Too Little Too Late

Chapter 19 | Edited

Remus joined the others in their classes after charms, blowing off his absence as his forgetting that they even had a class. "I guess the NEWT year really is getting to me." He chuckled. The others seemed to accept this answer without question, the girls because there was no reason for them not to and the boys because Remus seemed to be in a better mood so they decided that it was best to just leave it that way.

Despite telling Sirius that he would help with his effort to impress Layla, Remus didn't help anymore. By no means did he try to hinder Sirius' effort, however, he had decided that it hurt too much to actively be trying to get Layla to fall in love with Sirius.

'It didn't seem to be effecting the process though', Remus thought bitterly, remembering the few instances in which they had seemingly gotten closer and closer over the past few weeks. He didn't know whether this jealousy was due to the possibility of a romantic relationship blooming, the fact that his own friendship with Layla had seemed to take a backseat for the girl, or a mixture of both of these. As the weeks had passes she had been spending more and more time with Sirius and barely any with him. He knew that it was a good thing, or at least he told himself that, but the loss of their close relationship was hard on him.

'Maybe', he mused, 'he was feeling particularly down because the general mood of the castle was rapidly changing.'

Unlike at Christmas, when the next attack that effected Hogwarts came there was no Christmas holiday to distract the castle. The fourth year Gryffindor boy whose whole family was killed by Lord Voldemort himself stayed at the castle. He did not mourn for long. After a week of speaking to no one and being let off classes, the boy had thrown himself into his work, especially defence against the dark arts. His reaction, specifically the strength of character that he had shown, effected the castle greatly. It was as if his strength was put into every other occupant of the castle. Students began to realise that they had to be strong in order to survive the upcoming war. The seventh years in particular, who would be leaving Hogwarts in a matter of months, began to realise the severity of the situation and threw themselves into their work.

As the general feeling of the castle was so down, the students managed to find joy in the smallest of things. In fact, they began to try and create their own joy as much as they could.

James and Lily, for example, had been sneaking around the castle at night, breaking many rules that Lily had held so dear previously. Yet, she was practically glowing with joy, something that all of her friends were happy to see. It seems that everyone who had ever told Lily that she was destined to be with James was correct. This was the first time in Lily's life that she had not minded being wrong.

"James, what are you doing?" Lily had exclaimed one morning at breakfast as James had covered her eyes with his hands.

"How did you know it was me?" He pouted.

"Who else could possibly be that childish and annoying?" Lily replied with a smile, pulling his hands away from her eyes and turning in her seat.

"Hey!"

"Oh shut up, you moron." She laughed, pulling on his tie so as to bring his face close enough to hers to kiss him chastely.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"We only have five weeks until our exams." Alice said with a moan one night. "What if I don't get the grades? I'll never become an auror."

"Alice, listen to me, you are going to be the best auror of our generation. You are going to save so many people and you are going to help end this war. People will speak of you in the same way you speak of Alistair Moody. I promise you that." Layla had replied seriously, wishing that her friend knew how talented she really was.

"Thank you Layla. I don't know, sometimes I just doubt myself. There's so much going on now. The war, NEWTs, careers. It's just so much."

"I know Alice, trust me I do. It will be okay. Let's sneak to the kitchens and get some food, ey?" She finished with a smile.

"Alright."

"And I'll tell you this, we are all going to survive this war. All of us."