Remus Lupin was simply sitting down. He was sitting down, just having finished an exam for which he had avidly studied for. Luckily upon taking the test his mind and hours of studying with Lily the week before had not failed him.
Feeling lighter, he was finally on the same page as Sirius and James. He was able to make quips about the ease of the test just like they did. He was finally able to relax with his new favorite muggle fiction. But Remus completely underestimated how much his friend’s latest choice of utter chaos would be difficult to ignore.
Lily Evans, however, was not going to ignore a thing.
“LEAVE HIM ALONE!”
Nope, Remus was just going to sit down next to his friend Peter and enjoy his book. Ignoring the chaos in the background.
“it’s more the fact that he exists, if you know what I mean. …”
Remus felt his friend Peter sitting up next to him and he suddenly felt the urge to look up.
“I wouldn’t go out with you if it was a choice between you and the giant squid,” said Lily.
There was suddenly a crowd and many voices and Remus truly had no choice but to look up.
Look up from his book he did but he directed his eyes even higher when the image of Severus Snape himself was dangling in the air by his foot, and Remus had an inkling Snape would be wearing trousers with his school robes more often now.
Remus nonchalantly watched James and Lily quarrel as Sirius cackled, he sighed knowing James was ruining any chance he had yet again.
Prongs and Padfoot finally let him drop after Lily’s threats and then suddenly, “I don’t need help from filthy little Mudbloods like her!”
Now Remus had to take a pause, for the first time an expression of shock actually forming on his face, matching with the gasps of the crowd and Wormtail’s raised eyebrows.
Remus looked around at the crowd, finding an assortment of Hufflepuffs, some second or third year Slytherins and one or two Ravenclaw seventh years looking up from their studies as well.
“I don’t want you to make him apologize,” Lily shouted, rounding on James.
“You’re as bad as he is. …” “What?” yelped James. “I’d NEVER call you a — youknow-what!”
Remus, upon scanning the scene, did not see any other of their fellow Gryffindors other than the four marauders and Lily.
“You make me SICK.” Lily screamed. Remus could truly see the distress and a linger of heartbreak on her face. Yes, Remus would silently be siding with Lily on this one, James had surely taken it too far this time.
“Reading between the lines, I’d say she thinks you’re a bit conceited, mate,” said Sirius. Remus had rolled his eyes at Sirius’ remark, a smirk almost grazing his lips before his mind reminded himself of the situation.
Remus stood, watching as Lily fled the scene, ready to follow her.
The truth was, Remus loved his friends, he really did. He was not only in debt to them but their loyal connection meant that they would always choose each other. Even with all their faults. His friends were willing to overlook the entire werewolf thing, even have fun with it.
This also meant Remus could excuse James and Sirius and their crave for greatness. Naturally, they were the best in the school at whatever they did — no wonder Snape had such a vendetta against the whole group.
The truth was Remus could even relate to him a bit, even if he doesn’t like the weird possessive git, Remus sometimes also gets jealous of them, their popularity, their skills, even their multiversal friendship. Everyone thought they were the height of cool — excuse Lily of course. Remus is almost positive Pete felt the same way. They had each other though, and Snape had Lily, he supposes. Maybe not now though, hopefully.
Anyway, so if they sometimes got a bit carried away Remus was a thousand percent willing to go back to their sides again because if he were to rip Snape’s neck off on a full moon James, maybe Peter, and definitely Sirius, considering how mad he was, were always willing to go back to his side. Beautifully smart idiots they were. That was a comfort and a privilege for Remus. One he never could have imagined he would have.
However, Sirius and James were fine now. But they were completely ignorant of just how hurt Lily was. So now Remus was good to leave his friends with their crowd and Remus went to follow Lily to where she had run to the outside corridors of the School.
Remus could see Lily wiping her eyes aggressively, he quickly sped walk to her in the empty corridor, all the students being back outside or in the library.
“Lily! Lils!” Remus finally caught up to her, about to rest his hands on his book bag just to have something to do with them. However he realized he had left his book and bag at the tree.
Lily Evans, his somewhat friend since first year but now his official, possible best friend for the past year. They both had come closer, with her admitting she figured out his secret after one of their silent but comfortable nights in the library.
She turned around to face him, tears streaming down her face. She seemed to have recognized his voice and was content to cry in front of him. Remus had to admit his anxiety peaked at the thought of being in charge of emotionally comforting her. But that was what he came to do so he would have to be a Gryffindor and push past his cowardness.
Lily looked at him for a second and she took a deep breath. Sighing and looking at the floor.
“Hi, I honestly can’t believe he said that. Are you alright?” Remus’ face twitched, he hoped it showed some sort of remorseful expression.
Lily also furrowed her eyebrows a bit, making aggressive eye contact with him. Remus suddenly observed that in front of him Lily had poked her tongue into her cheek and there seemed to be some sort of realization on her face as she looked down and then looked up at him again. Remus suddenly saw a completely different look in Lily’s green eyes than there were a second ago, something that he never had seen before. However he still recognized it.
Lily was angry.
Which was incredibly natural, but Remus couldn’t fathom why on earth she was looking at him like that. Usually reserved for yelling at James or slightly when she was discussing her sister Petunia.
“Really? That’s what you ask?” Lily sighed but with a bit of hardness in her voice. She raised her eyebrows at him, the tears suddenly stopped falling.
“Whaddya mean?” Remus asked, confused. He raised an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side at her sudden aggressiveness.
“I just mean,” she looked up, “that entire time we were there you just sat there and did nothing.” Her voice getting higher.
“What?” Remus was incredibly confused now. Maybe he was confused. What exactly was she implying?
“You just sat there. Didn’t eleven try to help!”
“Wha-”
“Like you always do!”
There was a slight pause where Remus just looked at Lily. His brain taking a moment to process. Not just what she was saying but mostly that Lily was actually yelling at him. Remus tried to approach this calmly, like he practiced but he was getting kind of annoyed.
“Can I ask again, what exactly do you mean?”
“What do I mean?!” She was looking up and waving her arms around. She stumbled as she got her next few words out. “You- You never do anything! I try so hard to get them to stop! James and Sirius! They always think they can get away with everything and I'm just trying to be responsible! Trying to do the right thing!”
“I’m, sorry Lils, are you seriously blaming me for this right now?” Now it was Remus’ turn to raise his voice and make gestures with his hands.
Remus couldn’t believe what he was hearing. His mouth moved quicker than his words. But all he could really process was that someone who he had previously thought understood him was now turning her back on him. He hadn’t even done anything.
“How are you possibly blaming me? I had nothing to do with this!”
“You- Potter and Black are your friends!” Lily’s voice was getting angrier but yet somehow quieter now, like she hadn’t expected to become so angry. Remus however, since becoming a teenager, was well used to getting angry.
“Yes, and?”
“And! You see them practically bullying someone and you don’t think to step in? Some Gryffindor you are!”
“Are you joking?” Remus got closer to Lily, his neck bending down to look at her. “Bullying? Sure- call it that. But it's truly nothing worse than what Snape and James have done to each other in the past.”
“Still! You could have done something. I always have to step in whenever Potter and Black do this! To be honest Remus, I thought better of you.”
“How so?”
“I can’t believe you would be friends with such horrid people!” Even if Lily knew what he was, she still didn’t, couldn’t understand.
“You don’t understand a thing!” Remus pointed his finger at her.
“I don’t need to understand! I just know Potter and Black are arseholes and you are a complete pushover!” Lily was now pointing back.
“I can’t believe this!” Never in the years he had known Lily would he ever think they would be raising their voice at each other like this. He thought for a split second, maybe she was thinking that too.
“How so?” She said, sarcastically repeating his sentence from before. “Honestly Remus, I'm sick of it.”
“I honestly cannot believe this!” Remus shook his head with a mix of anger and shock on his face as he scoffed.
“What?”
“That your honestly blaming me for this!”
“Listen I just mean-”
“No! This is complete crap!” Remus wasn’t normally one to curse angrily but the situation called for it. “Your clearly just angry at what he said to you and now for whatever reason your yelling at me!”
“Am not!” She said.
“I honestly thought better of you.” He said, with more aggressiveness than he originally meant to use. “I didn’t do anything to him! That was James and Sirius. You're just throwing some sort of fit because they got away with humiliating him and in return you were humiliated yourself.”
“How dare you.” Tears were now returning to Lily’s eyes and Remus started to feel truly horrible about himself. But he was too far gone and was going to finish what he had to say.
“How dare I? Lily, you called me a pushover yet you just let him walk over you.” He was referring to Snape, of course, and lily new that.
“Severus does not walk over me! I've said it before and I'll say it again he’s my best friend. Has been since forever!”
“Would a friend call you what he just did?”
Lily looked at him with wet fury, but upon processing his words she looked at the ground.
“At least the only person James and Sirius really torment is him.”
“Exactly! It’s practically bullying! What they do to him!”
“No it’s not. Snape has pulled similar stuff on all four of us! It just looks bad because he has no other friends, unlike James.”
“That doesn’t make it better!”
“Yes but just think for a second! Not everyone is that daft. Maybe if he were actually nice to someone for once instead of being such a creep he would actually gain some friends other than you.”
“That's so unfair! He doesn’t have good social skills and even worse he has a tough time at home.”
“So does Sirius! So do a few other kids at school. But no one snaps at people the way he does.” Remus calmly claims. “No one comments on my scars or snares at others the way he does.”
“That’s only because no one has given him a chance!”
“That’s not true and you know it! It’s not just James, Snape equally hates us as much as we hate him. The difference is we have each other and all he has is you. So now he’s all pathetically possessive over you and don’t think I can’t tell. You’re tired of being friends with him.” Remus knew he was being quite harsh now but Lily’s facial expression hadn’t changed just yet. But she did say-
“Remus, just stop talking now!”
“It’s not ‘cause you're a bad person either, anyone would be tired of having to spend all day with him when all he does is whisper negative comments in your ear and won’t even let you interact with others! James and Sirius aren’t like that! They actually treat their friends kindly! Even when they are disrespectful to others they never turn their back on their friends!”
Lily crossed her arms and looked to the side now, lookin ready to be done with this conversation. “Well Severus is my friend-”
“Yes, but he doesn’t seem like a very good one. You can’t complain to me about him in a few words and expect me to just forget. I never said anything against it because I understood. But now I can’t understand. You want to convince someone Snape is a good person? Go yell at James. But I cannot believe you had the audacity to come and yell at me for this when I was only trying to comfort you after what he said.”
“Remus.Listen to me. You just don’t know him the way I do.” Lily looked at him, tears leaking from her eyes still.
“Really? Who else knows him like you do then? Any of his other friends? Any of the other Slytherins? What about your parents? Do they like him? Your sister? Lily, you have to stop letting him be so possessive over you! You’re your own person! Mary and Marlene don’t say it but I know they think it too! Because he isn’t nice to them either. And you’re actually a great friend, unless you ditch us to go to his beck and call. It’s hard to excuse that when he’s not even a good friend to you.”
“Again, you don’t know how nice he is to me when we are alone!”
“Do I need to? Because either way, good friends don’t call you a mudblood! There's no point in staying friends with someone who isn’t good to anyone, even you.”
“He is good to me.”
“Sure, keep believing that then. Just don’t come complaining about it to me.”
“Remus.” She sighed, looking at him completely drained.
“Just enough. Ok? I’m sorry but I just can’t. Not if you're going to do this.” Remus really didn’t mean to blow up at her like this. It was slowly becoming one of those moments where he lost his temper.
“Please.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say… I can’t keep being friends with you if you're going to keep being friends with him. I can’t watch him treat you like that and after what just happened I'm not any more keen on stopping James and Sirius then I was before. He doesn’t treat you right.”
“I said I don’t want to hear it.”
Remus just looked at her tiredly, the stress from exams and the afternoons events giving him a migraine. “Look, just don’t come to me for this again, alright? I’m done.” He started to turn, ignoring his thoughts about leaving his sobbing friend (ex friend?..) behind.
“Remus wait!” He sensed her taking quick steps towards him.
He turned around and suddenly she came to a stop, not prepared for his sudden movement. “What?”
“You’re my best friend.”
Oh. He thought. And wasn’t that quite nice. Remus sighed and made eye contact with Lily.
“Thanks. I wish you were still mine. But we can’t be friends if you’re going to spend the rest of your life defending how he treats you.”
Lily stood quite speechless, looking down one last time before taking a step back. He did too and suddenly they were both taking steps back and turning away from each other. Both of them returning to where they belonged.