The Fifth Marauder
They take an Uber back to campus when they’re done, around midnight, James leaving his car parked in town. Remus gets the feeling the other three could have stayed out a good bit longer, but Peter’s face was turning worryingly red, and Remus didn’t want to be too terribly tired the next day. He has them drop him off at Lily’s dorm instead of his own—he’s still very drunk, although he’s sobered up a bit after drinking a bottle of water in the car—and desperately needs to unload everything that he just witnessed and somehow ended up contributing to.
He doesn’t bother knocking, or worrying about Lily being asleep. She’s a nursing student, sleep is a relatively foreign concept to her. Her usual bedtime isn’t until around two in the morning at the earliest.
Lily does seem surprised to see him, though, as he’s usually dead asleep by eleven.
Remus collapses on Lily’s bed, disturbing a stack of textbooks on the edge that go toppling over, hitting the floor noisily.
“Um, hello to you too.” Lily says. Her face appears in Remus’ line of sight, hair falling into his face and tickling his cheeks. Mild concern knits Lily’s brows together. “You okay?” She asks.
“No.” Remus groans, flopping over onto the bed. “I’m an idiot Lily.” He says into her duvet.
“I mean, you have your moments. What happened?”
“I got drinks with James.”
“I’m aware.”
“And Sirius was there.”
“I figured he would be.”
Remus flips right back over. “What?”
Lily shrugs with a falsely innocent smile. “He and James are attached at the hip, it would be a miracle if he wasn’t there.”
“And you didn’t tell me this for… why?”
“Fun?”
“Lily!”
“What else could I have done?”
“Told me!”
“You hate his guts!”
“Exactly!”
“But you love James! I didn’t want to be the one to ruin that! He can be really charming when he’s not…” Lily’s eyes widen and she snaps her mouth closed. Remus wouldn’t have though there words at all suspicious had she not cut herself off so suddenly, like she was catching herself from saying something stupid.
“Not what?”
Lily doesn’t say anything, mouth opening and closing Like a a fish out of water, trying to come up with something.
“Not what, Lily?”
“Um…”
“Lily?”
“Not chasing after you.” She says, cringing, not making direct eye contact.
Remus is p and sitting in a flash.
“No!” He gasps “James?” Lily nods, ashamed, like this is her greatest regret. “James is your secret admirer, and you’re off chasing Mary?”
“I mean have you seen Mary?”
“Yes! She’s terrifying!”
“Exactly!”
Remus can’t help but laugh at that. “Oh my god, Lily, you need therapy.”
Lily waves him away. “That’s a concern for another day. You still haven’t told me what happened tonight.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I was a bit distracted by my best friend keeping secrets from me!”
“You’ll get over it. Tell me what happened!”
Remus debates pressing the issue, but ultimately decides against it.
“Fine, but you’re not off the hook here.”
“Obviously. Now tell.”
And so Remus does.
“You helped those idiots???” Lily shouts when he’s done.
“Not on purpose!”
“They’re really going to go through with it, you know. Not a lick of common sense between the three of them, I swear to god.”
“Believe me, I know. I couldn’t stop them!”
“No, I don’t think even you could have once they got going.”
Remus groans.
“So what are you going to do about it?” Lily asks.
“Do about it?”
“Yes, you contributed, you’re involved whether you like it or not so… what’re you gonna do about it?”
“You just said there’s nothing I can do!”
“Not to stop them, no.”
“So, what… You want me to help them?”
“They wouldn’t have considered the epi-pens without you, Remus. They’ could’ve ended up really hurting someone without you there.”
“They wouldn’t have had the benadryl idea without me, either.”
“No, but they could have come up with something far worse, and at least you had the common sense to think of the consequences.” “
“What do you want me to do about it, Lily?”
“At this point?” She asks “Be their voice of reason so no one ends up in prison.”
Remus falls back onto the bed, hands over his face as if that can block out this show shit-show.
“Have you seen those three?” It would take a miracle.”
“Yeah. You.”
“You do it. The only reason they dragged me into this was because of your idea to sabotage their performance.”
“Absolutely not.”
“If you care so much, why not do it yourself?”
“The only reason I give two shits is because you and James are friends and you’d hate yourself if he got himself into some mess you couldn’t prevented. If it were me, I’d let them go through with it and deal with the consequences.”
“What if I want to do that?”
“You don’t”
And goddamnit, if Lily isn’t right. Why does she always have to be right?