The Unexpected Love [Rewrite]

Chapter 8

When Remus finally returned to his dorm after a long talk with Lily, Sirius was waiting for him. 

"Why did you do it?" Sirius asked, standing up as soon as he walked in. His face was filled with anger and hurt. 

Remus swallowed and tugged on his tie nervously. It felt as if it were becoming tighter by the second. "I-I...I did it because..."

Because you couldn't do it yourself. Because I thought it would help me forgive you faster. Because I wasn't sure whether to be angry at you. Because you are too proud to admit you're sorry. 

But instead, he settled for, "Because James is hurting."

"What about me? Doesn't my pain matter?" Sirius asked, his gray eyes pleading and desperate. 

Remus's eye twitched. "It does, but you made the mistake."

"I'm sorry."

"Are you really? Just think about that for a moment Sirius. Would you still be sorry if Severus was in St. Mungo's right now? If James, Peter, and I hadn't found out? If I'd killed him? Would you still be sorry?!"

Remus tugged at the ends of his hair roughly. He really wasn't sure what he wanted anymore. He wanted Sirius to apologize so everyone could be happy, but at the same time he wanted to be angry with Sirius so he could truly understand what he'd done. 

"I'm really sorry. And I'd still be sorry if any of those things had happened."

Remus bit the corner of his lip frustratedly. 

~

"Lily! Lily, that Snape boy is outside the common room." Mary Macdonald, one of her dorm mates, said. "The Fat Lady keeps telling him to leave, but he said he's going to sleep there unless you talk to him."

Lily sighed in annoyance and rubbed her temples. "Alright, fine, I'm going."

She pulled on the sleeve of her dressing gown as she stepped out of the portrait. Lily felt a surge of anger as soon as she saw him. Snape always chose to apologize profusely in the worst possible moments. As soon as he saw her, he rushed to stand up. 

"What?" Lily snapped, tapping her foot impatiently. She wanted to get his apology over with as soon as possible. 

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not interested."

"I'm sorry!"

"Save your breath. I only came out because Mary told me you were threatening to sleep here."

"I was. I would have done. I never meant to call you Mudblood, it just--"

"Slipped out?" There was no pity in Lily's voice. "It's too late. I've made excuses for you for years. None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you. You and your precious little Death Eater friends--you see, you don't even deny it! You don't even deny that's what you're all aiming to be! You can't wait to join You-Know-Who, can you?"

He opened his mouth, but closed it without speaking. 

"I can't pretend anymore. You've chosen your way. I've chosen mine."

"No--listen, I didn't mean--"

"--to call me Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth Mudblood, Severus. Why should I be any different?"

He struggled on the verge of speech, but with a contemptuous look she turned and climbed back through the portrait hole. 

The portrait swung closed once more, and the Fat Lady turned her nose up at Snape. He scowled and stormed off toward the dungeons in defeat. 

~

James lie on his bed, staring at the ceiling blankly. He'd tried all the Muggle techniques Remus had told him about: counting backwards from 100, closing his eyes for long periods of time, even counting imaginary sheep (in his opinion it would be much more effective to count hippogriffs). However, it didn't seem to be doing him any good, as he was still wide awake. He became aware of Sirius's soft breathing, Peter's loud snores, and Remus's tossing and turning for a full minute before surrendering and sitting up in bed. James walked toward his trunk slowly and pulled out his Invisibility Cloak. 

He did his best to leave the dorm and walk down the stairs as quietly as he could. However, he stopped as soon as he saw someone sitting by the fire. 

"You scared me!" Lily hissed once he was close enough to hear. 

"Sorry." he murmured, sitting next to her cross-legged. 

"What are you doing here?" Lily asked, turning to face him. James couldn't help but notice that her hair resembled flames in that light. 

"Well, Remus told me I should count sheep to sleep, but by 50 I started to give them funny names, and by 100 they started to explode, and I gave up at 120 because they started to wear Hogwarts robes..." he rambled, internally rolling his eyes at his strange thoughts. 

Lily smiled slightly and hugged her knees. "Maybe you should've imagined brooms. Or snitches."

There was a long silence between them, and James shifted uncomfortably. "Why did you stop insulting me?"

"Why did you stop asking me out?" Lily countered. 

James smirked. "Go out with me, Evans?"

"In your dreams, git."

They laughed for a moment, before Lily said, "A lot of things have changed this year...so sorry in advance if I forget to insult you at least once a day."

James shook his head. "It'll give you some time to think of new ones."

"Prat."

James laughed again. "But I'm all yours."

"All mine." Lily mused. 

~

Marlene's blue eyes strained to read the words on her letter. However, she didn't need to see to to know what it read. She'd memorized it already; every letter, period, and comma was engraved in her mind. Marlene had read it dozens of times, hoping she was mistaken. She hoped that if she read it a few hundred times, eventually it would read something else. 

But she was wrong. No matter how many times she read it, it always said the same thing. No matter how many times her eyes stared at that sentence, it never changed. 

And it wasn't going to change. Marlene knew that. But even so, it broke her heart every time she looked at it. 

You'll be attending Beauxbatons next year.