It’s never really been about the feeling of love to me “ it’s been more about the word, one could say. With my family, it had always been about the feeling. I mean, with so many of us, how could it not be? But as I grew, so did my emotions, and I met a boy. He’s one of those perfect ones you see walking down the corridor and lust after, if only for a moment. Somehow, through some crazy confusion of identities, he became mine.
Michael Buford loves me, he says, and I love him back, I say. He’s been mine and I’ve been his for almost two years, ever since James started to dote upon Lily as he does. He’s wonderful, really, but he doesn’t fill me in the way that perfect boy should. The type I’m chasing after is the one I can use the tiny preposition with. In love.
That two letter word, when preceding love has always been the part that scared me the most. What if I fall and he doesn’t catch me?
I feel something will change soon, and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because this is my final year at Hogwarts, a place that has been my sanctuary for all my adolescent and growing years.
Maybe it’s that I really am looking for that preposition, however much it frightens me.
*
Lily sat across the table from me. The air in the large room was still and the light was dim.
“What exactly are we looking for, again?” I asked as she set down a pile of books and dust billowed around them.
“Sicknesses, or diseases, or something that causes the person to be gone once a month,” Lily stated frantically as her eyes darted across a page. Her head was bent low over the book and her foot was tapping uncontrollably on the ground.
“And… why, exactly?”
Lily shot me a look that could have put Sirius Black in his place before returning to the weathered pages of her book. “Because, my friend…” she paused. “Just because.”
I looked at her through squinted eyes. “Oh, it’s all getting clear now.”
Her foot immediately stopped tapping, and she let out a noise surprisingly reminiscent to a hippogriff giving birth before slamming her book shut. She slowly lifted the practically two-ton book and slid it into her bag before standing up with amazing patience. She took a very long time to turn around, and walked to the doors of the library at a snail’s pace before quietly opening and closing the door.
I sighed and picked up the first book in my stack. Common Magical Ailments and Diseases was a very large book, with very thin pages, and very small words. In other words, it was not my type of book. But due to Lily’s utterly odd behaviour, I searched the book of oh-so-small-writing and looked for this mystery ailment that Lily was adamant to find.
Two hours and many dust bunnies later, I had a small list of ailments that required monthly attention. As I trekked up the many flights of stairs to Gryffindor tower in order to find Lily, I ran headlong into a moving body as I was preoccupied with my sloppy handwriting.
“Oh, so sorry,” I mumbled as I bent down to pick up my ‘Secret List’. When I stood up, I was face to face with Remus Lupin. “Hello, you wouldn’t have happened to see Lily around, have you?” I said distractedly as I shoved the List into my robes.
He looked slightly perturbed as he glanced down at my concealed hand. “Er, no. I mean yes.” His eyes shifted up to mine. He smiled a bit lamely before adding, “She was just up in the Common Room.”
“Well, thanks, Remus, I’ll just be off, then.”
*
“Brambles.”
The Fat Lady was in a deep conversation with a dark haired wizard covered in boils. She conveniently did not notice my request. I sat patiently for a moment or two.
“Brambles.”
She chose this particular moment to burst forth in an annoyingly bubbly round of laughter.
“BRAMBLES.”
“Oh my!” She looked at me and swung forward. As I stepped through the hole, I could hear her mumbling to her boily friend, “Children are never taught propriety these days,” before she started again with the bubbly laughter.
Lily was not in the Common Room, so narrowing my search down to the dormitories, I walked up the narrow steps into the Seventh Year dorm. The door creaked as I pushed it open, and I saw Lily’s head snap up from the book she was reading and she stared directly at me.
“Hello,” I stated plainly as I walked with as much gusto as I could muster over to her bed. “I found a bit on different diseases and such that need monthly attention. Have a look.”
I nudged the paper in her direction. It was crumpled around the edges and the last sentence was slightly smeared. Lily looked over it with those cursory eye of hers. Her muscles tensed and eyebrows lowered when she read one of my sentences.
“Anna, this is perfect. Thank you very much,” she murmured vaguely as her eyes glassed over and she stared very hard at her bedpost. I, in turn, glanced at her bedpost as well, but as I had suspected there was nothing out of the ordinary on it.
*
It was Monday of our second week of school, and Lily and I were sitting across from each other at breakfast. Lily was acting quite strange, really. That glassy look that had come about her eyes when I had given her my notes had not left in the two days that had past. She was staring over my right shoulder, and slowly crumbling her crumpet into a pile of crumbs on her plate that was now, really, just a tower of crumbs.
“You’re making a mess, Lil.”
“Mm.” She did not break her stare with the air over my right shoulder.
“I can’t wait for Potions this morning. Maybe Slughorn will actually show up this time.” I attempted moving my shoulder slightly to see if it would distract her. It didn’t.
“Mhmm.”
“I decided that today I’m going to dance in the nude while singing ‘God Rest Ye Merry Hippogriffs’.
“What? Oh, I’m so sorry, Anna, I’ve just been a little distracted lately,” Lily said as she shifted her gaze from the air to her pile of crumbs.
“You could have fooled me!” She shot me another one of those looks. “Alright, alright. Let’s go then. No need to sacrifice our first row seats in Potions.”
As Lily walked absentmindedly in front of me, actually veering off to the left a bit she was so deep in her thoughts, I felt someone’s hand on my back. I turned around and found myself staring directly at a Ravenclaw crest on a set of black school robes. I nervously looked up to see none other than Michael Buford.
“Hello there!” I smiled weakly as I cast a sideways glance at the idle Lily.
Michael was a dark haired, dark skinned boy that loved me. He gave me a swift kiss on the cheek. “I just wanted to see you before I went to class,” he said quickly. “I haven’t been doing enough of that lately,” he added as he was whisked away by his friends. I smiled in his direction for a few moments after he was gone before returning to Lily.
“Honestly, Lily, what has gotten into you? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost! Okay, that’s not that weird. More like you’ve just seen a mummy or a vampire, or a whatsit.” I ended lamely as she followed my voice down the hall to the dungeons. I felt like I had an actual mummy following me around.
*
I heard the door to the loo slam as the water of the damp floor soaked into my robes and began to brush my ankles. No one ever frequented this lavatory due to its infestation by a certain moaning ghost, and apparently that had been Lily’s intention when she told me to meet her here. I leaned into the sink to get a closer look at my face in the mirror. As I was focusing on my rather small hazel eyes, I felt someone behind me. My focus changed to the redhead that was nervously standing over my shoulder.
“You know you cannot, cannot, tell this to anyone, right, Anna?” Lily told, rather than asked, me before muttering an incantation under her breath. The door made an odd squelching noise before going silent once again. She looked back at me with green eyes full of worry and doubt.
“Of course, Lily, who would I tell? My mum?” I allowed a smirk to slide across my face, and the instant it happened I knew it was the wrong reaction. Lily let out a sigh of frustration and stomped her foot exasperatedly on the ground, sending droplets of water flying onto her robes.
She stared hard at me before she began to pace around the small lavatory in circles. “I know you wouldn’t tell anyone, of course. This is just”no one could find out. I wonder if his mates even know the half of it…” She began muttering to herself more than talking to me as she wore a path into the damp floor.
My eyes followed my distraught friend in circles, as the worry etched in her face grew darker and darker. After my mind had drawn a few worst-case scenarios, Lily abruptly stopped right in front of me, standing no more than two inches from my face.
She took a deep breath before she shot out, “Remus is a werewolf.”
The statement hung in the dank air of the room, the final syllables reverberating off the sodden walls. We stared at each other in amazement, worry, and disbelief. I wondered if her conclusion was final, or if there was any other explanation as to why Remus Lupin mysteriously disappeared once a month.
“Are you sure?” I asked in a hushed tone as my eyes shot back and forth between hers. I crossed my arms, attempting to ward off the shivers that were running though my body.
The same glassy look that had occupied her eyes for the past few days had taken its place once again, “I checked everything. All the days that he has left were full moons, Anna. There’s no other explanation.”
We lapsed into a strained, thoughtful silence. “We should get out of here, Lily. This is not the place to have this conversation.”
Lily nodded her head and walked to the door. After faintly mumbling the counter spell, the door sprang open and we moulded into the stream of students on their way to lunch.
*
For the rest of the day, Lily’s eyes stayed the same. She didn’t acknowledge when someone, spoke to her. The only people who received a response were teachers. On rare occasions, I would receive a faint, “Mhhmm,” but nothing more. I could tell that this revelation was eating the very heart of Lily’s soul. This side of Lily was hardly seen, even when one brought up her sister or Severus Snape. These two relationships were extremely tense for her, but seeing this non-responsive side of her meant only one thing. She cared for Remus’ wellbeing, but I felt as if this mood change was not only due to Remus’ state. It was the affect this event must have had on his friends that was driving Lily into shock.
As we traipsed down the sloping lawns of the Hogwarts grounds toward the greenhouses, Lily announced, “I’m going to say something to James.”
Swinging my bag around so that I could get closer to Lily, I asked, “Are you sure, Lily? What if James doesn’t know yet and you bringing this to his attention does more harm than good?”
Her eyes were squinted and her brow was furrowed when she looked at me. “Those boys have been best friends for six years. There is no doubt in my mind that they already know.”
“So then why would you even tell James that you know? It’s not going to improve Remus’ situation, by any means.”
She halted suddenly, bag swinging forward and hitting me in the small of my back. When I turned around to look at her, she was furious. Her eyebrows were knitted together and a small scowl flashed across her mouth.
“You think I can’t help? Those boys are bullocks at Potions! I’m sure there’s something that I could do to help him, maybe a pain reducer potion or something.” She was waving frantically around with her free arm as the other Gryffindors passed by us, staring at Lily with confused eyes.
“Alright, alright. Let’s just get inside before Professor Sprout sends a Venemous Tentacula on us.” Lily stood her ground before springing forward to fall into step behind me.
The professor gave us a stern gaze as we shuffled into the greenhouse. She had already begun her lecture on the harvesting of Venemous Tentacula, a plant we had been working with since last week. Lily and I stood in tense silence as Professor Sprout finished her lecture, casting sidelong glances at each other.
Donning our dragon hide gloves, Lily and I worked silently and efficiently. Every so often Lily would hiss troubled remarks in my direction, but the air around us remained taut.
A few moments before the end of class, Lily whispered her most troubling remark yet. “We’re going to follow the Marauders out of here, all right? Then you are going to walk up to Remus, discuss the books that you so lovingly obsess over, and I am going to steal James, all right?” Her eyes never moved from the spiky tentacles of the thrashing plant in front of us.
“Lily, I think that James might get the wrong idea about””
Her voice sharp voice cut across mine. “It’s not as if I’m going to throw him in a broom closet, Anna. I’m just going to, you know, take him somewhere else.”
I lifted my eyes a moment too soon from the plant, allowing it to thrash against my tough gloves, scratching the fabric around my wrist. “Like a broom closet?”
Lily let go of the plant all together, throwing her hands up in the air with exasperation. The plant took this as its moment of freedom, lashing out wildly in Lily’s direction, only to have her dodge it at the last minute. “Where else to you have in mind, Moaning Myrtle’s loo? I don’t think so.” She roughly grabbed hold of the throbbing, red tentacles, bringing the plant to control.
“Do as you wish, Lils, I’m just warning you that James’ head is going to swell to the size of one of Hagrid’s pumpkins if we do this.”
The look of determination was fleetingly replaced by confusion as she thought of what I had just said. She was quiet for the remainder of the class, and when the bell rang she lingered behind. The Marauders were throwing bits of dragon dung compost at each other, while Lily nonchalantly tipped over a bag of Venemous Tentacula seedlings.
“Lily, what are you doing?” I frantically whispered as the boys dropped their smelly weapons and began to move out of the greenhouse. In turn, she hastily scooped to spilled seeds back into the bag, never allowing her eyes to leave the retreating backs of the Marauders.
Standing up, she casually began to follow the boys back to the castle. “I had to make it look like we actually had a reason to stay behind, in case someone noticed, of course.” She looked pointedly at me, and then to Remus. “Go! I’ve got to do this.”
“I can’t believe you. I’m speechless. Well, not really. I could probably go on for hours about how ridiculous you are being, but I won’t.” I held her stare before calling, “Remus! Wait up.”
*
I sat in the common room waiting for her. Lily had executed her plan exactly as she had wished to, and no doubt James’ head was indefinitely swelling. Sitting next to me was Remus, whose nose was shoved into a book discussing magical theory, and who was painfully unaware of any plans being executed at his expense.
He was mumbling under his breath, every so often annunciating a question. As he asked, “So this Hanglefogg bloke was theorizing over how many hippogriffs could be civilized in a small room. Why would anyone ever want to do that…” the portrait swung open to reveal a flustered James, and an angry Lily.
Not even bothering to come over to the couch, Lily walked directly up the stairs, while James joined Remus and me by the fire. He slumped down into an overstuffed chair and rustled his hair.
I hesitated before asking, “So how’d it go?”
James opened his resting eyes and squinted at me. “You know, too?”
Remus had removed his nose from his book, and was now looking between James and me. A flash of worry flew across his face, but as quickly as it appeared, it vanished.
“What do you know?”