The Marauders Year Five Part 2 #Wattys2017

At Least There Were Memories

At Least There Were Memories

The rumor about James and Lily sleeping together spread through the entire castle to the extent that it was impossible for the Gryffindor fifth years to walk from class to class, even, without hearing at least a couple wolf-whistles aimed their way or else some guy trying to high-five James in the corridor. James made a point of inserting himself in the middle of the Marauders to make it harder to do - he didn't want to be high-fived for this. He wanted to forget. It hurt too much to remember exactly how perfect he'd felt in those first few seconds of waking up, seeing her in that light, a glowing, blurry ginger smudge of beauty... James Potter would've given up every ounce of magic in his body if he could just hold Lily Evans again - and every knut in the vault of Gringott's if he was actually bloody sober for it!

"We slept together, like literal actual sleeping," James said to everyone who dared speak to him about it. "It wasn't like that." The words were repeated constantly, it seemed, and sometimes Sirius would step in and snap them when James started getting tired of saying it, and even Peter did a couple times.

Remus, meanwhile, tried to stick with Lily during their walks down the corridor because for every high-five and congratulatory slap on the back James was receiving, Lily was getting that back in glares from the girls. Obviously her friends didn't say anything nasty - quite the opposite, Ali Prewitt received a detention for fixing a hex on a Slytherin girl during the fourth years potions class - but other girls whispered about her. More than once, Lily walked past a cluster of girls and heard a cough that sounded an awful lot like the word slut.

Lily and Remus sat on the stairs one night toward the end of February, her crying into his chest and shivering. One of the first years had asked about the rumors and Lily had yelled "I didn't sleep with him, I'm not a slut!!!!" at the top of her voice and everyone in the common room had turned to look as she ran out the portrait hole and into the corridor. James had leaped up to go after her, but Remus had shaken his head and told James he wouldn't be very helpful in this situation and went himself. Lily sobbed into Remus's shoulder while he just patted her back and told her everything would be okay.

In addition to all that happening, another thing making its way through the castle was the word werewolf - but not directed at Remus, thank Merlin. It was because somehow or another the story of what happened with Greyback had made it's way around the castle and students were worrying that the werewolf would find a way into the castle.

"He'll eat us all," worried Ollie at the table in the common room one evening. He looked quite terrified.

Wally turned to look at Ollie, "Don't worry about it, Olls!" he said, flinging his arm about the smaller boy, "No dirty, disgusting nasty old werewolf is gonna get in here. We'll skin it alive before it does!" He smiled and squeezed Ollie's shoulders, then, looking up at Remus, he said, "Isn't that right? No werewolf's gonna get within ten feet of Ollie before we've blasted it to smithereens!"

Remus nodded, feeling sick, "I wouldn't let any werewolf hurt you, Oliver, I promise," he said thickly.

Wally smiled, then turned back to Ollie, "See? No blasted werewolf's gonna get by Remus Lupin! He's the bravest, most smartest person in the whole school. If anybody could hex a werewolf to death it'd be him."

The first years, of course, knew nothing of how much the words broke Remus's heart.

Remus cried himself to sleep silently that night, so quiet that only Sirius knew of it... Sirius who sat up all night holding him, whispering, "You're not a monster," over and over in his ear and stroking his head long after he'd fallen asleep, staring across the room at his own pale reflection in the little mirror on the wall, telling himself that everything would be okay, eventually, and the dark anger in his chest would go away... "You aren't a monster," he whispered to himself... but he wasn't sure he believed it anymore than Remus Lupin seemed to, and Sirius had sat with his eyes closed, tears streaming down his cheeks, too, feeling the stirring of that dementor-like cloud inside of him, thinking of Newt Scamander's words.