Jinxes and curses

Chapter 5; Snow-white

Lily's POV

The sun shone, despite it being mid- winter. Remus and I sat on the couch in the common room. It was the Christmas holiday, but we'd both decided to stay at Hogwarts.

I was laying with my head in his lap, reading a muggle book. We'd gotten pretty close over the last 4 months. "Lily," Remus started. "Uh- uh." I silenced him. It was getting exciting. He ignored me.

"What about we go outside?" He asked, I grunted in answer. "But it's so cooolld!" Our common room was located in the dungeons, under a lake. You suspect it'd be rather cold, but no, not really. A fire was warming the common room. Some magic may be helping it too, though. It was always a nice and warming atmosphere.

I also didn't want to admit that I was not looking forward to being bombed with jinxes and hexes. The silent war between us two and the three Gryffindor boys had been going ever since Halloween. Remus didn't care. He mostly put some backfiring jinxes or a protective spell around us.

I tried to teach myself as much reverse spells as I could. And hexes myself, of course. They are too predictable. It's gotten tiring.

I grunted again. Remus ignored me and stood up, my head falling off of his lap. I yell out, "Ouch!"

"Goddamn it, Remus." I murmured. Remus put on his shoes and leaves. I hesitated a minute and then hopped into my own shoes as well and sprinted after him. Remus put the Dissilusionment charm over both of us.

We took a walk and after a lot of convincing I got Remus to go back inside with me.

There was dinner and we both headed to bed pretty early. The following up morning was Christmas. I took all my presents to Remus' dorm after the other guys had left.

It wasn't much special, until I took out a tiny present with a little cart attached to it. Remus turned to his pile and found the same thing.

"Why do we have the same thing?" I asked. "I dunno," Remus responded.

I opened the tiny cart attached to my boy and read it, it said,

Dearest Lily,

Happy Christmas. Have a good rest of your day. Thought you might like this.

No name attached whatsoever. I looked over at Remus'. It said the same, but instead of being nameless, it said

Bisous

Neither of us knew what it meant or what language it was but we didn't care.

We went down for breakfast and found barely anybody sitting there. There were maybe 3 people at the Hufflepuff table, and the most were on ours, the Slytherin table.

Those Hufflepuffs didn't seem to know each other, which didn't surprise me, as they were all a different age as well.

The headmaster joined the teacher's table, flicked his wand, and some of the tables disappeared, others joined. We sat all at one table. Remus started laughing and soon everyone joined.

This was going to be a nice Christmas holiday.

And it was.

Sadly it was only two weeks.

And after that nothing more special happened. The teachers loaded us with homework, though Remus and I would finish it rather quickly. The three boys had started to bother us less, as if we weren't important enough or whatever.

On one dark and cold evening, Remus and I sat by the blazing fire. I was testing his potions. Remus thought for a moment and looked up. He suddenly asked, "Hey, what date is it today?"

I thought for a moment and answered, "the twenty- eight of February, why d'you ask?" Remus sighed in relief and acted as though he hadn't heard it. "You then add the 4 measures of the crushed fangs to your cauldron, right?"

I rolled my eyes, yet answered, "Yes, Remus, that's right."

After Remus had gone to bed, I slipped out the common room and headed to the library. He'd gone to bed about 3 1/2 earlier than usual, somewhat determined to get double his sleep I suppose.

I checked some books, then asked Madam Pince, who had been new, if she had any books on as though why tomorrow could potentially be a special day.

She hesitated a little, popped out her wand and mumbled a charm or two. Quite an amount of books came levitating our way and softly landed on the table. "Thank you!" I excitedly said.

Then I looked over at the amount of books and immediately regretted every life decision I ever made. That's exaggerated, but you get the point.

I thought for a moment and realized maybe he'll leave tomorrow again with an 'headache', or 'stomachache' or for a 'check-up' by madame Pomfrey. Most likely.

I figured it was some kind of cycle. Of course, I'd already asked Madame Pomfrey, but she hadn't told me. I sighed and thought for a bit. My thoughts wandered off and I looked outside.

Oh look, I thought, a full moon. It wasn't entirely a full moon yet though, but,

I stopped in my tracks. I looked behind me, over at the calendar and thought back.
Last time Remus'd left was.. 29th of January.

I searched it up on the calendar. The calendar existed from, of course, the dates, and little symbols that sometimes are important for the wizarding world.

Like when to harvest certain plants, or when to plant them. Like the beginning of each season and the weather that had been that day. Symbols like a full moon, like the longest or the shortest day, like Halloween or Christmas. The beginning and the start of each and every holiday, etcetera.

The 29th of January and the 29th of February had one thing in common.

Astounded, I fell down on my seat, almost flipping over. I sat for about three minutes when I felt OK to move. I lifted the books back in their place, not sure of my existence.

I tried to think clearly, really, yet all I could bring up was, what?

I just- what?

Empty, I left the library, returned to the common room whilst passing James and Peter wandering around the castle. They looked after me weirdly, and believe me, I would have too.

I went directly up to my dorm and didn't even change into my pyjamas. What!

I doubted I'd ever bene as confused as now.

The following day, when the evening was falling, and it got darker, Remus got up and mentioned his usual excuse.

"Oh, you are feeling a little faint?" I repeated. "I think I should bring you." He saw hesitant but I insisted enough with that one sentence for him not to argue with me.

As we walked through the castle, I kept making sure no one was following us. One time Remus coughed and I whispered, "I know," but when he asked, I shrugged it off. I left him at Madam Pomfrey's and got back to the common room. I finished all my own homework and then got to reading.

Halfway the night, Sev joined me. If I were to be honest, I'd almost forgotten he existed. Whilst he had been so irritated that I'd made one friend, he had plenty of  'friends' running after him. Though it didn't feel like he'd forgotten me, no, not at all.

Sleep was coming upon me, heavily; yet I  forced myself to stay awake. I did doze off a couple times, which made my tiredness go away for a while. Finally, the moon seemed to me going away, and the sun slowly started coming up.

No one was in the common room yet, except for me of course, but Remus had to hurry up, if he didn't want to be noticed. Finally, he came. I sat on the couch near the fire, looked him in the eyes as he scanned the room and he startled.

"You know you're very bad at lying, right?"Remus shrugged and said defensively, "Not true! I don't know what you're talking about. Goddamn it Lily!"

I merely smiled and continued, "Feeling faint? A headache? Stomachache? Every month. You think I'm too stupid to notice A FUCKING PATTERN." I lowered my voice right after, regretting every shouted word.

"Excuse me. Remus, you can't keep your Full- moon problem from me forever."