Secret Keeper
Remus J. Lupin has always loved Lily Evans from afar. She was one of the very few, the microscopic few, who looked beyond his outer image. To those who knew simply his secret and not him, Remus was nothing more than a monster. Yet Lily saw more than that, she could see the beauty within the beast. Each day she had a warm smile waiting for him and a readily helping hand. Her words soothed him when his friends just couldn’t understand. Sure, they had become Animagi for him, even out of love, but there were parts to him that they could and would never see. Lily saw them and only her.
Every morning, after the full moons and the initial bandaging courtesy of his friends and Madam Pomfrey, Lily would always be there to give him fresh bandages and newly brewed potions to mend the remaining wounds and soothe the aches, especially when he seemed to need them most. Remus knew that neither James nor Sirius would ever think to do that on the assumption that Madam Pomfrey could cure all, and Peter followed those two around like a homesick puppy so often that Remus doubted he was even capable of free thought. All he ever did was jump to their command and followed every beckoning call. In fact, Remus now doubted that the word “no” even existed in the boy’s vocabulary anymore.
In his opinion, as affectionate as they were and as brotherly, only Lily truly cared. It was no wonder that Remus fell in love with her. More so, as faithful as the bond was in the Marauders, nothing stung worse or felt more like betrayal than when James came forward in front of their entire group within the Shrieking Shack and proclaimed his undying affection that went beyond what was already known for a certain red-haired, green-eyed beauty of Hogwarts.
Remus always knew James had a crush on her, yet he often believed it was simply that and nothing more. For James to come right out and announce that his simple crush was in fact love, couple that with him literally on his knees begging for help, it was then that Remus knew he had lost. James was the sort of person where once his mind was set to it he would get whatever he wanted. He had even gone as far as exchanging his rebellious ways, much to Sirius’s condemnation, for a set of books and the placement of Head boy, a position that rightfully belonged to Remus. He did not do this to turn his life around for the better, achieve a good career or even an accepting place in life. Those were Remus’s reasons, to know as much as there was to know, be the best around and sought after in life, become talented.… To be wanted. No, James did it to impress Lily and the poor sap failed miserably. Now he resorted to crawling in the dirt to show his desperation. It nearly made Remus sick. James, however, was his friend and he loved him dearly, therefore…
“You will?! Oh, thank you, Remus! Thank you! I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you!”
“If it works,” Sirius grinned as James lunged himself at Remus and took him up in a fierce embrace. “Remember the last time you tried to impress her? See how that turned out?” he nearly mocked.
“But now I have you all helping me! I can’t lose!”
Yes, Remus definitely felt ill.
From that point on, the goal of the Marauders was not to cause mischief and mayhem. Instead, it was to win the hand of the fair Lily Evans. First, they tried Sirius’s tactics: roses, poems, opening doors, and being as chivalrous as possible. Much to their remorse, nothing worked.
“I don’t think it was wise to say that her eyes were a green as slugs and baby toads.”
“Sod off, Wormtail.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Shut it, Wormtail!”
Remus didn’t feel the least bit sympathetic for the boy. He did catch, however, when the latter seemed to mumble something under his breath and draw within him, slouching as he did so. Nevertheless, before he could dwell on it any, James abruptly mentioned that he had rounds to make and bid them all goodnight.
“Hope you run into Lily while you’re out there!” Sirius called.
James simply waved him off and disappeared through the portrait and out the common room. Remus stared after him, his quill poised in mid-air over his homework. As James’s friend, he should be wishing him all the best of luck and hope that he actually sees her while he’s out and everything goes well. Yet, some part of him couldn’t shake the longing for James to fail, to come back miserable and empty handed. With all his efforts spent within the Marauders, Remus hadn’t spoken with Lily in over a week! Seeing as they were in the same house, that was quite an accomplishment. Each time he realized this, he felt that much worse because he knew Lily deserved better, not some prankster turned prince. Then he remembered that she didn’t deserve a werewolf either.
“Oy! Moony! Your ink!”
Remus snapped out of his reverie and gazed down at his parchment. The suspended quill had oozed jet-black ink all over his homework, soiling it beyond repair.
“You can’t turn that in! You’ll have to re-write everything!”
“Can’t he just use a spell and clean it off?”
“How thick are you, Wormtail?! Are you in your seventh year or first? If he used a charm, whatever’s salvageable will be completely erased and he really would have to do it all over!”
“I knew that…”
Remus absentmindedly heard them as he reached down and pulled another piece of parchment from his bag. It would be no problem writing everything again, seeing as he practically knew the information by heart. That and it would give him something to do; after all, he felt a desperate need to be preoccupied and kept busy. Anything to keep his mind off ”
“Oy, Moony, what’s wrong?” Sirius asked as he leaned across the small round table, his long bangs falling gracefully in front of his eyes. “You’ve been awfully quiet lately.”
“It’s nothing,” he answered softly, his hand already set to scribbling information. “Just thinking.”
“Well, you’d better not be thinking too hard about that ruddy homework, we need to concentrate on how we’re going to get Prongs and Evans together.”
For a split second, the monotonous motion of Remus’s writing faltered before he corrected himself and continued as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. “Don’t you have anymore bright ideas?”
Sirius sniffed, stretched back in his chair and yawned, his tongue lolling about just like a dog. “Nah, not tonight,” he drawled. “I’ll think of something in the morning.” With that, he seemed content to remain a reclined position with his hands folded neatly behind his head and tilting his chair backwards onto two legs.
“So what are you going to do now?”
“Sit here,” he stated with a grin, his eyes languidly kept shut.
“And your homework?”
“Done hours ago. Honestly, Moony, you worry too much.”
“My apologies if I have a sense of responsibility.”
Sirius, even in his still state, froze. “That wasn’t funny.”
“Wasn’t meant to be,” he answered as he continued writing, glancing occasionally at the old parchment for reference. “It was merely a statement of fact. I know work needs to be done while all you want to do is play, equally understandable.”
Sirius placed his chair squarely on the ground with a sharp thud. Peter, who had been watching them intently, jumped while Remus calmly raised his gaze to meet a hard gray stare. They eyed each other, neither saying anything, before Remus finally relented.
“I know you miss those raids and adventures with James, but sometimes ””
“This isn’t about James!” Sirius snapped.
“Of course it isn’t. But seeing as I’m always studying, perhaps you could take Peter ””
“Wormtail? Take Wormtail with me? Give me a break! We’d be caught instantly with him tripping all over the place!”
“But if I go as a rat ””
“You’d scamper across the Headmaster’s feet and then were would we be? Prongs at least had the sense to pull you back all those times. I don’t nearly have the patience for that.”
“Then I guess you’ll just have to wait for James to get in the mood again,” Remus stated calmly, returning to his writing.
“Like that’s going to happen. All he ever thinks about is Evans,” Sirius pouted. “It’s never the same anymore.”
For the second time that night, Remus halted in his actions. However, instead of keeping his gaze down, he looked up. “Are you saying you don’t want to see them together?”
“No, it’s not that. I want to see him happy just as much as you do. It’s just that I know once they get together, he’ll spend most of his time around her and forget about us.”
“He won’t forsake us, it’s not in his nature,” said Remus in his firm yet patient voice.
Sirius stared downcast for a long time afterwards, seeming to become engrossed in the design of the carpet. For a while, Remus thought he had given up on the conversation and gone off in his own little world. Peter, who had been watching the pair like a hawk and seeming to receive entirely too much entertainment from their bickering, dropped back in his chair disappointed, grabbed the nearest book, a copy of Remus’s Defense Against the Dark Arts, and began reading simply for something to do.
Remus didn’t know how long they remained as such. The rest of the students had already gone up to bed long before them, some even passing the unusually quiet trio as they went. Their only company seemed to be the constant scratch of the quill, the random pop and crackle of the hearth, and the occasional turn of the page. Finally, after what seemed like an hour, Sirius spoke.
“He won’t leave us.”
Remus started at the sudden statement and stared across the table.
“We’re brothers,” he continued softly, slowly, as if he were contemplating and toying with is words even after he said them. “…It really… isn’t in his nature…”
“Of course not. Oh. Poor boy,” Remus smiled as he turned to Peter and saw that he was fast asleep, the book lying open across his stomach. Reaching over, he gently shook him awake.
“” He’s too persuasive! What? Oh.”
Remus and Sirius blinked for a moment before grinning at each other.
“Have a nightmare, Wormtail? What, was ‘ol Snivelly after you again?”
“Huh, what?” yawned Peter as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes and almost returned to his previous state. “Oh… yeah…”
“You ought to go to bed, Peter,” said Remus as he took his book back. “You’re nearly asleep again as is.”
Nodding in a sort of dream-like trance, Peter obediently rose to his feet and stumbled to the stairway.
“And you?”
“Me?”
“Aren’t you going up too? It’s getting late and I have loads to write still.”
“Nah, I’m not the least bit tired. I think ”” but he stopped as a sound caught their attention. There was a soft thud followed by footsteps and they looked up just in time to see James walk away from the portrait entranceway. He wore a deep scowl on his face and seemed to emanate extreme frustration.
“Bad luck then, Prongs?” Sirius smiled, immediately taking up his previous, more common composure.
James stopped parallel with their little round table and glanced sideways at them. At first they thought he would snap, releasing all his anger. Then, slowly, a veil lifted from his cold gaze to reveal the self they were more accustomed with.
“Yeah,” he said simply, a soft smile pulling at his lips. From there, an unspoken message passed between the three of them, a certain understanding not achieved by any other student in the castle, and James continued on his way to bed. Looking over to Remus, Sirius locked eyes and nodded before rising to his feet and following. Remus instantly knew a brotherly conversation was about to commence that he would not be a part of. It was fine by him, as he was certain he would never have the same bond they did.
Finally, he was left to his thoughts, completely alone. The happy fire blazed beside him and he glanced to it, wondering briefly if there had ever been a time where the Marauders kept anything from one another. James and Sirius told each other everything whereas Remus mostly kept things to himself, his lycanthropy obviously not being the first. At the mere thought of secrets, his recent one popped into his thoughts and he physically smacked himself over the head, forcing his eyes onto the still unfinished homework lying on the table. He poured all his attention into the homework and blocked everything else out. All was to no avail, however, as within moments something, or more particularly someone, tore it away and held it fast.
Lily Evans walked into the common room.