Disclaimer: Anything that rings a bell belongs to J.K Rowling

Chapter 8: Our Universe

The wind whispered through the nearby window and prickled up her exposed legs, fluttering at the hemline of her nightdress and she nonchalantly pushed it down, catching the approving stare of the Irish boy who sat across from her.

Aiza winked playfully at the twelve-year-old and his pale cheeks flushed a violent red as he sank deeper into the mass of blankets that surrounded him.

This corner of the common room was covered with thick mattresses and the ten first years' lay scattered upon it in varying postures of interest, some keen whilst others were keeled over asleep.

Aiza and Mary were squeezed into an armchair as Lily was standing before them all, gesturing emphatically with her hands and jumping about in silence.

"Jogging!"

"A seizure."

"Running?"

"Epilepsy."

"Riding!"

"Humping. Shagging. Fornicating." The redhead boy spat the last three words in quick succession and the rest of the boys burst into laughter as Lily let the small bit of parchment in her hand flutter to the floor, she looked two seconds away from turning her wand on the boy and showing him just why she was the best in the school in Charms.

"Galloping gargoyles." Lily snapped, stating what she was trying to act out for the last five minutes and a tiny girl with wispy blonde hair thumped a hand to her forehead and moaned, "I was so close!"

Aiza shook her head at the little girl, her gangly twin brother asleep on her shoulder. She was the only one of the four girls that seemed to be paying any attention to Lily's muggle game, charades. Two of the four were steadfastly peering over Lily's shoulder at the armchairs by the fireplace where Sirius Black lounged, scribbling on a length of parchment much too large to be homework. The last of the girls was asleep at Mary and Aiza's feet, a bit of drool soaking the scatter cushion she was using as a pillow.

"Who wants to go next?" Expectant emerald orbs found Aiza's and she glared at her friend in response, she said she'd stay for her pyjama party, she said nothing about participating in any activities.

As far as Aiza was concerned her involvement was akin to the portraits that lined this castle…simply aesthetic pleasure. Her mother would be so proud, she thought bitterly.

"Again! Have we not suffered enough!" The boy that spoke was the shortest of the lot of them and one of the only boys that Aiza recognized as he was Samuel Brown's younger brother, but seemed a stark contrast to the charming Hufflepuff in their year.

"Well, if you're tired of charades, we can play something else. I've got a whole list-"

"I thinkweshould choose the next game."

The familiar sound of the portrait swinging open caught Aiza's attention, and she stared at the entrance, her pulse speeding up slightly, it quickly returned to normal when she saw that it was just Frank Longbottom and Alice Burke, holding hands and laughing together, staring into each other's eyes like they were the sole occupants of this universe.

It was so cute it was nauseating.

"Fine, what do you want to play?" Lily's voice was high pitched from having to restrain her annoyance and Aiza sighed, jostling Mary slightly as she dozed on her shoulder.

It must be at least ten now, she should go upstairs and change if she wants to make it for Lucky's party.

Her gaze fell on the three boys at the fireplace. Peter was doing homework next to Black, while James just sat there, staring into the flames in contemplation.

She wondered why Black and James didn't go for Lucky's party. She was pretty sure Black had hooked up with Isabella McDougal at the last one, and she saw Daisy Hookum leave about an hour ago, tossing Black an expectant stare but he continued scribbling away, obliviously uninterested.

"Strip snap!"

"Spin the bottle."

Lily began a rant in response to the boys' suggestions, but Aiza blocked it out as she heard a door opening, it wasn't the entrance though, just the boy's dormitories and Dean Logan walked out, passing an amused glance at their corner of the room and slapping Potter on the arm in greeting and making his way to the portrait hole.

"Fine. Let's just take a break and decide later. Now you may have some cupcakes." The boys jumped up, jostling those who dozed off, darting for the pile of baked goods on the table which Lily had forbade them from touching until she deemed that they had sufficiently participated in the pyjama party.

The first year girls glanced at each other and rolled their eyes as if to sayboys, dusting themselves and walking towards the table with some modicum of dignity.

"I'm never having children." Lily spat, plopping into the armchair opposite Aiza.

"Black would be disappointed, I heard his angling for godfather for all their children." Aiza gestured to the boys at the fire, highly aware that one extremely significant part of the 'their' was not present at the moment.

"And in what universe is Sirius Black my child's godfather! I might as well give the child to a pack of wolves."

Aiza smirked at her friend, "I love how you're so quick to deny Black god-fatherhood, but not the implication that James Potter would be the father."

Lily blanched, knowing that she was caught out and then her lips quirked as her eyes gleamed mischievously, "Who says I have to marry Potter. I could marry Remus, or Peter."

"And I would humbly oblige." Aiza started, stiffening at the voice she had been trying to single out all night, "Though I am positive you will do much better than myself, Lily. And I'd hate to make you a young widow considering James would likely kill me once he found out."

Aiza didn't have to look to see that he was standing at the side of her armchair; she could smell the musky scent that was him and feel his appearance at her side in the prickle that traversed her spine, a trademark to his presence.

"You're looking handsome Remus, special occasion?"

Aiza had to clench her neck to refrain from glancing at him, positive that Lily was now taunting her into looking at him, considering she and the Gryffindor prefect hadn't spoken since Thursday.

Remus had been avoiding her and Aiza was much too proud to ask why.

"Not really, heading down to Lakshmi Jadhev's party, didn't want to look a complete outcast." He laughed and the sound subconsciously relaxed her as she contemplated his words.

Heading down? Her initial thought at his arrival was that he had returned from the party, and there would be no use attending the event now.

After she found out that he made the guest list because that little friend of his was friends with Lucky, Aiza had spent the whole afternoon ensuring that Remus Lupin would have no choice but to talk to her. She spent more time than she cared to admit choosing a dress and applying her make-up and she actually changed her hairstyle three times and would have probably done a fourth if Lily hadn't come in.

Lily.

Godric, Aiza would never have believed that she would change her plans for anybody, she glanced at the girl as she continued talking to Remus, her almond shaped, sparkling green eyes taking in his words with interest.

Aiza had envied Lily for her brightness, she was nothing but vivid colour, eye catching… attention stealing she used to think. Aiza had a small crush on James when they were children, an age ago, their parents were friends and therefore she was quite insulted that he had fallen for Lily at first sight, why not her? What was better about the redhead?

Everything, Aiza soon learnt. She was smart, passionate, and enthusiastic. Godric, so enthusiastic, only Lily would arrange for a pyjama party to get the first years' closer… yet the envy she thought was normal to feel towards a girl that was obviously better than her never came, as somewhere along the way, Lily's excitement for life became contagious.

They hadn't grow up in the same world, a world where it was common to have bountiful friends yet be completely friendless.

To smile at your face and glare at your back.

Lily was vivid colour… and somehow, she managed to flow onto the interchangeable greys that was Aiza's life.

"That essay McGonagall set sure was something; I only just got it done."

Aiza's lips quirked, only Remus would make sure all his homework was done before going out.

Before Lily could respond in agreement a rasping sound caught their attention and Lily jumped to her feet and Aiza took the chance to glance up at Remus who also turned to the noise.

He had cleaned up... it was hard to tell with Remus because he was always clean shaven, she'd never even seen him with the slightest bit of stubble, his sandy hair so neat that Aiza wanted to just ruffle it up, ruffle him up really, he was always so stiff and polite.

Lily's comment was due to the bottle green sweater he wore that Aiza knew had been a gift from Mrs. Potter for his last birthday, and it made his eyes sparkle a definable jade hue rather than its usual brownish-green. He wore a familiar black robe, something Aiza had seen him use often which fit him snuggly at the shoulders, stressing against his tapered form.

She also noticed that he's usual colour had returned, he had looked pale the last few days, something she related to stress over his mother who was sickly. He'd often leave school to visit home, his most recent departure a week back.

"Aiza!" Her attention snapped as his green eyes met hers, his voice filled with concern, "Aiza, Lily's talking to you!"

"Of course she is." She drawled unfazed; it was a reflex reaction to her. She turned to the redhead who was currently occupied with banging on the back of a choking boy, the sound of gagging suddenly invading Aiza's attention.

She stood, taking in the doubled over first years with a frown… it looked like they were poisoned?

She stepped back from the rasping girl in front of her as Mary startled awake. "What's going on?"

"Don't! Don't touch the cupcakes! Stop eating it!" Lily was aiming her wand at the redhead boy who had been nothing but crude the whole night, trying to cease his choking with a spell.

Suddenly and eerily it all went quiet, a heartbeat of silence that echoed through the room.

And then a noise that made Aiza cringe resounded about the room and she backed into Remus.

Crying.

Loud, wailing, blubbering sounds amidst a popping sound that Aiza usually associated with her father's apparition home.

She felt thumping at her bare legs, and she scuttled behind Remus, who was yet to react to the situation that seemed to have descended upon them.

"Oh Godric!" Lily snapped, stepping away from what was once a twelve-year-old boy, but now was a baby with a crop of ginger hair. She glanced up, completely baffled as a blonde baby crawled towards her, screaming his ears off just as Aiza felt sticky slobber at her thigh.

"Mama?"

"No!" Aiza squealed, clutching Remus' arm as the little wispy blonde girl stared up at her expectantly.

"Potter! Potter! You did this! You spiked my cupcakes with age potion!" Lily turned to the boys at the fireplace who were all grinning in ill-disguised glee. Aiza glanced up at Remus who was looking down at her for the first time in days, his eyes brimming with amusement, and she narrowed her own at him.

He wouldn't!

He didn't!

"He can't have Lily, we never left them out of our sight!" Mary squealed, a black-haired baby in her arm who was swallowed by the shirt he had been wearing, his trousers were a puddle on the floor beneath them. He was the only one of the boys that was not wailing, staring down at Mary with black eyed interest.

"Mama-"

"I told you, no!" Aiza's voice was high pitched in fright, that blonde girl just wouldn't leave her alone, her slobbery hands clutching at her night dress as she chased her around Remus.

"See Evans, your accusations… they wound me. If I were you, I would worry about containing the situation, lest McGonagall hears and comes up, she won't be impressed that you've got her firsties turned into babies."

"She'd understand when I tell her it was YOUR doing!" Lily was holding a baby at arm's length, fretting about which way to carry him as she jostled the little creature in her arms.

"Probably." Potter shrugged, "Though it would be a sad excuse to explain away a death, don't you think?" Lily stared blankly at the black-haired boy and he smirked, "Brown's heading towards the fire." Aiza watched as the baby crawled to the fireplace, absentmindedly evading capture from the persistent girl who was steadfastly pursuing her.

Lily set the one she had down on the rug and darted for the other baby, catching him about a foot away from the flames which flickered off his blue eyes, he was transfixed to silence by the radiance and warmth before him.

"Your bum is big!" Aiza jumped as she felt tiny hands pat her silk covered bottom like a drum and she turned, a green-eyed girl laughing up at her.

"Well, your teeth are crooked!" She retorted, straightening up, her words having absolutely no effect on the child… Her bum was not big.

"Look, Aiza, you watch over the girls, for some reason they haven't turned into complete babies-"

"What! No!" Aiza screamed, running after Lily as she began wrestling a chess piece out of one of the baby's chubby little fingers.

"Here. This should keep them busy, take them to that corner!" Mary pushed a box into Aiza, half the contents falling onto the floor as she ran after two babies that were trying to eat Burke's cat.

"Are you my new mummy?" Aiza looked down at a quiet black-haired girl. Lily was right, the girls weren't babies, they looked to be around four years old, chubby faces, their pyjama tops hanging onto them like dresses.

"No…I'm your…"

"Babysitter." Aiza glanced down at Remus as he kneeled to be eye level with the child, pulling her fat little finger away from her mouth and holding her hand, "She's looking after you guys for a while. Is that okay?"

The girl nodded and Aiza's discomfort ebbed away slowly at Remus' voice which was as gentle as it was charming.

"Oooh. I want to paint your nails!" Aiza pulled her hands away from the grasping child as she heard a familiar chuckle.

It was of course Remus, who seemed to have snapped out of his older brother persona and now was gazing at her with absolute amusement on his face.

He bowed down extravagantly, his bright eyes never breaking contact and a grin so roguish on his face Aiza had to fight to keep her face straight, "Enjoy."

He turned to walk away but stopped as one of the girls clung to his legs, "No! You can't go, you have to get a manticore too!"

"A what?"

"A blue one to match your jumper." The raven-haired girl tugged at his hand and it was Aiza's turn to smirk as Remus had no choice but to let the child drag him to the armchair.

Aiza squirmed as she felt something wet at her calf, "Did you just lick me!"

It was the same child that was using her derriere as bongo drums before, her little head tilted in contemplation, "You look like chocolate, but you don't taste like chocolate."

Before Aiza could even begin contemplating responding to that she was shoved forward, "Sit!"

The blonde moaned, pushing Aiza by the butt to the space next to Remus… if you could even call it a space.

Aiza and Mary fit snuggly in the armchair, she and Remus on the other hand… half her left thigh was on his black slacks, her night dress hitching up to a level that even she thought was erring towards indecent. She looked up, expecting to see him staring down at their thighs like she had been, but instead his eyes were steadily on the little girl who was rummaging in the box of nail polish that Mary had given them moments ago.

A spittle of anger zinged through her. It was one thing to not talk to her, but it was quite something else to be unfazed in a situation that would have riled up any other hot-blooded male.

Would he have even noticed her tonight?

Godric, Aiza had never had to have a thought such as that before. Everybody noticed her. Everybody leered at her with envy or appreciation.

Except Remus John Lupin.

"Pink or purple." The blonde held out a shade of red and blue, she had settled at Aiza's feet, next to the sleeping first year that was snoring slightly. She was the only one of them that hadn't changed, considering she was asleep and therefore didn't eat any of the cupcakes.

Aiza glanced about the room. Lily had managed to group all the babies in a circular sort of play pen which she transfigured elaborately from an armchair near the fireplace and Mary was giving them bottles of milk from Godric knows where, whilst James, Black and Peter watched with glee in the background.

"It won't last long." Remus looked to the little girl at his feet whose black hair was half in the box of nail polish, but Aiza knew his words were for her, "It should wear off in an hour or so."

"You need to take off your shoes if I'm going to give you a pedigree!" The blonde wrestled off Aiza's bedroom slippers.

Aiza swallowed, hoping that he didn't feel her do it at their closeness. Remus had his right arm across the back of the armchair to allow more room and she was fit into the hollow underneath.

It was almost as if they were cuddling.

Unsettled by the heat that seemed to bubble within her, Aiza cleared her throat, "I thought it was suspicious that those two didn't go for Lucky's party. I suppose you helped concoct this plan?"

"No, but I did push them towards this option, the other options they had planned were much too… volatile."

Aiza turned and stared at the boy, aware that her elbow was cushioned by his stomach, "Opposed to turning a bunch of first years into bumbling idiots?"

"Hey!" The brunette who licked Aiza before stated with a funny amount of sass for her age. She was currently mixing green and orange nail polish on a scrap of parchment that Lily used for charade titles. "You can't say the'I'word or your mummy will scold."

She scoffed, "My mummy would scold meIword or noIword." She glanced at her blonde pedicurist, "And would you try and paint on my nail and not my skin, didn't you learn to colour within the lines?"

"I think she's doing a great job considering the talons she has to work with." Remus chuckled and Aiza turned back to him, the action pushing her shoulder into his chest, and she physically felt the sound die off within him.

"Talons? You're one to talk." The jibe had no basis in fact as she looked down at his hands. It was by no means well-manicured, but it was neat. Trimmed nails on large hands, lined and slightly calloused, a man's hand. So different from the kind of hands Aiza was used to, slight and soft and manicured like a girl's… In contrast these hands would make your skin prickle when they brushed against you… could cup your whole cheek in just the palm… could probably pin you up-

"Is she your girlfriend?" The brunette asked as she stared in wonder at the new colour she seemed to have created.

"Don't be a poop. I'm doing his manticore, I'm his girlfriend. We're going to be married." The black-haired girl beamed up at Remus as she painted his whole fore finger with electric blue nail polish, he smiled at her affectionately and Aiza squirmed in her seat.

"But do you like chocolate?" The brunette was obviously full of questions.

"Erm," Remus chuckled, "I do."

"Don't lick her then, she may look it, but she doesn't taste like chocolate." She leaned forward to lick at the nail polish and Aiza snapped the parchment away from her.

"Must you try and eat everything you get your hands on! You'll end up fat one day."

"Fat like you." She giggled and Aiza glared.

"She has a big bum." Remus' manicurist chuckled up at him and Aiza felt like kicking the girl but took a deep breath instead. "Don't you think so?"

"Of course. Massive." Remus added and Aiza glared at him.

"I suppose you like that in a girl considering-"

"Oh Aiza, don't do that. Don't pick on Evelyn, you're better than that."

It was like being hit with a stunner, a stunner that froze you from the outside and burned you from the inside as his words sunk in.

Remus Lupin would forever be an exception because he was probably the only boy who said that she was better than anything… and truly believed it.

"Jasmine!" Aiza turned away from his penetrating stare and gazed at the girl unfocused, "I said I need your other leg."

"My name is Aiza, not Jasmine." Her tone lacked its usual ire due to the girl's large blue eyes which were too big for her pudgy little face… why did they have to be so damn cute?

"Nope." She stated as her little tongue stuck out as she concentrated on dipping the tiny brush into the bottle, "You're Jasmine, and he's Aladdin, and that's your flying carpet." She gestured carelessly at the scarlet rug, specks of purple nail polish flicking about at the motion.

"Are you sure James didn't add firewhiskey to his age potion."

"Actually… I made the potion. James and Sirius are a little careless at potions and I thought if they were going to do this I might as well have arranged for everyones safety. That's why the girls didn't become babies, the concentration was quite dilute, and it would seem the boys gobbled too many… hence."

He gestured at the transfigured playpen and Aiza was surprised to see James making a funny face to entertain two babies as Lily walked towards the girls' dorms, glancing back nervously as if regretting her decision to leave the children in his care. Peter and Mary had another two, trying to get them to sleep, whilst the last two were wide awake as Sirius tossed a scrunched-up ball of parchment which they crawled after, retrieved and returned, just for the act to be repeated.

Sirius Black was playing fetch with the babies.

Remus turned back to Aiza, smiling as he let the child have his other hand, "And she's talking about a muggle fairy tale, Aladdin… where a measly street urchin falls in love with a princess well out of his reach and league."

"And?" His hand slipped from the top of the armchair and Aiza tried to not react to the warm limb at her back.

Remus laughed but there was something bitter about it, un-Remus like, "Well, it's a fairy tale Aiza. Aladdin and Jasmine lived happily ever after… the end."

"You don't like that?" She felt his fingers graze her right elbow as they settled on the armrest.

"No, I loved it as a child. My mother read it to me often."

"And now?" Her voice was a whisper for some unknown reason, just audible to him.

The smile remained upon his face, but he was anything but smiling, his eyes darkening with the gleam of secrets that pulled Aiza in, "And now I know why fairy tales are named such."

It was the slightest, most fleeting of gentle touches that Aiza felt at her waist, and for one infinite moment Remus had his arm around her, staring down at her with eyes so clear she could see her reflection in them. And gazing up at him was a complete stranger, a slight, innocent girl that yearned for him with every pore of her being.

Sole occupants of this universe…

And with an ear-piercing scream the moment shattered and every dark secret faded back into his eyes as he started, jumping to his feet as Aiza clambered after him just as James Potter dashed to the girls' dormitory and the source of the sound, a single word gutturally ripped from his throat.

"Evans!"

As always, reviews are greatly appreciated, I'd love to know what you think of Aiza now that you know a little bit more about her!

Thank you for reading,

Kalina