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Recensere


The weather was getting cooler as September came to a close. So much had gone on in the first month of term that it hadn’t seemed odd that the Quidditch team try outs hadn’t been held yet, but James awoke early on the morning of October 1 to find the poster on the notice board announcing that Derek planned to hold try outs on the pitch on Saturday afternoon. The Gryffindor boys had originally planned to spend Saturday exploring the Trophy Room’s hidden passageway, but once that poster had been discovered, the plans had most definitely changed. In fact, Remus’s success of getting the other three to study with him on Friday went out the window as well when James announced he needed as much practice as he could get down on the pitch and Sirius had quickly agreed he needed to witness James’s saves and help out by being all six of the other team members at once.

“You lot know you can’t play Quidditch if you’re failing your grades, don’t you?” Remus demanded Friday night when Jame shouldered his broomstick, prepared to go down to the pitch for his practice turns.

“We won’t fail,” Sirius said confidently, “You wouldn’t let us.”

Remus sighed and watched them go, then glanced at Peter. “Are you going with them?” he asked.

Peter looked torn, then, finally, he said, “Well… it would be cool to get to play quidditch…”

“Oh go on then,” Remus said and Peter quickly scrambled after Sirius and James. Remus turned back to his books and opened up the Transfiguration text, flipping to the last page he’d worked from and started reading. The room was too quiet for studying, though, he soon discovered. He’d become too used to trying to study with James and Sirius and Peter all goofing off around him and now that he finally had peace and quiet for a time, he just couldn’t stay focused. He grabbed hold on all the textbooks and went down to the common room.

Most everyone had had the exact idea as James and gone outside to practice quidditch for the try outs. The room was nearly as deserted as the dorm, with one very notable exception.

“Hey Lily,” Remus said, sitting down at the table where she had her books spread all around. She clutched a steaming cup of tea and her hair was in two long braids today that hung over her shoulders. “Can I study with you?”

She held up one finger and finished the paragraph she was on, her lips moving as she read. Remus thought it was rather cute how she moved them to form the words silently as her eyes skimmed over the page. Almost as cute as her little nose and the freckles across it. He smiled at her. When she looked up, he was still smiling, so she smiled back. “Hey Remus,” she said.

“Can I study with you?” he asked.

“Yeah, sure,” Lily answered and she moved some of her books to make space for his books on the table opposite her.

Remus put down his books and opened Transfiguration back up. Lily took a sip of her tea and turned the page on her book - the text for History of Magic. “It was getting too quiet in the dorm,” he said, “James and Sirius are always so loud and they left and I thought I’d get some good studying done with all that quiet but it was just like something was missing.”

“I can’t study in the quiet either, that’s why I always study down here instead of in my dorm,” Lily offered.

Remus found he had a new challenge, though, when he finally turned to it and started trying to read again. There was a faint scent of flowers that tickled his nose from across the table and the sound of her breathing kept him reminded that she was there and lately he had found it quite hard to concentrate on anything when Lily Evans as too nearby. He kept sneaking peeks up at her. She caught him looking one of the times and she laughed, “What?”

Remus shook his head, “Nothing,” he replied.

Lily turned back to History of Magic and Remus tried to do the same with Transfiguration, but he’d read the same paragraph about the properties of transfiguring liquids about twelve times and still hadn’t absorbed it. The fire crackled and he thought about how much like fire Lily’s hair looked in the sunlight, with all the different tones and shades glowing.

“Have you done this History of Magic reading yet?” Lily asked, closing her book.

“Not yet,” Remus replied.

“It was really good is all,” Lily said. “Everyone seems to think History is really boring, but it’s actually quite exciting.”

“I think it’s mostly Binns they find boring,” he said, “I agree that history is really interesting. I could read it all day. It’s more exciting than most fictional books. But Binns could do with teaching it a bit better. I s’pose that’s what happens when you’re a ghost.”

“Maybe he bored himself to death,” Lily suggested.

The two of them laughed a bit and Lily glanced at Remus’s book. “You’re doing Transfiguration? Maybe I’ll do that next, so we can work together. How far are you in?”

Remus was still on the first page. He turned red, “I’m getting distracted easily,” he admitted, “So I’ve only just begun.”

Lily laughed and opened her textbook to the first page, too. “What’s distracting you, Remus?” she asked.

His stomach felt like it might just turn inside out. “Just… you know… the, um, the fire and all that.” Remus hated that he stuttered when he was nervous. He could feel sweat in his palms pooling and swept them across the knees of his robe.

Lily looked over the first page, at the illustration of a glass of water turning into a glass of mulberry mead as a rather drunk little wizard waved his wand over it. Lily laughed, “You would think they would illustrate him sober at least.”

“Perhaps he was sober when these books were first printed. He’s drunk an awful lot of mead over the centuries, I reckon, can’t expect him to hold his liquor forever, can you?”

Lily laughed, “But certainly an illustration couldn’t get drunk…?”

“The paintings do,” Remus answered. “Haven’t you ever seen Violet the witch and the Fat Lady get on? They drink loads of mead they get from the portrait of the Friars and they end up hiccuping and silly.”

“I’ve never seen that,” Lily laughed, “When has that happened?”

Honestly, every time they’d ever encountered the Fat Lady and her friend Violet drunk had been late, late at night, when they’d been sneaking about working on the map of the castle the term before. Remus shrugged, unsure if Lily should know about their delinquency. “Just have heard,” he replied.

Lily laughed and shifted the book so she was looking at the body of text that Remus had read and reread several times over. When she got to the end of the paragraph, they turned the page, and Lily put her cup of tea up on the table and waved her wand at it, “Recensere vinium!” she tried, but the tea merely bubbled for a moment before going flat again, still very much tea. Lily cleared her throat and tried emphasizing the spell a bit differently - knowing that usually when magic didn’t work it was more about the way things were being said or the wand-work than it was about the spell itself. “Recensere vinium!”

Remus pointed to the page, “Says here, the water at Hogwarts has been bewitched to keep from turning into alcoholic drinks because of the student body being mostly underage.” He aimed his wand at the mug, “Recensere cucurbita.”

The little mug’s contents glowed orange and swirled about and when it settled, it was a mug full of pumpkin juice instead of tea.

“Brilliant!” Lily exclaimed with wide eyes. “That’s amazing.” She lifted the glass, sniffed the juice, then took a little sip. “Wow, it’s delicious. Try it.” She held the mug out to Remus.

He took a sip. She was right, it was quite good, better than even the Hogwarts pumpkin juice they served in the morning, though he had a feeling that was more because of present company than an actual increase in quality. He couldn’t help thinking that her lips had also touched this mug and that, in a way, wasn’t it as though they were kissing? His heart raced at the thought of her lips touching his and he wondered when it had become something that he was interested in at all.

When he put the mug down, Lily waved her wand, “Recensere aguamenti,” she commanded. The pumpkin juice glowed blue, swirled about just as before, and settled to be cool water. She smiled, pleased with how quickly they’d learned the spell. She looked up at Remus, “We’re good at this studying together thing. Look at quick we got that together.”

Remus nodded, “Yeah, we’re good together.” His face flushed as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

“Perhaps we should study together more often,” Lily suggested.

“Yes,” Remus blurted out a lot quicker than he’d really meant to. The flush to his face only deepened. “I mean, it really is helpful. Studying. With you, I mean.”

Lily laughed. “You’re too adorable, Remus.”

Adorable! He’d never been called adorable before, not that he could remember. Lily Evans thought he, Remus Lupin, was adorable. He felt as though he’d been transported to cloud nine. His mind stopped working and it was a strange sort of delay before he finally spat out, “You’re adorable too, Evans,” desperate to say something in reply.

Lily’s eyes sparkled and she looked back down at the textbook, unsure what to say back since she’d been the one that started the exchange in the first place. She wasn’t any more certain about what was happening between her and Remus than he was. Were they becoming something more than friends and if they were what? And was Remus aware of it, or was this something in Lily’s head and was she old enough for something like that? Having a boyfriend seemed a rather grown up thing to do, but then again she was twelve, nearly thirteen, and wasn’t that the time when boys began to seem less like boys and more like Boys?

Besides, Remus wasn’t an ordinary boy. He was something else. Some other breed. The magic that she felt in the walls of the castle was personified by him, it seemed. He was good looking, yes, but that wasn’t all there was about Remus Lupin. Rather, he had the air of somebody much older than he really was. He was mature and he had eyes that seemed deeply empathetic, as though he understood things nobody else could. It was this stuff that made Lily really see him. He was special and it was obvious that he wasn’t told that enough.

Lily wanted very much to tell him so.

She was just about to do so when the portrait hole burst open and the other Gryffindor boys came back in. James looked sour already, but he only looked more so when he spotted Remus and Lily in the corner, staring at each other as they were doing. “Bloody pitch is over crowded,” James complained, “Everyone in the whole house is out there practicing.” He looked them over, “What are you lot doing?”

“Studying,” Remus replied quickly, looking away from Lily.

Sirius grinned, “Yeah? Studying with Evans are you?” He nodded to Lily, “Wotcher, Evans.”

“Hi,” she answered, flushing though she wasn’t sure why or what it was about Sirius’s humor at their studying that made her blush.

“C’mon James, Peter… Let’s go upstairs,” Sirius said, heading for the stairs.

James stared at Remus and Lily for a moment. “Maybe we should sit by the fire a bit first, Sirius. I’m a bit cold from the grounds.”

“You’re not cold,” Sirius answered, “C’mon, they’re studying, let them be.”

James frowned and followed Sirius upstairs. “Well we need to study, too,” Peter argued as they went, “Why don’t we just get our books and join them?”

“Will you shut up, you git?” Sirius demanded, “I’ll explain why not when we get upstairs. C’mon.” He waved to Remus and the lot of them went up to the dorm room.

“Bloody hell, they are embarassing,” Remus murmured, covering his face. “I’m sorry about that. Sirius is… well, you know what Sirius is like. I don’t know what he’s talking about.”

“You don’t?” Lily asked, a bit disappointed sounding.

Remus looked up at her, “I - I dunno. Should I?”

Lily’s eyes connected with his. Hazel eyes connecting with green, each thinking how lovely the other’s eyes were, and Lily whispered, “I dunno. Should you?”

Remus wasn’t even sure what they were talking about anymore.