Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The February moon made Remus ill quicker than he expected. Before January had even rounded out, in fact.
It started with the headaches. Horrid things, really; and quite out of nowhere. Remus would lay his head down at night, only for his pillow to be a jagged rock that split through his skin. And then a second, denser rock would smash through his skull and splatter his brain in all directions so there was nothing behind his eyes but a blistering light.
Typically, James would be smothering Remus with reminders of food and water and medications and "Did you sleep enough last night, Moony?" "Have you wrapped up your Potions essay yet, Moony?" "Did you ask someone to cover your rounds, Moony?" But Lily's birthday was set earlier than the night of the moon, so James was a bit preoccupied.
Remus didn't mind much. It gave him space to slip through the cracks when the headaches hit. Honestly, he didn't think he'd had this much alone time in all his years at Hogwarts. What, with James running everyone thin with his tasks and scheduling. The only person who had an escape was Lily herself, and Remus quite liked her company – especially considering they seemed to have fallen off a bit recently.
Remus hadn't even realized it until Lily told him, but once she did, he felt as though two of those dense sort of rocks had slammed together with his heart in between.
"It's not a big deal," Lily said. She bit the skin by her middle fingernail and flipped a page in her textbook. "We're both in relationships now, of course I'll be spending more time with James and you with Sydney."
Remus didn't really know what to say. He felt badly – of course he felt badly. He never meant to drift from Lily, she had always been one of his very best friends. But, like she said, Remus often found his time more occupied with Sydney (among other things, like his newfound Super High Functioning Anxiety). He didn't regret this, of course. He wouldn't and couldn't take away even a second of his time spent with Sydney, and he was sure Lily would say the same about James. But still, the realization had a massive dulling effect.
"I'm sorry," he said at last. "How can I make it up to you?"
Lily shrugged. "It's okay, Rem. Really, we can just forget about it." She twisted her quill in her hand and tore some more skin from the side of her finger. Remus closed his book.
"No, really," he insisted. "C'mon, Lils. Let's have a day. Like we used to."
A smile crept through Lily's lips. "Moonflower date?"
Remus rolled his eyes. "Don't call it that or I'll change my mind."
Lily's grin widened and she shut her book as well. The two of them slipped out of the library, waving at Madam Pince on their way and then laughing at how baffled she looked to have been acknowledged.
Remus took Lily to the seventh floor. Their special place was by the portrait of Barnabas the Barmy, a smallish man stood amongst an array of troll ballerinas. It was quite hard to explain, really, but sometimes, if they listened to Barnabus ramble on about his tremendous taming of the trolls, a doorway would unveil itself like the sun after a full moon. An escape route from the torturous delusions, if you will.
