Company

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The hospital wing sounds like jazz. It's Sunday, and Remus's muggle gramophone wears down the vinyl, line by line, minute by minute. He has an extensive record collection. They might be listening to Abbey Road but it's so much more fun to put on Charlie Parker and attend the recital of Sirius moans against that absurd music that always sounds the same, backward and forward and again the same.

-How the hell do you distinguish one song from another, Moony?

- With the ear to hear that you need to sing, Pads.

And more teasing. On whether they put drugs on him that make him so funny and if you are willing to share the potions that are smeared on the wound to see if so much humor is contagious.

- The nurse is pretty, Sirius- says Peter- maybe she doesn't care attending you too.

- He's never cared that they're pretty. Doesn't anyone remember the exchange student who came last year? Annie ... how do you called her, Peter?

- Annies Horribilis - Peter responds, unable to hold back and laughing.

- Hey, envious subnormal pieces of shit, may I remember you how ugly you are when you get up in the morning?

- Actually yes.

- Shut up, Remus. Don't defend them.

The visiting time is that: ONE HOUR to visit, but the nurse does not enough emphasis on kicking them out at once in view of the fact that the improvement of Remus is consistent, has no fever, and has already subsided the danger, so she lets them stay a little while longer which soon becomes all morning. Near mealtime, Peter's stomach makes a scandalous roar and Sirius is still laughing "- someone has swallowed the lion from Gryffindor-" when the door is opened for Lily Evans to fill the room.

- That crazy nurse almost won't let me visit you- he says, before giving an account of the four friends looking at him and a gramophone that trumpets without break. - Oh, hi- and then. - I can come back later.

They say "no" at the same time. Two voices but James sounds more exalted than Remus.

- No seriously, we are leaving.

- Oh yeah? Sirius asks, with no apparent intention of moving.

- To eat? - Peter seems hopeful.

-No one needs to leave- Remus concludes. - Although those who are hungry, they can do it whenever they want, Peter.

Lily meditates on the threshold. Get out or stay. The room is full of guys looking at him. The atmosphere is intensely masculine and feels like an intruder, but there is something, an invitation in Remus's gaze and something more intense, a plea - please stay - in James Potter that feels unable to ignore. She makes the decision and closes the door. Sirius leaves the chair closest to her but Lily sits on the very edge of the bed, airy and light. 

She stares at Remus as if examining him carefully to make sure there is nothing the doctors have not seen. It seems that she is satisfied and that is when she is encouraged to hug him with softness, so as not to hurt him. When they separate, he only listens to Charlie Parker.

- I'm fine, Lily. It is not so bad.

- You sure? - Her voice trembles.

- They say that in a week I can go to class again.

Sirius interrupts the moment by muttering "and he says it rather happily" as if he would not give credit. "It's worrying" James adds, in the same way. Lily lets out a smile and pulls out a Honeydukes tablet, hidden inside his tunic.

- Chocolate, in exchange for you telling me what the hell happened to you.

More than anyone else at Hogwarts, Remus is used to keeping secrets, that's why he knows that there comes a time when staying hidden is intolerable cruelty. There comes a time when silence is lying and not excuse on its behalf.

- I've been shot - try to say it without dramatizing.

- What! - but the greenish tempest in Lily's gaze assures her that has not finished getting it.

- I'm a werewolf, Lily.

It seems that the poor girl's eyes are going to bulge.

- What!

And Sirius as always has to say something. You never know if to avoid discomforts or to add fuel to the fire.

- He also likes guys.

- Repeat that - Lily can't believe it.

- That he likes cock- he repeats.

Lily's gaze could glare at an ordinary man. Hardly pierces him.

- I already know that, Black. - All of Lily's attention is on Remus. - Repeat again about the werewolf.

That morning, Charlie Parker, "The bird", plays while Remus Lupin, the wolf tells his story and Lily feels like the most idiotic girl in the universe because if all those diseases coinciding with the full moon they had not made her realize, that his friends constantly called him "Moony" at least should have led him to suspect something. She knows and feels stupid but on top of it, all feels more intensely united than ever to Remus. As if she finally understood a vital piece of his best friend's puzzle. At the end of the visit, she says goodbye to him with a soft, almost ghostly kiss on the lips that leaves James without words, halfway between fascination and jealousy and Sirius foaming like a teapot.

The dog barks before the girl have finished leaving.

-So you told Evans you were a queer before me.-

- I'm afraid of that. And it's weird that I did it because with your sensitivity to feelings should have come to you first.

Sirius ignores the sarcasm.

- You have to screw yourself.

James seems sunk.

- Maybe I'll tell him that I like men too.

Peter pats him on the back but doesn't comfort him. The picture of Lily's lips gently kissing Remus's mouth follows nagging and refusing to leave him alone. Sirius gets three-quarters of what same but not out of jealousy, obviously. Obviously. It's because, fuck, he told her that he liked guys before telling him. Before him! And to a girl! It's like shitting on the spirit of the marauders, right? Pff, who would know what else he has told her that he does not know.

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