Hermione, Ron, and Ginny stared in horror when they saw Remus. “R-Remus! We’ve been looking for you. Tonks wants you,” Hermione stammered. Remus just smiled and shook his head.
“Thought you would find me in there?” Remus raised his eyebrow and pointed at the basin that Ginny, Ron, Hermione just returned from.
Hermione flushed as Ginny and Ron smiled apologetically. Remus just smiled. “You stumbled across Harry’s seventeenth birthday present. Courtesy of Dumbledore, Sirius and I.” Remus smiled at the confused glances of the three teenagers in front of him, then continued, “You see, it was Dumbledore’s idea that we collected some memories of Lily and James for Harry. Dumbledore and I did most of the collecting, since some people probably wouldn’t be too excited to get a letter from Sirius. Although he did give us some memories of his own.”
Ginny studied the Pensieve, then looked up at Remus and said, “Letters? Why would you send letters out?”
“To get memories from fellow classmates. Mostly they were old friends of Lily.” Remus sat down in the armchair in the corner and placed his hands on his stomach.
Ron asked, “Why are you doing this for Harry?”
“And you say Dumbledore and Sirius were included, so, how long have you been planning this?” Hermione threw in.
Remus smiled. “Since the summer after yours and Harry’s fourth year.”
Ron seemed impressed. “So, you have been planning this for Harry for several years? Gathering memories from friends and putting them into this Pensieve?” Remus nodded from where he sat in the corner.
“How many memories do you have?” Ginny was looking into the silver liquid of the Pensieve.
“Quite a few,” Remus replied simply. “It took awhile getting memories and sorting through them.”
“Sorting through them?”
“We didn’t want any memories that were pointless. We wanted memories that really showed the personality of Lily and James. Snape even contributed one. Not very flattering on James’ part,” Remus smiled.
“Can we see more?” Ginny had her face only inches away from the liquid memories in the Pensieve.
“This was meant for Harry’s eyes only, but I’ve been meaning to look through them.” Remus got up from his chair and rubbed his hands together as he approached the Pensieve. “What memory next, what memory?” he murmured.
“Can we see one of Harry’s mum?” Ginny whispered. “Lily?”
Remus grinned then plucked a small bottle from a shelf. “Here’s one of Lily. Sixth year, I think. A memory of mine.” He poured the contents of the bottle into the basin and motioned with his hands towards the Pensieve. “After you.”
This time Hermione was the first to stick her head into the liquid. Ron, Ginny, and Remus followed shortly behind.
This time they were in the great hall, right next to a younger Remus reading a book and eating eggs. “Remus!” they heard, and Ron, Ginny, Hermione and both the younger and older Remus turned there heads towards the voice.
Walking towards them was a very pretty girl, about the age of the memory Remus (sixteen? seventeen?). She had long, thick deep red hair, which she had pinned up with a clip. She had emerald green eyes, in the shapes of almonds.
Harry’s eyes.
Ginny looked at the older Remus, who was standing right next to her, and said, “That’s Lily, isn’t it?” He nodded a reply.
Lily sat next to young Remus. “I was thinking,” she started, “that instead of using ginger in the Stupidity Potion, we could use lovage. Ginger is used in the Wit-Sharpening Potion, and lovage is used in Confusing and Befuddlement Potions, so I think that if we switch the two, we’ll have a more powerful Stupidity Potion. Don’t you think?”
Remus lowered his book a little bit and blinked at Lily. He shrugged. “Alright. Don’t see what would be wrong with that. As long as it doesn’t mess up the potion, and I don’t think it will.” Remus raised his book again and continued reading, his forked hanging loosely at his side.
Lily rested her head on her hand and sighed. “But wouldn’t there be a reason that the ginger is in there? Maybe so that the Stupidity Potion isn’t too strong.”
Remus shrugged.
Lily grabbed the fork from his hand and let it hang loosely from her own, smaller, palm. She dove it in and stabbed a piece of egg. Remus watched this all with mixed curiosity and amusement.
“Having a rough time lately?” he asked kindly, eyeing the fork she was holding up and poking him with every once in awhile.
Lily lowered the fork (but not without hitting Remus again) and narrowed her eyes. “Him,” she said venomously.
Remus rubbed the spot where Lily poked him as he replied, “What did he do to you now?” He watched as Lily dove the fork down again and stabbed a kipper and shoved it into her mouth.
“It’s not really what he did to me,” she said slowly. “It’s more of what he does to other people. Where does he get those curses, anyways?”
“He knows his way around the library pretty well,” Remus replied in a bored fashion.
Lily slouched her shoulders and huffed. “So do I! But that doesn’t mean I know all those jinxes. He must get them from the restricted section!”
Remus, who was in the middle of taking a big gulp of his pumpkin juice, choked and sprayed a decent amount of it out his nose. Lily patted him on the back.
“W-what gave you that idea?” Remus muttered. He was bright red and soaking wet with juice, and his shirt was stained orange.
Lily looked at him with a satisfied look on her face. “You’re a very bad actor, do you know that?” she said politely.
Remus sighed. “Sirius tells me that all the time.”
“It’s true!” she laughed. “And don’t worry, I won’t tell a teacher James sneaks into the Restricted Section.”
Remus eyed her cautiously. “You won’t?”
Lily shook her head. “I’m not a tattle-tail, believe it or not!” she said in defense. “I’ll just get back at James myself.” She smirked. “I have an idea.”
Remus raised his eyebrow and eyed his fork in her hands. Lily looked at him curiously. “Remus, you look a bit peaky. Is it your time of the month?”
Several people sitting close by sniggered, and Remus blushed. “Yes,” he whispered, “it is. OW!”
Lily poked him in the eye with his fork. “Oh, Remus! Are you okay? Do you need some ice? I’ll take care of you all night if you have to stay in the Hospital Wing!”
Remus was covering his eye with his hand. “I’m- I’m fine! I’ll be okay!”
Lily got up from where she was sitting and said, “I’ll leave now before I cause anymore bodily harm to you. Anyways, I’m going to go talk to Slughorn about the lovage.” She waved good-bye over her shoulder.
Remus raised his book and was once again hidden behind it.
Ron, Ginny, and Hermione felt the familiar tug on their backs and were once again in Remus’ room. “Lily- Harry’s mum- knew that you were a werewolf?” Hermione asked as soon as she regained her balance.
Remus ran his hand through his hair. “Lily was a good friend of mine. She- like James and Sirius- put the parts together and figured it out. Like she said, I wasn’t- am not- a good actor. There were only so many times she took the excuse that my mum was sick.”
“She had Harry’s eyes,” Ginny muttered.
Remus smiled warmly towards her. “Yes, she did. Now, here’s one more memory I want to show you of her.” He once again grabbed a vial from a shelf and poured its liquid into the Pensieve. “This one is courtesy of Professor Slughorn.”
“Ginny, you first this time, how ‘bout?”
Ginny dove her head into the liquid and was followed shortly by the others. This time they landed in the Potions dungeon. They recognised Slughorn immediately: He was the big sphere standing at the head of the empty room.
They heard noise outside and soon students started filing into the room, Lily leading with her group of laughing friends, Remus, Peter and Sirius at the back of the group.
Slughorn smiled at his class and motioned towards the desks. “Please take a seat next to your Potions partner.” Remus slumped into a seat next to Lily, and Sirius took a seat at the back of the dungeon, next to a girl that was eyeing him hopefully.
Peter took his seat at an empty desk- kiddy corner from Sirius- as he looked around the room desperately.
“Now, everyone! Today we will be making...” Professor Slughorn’s voice droned on as he explained the complicated potion they would be making that day in class. He was the only person in the room that didn’t see a boy with messy black hair slink into the room and take his seat next to Peter.
Lily turned around and scowled at James, and he just grinned back and waved. Lily spun back around in her seat and pointedly ignored Sirius and James passing notes back and forth. Remus kept glancing back, occasionally receiving a note from his friends.
Slughorn clapped his hands together. “Why, Mr. Potter! I didn’t see you come in!” he exclaimed, just noticing the presence of James.
“What can I say, Professor? I’m a quiet person,” he replied. The whole class snorted, Lily and Sirius louder than the rest.
James rolled his eyes but was grinning all the same. Slughorn rested his big hands on his even larger stomach and said, “Calm down! No need to have a laugh on Mr. Potter’s expense! Time to start making our potions. Directions on the board.” He waved his wand and directions appeared on the chalkboard, reminding Ron, Ginny, and Hermione vividly of Snape.
There was a scraping of noise as everyone pulled out their supplies. Lily was obviously Slughorn’s favorite, since he kept going up to her and complimenting her on her potion. Lily blushed politely, but it was obvious she was proud of herself.
Sirius was the only one putting any kind of effort into his potion, the girl he was working with just stared at him with her mouth open until Sirius said rather impatiently, “Are you alright?”
The girl snapped her mouth shut and started putting more effort in on her part. Ginny and Hermione couldn’t blame her. Sirius was quite handsome, and he had an air of coolness surrounding him that seemed to fill every corner of the room he was in.
Suddenly, a large explosion came from where James and Peter were sitting. Indeed, there was a large cloud of smoke emitting from their cauldron and several coughs from behind it. A pair of hands swiped away the smoke, revealing James Potter, every single hair on his head sticking up.
Sirius started laughing uncontrollably, followed soon by Remus, Lily, and the rest of the class. Soon, the face of Peter appeared, his hair sticking up as unflatteringly as James’. This caused more laughter.
Lily laughed, almost cruelly, at James. He stared at her. “I look good, don’t I? Bet you want to go on a date with me now?” James said with a wink.
Lily turned around. “Why don’t you go curse a Slytherin?” she growled.
James blinked. “Good idea.”
Lily was rolling her eyes when Ginny, Ron and Hermione were pulled back into the real world. “Lily didn’t care much for James, huh?” Ron asked.
Remus shook his head. “She didn’t hate him as much as she let on. In fact, I think she liked him almost as much as he liked her. And I know that she liked him more than Snape did.” Remus grinned as he went over to the shelf, examining all the memories.
AN~ Big, humongous thanks to my beta, Sour.Apple.!