Too Little Too Late

Chapter 9 | Edited

"Honestly, when will that boy realise that I will never in a million years, ever date him?" Lily ranted to her friends, not quite noticing the subtle eye-rolls she'd received.

"He'll never understand that Lily because he's in love with you. He's been in love with you since first year and he will continue to be in love with you, likely forever." Alice pointed out.

"I don't want him to be in love with me." Lily stropped.

The other girls kept quiet, but they were all thinking along the same lines; 'when Lily did agree to go on a date with him, feelings that she'd been 'hiding' would be confirmed to her'. They hoped she'd agree sometime soon.

One by one, they climbed through the portrait hole and into the common room. Once they'd taken seats by the fire, they began to talk once more about the annoyances which were the marauders. The said troublemakers weren't all in the common room at the moment, James was somewhere unknown (most likely Quidditch practice), Peter was somewhere unknown, and Remus and Sirius were sitting in a corner of the common room, heads bent in discussion. Layla looked over to the two boys, noting how odd their behaviour was. Sirius abruptly got up from the table, taking the parchment with him and climbed up the stairs to his dormitory.

This, Layla thought, was even more odd.

Remus looked up from the table, seemingly amused by Black's behaviour, and caught Layla's gaze. He smiled widely and made his way over to them.

"Hey." He greeted cheerfully.

"Hi Remus,"
"Hiya,"
"Hello there,"
"Hey Teddy," were the responses he received.

"How are you guys?" He asked politely to the Gryffindor girls.

"We're good, trying to convince this one to date James." Marlene replied, chuckling when Lily huffed.

Remus chuckled, his gaze drifting to Layla as she laughed and his eyes filling with joy at the sight. It had taken her so long to laugh when she first came to stay with him that summer. After everything that had happened, which still affects her to this day, he was glad to know that she could still laugh and smile. She was happy, even though the war that had already taken both of her parents was still gaining more momentum outside of Hogwarts' walls. Remus' face set slightly heavier at the thought, realising that there was nothing any of them could do to help.

Would he even be able to help if he could? He was a werewolf after all. He'd do everything he could, of course he would... but would the light even trust such a 'dark creature'? Dumbledore trusts him and he had a lot of power on the light side so maybe it really was possible to help when they'd left Hogwarts. It wasn't like he was able to get a normal job anyway.

And, of course, he wanted to make sure that what Layla went through was not in vain. That the man responsible for their deaths and her pain was gone.

'Would she join?' He mused, 'without a doubt.'

Remus was snapped out of his thoughts with the sound of giggles.

"You look like you're thinking hard." She giggled more, "if you keep your face that way, eventually it'll stay like that forever." Layla teased him, earning his own laughter in response.

"I'm going to head up to the dorm. Astrology took a lot out of me." Layla admitted a while later. A yawn quickly followed her statement, as if proving it to be true.

"Goodnight Cookie, see you tomorrow." Remus mumbled, the other girls also saying their 'goodnights'.

As Layla struggled up the stairs (because stairs are a lot of effort, especially when you didn't sleep that well), she thought about how brilliant the school year had been so far and how lucky she was to have her friends. When she reached the room, she walked straight to her bed, collapsing upon the soft mattress.

She turned over slowly and opened her eyes briefly, only to be met with a small blue sparkle.

"How odd." She mumbled, looking at the sparkle.

For reasons unknown to her, she reached out to touch the sparkle. As her fingers made contact with it, it began to evolve. Blue wisps from the sparkle began to take form. The form of a flower. A cherry blossom.

Layla's eyes widened, that was her favourite flower. How did the sparkle know? She once again reached out to touch it. Instead of her hand going through the wisp, the flower materialised as soon as her hand made contact with the wisp. The flower fell into her hands softly.

It was then that Layla noticed the note attached to the flower: "With Love".