Too Little Too Late

Chapter 17 | Edited

Layla was bombarded with questions the moment that she entered her dormitory, as she had expected that she would be. 

"Where on Earth have you been all day?" 

"Layla, do you know how many classes you missed?" 

"What could possibly be more important than your NEWTs?" 

She couldn't get a word out in between each question, so she could not explain to her friends where she was, or who she was with. They continued to fire questions at her. Alice seemed to realise this issue after they had been questioning her for a while, so she stopped asking questions and raised her hand up to silence the others too. 

"Well-" 

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Sirius, on the other hand, was more than happy to tell his friends where he had been all day. None of them were surprised by his absence during the day. They were, however, curious as to who he had spent it with. He usually spent the day with the other marauders when he skipped, or he just laid in bed all day. 

Remus, being close friends with both Sirius and Layla, had a guess as to who Sirius had been with all day. Despite this guess, Remus was the most curious as to what had happened, for reasons quite different to the other marauders' reasons. 

"Guess who is now friends with Layla!" Sirius announced to his friends. 

"Good on ya mate." James replied with enthusiasm, casting a quick glance at the werewolf automatically, looking to see his reaction. 

"That's a start." Remus replied evenly, still sure in his decision to help Sirius woo her. 

"Who?" Asked Peter, not quite catching on. 

All three of the other marauders looked at each other and rolled their eyes. James hit Peter across the back of his head. 

Breakfast the next morning started very differently than anyone had expected. For one thing, the marauders had arrived at the Gryffindor table before the girls did. For a second, and much more unexpected, thing, Lily led the way over to the marauders and sat down. Next to James. The other girls, while as surprised as most others by this, quickly schooled their faces to pretend that this was an everyday occurrence that they were expecting. They then joined Lily and the marauders, Layla sitting next to Remus. Both gave a quiet chuckle noticing the coins being exchanged from student to student. It seemed that the student body had been making bets on the outcome of the headboy and headgirl's date. 

Throughout breakfast James and Lily tried not to flirt. However, they did not do a very good job. They could barely keep their eyes off of one another, and they struggled to pay attention to anyone else at all. The conversations of their friends did not seem to reach their ears. This was not altogether a bad thing though. Layla and Remus spent their breakfast with their heads together, whispering about their two friends. 

"It's about time, I was beginning to think that they would never get together." 

"Well they're not together yet, but she does really like him and we've all warned her to take it slow. More for James' sake than her own, but still." 

"Do you think they will move in together at the end of the year, after we graduate?" 

Layla brought her eyes up to meet Remus' ad giggled at the idea. "I hope so." 

A loud cough made everyone jump, including James and Lily, which resulted in them snapping out of their conversation (Lily blushing a pale pink) and trying to converse with other people. Sirius, it seemed, was unaware of the result of his loud, rather fake, cough as he was staring at Remus unblinkingly. Remus glared back, annoyed at his friend for ruining the moment for Lily and James. Sirius glared back, for reasons unknown to both Layla and Remus. 

"Oh we should get going to class." Marlene said quietly, picking up her bags. The rest of the girls grabbed their belongings too and left the table with a quick 'goodbye', making their way towards charms. 

"What was that?" Sirius asked Remus venomously, still glaring. 

"What do you mean? You interrupted James and Lily when they were finally getting along." Remus replied in annoyance. 

Sirius spared James one guilty look before continuing, "but you were flirting with Layla." 

Remus let out a harsh laugh before replying, "we were talking about James and Lily. We were not flirting. We are friends. Just because you only noticed her existence this year, the rest of us have not. I've been friends with her since first year and I am allowed to have a conversation with her. I am helping you out, so stop being such an ungrateful prick." After his rant Remus collected his things quickly and left to go to class too, not wanting to be around the others any more. 

There was a shocked silence among the boys for a few moments. 

"He seemed upset." Peter stated. 

"Yeah, that was a rather extreme reaction." Sirius agreed, seemingly forgetting his own annoyance. 

"No, that was expected. You know," James began, turning to look at Sirius, "he does like Layla. He has done since first year." 

"What?" Sirius gaped as this bomb was dropped on him. 

"Yeah they've always been close, but he always liked her. He never did anything though. You know Remus, he believes that no one deserves to 'deal' with a werewolf and that, because of his condition, he could never make her happy. I guess it also never helped that she had always liked you." James explained calmly, seeming to reflect on his thoughts. Obviously James and Remus had talked about this quite a bit throughout the years. 

"I thought he had stopped liking her after fourth year." Peter said slowly, as if trying to figure out something rather confusing. 

"What? You knew too?" Sirius exclaimed. 

"Everyone knew." 

"But then why is he helping me if he likes her that much and has done for so long?" Sirius asked in confusion. 

"He thinks you'll make her happy." James explained simply. "Now, let's get to charms."