“all the things yet to come…”
“Remus!!!” Someone shouts, immediately followed up by a loud thumping noise. Remus chooses to ignore the voice on the off chance he is dreaming. He turns his head and buries it into the pillow. “Remus John Lupin come open this door right now.” The voice persists, but Remus isn’t phased. “Fine, i’m coming in, you better not be dead.” The voice decides as Remus starts to think maybe this isn’t a dream.
His bedroom door creaks open. “Rem you promised you would go on a walk with me this morning.” and—oh—now that he was fully awake that voice sounds familiar.
“Lily,” he groans, “it’s like eight in the fucking morning.”
“Exactly! A morning walk happens in the morning last time I checked.” He rolls over and catches a glimpse of an eye roll, half obscured by wavy, copper hair.
“Why do you hate me.” Remus frowns.
“I don’t! I love you! Which is exactly why i’m making you go on a walk and take care of yourself!” Lily picks up a pillow and chucks it at his head before crossing her arms and trying to look stern. “Now, let’s go Rem.”
“Jesus, okay.” He finally concedes, exasperated, and makes a move to get up and out of bed. Lily drops her hands to her sides and grins fully before exiting the room.
Remus had met Lily back in his first year of university. He had decided that maybe he ought to try going to a party. It couldn’t be that bad, right? New school, new him! He could be social! Yeah, he was wrong. He ended up spending most of his time there leaning on a wall in the corner while drinking whatever shit they had put out on the counter, it was disgustingly warm.
Just when he was about to give up and decide this whole party thing wasn’t for him, Lily walked right over to him like a goddamn angel. She was wearing brown corduroy flares and a pattered top that was colored with different shades of pink and had bell sleeves. She had emerald eyes and the most kind smile you’ve ever seen and she came up to him. She introduced herself and said the words he had been waiting to hear all night.
“Everyone else here sucks, do you wanna get out of here?”
And here they are a year later, roommates and best friends. Don’t get him wrong, it took a lot of fighting and crying to finally get here. Remus didn’t exactly…let people in easily. He never had someone know him, not really. He tried to push her away when they got close but Lily Evans was not having that. She has been his lighthouse in a storm, she has pulled him out of his hole of despair when he needed it the most, and he has tried his best to do the same for her, he would do anything for her, really.
So, when he finally gets his ass out of bed and gets ready for his “morning walk,” he’s not surprised when she has made him breakfast with tea just as he likes it. He sits down on one of their stools they have sitting next to the kitchen counter and takes a sip of his tea. He burns his tongue, idiot, but still gives Lily the best smile he can manage at his hour. “Have I ever told you you’re an angel?”
“Yes, yesterday, when I made you the same exact tea with a fuck-ton of sugar in it you psychopath.” She says, not unkindly.
“Well, it’s true.” He puts down his drink and scarfs down the everything bagel with cream cheese she had made him. They sit in the kitchen for a minute chatting about nonsense until they both finish their tea and chuck their mugs in the sink.
“Ready?” Lily says with a raised eyebrow, looking him up and down, clearly judging his choice of clothing. I mean, he was wearing a sweater and jeans in august and, yes, it was probably too warm for that, but he likes to be comfortable, sue him. Lily is wearing a pair of dark wash jeans shorts and an Amalfi Coast shirt she had just bought with him the other day. She looks stunning, as always, but he was going to ignore her judgement.
“Yep!” He grins and turns around to head to the door before she can roll her eyes at him.
“You’re gonna regret that later.” She mumbles.
-
About thirty minutes later, he was regretting it. “Holy shit it’s hot out.”
“Dammit Remus what did I say!!”
“I am so sorry Lily. I will listen to you from now on.” He wouldn’t.
“Thank you!” She tosses her hands up as to show that was obvious.
The sun is blazing down on him and he can feel his brown curls start to stick to the nape of his neck. “Seriously though, Lily, can we go inside somewhere? With air conditioning.”
“Yeah, yeah. Come on there’s this place i’ve been meaning to check out that just opened.”
He nods as they continue walking, in silence this time, giving Remus some time to think. It really was a beautiful morning and he is starting to be thankful that Lily had dragged him outside. He can hear the birds chirping, one of his favorite sounds, and the leaves rustling in the wind.
They turn the corner and are met with a short street they have walked down many times since moving here. Remus had chosen to go to this school mostly because it was affordable and he had gotten a scholarship but the more time he spent here the more he grew to love the little town. It was a very small town, they had a few restaurants, one or two bars, and the houses were pretty scattered about, there wasn’t really a neighborhood per se.
Lily and Remus lived in a house surrounded by trees, hence the reason it took them thirty minutes to reach civilization. But Remus didn’t mind the isolation really, he wasn’t built for living in a big city where everything was always moving, he liked taking life slow. He knew what restaurants to go to and which ones were usually really busy. He knew he could get all his shopping done at the one grocery store they had. His life, his town, was small, but it was stable, it was his home.
“Here we are!” Lily says and stops her walking, breaking Remus out of his thoughts.
He looks up at the store, painted white and framed with dark wood. There is a sage green sign at the top that reads Fortescue’s Books in pink cursive writing. The door matches the color of the wood on the outside of the building and it has small glass windows patterned with birds. It looks like something straight out of a fairy tale.
“Wow,” Remus says, sincerely.
“I know right!”
The one problem with his town was that there was no book store. I mean, sure, there was the university book store but that just sold textbooks so Remus always had to do his reading online or order something to be delivered. Actually, now that he thought about it, there was a tiny vintage store right next to where he was now but they hardly had anything new, only excepted cash, and frankly the owner was a little creepy. Anyway! The point was that this store solved pretty much all his problems.
“Let’s go inside, eh?” Lily interrupts his thoughts once again. She opens the door and heads inside, leaving Remus to follow her.
As he enters a little bell wrings above his head and a woman calls over, “Welcome in!”
She looks about Remus’s age, has chestnut brown hair that falls just below her shoulders, and bangs that skim her eyebrows. She’s wearing earrings that have books dangling off them and a dress that makes her look a bit like a seventies hippie, in a good way of course. She’s standing behind a counter to his right that is covered with books on display and a rack full of socks.
Remus gives her a smile and turns towards the table in front of him. It seems that as soon as you walked in you were confronted with a display of books, new releases, it says.
Lily had already moved further into the shop and was looking at the books on display so he walks up next to her before she can get any further away.
One thing about Remus is that he could not, for the life of him, just go on his own in a store—especially if it was somewhere he had never been before—he had to be glued at the hip with the person he was with. After all, he was 6’4”, had zero control of his limbs, and was pretty much the most awkward person ever. He felt like a bull in a china shop, constantly.
Lily notices his presence and gives him a knowing smile before scooting a bit closer to him and pointing out books she has been wanting to get. They look at the new releases table for a bit longer before going to explore the rest of the shop. To their right is a section of puzzles followed by a bunch of children’s books and to the left of that is a shelf of young adult books.
Remus and Lily walk through it as she points out books she read when she was a child. Remus adds a few comments here and there but he was, admittedly, not a big reader as a kid. He knows it’s surprising. The english major? Not a big reader? Well, he wasn’t exactly a child prodigy back in school. He had some…setbacks. I mean who knows what he could have done if it hadn’t happened. If he hadn’t-
Fuck. None of that, not in the middle of this book shop that he is starting to love, not now. He tunes back into whatever Lily is saying but it seems she has finished talking and is now looking at him. The look in her eyes says everything.
Over the course of their friendship they have learned to communicate by just looks; they could have a whole conversation with just their eyes.
Right now he can tell she’s saying, ‘are you ok?,’ ‘do you need to leave?,’ ‘we can go if you want.’
He’s fine. He really is. He gives her a small smile and gestures his hand to show that she can keep going. She nods and continues talking while she walks over to the back right corner of the store.
He is met with a large shelf of books from all kinds of genres and a small aisle behind him. The outside of the aisle is filled with romance books but the inside has a collection of different classics.
He immediately starts scanning the shelf, finally moving away from Lily who is looking at the large shelf against the wall. He spots a few of his favorites, Frankenstein and Fahrenheit 451, and a variety of different copies of books that he’s never seen before. A copy of The Iliad catches his eye.
The cover is split across the middle: half of it is white where the title and author is while the other half has a red background and the top half of a painting of Nike the goddess. Remus grabs the book and stands up from the crouched position he had been in before, his knees crack as he does.
He turns to Lily who is holding a stack of books in her hand.
“And how exactly are you affording that?” He raises an eyebrow.
I mean, come on, they are broke college students and books are getting expensive.
Lily just smiles at him, “That’s a problem for later Lily!”
Lily really was a responsible person, but she was also a book lover, and when she sets her mind to something there was no stopping her.
Remus just rolls his eyes in response, “Ready to check out-“ he starts, but is interrupted by Lily simply walking away.
She walks over to a table to their left and beckons him over with her hand. He obliges and follows, of course.
The table she stops at is scattered with pins and stickers and cat treats. She picks up one of the bags of said cat treats and dangles it in-front of his face.
“We should get this!”
“Lils, love, we don’t even have a cat.”
Her eyes light up with an idea, “We should get a cat!” She says a little louder and smiles widely.
“We’ll talk about it later,” He says and snatches the bag of cat treats out of her hand, placing it on the table. “Now are you ready to check out?”
“Yeah..,” she says, albeit a bit sadly, and adjusts the stack of books in her arm. And of course while she’s attempting this, a book falls smack down on the floor.
“Lils,” Remus groans and looks up in defeat.
“Oops,” she has the decency to look a little sheepish.
He bends down to pick up the book—Lily very clearly being unable to given the sheer amount of stuff she’s carrying—and when he finally is able to stand up fully again, he hears something.
The bell rings from across the room, the door creaks open and - ….