Chapter 6
It had been a week since the conversation between Remus and Y/N. In those 7 days, Y/N had began to notice some small changes in her everyday life. They weren't particularly big differences, but for her, it took some adjusting.
For example, the morning after the Gryffindor party, she had come down to breakfast to a table of seriously hungover, ghastly looking classmates that all looked as though they were on the verge of throwing up or passing out altogether. This, of course, was nothing that she didn't experience every year.
However, what she did notice was Remus Lupin looking up at her through dark, exhausted eyes and smiling at her. Now that was new. On top of this, Lily Evans was quick to spot Y/N make her entrance and call her over to sit with them.
"Y/N!" she called out, waving, "Come over here, we're all in desperate need of any spell you know that can cure a hangover!"
Y/N actually pitied the 4 girls and 4 boys that sat in front of her. As she walked over and took a seat next to Lily, she gave them all a sympathetic smile.
"I don't think there are any spells for a hangover," she said, watching Sirius and James' faces fall, "But in the muggle world, usually greasy food and energy drinks help."
"God, if I tried to eat anything right now I might puke all over the table." Peter moaned, holding his head in his hands in discomfort.
"No, she is right. My parents told me the same thing." Lily said, as she eyed up the bacon that stared at her from her plate. Clearly, she was in no state to be eating anything either.
"Damn it L/N, I would've thought you'd know another solution to hangovers besides muggle ones." Sirius said as he tried to stomach a plain piece of toast.
"Well, magic is good, but not that good. There might be a potion but-" she was cut off suddenly by James Potter, who gasped loudly.
"Your potions thing! Moony, how was it?" he asked, all eyes suddenly falling on Remus. He looked up from a mug of what appeared to be hot chocolate, and shrugged his shoulders.
"Yeah, good," he said, meeting Y/N's eyes, "Feeling pretty confident seeing as Y/N's my partner for it."
"God, I wish Slughorn had paired me up with you, Y/N. I have no idea how I ended up in the OWLs Advanced Class, but being partnered with Bellatrix has to be one of the worst things that has ever happened to me." Alice complained, her face long with annoyance. Y/N was in agreement with her there - if Alice found potions difficult, she was about to find it a whole lot more tedious.
"Hey, my dear cousin is nothing short of charming. How could you say such a thing!" Sirius mocked, emitting a small giggle from the forlorn Alice.
"Charming and beautiful." James added, joining in.
"Well Alice, if you do need help, just let me know." Y/N said quietly, offering the girl an encouraging smile.
After that, the group's attention turned towards the events of last night - such as where exactly Lily and James ran off to, and what on earth Teresa was thinking when Sirius decided to snog her face off in the corner of the room. Of course, Y/N had little to contribute to the conversation, having not been there, but on a few occasions she met Remus' gaze, and wondered if he had anything to do with the group's rather tender acceptance of the usually anti-social witch.
...
By the end of the week, Remus Lupin could feel the affects of the next full moon already taking its toll. When he stood up too quickly, he felt dizzy, and in the early mornings his limbs ached terribly as if he'd spent the night climbing mountains. On Sunday night, as he got ready for bed, Sirius brought it up.
"You feeling alright, Moony?" he asked, watching his friend carefully as he winced from the effort of standing up.
"Yeah, just, knackered. The usual." he replied, pulling on a grey t-shirt over his scar covered body.
"Maybe you should ask Madame Pomfrey to excuse you from lessons tomorrow?" James suggested as he took off his glasses and placed them carefully on his bedside table. Remus shook his head.
"No, I'll be fine. Plus, tomorrow night I need to work on the assignment with Y/N. She might lose her mind if I don't show up this week." he said, not wanting to admit to his friends that he'd actually been looking forward to his night in the library with Y/N. After their chat in the Common Room six nights before, he'd spoken to Lily about the whole episode. Lily, who'd always had a soft heart, told him that she'd felt bad for Y/N and her lack of friends - she promised Remus that's she'd try and involve her more in the social side of school, even if it meant just sitting with her at lunch.
"So what?" Peter barged in, "It's only Y/N."
"Oh shut up Wormtail mate," Sirius said, rolling his eyes, "Have any of you lot noticed that she seems a lot more sociable this year?"
"I was thinking about that. It's like she'd slowly coming out of her shell," James replied, "After the first day, she hasn't snapped at us once. Even you, Pads."
"Maybe little Miss L/N is warming up to me." the long-haired Casanova winked. Remus cleared his throat, not wanting to reveal the fact that it was him that she'd spoken to about feeling lonely, but also hating the way that Sirius joked about her. After a week, the young werewolf hadn't gotten any closer to finding out the reason why he seemed so consumed by Y/N's odd ways. At first, he thought it was something to do with him just feeling sorry for her, but after finding himself thinking about her face and her voice before he fell asleep every night, he wasn't so sure.
"She's probably just getting more confident, I don't know." Remus shrugged. Peter stared at the boy, his eyes narrowed.
"What was she like last Monday, in the library?" the stubby boy asked.
"Yeah, you never actually told us much about it." James added, clearly just as curious as to why all of a sudden Y/N had gone from resenting the Marauders and their affiliations, to tolerating them every mealtime in the Great Hall.
"She was...fine," Remus said slowly, feeling all three of his friend's eyes on him, "She was a bit snappy at first, I guess. But she was okay after a little while. It was like if any of you were studying with a girl. Just normal."
"Well if I was 'studying' with a girl, I would be studying a little more than just Potions, if you know what I mean," Sirius joked, running a hand through his hair as he watched himself in the mirror, "Trying to tell us something, Moony?"
"God, you're mental, Pads." Remus replied, clenching his jaw a little at the insinuation.
"Hey, we wouldn't judge. If I was in your shoes, I'd take her to the Room of Requirement every Monday night." Black said, lacking the usual jovial tone in his voice that told the boys that he wasn't lying.
"Ew. I wouldn't." Peter grimaced. Sirius and Remus both looked at him and laughed.
"Mate, the only reason you'd be in the Room of Requirement with Y/N is if she was going to practise some of the Unforgivable Curses on your sorry arse." Remus said, finding Peter's unimpressed expression even funnier than the idea of any girl (let alone Y/N) wanting to spend time alone with the boy.
"Don't worry Petey, you'll grow up one day and start appreciating the finer women of the world." Sirius grinned, walking over and patting Peter's shoulder mockingly.
A few hours later, when the sounds of 3 snoring boys filled the dormitory, Remus lay staring at the ceiling quietly. Of course, there was only one person on his mind, as seemed to be the case every night. Now that the two of them had broken the surface of the ice, Remus felt less anxious about his library session with Y/N tomorrow, and actually a little excited. She was like a book to him - every time they seemed to speak, he understood more and more about her.
He thought back to Sirius' comment from earlier - the 'finer women of the world'. Remus concluded that she really was a finer girl than most at Hogwarts. She was capable, witty, conserved, and timelessly pretty. She was a bundle of mysteries. He was infatuated by it.
This infatuation with Y/N's character led Remus to lean over out of bed, and slowly open the drawer next to him so as not to wake up any of the boys. It was 1:00a.m, and the half-moon shone into the room through lightly frosted windows, giving the boy enough light to locate the weathered piece of parchment that lay innocently in the bedside table. As he picked it up, he felt a tingle of guilt - as if he was spying on someone that clearly didn't want to be spied on. But after his friends' confessions, when they'd revealed that they'd been watching Y/N's strange late-night habits, he told himself that really it wasn't that big of a deal.
"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good," he whispered, tapping the parchment with his wand, before muttering "Lumos."
The Marauder's Map - the group's finest invention to date - gradually revealed its inky magic. To his surprise, the message on the front of the map seemed to know exactly what Remus' intentions were:
Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs ask that their dear Moony considers what he's getting himself into before opening this map.
Remus' brows furrowed. It was as if the map was trying to make him feel guiltier about spying on Y/N. But of course, curiosity killed the cat (or the wolf), and the boy ignored the words and noiselessly opened the fragile piece of parchment. He was met with a full diagram of the school, with all of its corridors and passageways.
First, Remus used his finger to trace the names in the Gryffindor girl's dormitory - Lily Evans, Alice Fortescue, Sasha Monnet, Teresa Berlitz...no Y/N. 'Strange', he thought to himself. Next, his eyes searched for the library. The werewolf felt certain that if the witch he was looking for wasn't in her bed, then she'd be in the library. But no, the only name he found anywhere near the library was the dreadful Argus Filch, who was doing his rounds around the school like a bad smell.
Remus' wracked his mind. Where on earth was she?
And then he saw it. Y/N L/N, written right in front of him, with small footsteps making circles in the astronomy tower. 'Of course,' Remus thought to himself, 'Sirius mentioned he'd seen her on the map wandering around the astronomy tower.'
His eyes traced the circling footsteps. She was all alone up there, doing God-knows what. Was she practising charms? Brewing potions? Watching the stars and noting them on an astrology chart? It was bizarre.
Then, the footsteps stopped. She was stood on the balcony, unmoving. Remus found himself holding his breath as he waited for something, anything to happen - all he wanted was a clue as to why Y/N was up there.
"Moony." a voice called out. Remus looked up and froze. Sirius was sat upright, his eyes open sleepily, staring back at him.
"Yes?" Remus asked, afraid his friend would catch him using the map to watch Y/N's movements. He felt like a creep.
"Whomping Willow broke my broom." Sirius sighed, before lying back down again and letting out a snore. As he did, Remus let out a long breath of relief. The stupid boy was sleep talking, and the werewolf had almost gone into cardiac arrest because of it. When he looked back down at the map, he was puzzled to see that Y/N's name had vanished from the astronomy tower completely. If he hadn't felt like such a stalker in that moment, he would've traced the map again for her, but his morals got the better of him.
"Please don't tell the others, map. Mischief Managed." he whispered, before hurriedly placing the map back into its hiding place, turning his wand's light off, and forcing himself to sleep.
...
The next morning, Y/N rose with a strange sense of anticipation. Yes, it was a Monday, which meant a fresh week lay ahead (something she always enjoyed), but today was different. She wondered, as she got ready, whether it was because she had a 2 hour long lesson with Professor Slughorn today. After all, he was by far the most engaging professor in the school. But even 120 minutes spent in the mystical world of potions wasn't enough to get Y/N feeling so unusually spritely. Perhaps it was because she knew that, for the first time in her life, she had people to sit with at breakfast? But mostly that just gave her anxiety, having still not quite gotten used to the new ritual.
It wasn't until she found herself spending more time on her hair that morning than usual that she realised her newfound anticipation was down to the study session that she was soon to share with Remus Lupin that evening. It was a funny, foreign feeling to her - she wanted to look nice, she was thinking of ways to make conversation, and most importantly, she wasn't dreading the evening ahead.
As she braided one side of her hair, she found herself in a funny sort of daydream. She thought of cigarettes, thick knitted sweaters, and golden eyes. She pictured a tall boy towering over her, and could almost smell notes of chocolate and musk. It wasn't before Lily Evans emerged from the dormitory bathroom that she was interrupted from her daydream and brought back to the present with a pleasant "Good morning, Y/N", that nearly made her jump out of her skin.
"Hello, Lily. How are you?" Y/N asked, looking away from the mirror and offering a warm smile to the red-headed girl that was fondly returned.
"All right, just tired. I'm still not used to the early school mornings," she sighed, "Your hair looks pretty like that. I wish I could plait my hair."
"Why don't I do it for you?" Y/N offered. Although the witch was still warming up to the other girls and boys she found herself surrounded by in her 5th year, the one person she felt the most comfortable around was Lily. So when Lily accepted the offer excitedly, Y/N rushed over and took a seat behind the girl's head, before tenderly getting to work on her beautiful scarlet locks.
"How did you learn to do this?" Lily asked the girl behind her , "Did your Mum teach you?"
Y/N's grip tightened a little on Lily's hair at the mention of her mother, although thankfully not hard enough for her to notice. She cleared her throat.
"No, actually, I taught myself. I found a tutorial in a magazine a few years ago." Y/N lied. She thought back to when her mother had spent hours braiding her hair everyday for primary school, but quickly banished the thoughts. Her parents were not a topic she liked to speak about, let alone ponder over.
"Wow. I'm crap at anything to do with hair. That's why I just leave mine down." Lily said.
"Your hair is so lovely, you don't need to tie it up." Y/N replied kindly. Secretly, she had always been a little envious of Lily Evans' thick, glossy hair. No spell or potion could get her hair to look like hers did - she'd already tried them all.
"You're sweet," Lily smiled as Y/N tied off the end of the first braid, "Can I ask you a question?"
"Sure."
"Why do you dislike James and his friends so much?" Lily asked, sounding genuinely interested as to why Y/N had avoided them for so long. Y/N was taken aback a little that people had seemed to notice, but played it off.
"I used to. I thought they were all stupid, and not worth the time," Y/N explained, "But I've started to think that maybe I've been too harsh the last few years. They're just boys."
Lily giggled, moving her head slightly and causing Y/N to momentarily lose her grip on her hair. She quickly fixed the problem as she spoke.
"I know what you mean. I used to think the same way. I hated how they treated Severus - y'know, the boy in Slytherin? We used to be good friends, but these days I'm not so sure. Until 4th year, the only one I ever really had time for was Remus."
This resonated with Y/N - after all, it was Remus who'd reached out to her only a week before, and it was Remus who'd been stuck in her head ever since.
"Lupin's the one I can tolerate the most, actually. He used to irritate me, but now we're both working on this Potions assignment together, I don't think he's so bad." Y/N said, thinking back to the Monday night before when they'd shared their first civilised conversation in the library.
"I think he was a bit scared of you before that," Lily laughed, "But he's lovely, really. I think he's afraid to let you down, with the Potions project and all."
"You think? If I'd known it mattered to him so much, I probably would've gone a bit easier on him..." Y/N thought out loud. Lily was observant - she could hear the change in Y/N's tone. It was softer, more airy. It got the red-headed girl thinking.
"Oh, Remus is a very passive person. He doesn't really dwell on things. Just give him a chance, you'll see." Lily said, before catching a glimpse of herself in the mirror and seeing that Y/N had finished her handiwork. She'd twisted her usually straight hair into two beautiful dutch braids that trailed down her back.
"Do you like it?" Y/N asked, feeling apprehensive as Lily walked towards the mirror and stared at her hair.
"Like it? Y/N, I love it!" she squealed, running over to her fellow witch and giving her a tight hug, "My hair's never looked so good. You might have to do it every day, now!"
Y/N laughed, a warm feeling rushing over her as she watched the girl's bright face beam at her. It was such an unknown feeling for Y/N, to have a friend actually thank her and hug her. In that moment, she felt better than she had done in years.
"Well, I don't mind. I'm just glad you like it." she grinned.
"C'mon, let's go to breakfast. I need to show Alice and Sasha and Teresa your skills," Lily said, grabbing Y/N's hands and practically pulling her up from off the bed she'd been sat on, "Sometimes I wonder if there's anything you can't do."
"Oh trust me, there's a lot." Y/N said. Her smile didn't fade all morning.