In Parallel by Morwen
Chapter Notes: Written for maraudersaffair on the LiveJournal community rs_small_gifts with the prompt: "Crackfic where Remus and Sirius are both girls. You explore the possibilities." Didn't turn out crackfic though.
Betaed by MaiaMadness.
In Parallel
“What’s that?” Rhea Lupin asked Lysandra Black over her porridge. The latter had just received a letter and was scowling rather fiercely at it, and being the good friend she was, the former had decided to find out what it was.
“Just the usual,” Lysandra responded, trying to sound offhand. “Because I’m turning seventeen soon, Mother wants to find me a suitable future husband and was telling me that she’s started to plan my turning-of-age ball so I can meet potential matches. In other words, she thinks I hang out with the wrong crowd and wants me to have a lovely pureblood marriage like my perfect cousins Bella and Cissy.” She folded up the letter neatly, placing it in her bag and returned to her toast and eggs.
Of course, Rhea knew she should have assumed that something like this would eventually happen, but she still felt a twinge of something like regret at the idea that Lysandra would end up married to some pureblood, possibly even one of the Slytherins now sitting at the table at the other end of the Great Hall.
“Where’s Lily?” Lysandra asked, apparently to give her something to do other than stare morosely at her eggs.
“No idea,” Rhea replied.
Lysandra looked crestfallen, apparently having hoped to talk the matter over with Lily. “Oh.”
However, at that very moment said girl dropped into the seat beside Lysandra, dropping her bag beside her.
“Sorry, I had to look something up in the library.” Pulling some toast and jam towards her, she started eating.
“Lily, do you have a moment?” Lysandra asked quietly, looking around to make sure no one was listening in.
“Yes, although breakfast will be over soon.”
“Oh, well, in that case, I’ll talk to you about it later.”
“Alright.” Lily shrugged it off. Lily and Lysandra were always talking about this or that and sometimes, like now, Rhea envied their relationship because she’d never really had as close a friend as the two of them were. However, they’d both become Animagi for her after finding out that she was a werewolf, so she supposed that counted for something.
Finally, although there were still a few minutes until they had to leave for class and indeed many of their housemates were still eating, Rhea took the excuse and left the table early so as to put her thoughts in order. Neither Lysandra nor Lily noticed, being deep in conversation about a seventh year Hufflepuff Lily fancied, and so she was able to slip away unnoticed.
They had Potions first today, with the Slytherins, so Rhea walked slowly down to the dungeon, enjoying the silence of the empty hallways as everyone was still at breakfast. When she reached the corridor outside the Potions dungeon, the only other person in the hall was Severa Snape, a Slytherin in her year. She was a rather unpleasant girl, with unfortunate features and hair which Lysandra strongly disliked on account that she ought to at least have the decency to wash it every once in a while, never mind bathing in general. Rhea herself didn’t particularly mind her, but Severa tended to be rather antisocial, so she avoided her whenever possible.
Rhea had just sat down with her back against the wall and pulled out a book when she heard Lysandra.
“Rhea, there you are! I thought you’d been dragged off by Slytherins or something.” Lysandra and Lily walked towards her leisurely, when Lysandra noticed Severa.
“Oh, it’s Snape,” she mocked, with the air of one who has just noticed a particularly unpleasant insect. “You would think some people would have the decency to at least attempt basic hygiene, but apparently that’s what happens when one is a Slytherin. Ambition gets in the way of decency.”
Severa stood up at this, nostrils flaring unpleasantly, when Slughorn appeared and unlocked the door so they could enter.
“Now, now girls, enough of that!” he chuckled, and walked into the classroom. Lysandra smirked at Severa, who looked as though she would like to hex her, and followed Lily and Rhea into the classroom.
“What was that about?” asked Alice Brown, another Gryffindor who shared their dorm and who was Rhea’s partner in Potions.
Rhea merely shrugged. “Just Lysandra being Lysandra.”
“Oh,” she replied, and then the two started working on their potion.
Rhea usually did decently enough, if not well, in potions because she had the patience to make sure she got all the steps right and Alice usually helped her where she had problems. However, she seemed to be unable to get her potion to act properly because she kept thinking about Lysandra’s letter and looking over at said girl. Lysandra was rather pretty, with her black hair and grey eyes and pale skin, and would certainly be a good catch for any pureblood that would want her. And she had pretty breasts. Not that Rhea ever looked at her breasts, of course, but when one lives in a dorm with four other girls one is going to see them in various states of undress over the years.
Right now, Lysandra was staring intently at her potion while Lily whispered to her, probably because Lysandra had forgotten to add something again.
And, of course, Rhea’s own potion was not quite doing what it was supposed to, being rather thicker than it ought, but at least it was the right colour and was emitting the right coloured steam. Her concentration was interrupted by a large bang from the other end of the room, and she looked over to see a sheepish James Potter peering at what appeared to be the smoking remains of a cauldron. Looking back to her potion, she caught Lysandra’s eye and both girls rolled their eyes.
She wasn’t exactly sure, as she turned back to her potion, why she blushed slightly at catching Lysandra’s eye, and attributed it to the warmness of the room.
___________________________________________
Later that day, as she sat in History of Magic, Lysandra caught herself glancing over at Rhea again and again, a habit she thought she had broken after last year. Then she had seemed to be looking at Rhea during every possible moment, and had endeavored to break herself from it as it was a rather embarrassing habit to have. She thought that she had managed to get over Rhea over the summer, but apparently she hadn’t as much as she thought she had.
Right now, Rhea was writing studiously, being one of the few students other than Lily to do so. In the back of the room, Potter and his friend Pettigrew seemed to be passing notes, and a few other students were sleeping.
She herself almost never took notes, as she could always copy them from either Lily or Rhea at her leisure. Instead, she pulled the letter from her mother out of her bag and began perusing it again, wondering what she was supposed to reply to it. Sorry Mother, I can’t attend my ball because I won’t marry a pureblood since I’m in love with a half-blood werewolf who also happens to be a girl. That would go over well. Although it wasn’t like it really mattered since she was only a daughter and Regulus was the one who would end up carrying on the Black line, there was still the matter of pureblood pride to be dealt with and whatever her mother might think to do to her if she ever learned of the matter would probably be as bad, if not worse than Andromeda being disinherited over marrying a Muggle-born. Not all of the skeletons in the Black family closet were figurative.
She wondered briefly what might happen if she told them she was fed up with everything; the pureblood politics, the snobbery, the fact that she herself was considered nothing more than an object to be bartered for prestige and to carry on a pureblood line. To be honest, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to live out her life being a perfect pureblood wife. She wanted to marry someone she wanted to marry, not someone her parents saw fit to put her with.
Lily reached over on pretext of picking up her quill and dropped a note on Lysandra’s desk. Having nothing better to do, she unfolded it and read.
Are you all right? You seem out of it today. What’s bothering you?
Lysandra flipped the note over and wrote Nothing, I’m fine on the back, then folded it up and dropped it on Lily’s desk. Lily opened it, pursed her lips at the message, then grabbed a spare piece of parchment and scribbled on it before dropping it on Lysandra’s desk. It read:
It’s obviously something, because you’ve been out of it all day and staring at Rhea for most of that time.
Oops. Lysandra thought she’d been more circumspect about it. She dearly hoped no one else had noticed.
Really, she wrote, it’s nothing. It’s just the letter I got this morning.
Upon reading it, Lily rolled her eyes at Lysandra and threw her another note.
Don’t be stupid; I’m not that thick. Would you like me to involve her in the matter, or will you tell me?
Deciding that there was really nothing she could write in return to that, she merely crumpled up the note and scowled at her in return. Lily, sensing she had hit a nerve, smirked and returned to writing her notes while Lysandra ended up doodling on a bit of spare parchment all the rest of class.
The rest of the day passed without much else happening, and when she was finally able to escape after dinner she ran up to their dormitory and curled up in her bed, pulling the hangings shut. Some time later she heard the other girls come up, chattering for a while, then there was silence as they left. She heard someone walk into the room, but stayed silent hoping they too would leave. Lily poked her head through her bed hangings, raising an eyebrow at Lysandra.
“So, are you ever going to tell me what’s the matter?” After a few minutes of no reply, the rest of her appeared through the hangings and she sat down on the end of the bed, resting her chin on her hand.
“I really don’t want to talk about it,” Lysandra finally muttered into her pillow.
The redhead sighed and started playing with the edge of Lysandra’s coverlet.
“So you’re going to make me guess, are you?” She frowned, apparently in deep contemplation of the coverlet. “Okay, so it’s obviously triggered by something that happened today, since you were fine yesterday, so we need to look at what happened today. I’m guessing it had something to do with the letter you received from your mother. Am I right so far?”
Lysandra nodded glumly.
“But it also has something to do with Rhea, since you were acting awkward around her all day, and you were staring at her through almost all of History of Magic. Unfortunately, I’m not a Legilimens, so I won’t be able to figure it out unless you tell me. So are you going to tell me, or must I ask Rhea?”
The threat worked. Lysandra sat up, her normally perfect black hair rather mussed.
She sighed. “If I tell you, you can’t tell Rhea.”
“I won’t,” Lily said innocently.
“Alright,” Lysandra began, twisting her hands anxiously. “You have to promise though, that you never tell her.”
“I promise,” Lily said, rather impatiently.
“Well,” Lysandra said, biting her lip. “It’s just that, well, that I think I like Rhea, as in like like, but of course she doesn’t like me, so I don’t know what to do, and Mother wants me to find someone to marry, but I like Rhea, so…” She trailed off, looking anxiously at Lily.
Lily looked thoughtful and started playing with a few strands of hair. “Why don’t you tell her then?”
Lysandra looked positively terrified by the thought. “I can’t just tell her!”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s Rhea! I couldn’t just tell her something like that.”
“So were you planning on just never telling her?”
Lysandra was put out. “Maybe eventually, but it’s not like that’s something that I could just tell her.”
“You’ll never know until you try,” said Lily with amusement.
Lysandra narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Do you know something I don’t?”
“No,” said Lily cheerfully as she stood up and straightened her skirt. “But I know you and Rhea, and I think you should at least talk it out.”
Lysandra merely hmphed as Lily left and curled back on her bed, thinking over what Lily had told her.
Later, she heard the other girls come in chattering as they got ready for bed, but she only got ready for bed herself once the dormitory was quiet again as the others dropped off to sleep.
However, once she had finally gotten ready and settled back in her bed, her bed hangings rustled and Rhea appeared by her bed.
“Can I sleep with you tonight?” She was looking rather tired and pale, and Lysandra realized guiltily that the full moon was in less than a week.
“Yes,” she said and moved over so that she could slide in next to her. She thought Rhea looked rather pretty with the sharp line of her cheekbones in the moonlight and her hair falling over the pillow, and felt the sudden urge to kiss her.
“Lysandra?” Rhea said quietly, after Lysandra thought she had fallen asleep.
“Yeah?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course,” Lysandra replied sleepily.
“Have you ever liked someone?” Lysandra stiffened slightly at the question, then relaxed when she realized that Rhea was asking it rhetorically.
“Why?” she asked.
“I was just wondering, because I think I like someone but I wasn’t really sure how you know if you like someone, and thought you might know.”
Lysandra shifted slightly and curled an arm under her head. “I don’t really know how to describe it,” she said thoughtfully. “It’s not really that you wake up one morning thinking, ‘Oh, I like so-and-so’, it’s more something you realize. You find yourself thinking about them a lot, then you realize that it’s because you like them.”
Rhea nodded, looking thoughtful. “Have you ever liked anyone?” she asked suddenly. “Not just liked the way they looked and asked them out or been asked out, but actually truly liked them?”
Lysandra fidgeted slightly, glad the darkness covered up her blushing. “Maybe,” she finally managed to say. “But there’s not any chance of that person liking me back.”
“It’s not James Potter, is it by any chance?” Lysandra let out a noise of disgust at the question. “I thought not. Who do you like, then?”
She looked away, not able to meet her eyes, and muttered. “I can’t tell you.”
Rhea moved and sat up slightly, leaning against the pillow. “Why not?”
“Because I can’t.”
Looking far too interested, Rhea bit her lip in contemplation. “You’ve always told me about everyone else you’ve liked, so it’s obviously none of the usual suspects.” Her eyes widened as a sudden thought struck her.
“You don’t like a girl, do you?”
Lysandra nodded slightly, then buried her face in the pillow.
“Ah,” Rhea said faintly. “Is that why you wouldn’t tell me?”
She reemerged from the pillow and muttered. “Part of it.”
“Who do you like, then?” She was watching Lysandra curiously and biting the edge of her lip like she always did when in deep contemplation of something.
“I told you,” Lysandra said quietly. “I can’t tell you.”
Rhea lay down again facing her, and whispered, “Do you like me?”
Feeling suddenly ashamed of herself, Lysandra only nodded, then buried her face in the pillow so she wouldn’t have to see the other girl’s reaction. Hopefully she would just leave, and then they’d forget the whole thing ever happened.
Unfortunately, Rhea was not to be so dissuaded. Lysandra felt a thin hand pull back the hair from her face, and looked up to see Rhea only inches from her, with a curious expression on her face.
Rhea smoothed Lysandra’s hair out of her face and whispered with an odd tone to her voice, “What if I tried to kiss you?”
Lysandra felt a sudden upsurge of hope at the thought. “I’d probably kiss you back,” she whispered in return.
Rhea hesitated a moment, then pressed her lips against Lysandra’s. Her lips were soft and warm against her own, and felt more wonderful than any of the boys she’d ever kissed. After a moment Lysandra pulled away slightly breathless, lips still burning with the feel of the kiss. Rhea licked her lips with an odd, almost hungry expression on her face and pressed her lips against hers again, cupping Lysandra’s face with her hand, kissing her fiercely until both had to break apart again in order to breathe.
“I think I’m going to have to kiss you more often,” Rhea whispered.
Lysandra pulled Rhea’s hand from where it lay on her cheek and twined her fingers with hers.
“I think I would like that.”