it out. Someone plopped down next to her and her eyes darted over for just long enough to confirm who it was. It didn't take long. Peter was fairly distinctive. She went back to threading her beads, and Peter pulled a large piece of parchment from his pack. Lilly had enchanted several sheets not to crease...or more specifically, not to hold creases. Folding them was fine, but they wouldn't crease. He opened an expensive-looking case and produced a very special set of pencils. Lilly, James, and Sirius had gone in on them several years ago. Each one had a special enchantment...one would only do straight lines, one would only do curves, one was indelible and one was easily removable, and so on. Peter was a steady hand...he'd drawn one or two pictures she kept tucked into the pages of one of her favorite books, the one she'd carried in her school chest since the second year, when Severus had given it to her. It had been second hand even then, and she hadn't done it any favors, though she'd been able to repair the worst of the wear and tear.
She dropped a bead, and it bounced and danced onto the parchment Peter was drawing on. It looked to be a map of something. Her bead rolled to a stop in the middle of a nameless room. Peter nudged it back to her with the tip of one of his pencils. He smiled a buck-toothed, beady-eyed smile.
"Thanks, Peter," she captured the green bead with vermilion-painted fingernails and held it up to the light. Then she glanced back at Peter. He had gone back to his work. Sometimes he would puff his lank blonde hair out of the way when it fell in his face.
She went back to her bracelet. The beads were on...now she just had to tie the knot on the end. She mentally went through her magical retinue and realized she knew nothing to tie a knot. She fumbled with it for a few minutes before a voice spoke.
"Why don't you give me a go?" Remus sat across from her. Peter had looked up at his voice. "Pete," Remus nodded. Peter smiled, then went back to his work. Lilly pushed her bracelet across the table and Remus took it.
"Isn't it a bad time for you?" Lilly watched him tie off the bracelet. Remus seemed to know something about nearly everything, including, apparently, tying knots.
"Soon. I like to be with you all as long as I can before I get sick." Remus held the bracelet out, and she extended her hand palm up. He placed it carefully in her hand, dwelling on the contact.
She would never even consider that with Peter. He was so desperate for approval that he would get entirely the wrong idea. Sirius, she was certain, had a pair of spectacles specifically charmed to undress her, and James was so absolutely self-assured that he might not even notice it.
Remus, however...she felt a little sorry for Remus. He assiduously refused to have anything beyond friendship with anyone. For their own safety. Plenty of girls would have given him a chance, but he steadfastly refused. Lilly was almost certain that things like that little brush were nearly the only attention or contact of the feminine kind that Remus would even allow.
That wasn't right.
Lilly fingered the beads. She looked over at Peter, who was lost in his work. Drawing was nearly the only thing that could hold his attention and keep his self-doubt at bay. Then she turned to Remus, who had settled down to his Defense work. He was nearly as poor as Severus, and as studious. In another world, she could see the two being good mates. In this world, that would probably never happen. Then she looked back at her bracelet and rolled it experimentally in her fingers. If she ever got this memory thing right, she was going to give everyone the memory they deserved.