Marauder crack

Life lines

Saturday morning. Hogwarts smells like exams. In the dining room, at breakfast time, there is more than one student doing "Reparo" spells to glasses. The nerves are in the air and also the hands become clumsy and dodgy. Lily draws the jug of pumpkin juice towards her from the opposite end of the table and orders it to pour a good glass.

- You should do the same. It's high in vitamins. And don't be offended, but you don't have a good face.

-I love you too- Answers Remus with a relaxed smile.

Lily gives him an affectionate punch under the table.

- I do not say it for that. You look tired. Let me guess...- She grabs his palm of his hand and makes a forced concentration face- Let's see, let's see. The hand tells me that ... you went out last night and that you slept a couple of hours even though the OWL's are approaching.

She can't help it. He is amused by Lily's maternal disapproval. He's not used to being cared for like this.

-We didn't come back so late- he defends himself like children having fun being fought over.

Lily squints her eyes and examines the lines of his palm, pretending to study them thoroughly.

- The hand says "Filthy liar".

- I will be a filthy whore then.

- Remus, you are spending too much time with Sirius. Watch over that language - she reproves him jokingly. - What the hand does not say is how you get to drop out from school so often.

- If the hand said that, your dear James and a certain gang member with a surname Black, would be expelled right off.

Even when she wrinkles her nose and sticks her tongue out at him, Lily Evans continues having that kind of subtle feminine charm that makes her irresistible. Sometimes, Remus has the feeling that even that unpleasant human being that is Severus Snape softens a bit when it comes to her.

When Lily touches him so carefully, his own hand seems prettier.

-Hey, look, the love line- she says. -No, wait, it's not a line. Is a highway to hell to travel by motorcycle.

-Very subtle.

James is always late for breakfast and on weekends, and Sirius hardly ever appears. He prefers to sleep late and snack on some of the food that he hides under the bed. There are always fewer students on Saturday mornings and the Great Hall looks like a Muggle cathedral, illuminatedby the first rays of morning light. Ideal for secrets and sleepless nights and the perfect setting for Lily to insist once more that she has to do something.

-Look, Remus, Sirius is the only thing I know you like more than chocolate. It is in your nature to insist. Otherwise, you'll finish school without saying anything, seeing how he is getting laid with girl after girl while you're dying.- When she says it, it seems easy.

- Lily, Sirius isn't just straight, okay? If in this school they make a free and democratic vote to elect the leader of the straight club, Sirius Black would be crowned Prime Minister.

- I can't believe you said that! The Prime Minister is not crowned.

Stubborn as a mule. Sometimes she is worse than Sirius.

- I know your intentions are good but I don't feel like experiencing harsh and painful rejection, Lily. I already feel lucky to consider me his friend, you know? It's already more than I bargained for. - Much, much more. - More than I deserve.

- Don't even think about repeating that in my presence, Remus Lupine. Have you heard? I don't know of anyone else who deserves so much to be happy. Clear?

What he could possibly say? He can only nod. Lily's gaze takes on a certain liquefied hue, and she softens.

-You don't know about rejection- she assures her. Sometimes, these things go well. But the whole argument loses its weight when James Potter sits next to them and on a puddle of drool that becomes from the Suez Canal, and for the umpteenth time, he asks Lily out on a date to prepare for exams.

- One serious thing. A study session, Evans.

Sometimes things may turn out well but the truth is that seeing the face of James, as he listens to a curt "sorry, Potter, I don't date small kids" and his heart falling to the ground does not help to harbor hope, precisely. James leaves the dining room without having breakfast, dragging his soul and feet.

- So sometimes it ends well, doesn't it?

She is trying hard not to look at James. Relentless with herself and his purposes.

- What? Are you saying it for that one? - She asks, shrugging it off. - Sirius I would never do that to you.

But she doesn't look him in the eye when she tells him and this time it's Remus who he takes her hand, to read in it the line of love.

- And how long are you going to keep doing it, Lily?

Her chest trembles when she sighs. And a fragile voice sounds to him, very small when she answers him, still not looking into her eyes.

- We weren't talking about me.

They leave the dining room and pass the Slytherin table. Remus salutes to a boy with light brown hair, hard and noble features, green eyes, a certain desperate melancholy. Lily slaps him on the side and puts her suggestive look to advertise with certain secrecy that he is quite handsome. Remus sighs a torn "Yes", a desperate "I think so", which comes out from the bottom of his stomach and takes his breath away.

- I was referring to Daniel, Remus.

- What? Yes. Yes- he repeats. - I was referring to him also, of course.

Of course.