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A Special Brand of Magic


Remus had fallen asleep in the dorm and he woke up with a start to the sound of shouting. He stared up at the ceiling over his bed, groggy and disoriented. For a moment, he’d been transported back to the little house on the edge of the wood, to the morning his grandparents had come to stay for Hope’s funeral. His grandmother had wailed so loudly while sitting in the kitchen that he’d been unable to sleep for weeks. The sound had chilled him so deeply and completely that it seemed to arrest his nervous system, even in his memory of it. But it only took a moment for his brain to stir enough to realize the sounds he was hearing now was not his grandmother’s cry, but a happy noise - and he sat up, remembering he was at Hogwarts only just as Peter Pettigrew burst through the door.

“Oh good, you’re up!” He said, grinning eagerly. He grabbed his bookbag from the back of the desk chair where he’d hung it up, still empty. “I’m about to go and knick enough butterbeers for the whole house!”

Remus blinked in confusion, “What?”

“We’re all celebrating,” Peter announced, “You should come down and join in!”

“What are we celebrating?” Asked Remus, racking his brain for what sort of holiday September 2 might be.

Peter said, “The win!”

“What win?”

“The quidditch win! We won!” Peter half explained. “Come downstairs, James will be telling the story all night, I’m sure, you’ll know in no time!” With that, he scurried off down the stairs, leaving the dorm room door just barely ajar.

Remus sighed and got up. He paused to look into the mirror that James had left on his desk - the remnants, he recognized, of the Dark Lord’s mirror they’d gone charging into the forest for last term - and straightened his hair with his fingers and a bit of spit. It wasn’t perfect, he would be the first to admit that, but it was better than it had been. He took a deep breath and went on down.

The common room was crowded with Gryffindors from every year, milling about. Bilius was magicking Gryffindor crests about the room and the rest of the lot was gathered around to where James, arm in a sling, stood on the coffee table, re-enacting the game play-by-play, punctuated by shouts from the others who had also played - including Lily Evans and Derek Bell.

“And then I saw the snitch and I bolted for it and Snape saw me go for it and dives, too --” James was embellishing, bending his knees to portray himself speeding downward. “And my arm’s outstretched, I’ve almost got the snitch and -- BLAM!” He slapped his knee for effect, making one of the new First Years, a boy named Todd Maxwell, nearly somersault in surprise, “Snape slams right into me! Saw me and everything - didn’t even try and slow up. He was trying to knock the snitch out of my hand, I reckon, but I held on tight and he hexes me, makes me fall off my broom a good twenty feet and that’s how I got this,” he indicated the sling his arm was in.

Lily frowned, “I thought Sev saw the snitch first?” She asked, confusion in her eyes.

James ignored her. “Tried to take our win off us!” He said, “And it wasn’t even an official game!”

“Bloody prats,” muttered Derek, still sore on the subject.

Remus raised an eyebrow, unsure how much of James’s story he believed - especially as James continued on, backtracking to fill in details he’d forgotten (or newly thought up). Sirius was grinning up at his mate, though, and soon Peter had returned with the butterbeers and passed the golden bottles around the room and everyone in Gryffindor house seemed quite keen on celebrating, loudly. Remus sighed and snuck out through the portrait hole, unnoticed, and sat on a flight of stairs just down the corridor from the Fat Lady.

He didn’t much feel like celebrating. He’d gone up to the common room to get away from the commotion and yet the commotion had seemed to have followed him up. He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, hugging his knee to his chest.

Suddenly there was the warmth and weight of someone next to him and Remus opened his eyes to find Lily sitting on the stair next to him. She held two bottles of butterbeer in her hands and pushed one into his gently when his eyes opened. She smiled quietly, then twisted the cap off her bottle and took a swig without saying a single word. Remus twisted his cap off, too, and also took a sip, watching Lily as she contemplated what, if anything, she wanted to say. FInally, she looked over at him, “I know it’s not the same, but I feel like I lost my sister sometimes, too. I know what it’s like to be really close to a family member and then have them not be there anymore for you. It’s awful.”

Remus nodded.

“I used to be able to confide anything at all to my sister,” Lily said, swirling the butterbeer about in the bottle. She watched the foamy crest of the liquid within. “Then she stopped caring anymore and - well, quite the opposite, she actively pushes away from me now. I dunno what to do.” She shrugged, “So… I mean, what I’m trying to say is that… well, I get it. And if there’s anything you ever need to talk about, you’ve always got me to talk to.” She smiled ruefully at Remus.

Remus stared at the friendship bracelet on his wrist. “Thanks,” he mumbled quietly.

“Not a problem,” Lily answered. She licked her lips and took another sip of butterbeer.

Remus leaned so his elbows rested on his knees and stared down at his feet. “I’m sorry about your sister, too.”

“She’s jealous because she’s not magic,” Lily answered. “We’re twins. She should be. Shouldn’t she? We’ve got the same genes and all?”

Remus said, “I don’t know if genes has anything to do with magic. It isn’t science. Science is sort of muggle magic, isn’t it? Magic is something else. Something other. You’ve got something she hasn’t got - something besides magic, I mean.”

“What have I got?” Lily asked.

“Well you’re still making an effort, aren’t you? Long after she’s given you up,” Remus replied.

“So I’m a ninny,” Lily said, “I should give up. All it ever gets me is heart broken.”

“Well that’s not all,” Remus said, “You do a lot of good with it. You care about that Snape boy even though it doesn’t seem as though a lot of others do…”

“Severus has had it rough,” Lily answered with a shrug. “He’s the first person that noticed the magic in me.”

“And you’re the only person in that whole common room that noticed I’d left. You’re the only one that’s really been checking on me at all, really…”

“Well you need a friend who isn’t a prat.”

Remus smiled over at her, “Lily, what I’m trying to say is that you’ve got a big heart. You love very well. Maybe that’s your special brand of magic - why you’ve got magic. You have a very open heart.”

Lily felt a bit stunned and she sat back, leaning on the stair in contemplative silence. She didn’t think she had any special way of loving, it didn’t feel like it was anymore than it ought to be. She simply cared too much. Severus had been her first real friend besides Tuney, after all. He’d been so sad. How could anyone not love someone who was sad? Obviously that hadn’t been any special feat of her own. And again, Remus was sad, too. Because of his mum, but also for something else that Lily couldn’t quite figure out. He had this look in his eyes that made her feel a twinge in her stomach that she didn’t fully understand. That wasn’t a special kind of love - or was it?

She bit her lower lip, staring at the back of Remus’s head, at the way the blonde hair rested at the nape of his neck and the curve of his slight shoulders. She followed those down his arms… and noticed for the first time the silvery-pink scars on his skin. She sat up and ran a finger over one of them, making Remus jump with a shiver. “Where did you get this from?” She asked, concerned.

Remus cleared his throat, “Dunno.”

“You’ve got several,” she observed.

Remus drained the last of the butterbeer in his bottle, effectively pulling his arm away from her without being rough about it. He stood up. “We should probably get back to the common room, ‘ey, before they notice we’ve gone and James takes it as license to tell me the story again.”

“Alright,” Lily said, standing up, too.

They walked back to the portrait hole in silence, Lily contemplating the scars. Remus was, too, but from a very different perspective. While Lily wondered where they’d come from, Remus knew, and he wondered whether Lily’s open heart was open enough to accept even a werewolf. But he was too afraid to tell her, too afraid to find out it wasn’t.

The common room was still a buzz when they got back, James still relishing his time in the center of attention, and Sirius now helping to provide a version of the story from the perspective of the stands, embellishing his tale just as flourishingly as James had done. By the time they went to bed, not one person in the entire of Gryffindor remembered the game as it had really happened.

Lily went to bed that night after braiding her hair and lay under the covers, thinking about her talk with Remus. It had been the first time in awhile that she’d felt heard and understood and she was quite glad she’d gone after him when she’d seen him sneak out of the common room. She rolled and hugged one of her extra pillows to her chest and stared out the window at the moon as it rose in the sky, wondering what it was that brought the sadness to his eyes…

That night, she had a familiar dream, one she’d had since the night they’d all gone into the forest last term. She was walking through the trees, the moonlight jetting through the leaves, the fallen bracken and twigs snapping and crunching beneath her feet. She was alone, and afraid, and certain that something was waiting among the brush. Every time she’d had this dream it had quickly escalated into a nightmare with a clearing punctuated by the cackling laughter of that horrible woman - Bellatrix Lestrange. But tonight, the clearing was peaceful and still and she stood in the pale disc of light, looking about for the path that would lead her back, when suddenly there came a form through the trees. Squinting, she couldn’t quite make it out, only that it was large and moving around the darkness as though watching her. She knew she should be afraid, but she wasn’t. Whatever it was, she felt as though it stood between her and perhaps some other danger, as though it was protecting her without her ever noticing. She turned as it moved around, keeping the silhouette of it in her sight as best she could… “Come out,” she called to it. “Please.” It stopped and she knew it was about to. The form came closer and started to step out into the light - one lean leg passed through the line of the trees, over the edge of the shadow, and the moonlight reflected off it, blinding her eyes and ---

She woke up, the rays of morning sun on her eyelids.

She tugged her blankets closer ‘round her shoulders and sighed, wishing she knew what it had been that had kept the nightmare away.

Alice Bell was in the common room with several of the first years, showing them how to magic ribbons into their braids the way she had done with Lily the term before. The girls were all squealing with delight as she worked on Ali Prewitt’s hair, making the most lovely pattern with the strands of golden hair that hung over Ali’s shoulders. “You’ve got the softest hair I’ve ever felt,” Alice told her. “It’s just gorgeous.”

“Thanks!” Ali squeaked happily, “It’s the honey shampoo! It makes it soft and shiny!”

“It is very lovely,” Lily agreed, settling down beside Alice. She beckoned another of the first years over and started doing her hair as well.

On the way down to breakfast, over an hour later, when all the first years had charged on ahead to gush over their pretty hairstyles the older girls had given them, Alice smiled over at Lily as they rode one of the rotating stairs, “Thanks for helping out, that would’ve taken forever without you.”

“No problem,” Lily replied, “It was rather fun, actually. And look how excited they are over some ribbon.”

Alice’s eyes glittered, “You looked like that last year, you know.”

Lily flushed, “It seems like forever ago.”

Alice nodded. “You were really good yesterday, by the way. Sorry James took all the glory at the party last night. He might’ve caught the snitch, but you were definitely the star of the game! All those goals you got!”

Lily laughed, “I think James needs the attention more than I do.”

Alice shrugged. “Well, when you make the team and show him up, he’ll have to share the spotlight then, won’t he?”

Lily flushed again. “I don’t know if I want to be on the team.”

“What? Why not?” Alice asked, astounded.

Lily shrugged, “Dunno…” she replied quietly.

Alice studied Lily’s face a moment, “Lily…?”

“Well isn’t it stupid, caring about Quidditch so much?” Lily asked, “I mean, we spent all of last term making fun of the boys for talking about nothing but Quidditch. Remember?”

Alice shrugged, “If you’re playing, I might just become a fan of the sport myself.”

“Yeah?” Lily asked, a smile creeping onto her face.

“Maybe,” Alice replied. “I mean, if my best friend is the star of the team… I can hardly stay calm then, can I?”

Lily laughed. “I don’t know about the star.”

Alice grinned, “I do.”