This is a story about how Remus feels and how he and Lily realise just how close they are as friends...It was originally meant to be a part of my other story, "Just Like his Grandfather" but then it didn't fit there...
It's also based on a personal experience that reminded me how important my friends are...
So, this story is dedicated to R.B, my sister in all but blood...and to my 'bestest' friends in the whole wide world, A.C, D.S, R.R, P.S and above all S.P who's taken the time to read my stories...
So...give it a shot!
Disclaimer : I don't own HP...obviously...
It was nearly eleven as they reached the Astronomy Tower. IT was the last place Lily and Remus had to check before heading back, ending their patrols for the night. Lily laughed at the joke Remus was telling her – a behind the scenes account of the Marauders' latest exploits. She looked at him affectionately, lost in thought, hardly hearing what he was saying. She remembered the first time she'd met him. He had been her partner in Transfiguration and both of them hadn't had a flair for the subject. But, he'd managed to shatter her impression that all boys liked to do was goof around. Of course, she had picked up that impression from Potter and Black but as Remus had been their friend, she'd expected no more from him. He had surprised her though. She had been worried about making friends despite Severus' reassurances about her parentage but Remus had been completely unconcerned by it. In fact, he had seemed to understand her fear of prejudice even better. She had opened up to him like no one else. She had always gone to him for help about Snape. Now, they were in 6th year and Remus had taken Snape's place in her life after the incident the previous year.
"Really," she thought, "I couldn't ask for a better 'bestest friend in the whole wide world' as Mary would put it." She smiled at the memory of her best friend.
Remus looked at Lily when he realized she was no longer listening to him. His insides churned with guilt when he saw the affectionate expression she was looking at him with. He knew he had to tell her his secret. It was just that after waiting this long, he couldn't face her disappointment that he had waited this long. He had put it off every time he'd talked to her, scared of what she might think of him, guilty that he was keeping secrets from one of his best friends. He looked out the window. A bright half-moon shone through the glass. He took a deep breath and decided to take the plunge.
"Lily?" he asked.
She blinked, slightly startled as she surfaced from her thoughts. "I'm so sorry! Were you saying something important? I just zoned out there. I was-"
"Lily!"
"Sorry you were saying?" Lily thought Remus looked a little nervous.
"I need to tell you something," he said.
"Okay," she said, a little confused now.
"You can't tell anyone else. But it's really important."
She nodded. She didn't like where this seemed to be going.
"I-I'm not sure how to say this…"
"Remus, please don't tell me you're in love with me," said Lily.
Remus stared at her and burst into laughter. "No! That's not even close to what I was going to say."
"Oh, that's a relief," said Lily, smiling, "because it would have been really weird."
""Not to mention James would have killed me," chuckled Remus. His face turned serious again, "I was actually going to say…I'm a werewolf."
Blank shock passed across Lily's face as she stopped, thirty feet from the base of the stairs that led up to the Astronomy Tower. She tried to see if he was joking but the facts all added up. Severus' hints, her own observations, the Marauders' tired faces once a month – they could all only mean one thing.
"You're a werewolf," she repeated.
Remus who'd been watching her expression closely seemed relieved that she hadn't just frozen up. "Yes," he said.
Lily kept staring at him, the shock slowly disappearing. It wasn't replaced by fear or prejudice however, it was replaced by indignation. Her face turned impassive.
Remus noticed the change immediately. "Er…Lily?"
"How long have you been a werewolf?" she asked, her voice snappy.
"Er…ever since I was four years old."
"So you've been transforming for the last five years?"
"Yes," said Remus, wincing at her sharp tone.
"I see. How long have we been friends Remus?"
"Since the first week of school," Remus sighed. He knew what Lily was getting at and he did notlike it.
"And how long have we been best friends?"
"Nearly six years now," replied Remus, contemplating on jumping off the Astronomy Tower.
"And not once, in six years, did it occur to you to TELL ME ABOUT THIS?" Lily demanded.
"I wanted to-"
"Clearly not enough."
"Well I was going to, but then James-"
"I suppose they know."
"Well I didn't tell them, they figured it out, but-"
"Oh so you think I couldn't figure it out?"
"No! That's not what I meant-"
"We did an entire project on werewolves last year! Together! We brought up the subject so many times and you didn't tell me. I wondered where you got to every month but because you said your mother was ill, I thought she was the werewolf. We discussed the subject so many times but you didn't think it was important to mention it?"
"Will you let me try to explain?"
"Well you'd better make it good, Lupin."
Remus flinched at the use of his surname. "I-I really don't know why I didn't tell you earlier. I was…afraid and I kept putting it off. And that just made me feel worse and…oh I don't know!" he said, running a hand through his hair, frustrated at his inability to explain.
"You were afraid of what exactly?" asked Lily coolly.
"That maybe you wouldn't like me anymore."
Lily regarded him, disappointment clearly written all over her face. The sight just made Remus shrink away, even more ashamed of himself. "How could you think that? How could you think that I of all people, would be prejudiced against you? I've gone through as much prejudice as you have. I doubt Mudbloods and werewolves are very far apart in the Slytherins' books. I would have tried to help you as best as I could; I would've been proud that you could face the world with such a dangerous secret. Why would I ever stop liking you?"
"What if you were afraid of me?" asked Remus, and immediately wished he hadn't.
Lily responded with an undignified snort. "Remus, anyone who knows you well wouldn't be afraid of you. Even if you're the mastermind behind a lot of the Marauders' pranks – don't bother denying it – you wouldn't hurt a fly. Besides, you're only dangerous once a month. It's not like you're going to turn into a hideous, drooling monster right now!"
"I don't drool!"
Lily raised an eyebrow.
"Okay, that's irrelevant. Lily, please don't be mad at me."
Lily looked away, "I'm not mad at you Remus, just…disappointed… that you thought so lowly of your best friend."
"I didn't think that way Lily. I didn't think at all. It was more instinct that forced me away from telling you," sighed Remus. "Look, ever since I was bitten, I was shunned. Everyone who knew me was afraid of me. Relatives stopped visiting, my parents' friends stayed away, and they were all people we had thought would be there for us. WE thought they'd be mature enough to put aside their old preconceived notions since they knew I was harmless.
"By the time I came to Hogwarts, I felt that if my own family could abandon me, I was unworthy of being loved, in any way, by anyone. So I tried to keep the others in the dark but they figured it out. I'll never forget how scared I was when I thought they would desert me too. But they didn't." He smiled, humorlessly, "Ironic isn't it, that grownups with all their knowledge and experience can be so horrible and twelve year old children can be so broad minded?"
Lily looked slightly guilty now, "I'm sorry I yelled at you. I forgot that there are more people in the world like me and tolerance for people of my birth is greater than it is for your condition," she said.
"Don't apologize. I should be the one saying sorry. It's just that when I came here and found so many people who accepted me, who liked me, it was just too much for me to lose. I've always wanted to be liked by people. It's my fatal flaw you might say. That's why the thought that you might all abandon me forced me to keep this secret," said Remus.
Lily's gaze had turned softer and softer as she'd looked at him. He looked absolutely miserable and it wasn't even his fault that he had to suffer.
"Well, it's my duty to accept you, faults and all," she said smiling at him.
"Even if one of them is turning into a bloodthirsty beast?" he said, the corners of his mouth twitching.
"Well we do need to unleash the animal inside us all once in a while don't you think? Besides, this explains how you get so wild during parties," she said grinning.
"Hey, come on, I'm usually the sober one. James and Sirius are the wild ones and their Animagi forms-" he stopped suddenly, realizing what he'd just let slip.
"What was that?" Lily said ominously.
"Um…nothing?" tried Remus.
"Animagi? Illegal too I suppose? ANIMAGI?"
"Shh! Someone might hear you!"
"How many more secrets are you keeping from me Remus?" she demanded.
"well technically, this wasn't my secret-"
"why the hell didn't you mention it?"
"It, uh, sort of slipped my mind…"
"You forgot? How many other details have you 'forgotten'?"
"I truly did forget this okay? I've become so used to them being with me on full moon nights that I really forgot. There a couple of other things that we use to sneak out of the castle but I'd rather we told you about them together."
"So that's why you lot look so tired every month? I just thought they were staying up at night waiting for you to come back from wherever you go to transform," said Lily.
"Lily, I'm sorry. Please forgive me."
"I don't know Remus. I just don't know what to think anymore. I thought you wouldn't be like Sev, but you're getting close."
Remus suddenly grabbed her shoulders and forced her to look at him.
"You know what Lily? You're right. You're right about being angry with me. You're right about being disappointed with me. But you're not right about comparing me to Snape."
He let her go and Lily took a step back, slightly scared.
He continued, "You have to understand Lily. My whole life, I've never had any real friends. I went to a Muggle school for a couple of years but even they sensed something was wrong with me. They didn't care about whether I existed or not. No one's ever liked me for who I am before. So is it really that surprising that I find it difficult to let go of my secrets? Is it really that surprising that it took so long for me to pluck up the courage to tell you? I have pretty much been my own companion for so long that it's…difficult for me to accept that other people care about me and I need to reciprocate that by trusting them."
All the anger and frustration in his eyes had faded away by the end, only to be replaced by sadness and guilt. He looked at her, blue eyes meeting green.
"All I can say is that I am really, sincerely very sorry for having hurt you. It actually hurts me to hurt you in any way." His eyes suddenly grew intense, "Like Snape, I find it hard to make friends and hence, I don't make many friends. But I do value the ones I have a lot and will do anything for them. Heck, if Voldemort appeared here just now and tried to kill you, I'd take the curse," he said fiercely, "So…I'm sorry."
Lily looked at the sandy haired boy in front of her. It struck her only then how lonely a life he must have led. At Hogwarts, he was always with the Marauders but he was always ready to help out a younger student. But now she realized that he usually helped out the silent, shy kids. She remembered how guarded he'd been when she'd met him and it had taken him a couple of months to open up to her. But once he had, he had tried to be as good a best friend as he possibly could.
He'd always been there, ready to listen to her ranting about Severus or James and he'd helped her out with both of them. She smiled.
"Well you definitely have one thing in your favour, Remus," she said.
He looked up.
"You sure know how to apologize. Never just a simple 'I'm sorry' with you is it? You have to explain yourself completely. No wonder Potter and Black don't let you talk when you lot get caught," she said smiling.
He smiled back weakly, "Just one thing in my favour?"
"Don't push it. I'm still a bit mad at you. I'll need to process all this information before I start singing your praises again."
"Yes ma'am."
They walked away from the Astronomy Tower, not caring whether they finished patrols or not.
"I really am sorry, you know," he said, still looking ashamed.
Lily reached up to sling a friendly arm around his shoulders, "Hey don't worry about it. Just remember that I'll always be there for you, like you've been there for me."
"And I'm sure that we'll be best friends always," added Remus, putting his arm around her too.
Lily smiled, "Best friends," she agreed. "Forever."
Remus smiled back at that as they stepped through the portrait hole.
X-X-X
James Potter took one look at the two of them with their arms around each other.
"Moony, you traitor!" he shouted, pointing a dramatic finger at him.
"James no! It's not like that-" began Remus, hastily pulling his arm back, but James had already stormed up the stairs to the boys' dorm.
Remus sighed, "Guess I have to make another round of apologies tonight."
Hope you liked it! Anyone kind enough to leave me a review? :)