Jealously Wears A Green Mask | Jily

9: It Was Perfect

Remus and Sirius started to manoeuvre their way through the unruly crowd and away from Lily who started to look lost in the thicket of witches and wizards. They were trying to find Marlene to see if she'd found a cupboard yet, and figure out if they needed to buy themselves a little more time.

"Sirius! Remus!" Lily tried to steer her way towards the boys, who appeared to  not have heard but curiously, were speeding up, "Where are you going?!"

Remus gave Sirius a confident glance, "You find Marlene, I'll handle Evans."

Sirius nodded and quickly disappeared back into the crowd, just as Lily appeared, putting her hands on her knees, clearly breathless from her battle through the hordes.

"Where'd Sirius go?, she questioned pointing to the empty space where Sirius had stood.

"Have you met Padfoot?", Remus smirked, "he has a girlfriend now which means..."

"Ah yes", Lily signalled for him to maybe not continue, and stood straight again regaining her lost breath, "I get the point."

"So...", Lily continued casually, "you and Mary have fun?"

Remus instantly flushed a deep shade of maroon, "well- it wasn't like-", he stuttered over his words, trying to find the right ones, "yeah it was... nice"

"Nice?!", Lily spluttered, "you were giddy! I saw that grin on your face, I think someone has a crush". She wiggled her eyebrows accusingly, as she poured herself some punch from the table next to them and took a sip, wincing slightly at the bitter taste.

"Oh you can talk Little Miss-" he started but quickly decided not to continue down that path as he saw Lily wiggled uncomfortably. He sighed, "She's really sweet, you know, and makes me laugh. I think I deserve a shot at love."

Lily raised her hands in defence, "I never said you didn't", she giggled but sighed more seriously and continued, "I'm happy for you Remus, you really do deserve it. Anyway, if we continue down the road of  'Marauders getting girlfriends', things might be looking up for me."

"Wow, little bit hasty don't think you think? She's not even my date to this dance let alone my girlfriend", Remus replied, a tad too fast, Lily thought, "And don't think like that. James is head over heels for you, you'll make your way to each other soon enough, even if this plan does fall through. Speaking of..." he trailed off as he spotted a small spark in the air from the entrance. Sirius was signalling that he found Marlene, and hopefully an empty cupboard too.

"Hey Lily", Remus said enthusiastically, "wanna maybe go for a walk round the castle? Clear you head before round 2 begins?"

Lil downed the rest of her punch, "sounds like a good idea. This music is starting to do my head in anyway, maybe James was right about the band..."

Remus took Lily's hand and dragged her to the doorway, narrowly avoiding a bored looking James, who was walking, seemingly aimlessly, around the room.

James looked at his feet, which he was trailing despondently along the floor. His face looked flat and crestfallen and the crowds around him felt guilty when they saw his face; willing him, or Lily, to get a move on with the prank. Even they were bored of their stupid jealousy act now.

Mary was nowhere to be seen either, at least before he hadn't looked like a loner, even if he felt like one. He had vaguely seen Remus dancing with her earlier but hadn't really had time to scope out whether it was friendly, or if there was something more too it. Either way he was alone now, Lily was off with Sirius, Remus was maybe off with Mary, Peter was God knows where, and Marlene was probably...