crushed - remus lupin

-ten-

"I may die from exhaustion, Vixey. Tell Lily I love her!" James threw himself dramatically onto the couch.

"Alright I will, but if you die I get to show her the margins of your notes where you doodle 'James Evans' every class," snickered Celeste. James immediately shot up from the couch, apparently deciding that he ought to live a bit longer.

Sirius, James, Peter, Remus and Celeste were currently attempting to study for the O.W.L.'s in the common room, not very successfully either. It was hard to do so with James and Sirius in the same room.

"Okay Sirius, who was the Chief of the Goblin Wars?" Celeste asked, desperate for him to answer seriously for once, rather than sirius-ly.

"Idont."

"What?"

"Idont Giveafuck."

James, Sirius, and Peter burst out into laughter.

"Laugh all you want, you won't be laughing when you fail your O.W.L.'s." Remus said, tutting as he scanned Celeste's Potions essay for mistakes. Potions was never Celeste's strong suit, so she relied on Remus for error detection.

Celeste was currently scanning Remus's Herbology homework. The two had an unspoken agreement where they both helped the other with their worst subject. When James had found out about this exchange, his exact reaction was,

"This isn't fairrrrrrrrrrr. You refuse to do my homework but when it's Celeste all of a sudden it's okay?"

Both Remus and Celeste disliked cheating in all forms, but they seemed to make an exception to help each other. No one knew why. An advantage to this was that the teachers wouldn't dare accuse their top two students of cheating, so their 'borrowed information', as they liked to call it, remained a secret.

Celeste could tell Lily had entered the room, due to the fact that James fell over his own feet. Without looking up from Remus's homework, Celeste said, "Hey Lily! You look very nice today!"

The redhead blushed at the compliment before stopping. "Aw thank you- wait, how do you know, you're not even looking?"

Without missing a beat, Celeste calmly stated, "No, but I can hear James' heartbeat and it doubled when you walked in."

Both Lily and James turned into spluttering messes at that.

After a few minutes of enjoying their inability to speak, Celeste decided to change to subject. "Lils, are you packed for the trip?"

"What trip?" Both James and Remus asked at once.

"Oh, all the students who take Muggle Studies in fifth year take a trip to Muggle London for an afternoon or so. Sirius, Celeste, and I are leaving in ten minutes!" Lily explained.

James looked outraged that he was not informed of this trip earlier. In his eyes, a chance at spending time with Lily was worth taking a whole other class.

"Sirius, you ready to go?"

"Yes ma'am!"

"Celeste?"

"Aye, aye, sergeant!" Celeste saluted Lily.

"Alrighty then, best people in this room, let's go!"