Running With Wolves

Chapter 19: Hogsmeade

           

Chapter 19: Hogsmeade

The weather was determined to be grim and cold. It had hardly stopped snowing the past two weeks. Remus and Lily walked together, heads bent against the storm. The wind was too loud to talk over, but they made the trek to Hogsmeade in comfortable silence, following behind a large group of excited third year Ravenclaws.

            They hunkered down in the Three Broomsticks for some Butterbeer. The place was crowded, full of everyone else trying to get out of the snow.

            "I'll go get us some drinks, shall I?" Remus said.

            "What was that? I couldn't hear you."

            "I'll go get drinks," Remus said again, miming drinking from a cup. Lily nodded, sliding some coins across the table for him. Remus took them, making his way through the students around him, gently pushing his way to the counter.

            "Thanks," he told the bartender when she handed over his drinks. When he returned to the table, he was met with the unpleasant sight to Severus Snape looming across the table, talking to Lily. His greasy hair swung into his eyes like curtains. Remus couldn't hear what he was saying, but Lily clearly didn't want to hear it. Her eyebrows were drawn so far up her head, Remus thought they were going to vanish into her hairline. Her lip curled in disgust. Remus set her drink down on the table sliding it across to her.

            "I told you, Severus, I don't want to speak to you, and I would really appreciate it if you would leave me alone." Her voice shook.

            "I just thought you might have forgiven me by now."

            "Forgive you? Ha! I might of done, if that were the first time it happened, but you run around with your stupid friends, bullying students, using that word—,"

            "I'm sorry, I didn't mean it."

            "Oh, you didn't mean it. Well I supposed that just makes everything better, doesn't it. It's alright to call every other muggle born a mudblood, but when it's me it's suddenly wrong. What makes me so special, Sev? You don't mean it when you say it to me, but what about every other muggle born student? Let's go, Remus." Lily stood, shouldering past Severus, pushing by several other patrons; she was swallowed up by the crowd. Remus snatched her Butterbeer off the table, catching up to her at the door.

            "Here." He handed her the drink. "Are you alright?"

            "Yes. Yes, I am, thank you." She took the drink and started down the path. The wind had died just enough that they could hold a conversation.

            "You said you wanted a new quill, didn't you?"

            "Yes." Remus took a swig of his drink; warmth spread form his core through his body.

            "C'mon, it's this way."

            Scrivenshaft's Quill Shop was decidedly less crowded. The room was dark. Dust hung in the air the way it only did when in a place that was full of time. It was old and unattractive from the outside, and the inside was even worse. Floorboards creaked. Every shelf was crooked. Remus plucked a quill off the nearest display, twirling it in his fingers, stoking the feathering, jabbing the tip at the pad of his finger. Down the line, the quills got more and more extravagant. Some were long enough to pool on their shelves. One near the back was so long it brushed the floor. Remus grabbed this one off the shelf, testing in his hands, twirling it around like a ribbon.