fiction: brass and green glass (HP, Remus/Lily, PG13)
Title: brass and green glass
Author: exitsign (girlcalledjane @ yahoo.com)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character/Pairing: Remus Lupin/Lily Evans
Rating: PG13
Summary: A story about a bracelet. 4501 words. (2/26/06)
Disclaimer: Not mine, thank you.
Feedback: Feedback (general or con-crit) is always welcome.
Spoilers: Nope.
Warnings: MALE/FEMALE. UNREQUITED LURVE. TERRIBLE JEWELLERY. SWEARING AND A PORNOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE. THE MARAUDERS.
Author's Note: Written for itsmorethanthat, my keywords were: a dropped book, extra homework, something green that isn't Lily's eyes, humming, eavesdropping. It's kinda gennish but there's... unrequited stuff. Yes. Something something. Also, I have three different versions of this file saved on my computer, only one of which has been beta read, and I cannot for the life of me remember which one it is. Odds are pretty high that I'm retarded and this is the wrong one.
- - - -
The bracelet was easily the most horrible thing he'd ever seen in his life. Dull-green glass beads awkwardly bunched amongst tarnished brass bells, the whole thing held together with rather sad and flaking gold-plated metal links. Remus had no real idea where James could've found such a hideous piece of jewellery but disturbing images of him breaking into some mouldering tomb in the black of night and cackling madly as he rummaged over the remains of an overpowered Victorian corpse kept floating in and out of his head helpfully.
"She'll definitely agree to go out with me after I give her this." James said proudly, stretching his arms over his head and automatically rumpling his hair before reaching out to rearrange it for the five-hundredth time. The beads and tiny bells made an off-key clacking sound as they shifted. Remus supposed it was meant to be musical but it only managed to make him bite his tongue in an effort to resist the sudden urge to knock it off the top of James' trunk and stomp it to bits, putting it and them all out of their misery for good.
"I'm not going to lie to you, Prongs," Sirius said after a long moment, clearing his throat lightly. "If you give that thing to her, she is never going to go out with you."
Remus rather agreed but James apparently didn't and only made an offended noise at such a claim. Peter squeaked quietly beside him, seeming to have some sort of small spasm, clearly due to the fact that he also agreed with Sirius that James was off his trolley but was unable to actually have the thought in his head without feeling like the worst sort of blasphemer.
Sirius stared down at it, really seeming to concentrate as he tilted his head to the side. "Yes. Definitely never."
"What? No. This is prime stuff! This is going to be the thing that finally tips it for us." James made a face when Sirius only raised an eyebrow at him, snatching up the bracelet and shaking it in the air as he stepped around them to the door. "You'll see. Girls love things like this!"
"Yeah," Sirius laughed, smirking that smirk that makes girls swoon while making himself at home on James' bed. Arms behind his head and ankles crossed, a pose of such careless perfection that Remus could only believe it just came naturally to him. "The blind ones."
When James came stalking back in five minutes later -- the lovely sound of Lily's laughter from the Common Room drifted in behind him for a second but was mercilessly cut-off when James slammed the door so hard it seemed to shake the entire tower -- Remus knew that things were only going to go downhill from there. He'd had a feeling from the moment James pulled the wretched thing out of his trunk, yes, but the door slamming and incoherent snarling were the real clincher.
Peter made a choked noise and slumped down further in his bed at the sight. Staring resolutely at the textbook in his lap as if it had miraculously just sprouted breasts or suddenly become made entirely out of candy floss.
"Well received, was it?" Sirius quipped, still stretched across James' bed, a pleased-with-himself expression plastered over his face.
"Shut it." James spat back, shoving roughly at Sirius' legs. "Get off my fucking bed."
Remus forced himself to look away at that, looking down at his Charms text and biting his lips at the sharp bark of Sirius' laughter followed by the two thumps of his big feet hitting the floor as he vacated said bed. The creak of springs as James flopped down hard and, Remus knew from past experiences, most probably putting his head in his hands, made Remus wince.
He half-heartedly hoped that Sirius would just let it go but, knowing Sirius -- knowing the both of them -- as he did, he knew it was a pointless sort of thing to hope for. Sirius wouldn't let up until James said that he'd been right all along and James wouldn't say that Sirius'd been right until Sirius really started going for the heart with his nasty remarks.
"Ooh, not well at all, then. Can't say I didn't warn you, though."
"Oh, just fuck off, will you?" James snapped, and then, with all the air of a spoiled prince, pulled his bedcurtains shut with three decided, and positively bursting with teenage angst, whooshes.
"Fantastic." Sirius said quietly after a moment, sitting down on his own bed to untie his laces as he shook his head and snickered softly to himself. Obviously already working out some truly brotherly ways to rub salt in the wound of another patented Evans rejection.
Oh, yes, Remus thought, sighing and rubbing at his forehead. Just fucking grand.
//
The next morning, James' black mood seemed to swoop out from his shoved aside bedcurtains like a plague of locusts. The Mood (capitalised because, really, it had to be) wasn't helped at all by Sirius' smug expression and irritatingly jaunty humming. In fact, an actual, real life plague of locusts hardly could have been worse, in Remus' opinion.
"For fuck's sake, Padfoot!" He hissed when James finally stalked off to the toilet for his morning communal. "Can't you just fucking leave it for once?"
"I've absolutely no idea what you're talking about, Moony." Sirius replied, whipping his pyjama shirt up over his head and flashing his best and most winning smile. Teeth all brilliant white and, Remus was sure if he were stupid enough to get close enough to examine them, fang-like.
"You're a real bastard, you know."
Sirius held his hand to his chest and sighed dramatically. "Oh, if only that were really true and not just a touching term of endearment."
He rolled his eyes at that, turning away to finish getting himself ready, all the while rather hoping that breakfast would be uneventful. It was a ridiculously unlikely thing to hope for, of course, and as James gasped, horrified, stopping in his tracks the moment they stepped into the Great Hall, he promised himself that one day he'd stop setting himself up for these things.
"Oh, no,"James whispered. "No, she didn't."
"Oh, you fucking twat," Sirius snorted, not even bothering to actually look anywhere but at James. "You didn't leave it with her, did you?"
It only took Remus a second to find the familiar red head and, cringingly, also familiar ugliest bracelet in the history of world. Lily smiled broadly, waving at the four of them as several of the girls sitting with her burst into laughter. Remus cringed as the bracelet swung and jangled on her small, pale wrist; seeming more out of place than he imagined even some sort of massive, cartoon pirate hook could have.
"What? What's-- GAH!" Peter's shoulder bumped into Remus' arm as he flailed back, his eyes finally finding what it was that had James and Remus frozen in their tracks and Sirius' breath hitching with laughter.
James, finally seeming to find control of his limbs again, practically spun on his heel, his face a truly terrifying shade of red -- part humiliated flush, Remus was sure, but mostly just the all-encompassing rage -- and stalked right back out of the Great Hall without so much as a glance back.
Lily smirked at James' retreating back and (finally, mercifully) lowered her arm. She raised an eyebrow at him and smiled with just the left side of her mouth in that way she had when she knew she was being quite clever.
Remus closed his eyes.
Peter let loose a miserable whimper.
Sirius only laughed harder.
//
The rest of the day was only more of the same. Except much, much worse as there was nowhere James could run in the middle of lessons. Every time she caught his eye she would wave a delighted little wave at him, drawing not only the attention of the other students but also their professors.
"Attention, Miss Evans!" Professor McGonagall snapped.
Lily put her hand down quickly and turned fully to the front of the room. "Sorry, Professor."
"What on Earth is that hideous thing round your wrist?"
"It was a gift, Professor," Lily said, barely restrained laughter in her voice.
"Well, whoever gave it to you clearly doesn't think very highly of you, Miss Evans." Professor McGonagall said finally, shaking her head and turning away. "You'll remove it in my classroom, I won't have such foolishness distracting from the lesson."
From his vantage point a few rows behind, Remus obviously couldn't actually see Lily's expression. But he was fairly sure, if the full-body tense meant anything, she was biting her lip and trying desperately not to laugh out loud. Several of the girls around her weren't managing quite as well though, having to resort to covering their mouths with their hands or pretending to drop their quills so they could duck down below their desks for cover.
Sirius obviously couldn't be arsed with all that rubbish as Remus was sure it would be quite apparent to anyone who looked that he was breathless with laughter. His shoulders shook with silent wheezes, his forehead practically touching the desk as he bent forward and clutched his stomach, seemingly unable to stop shaking his head.
James covered his face with his hand and squished himself down in his chair.
"Of course, Professor." Lily said, clearing her throat after a moment and unclasping it quickly, stowing it in her schoolbag until the end of the lesson when she, naturally, put it right back on.
By dinner, Remus was sure that James' face was going to be permanently red-tinged and Lily was never going to stop smiling.
"I heard her telling Petra Alan she was going to wear it every day from now on!" Peter hissed, practically hyperventilating with the horror of such an idea.
Sirius barked out a laugh and stabbed hard at his roast. "That'd teach him."
"You shouldn't eavesdrop, Peter, it isn't polite," Remus said reproachfully, and then shot Sirius a look which was, naturally, completely ignored.
Peter made a confused sort of face for a moment, like he had no idea what Remus was talking about, and then apparently decided that it didn't matter what Remus was talking about as he just shook his head and shifted closer. "Look, honestly, I think he might explode."
"He's not going to explode, idiot," Sirius snapped. "He's just got his knickers in a twist because he made a fucking fool of himself with that disgusting bracelet."
Peter bit his lip sort of leaned around Remus, looking down a few seats to where James had seated himself away from them (just to spite Sirius) and was presently staring even further down the table to where Lily sat. Glaring at the bracelet so hard it was amazing it didn't just melt from the scrutiny.
"He'll find a way to turn it around long before he explodes." Remus murmured more to himself than anyone else. Only, the thing was... He couldn't think of a single way how.
//
He had prefect rounds with Lily a few nights later and managed to make it almost their entire hour before he just couldn't take it anymore.
"All right," he said, stopping abruptly in the middle of the empty Charms corridor, cutting off what she'd been saying about how popular Wizarding music could benefit from integrating more Muggle influences. "You've got to take it off."
She blinked at him. "Pardon me?"
"The bracelet, I meant!" He clarified, feeling his face go hot. Christ, very smooth. "You've got to take that bracelet off. I can't stand that noise it makes any longer."
"Oh! Oh! God." She covered her mouth for a moment, laughing, before reaching down to unclasp the awful thing and push it into her robes pocket. "Sorry, I've become a bit used to it, I guess."
"Right. Used to it." He said, nodding his head. "Have you gone deaf and not bothered to tell anyone?"
She clicked her tongue against her teeth and rolled her eyes, shoving lightly at his shoulder. "You're funny."
"Well, I thought so," He said, pushing his hands into his pockets and trying to ignore the way his heart seemed to skip a beat at the playful and utterly platonic touch. He felt very awkward just standing there, the two of them, and he wished suddenly that he'd just ignored the bracelet and kept walking. He looked down at the floor and then down the corridor, rolling back on his heels for a moment, before looking back to her and opening his mouth to let the first thought that came to mind fall out. "You do realise that you're torturing him, don't you?"
She stared at him a moment and then, just like that, made a face, obviously not needing any sort of clarification as to what he meant at all. "Oh, please, he's an idiot and he deserves every second of it."
"Hmm." He glanced down the corridor again, wishing and wishing that were they hadn't stopped walking. "Perhaps Slughorn's right, perhaps you should have been sorted into Slytherin."
Lily laughed at that, just like she always did in Potions every time Slughorn had suggested it. "Oh, be quiet, you know it's true."
"He was only--"
"No, he wasn't." Lily snapped and stepped back, her nose wrinkling up in distaste. "He wasn't and you know it. If he actually ever thought about anything but his own over-inflated ego, he would've known that, A) I don't like jewellery; B) I don't like green; and, C) I don't like him."
Lily stared at him, arms crossed over her chest, seeming to be daring him to argue, but Remus only breathed out hard and looked up at the ceiling. Because, really, the James is a bit of a berk but he's a good fellow deep down argument only worked...
Well, no, it hadn't ever worked, actually.
//
On the morning of the fifth day, he woke to find Sirius and James huddled together on Sirius' bed, whispering furiously over a book that Sirius was holding in his lap. Remus knew two things for certain in that moment: One, James had finally admitted that Sirius had been right about the bracelet and, two, they were planning something.
He cleared his throat as he sat up in bed, surprising the both of them, apparently so deep in their plotting they'd tuned out everything else. They both jerked in shock, sending the rather abused-looking book hitting the floor with a thud, and giving twin yelps of pain as they knocked their foreheads together. Remus had just enough time to recognise the cover vaguely before Sirius recovered and reached down, grabbing it up and shoving it under his pillow and out of view.
"Whatever you're planning--"
"Who, us? Never!" Sirius said, his eyes bright with mischief.
"--I don't even want to know."
"Are you sure?" James smirked, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and standing. Holding his hands wide in that way that Remus knew was meant to say you can trust me but only ever spelled I'll get you loads and loads of detention to him. "Because it's absolutely brilliant and guaranteed to go off without a hitch."
"Right. Of course." He said, rolling his eyes pushing back the covers. "And I'll actually believe that about the same time Hagrid becomes Minister for Magic."
"Well, mate," Sirius said, giving James that look that always made Remus feeling rather left out, "with the right campaign anything's possible."
Remus spent the entire weekend waiting for them to put their plan into action. Every time James and Sirius exchanged one of those looks Remus was ready to spring. To leap up and disarm whatever idiotic explosion of chaos they were inevitably going to cause before too much damage could be done. He was a prefect, after all, but more importantly, as he was apparently the only one out of the four of them who actually understood the concept of actions having consequences, he felt somewhat obligated to use the understanding to protect the idiots from themselves.
Of course, when he came in Sunday evening, still drying his hair from the shower, and found James looking all smug and Peter practically bouncing around him, talking excitedly, words like amazing and brilliant falling out of his mouth, Remus realised that he should've known they'd not do it in front of him.
"What did you do?" He said, closing the door behind him and feeling very much that he didn't really want to know but ought to anyway.
"Thought you didn't want to know?" Sirius said, looking at him over top of the Muggle skin magazine he'd "confiscated" earlier in the day from a group of third year Hufflepuffs in the second floor boys' toilet on the grounds that they were far too young and impressionable for such filth.
"I didn't want to know when you were planning it, now that you've done it, though--" He stopped, exhaling hard and throwing his towel over onto James' bed, hoping rather bitterly that it would leave a wet spot. "Now that you've done whatever stupid thing you've done you probably ought to tell me so I can be prepared when you both get expelled."
"Have you always been this dramatic, Moony, or is it just since you got prefect?" James asked, mock seriousness in his voice.
"Perhaps his badge's on too tight?" Peter supplied.
Sirius snorted, flipping a page. "It's stuck up his arse is more like."
Remus rolled his eyes and sat down hard on his bed, pulling his pyjamas out from underneath his pillow.
"Look, the thing is," James said, putting his hands behind his head and crossing his ankles in a less natural-grace and more constantly-practised way, "she liked it so much, right? So I thought--"
"I thought." Sirius interrupted from behind his magazine.
"Shut up, you." James said, sitting up and shooting Sirius a look which Sirius ignored and then looking to Remus and starting again. "We thought it would be brilliant if she could wear it, you know, forever."
Remus made a face and looked up at the ceiling, disgusted with the obviousness. "What, did you jinx it so she can't take it off? She can just get someone else to unclasp it for her, you idiots."
"It was a permanent sticking charm, actually." Sirius said.
Remus gaped. "You didn't."
"I did." James said, puffing out his chest for a moment and reaching up to rumple the back of his hair.
"It was really brilliant!" Peter said, buttoning the last button on his pyjama shirt and sitting down on the end of Sirius' bed. "I've never seen her so angry."
Sirius lowered the magazine, eyeing Peter's back for a moment before looking over at Remus. "It was brilliant right up until he asked her out again, that bit was fucking sad."
"Ugh, would you shut up about that?" James made a face and gave Sirius the two-fingered salute, Sirius returned the gesture and went back to his magazine.
"You've got to undo it." Remus said, ignoring their exchange.
"Oh, no," James said, lying back down and shaking his head. "No way. She's been asking for it all week."
"She could turn you in for this! Messing about with her personal property and her--" Body, Remus thought, but didn't say because then James would make some crack about sex and Remus just couldn't be arsed to deal with it. "--person."
"Yeah, but she's not going to." James said, waving a hand in the air dismissively. "If she did that, she'd have to admit that she can't find a way to undo it herself which would be admitting that I finally got her."
"And our dear Miss Evans is far, far to proud to ever even contemplate something of that sort." Sirius said, turning the magazine on upside-down for a second. "Oi, Wormtail, this one looks like your mum."
Peter made a strangled noise and shoved hard at Sirius' feet which was obviously exactly what Sirius was hoping for. Remus rolled his eyes as they started to pummel each other. Falling back on his bed and frowning up at the canopy, ignoring Sirius' swearing and Peter's pained shouts and James cheering them on.
//
Lily came in later than usual for breakfast the next morning, looking rather tired and ragged, like she'd been up all night trying to come up with a way to get the bracelet off. James didn't even bother letting her sit down.
"Oi, Evans, how's the wrist?" James shouted as she walked passed them to her seat. Lily shot him a nasty look but James just mimed like he was trying to pull something off his wrist, causing several people (people who had obviously been in the Common Room and not the shower, debating whether or not to have a wank, at the time of James' great revenge) to start laughing. Lily flushed a lovely pink and Remus winced and stared down at his plate, suddenly finding his sausages quite interesting.
The rest of the day was an almost exact replay of the first day of the whole stupid business but, of course, it was James who couldn't stop smiling and Lily who changed colours. Remus felt decidedly ill all day but, mostly, he just reminded to tell himself that she wasn't really suffering from anything more than a bruised ego.
And it worked fairly well right up to the end of Transfigurations when Lily reached up to scratch the side of her neck as she was gathering her things and the bracelet made itself known.
"Miss Evans, I thought you understood you were not to wear that hideous thing in my classroom?" McGonagall said, her voice stern but, Remus thought, still a hint of disappointment. She'd always rather liked Lily.
"Oh, yes, Professor, but--"
"Two extra feet on tonight's assignment, Miss Evans."
"But Professor it's not--"
McGonagall raised an eyebrow. "Unless you would like three?"
"No, Professor." Lily said, shaking her head and rather quickly making her way out the door.
James nudged Sirius with his elbow as she passed, both of them grinning, and Remus had to bite his tongue to resist speaking up in her defence. It would've have done him any good, he knew, because McGonagall still would've had Lily do the extra work for not coming to her about it first and James probably would've tried to smother him in his sleep, but still he wanted so badly to wipe those smiles off their faces.
"You're going to be sorry, Potter." Lily hissed when they stepped out into corridor.
"What, you're going to jingle at me?" James said, his voice dripping with pure delight, grinning hugely when several people laughed at his joke. "You should've just gone out with me, Evans. This whole messy business could've been avoided."
Lily made a disgusted noise and stepped forward, poking her finger right in the middle of James' chest. "No, this whole messy business could've been avoided if you'd only grow half an ounce of a brain and some fucking maturity."
She stalked off after that, leaving James to rub at his chest pathetically and scowl. "I think she broke the skin."
"You're lucky that's all she broke, mate." Sirius said, throwing his arm around James' shoulder and leading him off toward their next lesson.
That evening, while James was at Quidditch practice and Sirius was showering and Peter was... probably off watching James at Quidditch practice, Remus went through their things for the book Sirius'd dropped the morning they hatched their rotten plan. Remus had imagined something much more sinister than a book on household charms.
"There's no reversal spell," he told her during their rounds a few days later. "But it'll come loose in a few days. Apparently they neglected to read the part about sticking objects to skin."
"Well, that's a relief. I've been seriously contemplating gnawing my own arm off." Lily said, pushing her sleeve up to examine it. "It's funny, it didn't bother me so much until I knew I couldn't take the ugly thing off."
"It's like that, I suppose." Remus said, nodding. He rather thought the fact that James no longer turned amusing shades of red whenever he saw it might have also had something to do with it.
"I'm going to have a whole pile of extra work from McGonagall by the time it finally does come off." She said, his heart clenched at the resignation in her voice.
"Look, about that..." He said, looking down the corridor and swallowing hard before holding out his hand. "Let me see it."
She looked at him, considering, but only for a moment and he tried not to notice how warm and soft her skin was or how perfect her hand looked in his or how he wished it was under different circumstances. He pulled his wand out of his robes pocket, concentrated hard on the image of what he would've given her instead. On what he would have given her had he ever had the idiotic confidence or the reckless boldness or the ability to bounce back from rejection that James possessed. On what he would have given her had his life ever been anything even remotely resembling fair. Something beautiful but not flashy, elegant but not formal, simple but not too.
With a tap and a word, it had changed -- tarnished brass replaced with shining silver and dull green with soft blue, the whole awkward, ugly mess of it shifted into a smooth, simple band. And when she lifted her hand from his, her fingertips slipping over his palm, there was not a jingle or a clack to be heard.
"I should've thought of that." She said finally, her voice almost breathless. He rather thought that she should have as well but couldn't seem to find the words, his tongue feeling suddenly thick in his mouth. He cleared his throat, forcing himself to look away from her before he did something even more idiotic, like kiss her or tell her that she was the loveliest girl he'd ever met. In his peripheral vision, he watched as she straightened up, pushing her sleeve down and then clearing her own throat. "It's much better now. Thank you."
"Not considering amputation anymore, then?" He asked, his voice much more steady than he felt.
"Oh, I am, it's just not my arm I want to gnaw off." She replied, her voice dark, and then, when he opened his mouth automatically to come to James' defence, quickly added, "Don't, all right? Let's just finish our rounds, maybe if we get lucky we'll catch a firstie out of bed and we can scare them to death."
There was a rush of thankfulness from somewhere deep in his stomach and a rush of something else from somewhere in the general area of his chest and he couldn't help but laugh, taking a step forward just as she did. "Honestly, did you pay the Sorting Hat?"
the end.
Author: exitsign (girlcalledjane @ yahoo.com)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Character/Pairing: Remus Lupin/Lily Evans
Rating: PG13
Summary: A story about a bracelet. 4501 words. (2/26/06)
Disclaimer: Not mine, thank you.
Feedback: Feedback (general or con-crit) is always welcome.
Spoilers: Nope.
Warnings: MALE/FEMALE. UNREQUITED LURVE. TERRIBLE JEWELLERY. SWEARING AND A PORNOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE. THE MARAUDERS.
Author's Note: Written for itsmorethanthat, my keywords were: a dropped book, extra homework, something green that isn't Lily's eyes, humming, eavesdropping. It's kinda gennish but there's... unrequited stuff. Yes. Something something. Also, I have three different versions of this file saved on my computer, only one of which has been beta read, and I cannot for the life of me remember which one it is. Odds are pretty high that I'm retarded and this is the wrong one.
- - - -
The bracelet was easily the most horrible thing he'd ever seen in his life. Dull-green glass beads awkwardly bunched amongst tarnished brass bells, the whole thing held together with rather sad and flaking gold-plated metal links. Remus had no real idea where James could've found such a hideous piece of jewellery but disturbing images of him breaking into some mouldering tomb in the black of night and cackling madly as he rummaged over the remains of an overpowered Victorian corpse kept floating in and out of his head helpfully.
"She'll definitely agree to go out with me after I give her this." James said proudly, stretching his arms over his head and automatically rumpling his hair before reaching out to rearrange it for the five-hundredth time. The beads and tiny bells made an off-key clacking sound as they shifted. Remus supposed it was meant to be musical but it only managed to make him bite his tongue in an effort to resist the sudden urge to knock it off the top of James' trunk and stomp it to bits, putting it and them all out of their misery for good.
"I'm not going to lie to you, Prongs," Sirius said after a long moment, clearing his throat lightly. "If you give that thing to her, she is never going to go out with you."
Remus rather agreed but James apparently didn't and only made an offended noise at such a claim. Peter squeaked quietly beside him, seeming to have some sort of small spasm, clearly due to the fact that he also agreed with Sirius that James was off his trolley but was unable to actually have the thought in his head without feeling like the worst sort of blasphemer.
Sirius stared down at it, really seeming to concentrate as he tilted his head to the side. "Yes. Definitely never."
"What? No. This is prime stuff! This is going to be the thing that finally tips it for us." James made a face when Sirius only raised an eyebrow at him, snatching up the bracelet and shaking it in the air as he stepped around them to the door. "You'll see. Girls love things like this!"
"Yeah," Sirius laughed, smirking that smirk that makes girls swoon while making himself at home on James' bed. Arms behind his head and ankles crossed, a pose of such careless perfection that Remus could only believe it just came naturally to him. "The blind ones."
When James came stalking back in five minutes later -- the lovely sound of Lily's laughter from the Common Room drifted in behind him for a second but was mercilessly cut-off when James slammed the door so hard it seemed to shake the entire tower -- Remus knew that things were only going to go downhill from there. He'd had a feeling from the moment James pulled the wretched thing out of his trunk, yes, but the door slamming and incoherent snarling were the real clincher.
Peter made a choked noise and slumped down further in his bed at the sight. Staring resolutely at the textbook in his lap as if it had miraculously just sprouted breasts or suddenly become made entirely out of candy floss.
"Well received, was it?" Sirius quipped, still stretched across James' bed, a pleased-with-himself expression plastered over his face.
"Shut it." James spat back, shoving roughly at Sirius' legs. "Get off my fucking bed."
Remus forced himself to look away at that, looking down at his Charms text and biting his lips at the sharp bark of Sirius' laughter followed by the two thumps of his big feet hitting the floor as he vacated said bed. The creak of springs as James flopped down hard and, Remus knew from past experiences, most probably putting his head in his hands, made Remus wince.
He half-heartedly hoped that Sirius would just let it go but, knowing Sirius -- knowing the both of them -- as he did, he knew it was a pointless sort of thing to hope for. Sirius wouldn't let up until James said that he'd been right all along and James wouldn't say that Sirius'd been right until Sirius really started going for the heart with his nasty remarks.
"Ooh, not well at all, then. Can't say I didn't warn you, though."
"Oh, just fuck off, will you?" James snapped, and then, with all the air of a spoiled prince, pulled his bedcurtains shut with three decided, and positively bursting with teenage angst, whooshes.
"Fantastic." Sirius said quietly after a moment, sitting down on his own bed to untie his laces as he shook his head and snickered softly to himself. Obviously already working out some truly brotherly ways to rub salt in the wound of another patented Evans rejection.
Oh, yes, Remus thought, sighing and rubbing at his forehead. Just fucking grand.
//
The next morning, James' black mood seemed to swoop out from his shoved aside bedcurtains like a plague of locusts. The Mood (capitalised because, really, it had to be) wasn't helped at all by Sirius' smug expression and irritatingly jaunty humming. In fact, an actual, real life plague of locusts hardly could have been worse, in Remus' opinion.
"For fuck's sake, Padfoot!" He hissed when James finally stalked off to the toilet for his morning communal. "Can't you just fucking leave it for once?"
"I've absolutely no idea what you're talking about, Moony." Sirius replied, whipping his pyjama shirt up over his head and flashing his best and most winning smile. Teeth all brilliant white and, Remus was sure if he were stupid enough to get close enough to examine them, fang-like.
"You're a real bastard, you know."
Sirius held his hand to his chest and sighed dramatically. "Oh, if only that were really true and not just a touching term of endearment."
He rolled his eyes at that, turning away to finish getting himself ready, all the while rather hoping that breakfast would be uneventful. It was a ridiculously unlikely thing to hope for, of course, and as James gasped, horrified, stopping in his tracks the moment they stepped into the Great Hall, he promised himself that one day he'd stop setting himself up for these things.
"Oh, no,"James whispered. "No, she didn't."
"Oh, you fucking twat," Sirius snorted, not even bothering to actually look anywhere but at James. "You didn't leave it with her, did you?"
It only took Remus a second to find the familiar red head and, cringingly, also familiar ugliest bracelet in the history of world. Lily smiled broadly, waving at the four of them as several of the girls sitting with her burst into laughter. Remus cringed as the bracelet swung and jangled on her small, pale wrist; seeming more out of place than he imagined even some sort of massive, cartoon pirate hook could have.
"What? What's-- GAH!" Peter's shoulder bumped into Remus' arm as he flailed back, his eyes finally finding what it was that had James and Remus frozen in their tracks and Sirius' breath hitching with laughter.
James, finally seeming to find control of his limbs again, practically spun on his heel, his face a truly terrifying shade of red -- part humiliated flush, Remus was sure, but mostly just the all-encompassing rage -- and stalked right back out of the Great Hall without so much as a glance back.
Lily smirked at James' retreating back and (finally, mercifully) lowered her arm. She raised an eyebrow at him and smiled with just the left side of her mouth in that way she had when she knew she was being quite clever.
Remus closed his eyes.
Peter let loose a miserable whimper.
Sirius only laughed harder.
//
The rest of the day was only more of the same. Except much, much worse as there was nowhere James could run in the middle of lessons. Every time she caught his eye she would wave a delighted little wave at him, drawing not only the attention of the other students but also their professors.
"Attention, Miss Evans!" Professor McGonagall snapped.
Lily put her hand down quickly and turned fully to the front of the room. "Sorry, Professor."
"What on Earth is that hideous thing round your wrist?"
"It was a gift, Professor," Lily said, barely restrained laughter in her voice.
"Well, whoever gave it to you clearly doesn't think very highly of you, Miss Evans." Professor McGonagall said finally, shaking her head and turning away. "You'll remove it in my classroom, I won't have such foolishness distracting from the lesson."
From his vantage point a few rows behind, Remus obviously couldn't actually see Lily's expression. But he was fairly sure, if the full-body tense meant anything, she was biting her lip and trying desperately not to laugh out loud. Several of the girls around her weren't managing quite as well though, having to resort to covering their mouths with their hands or pretending to drop their quills so they could duck down below their desks for cover.
Sirius obviously couldn't be arsed with all that rubbish as Remus was sure it would be quite apparent to anyone who looked that he was breathless with laughter. His shoulders shook with silent wheezes, his forehead practically touching the desk as he bent forward and clutched his stomach, seemingly unable to stop shaking his head.
James covered his face with his hand and squished himself down in his chair.
"Of course, Professor." Lily said, clearing her throat after a moment and unclasping it quickly, stowing it in her schoolbag until the end of the lesson when she, naturally, put it right back on.
By dinner, Remus was sure that James' face was going to be permanently red-tinged and Lily was never going to stop smiling.
"I heard her telling Petra Alan she was going to wear it every day from now on!" Peter hissed, practically hyperventilating with the horror of such an idea.
Sirius barked out a laugh and stabbed hard at his roast. "That'd teach him."
"You shouldn't eavesdrop, Peter, it isn't polite," Remus said reproachfully, and then shot Sirius a look which was, naturally, completely ignored.
Peter made a confused sort of face for a moment, like he had no idea what Remus was talking about, and then apparently decided that it didn't matter what Remus was talking about as he just shook his head and shifted closer. "Look, honestly, I think he might explode."
"He's not going to explode, idiot," Sirius snapped. "He's just got his knickers in a twist because he made a fucking fool of himself with that disgusting bracelet."
Peter bit his lip sort of leaned around Remus, looking down a few seats to where James had seated himself away from them (just to spite Sirius) and was presently staring even further down the table to where Lily sat. Glaring at the bracelet so hard it was amazing it didn't just melt from the scrutiny.
"He'll find a way to turn it around long before he explodes." Remus murmured more to himself than anyone else. Only, the thing was... He couldn't think of a single way how.
//
He had prefect rounds with Lily a few nights later and managed to make it almost their entire hour before he just couldn't take it anymore.
"All right," he said, stopping abruptly in the middle of the empty Charms corridor, cutting off what she'd been saying about how popular Wizarding music could benefit from integrating more Muggle influences. "You've got to take it off."
She blinked at him. "Pardon me?"
"The bracelet, I meant!" He clarified, feeling his face go hot. Christ, very smooth. "You've got to take that bracelet off. I can't stand that noise it makes any longer."
"Oh! Oh! God." She covered her mouth for a moment, laughing, before reaching down to unclasp the awful thing and push it into her robes pocket. "Sorry, I've become a bit used to it, I guess."
"Right. Used to it." He said, nodding his head. "Have you gone deaf and not bothered to tell anyone?"
She clicked her tongue against her teeth and rolled her eyes, shoving lightly at his shoulder. "You're funny."
"Well, I thought so," He said, pushing his hands into his pockets and trying to ignore the way his heart seemed to skip a beat at the playful and utterly platonic touch. He felt very awkward just standing there, the two of them, and he wished suddenly that he'd just ignored the bracelet and kept walking. He looked down at the floor and then down the corridor, rolling back on his heels for a moment, before looking back to her and opening his mouth to let the first thought that came to mind fall out. "You do realise that you're torturing him, don't you?"
She stared at him a moment and then, just like that, made a face, obviously not needing any sort of clarification as to what he meant at all. "Oh, please, he's an idiot and he deserves every second of it."
"Hmm." He glanced down the corridor again, wishing and wishing that were they hadn't stopped walking. "Perhaps Slughorn's right, perhaps you should have been sorted into Slytherin."
Lily laughed at that, just like she always did in Potions every time Slughorn had suggested it. "Oh, be quiet, you know it's true."
"He was only--"
"No, he wasn't." Lily snapped and stepped back, her nose wrinkling up in distaste. "He wasn't and you know it. If he actually ever thought about anything but his own over-inflated ego, he would've known that, A) I don't like jewellery; B) I don't like green; and, C) I don't like him."
Lily stared at him, arms crossed over her chest, seeming to be daring him to argue, but Remus only breathed out hard and looked up at the ceiling. Because, really, the James is a bit of a berk but he's a good fellow deep down argument only worked...
Well, no, it hadn't ever worked, actually.
//
On the morning of the fifth day, he woke to find Sirius and James huddled together on Sirius' bed, whispering furiously over a book that Sirius was holding in his lap. Remus knew two things for certain in that moment: One, James had finally admitted that Sirius had been right about the bracelet and, two, they were planning something.
He cleared his throat as he sat up in bed, surprising the both of them, apparently so deep in their plotting they'd tuned out everything else. They both jerked in shock, sending the rather abused-looking book hitting the floor with a thud, and giving twin yelps of pain as they knocked their foreheads together. Remus had just enough time to recognise the cover vaguely before Sirius recovered and reached down, grabbing it up and shoving it under his pillow and out of view.
"Whatever you're planning--"
"Who, us? Never!" Sirius said, his eyes bright with mischief.
"--I don't even want to know."
"Are you sure?" James smirked, throwing his legs over the side of the bed and standing. Holding his hands wide in that way that Remus knew was meant to say you can trust me but only ever spelled I'll get you loads and loads of detention to him. "Because it's absolutely brilliant and guaranteed to go off without a hitch."
"Right. Of course." He said, rolling his eyes pushing back the covers. "And I'll actually believe that about the same time Hagrid becomes Minister for Magic."
"Well, mate," Sirius said, giving James that look that always made Remus feeling rather left out, "with the right campaign anything's possible."
Remus spent the entire weekend waiting for them to put their plan into action. Every time James and Sirius exchanged one of those looks Remus was ready to spring. To leap up and disarm whatever idiotic explosion of chaos they were inevitably going to cause before too much damage could be done. He was a prefect, after all, but more importantly, as he was apparently the only one out of the four of them who actually understood the concept of actions having consequences, he felt somewhat obligated to use the understanding to protect the idiots from themselves.
Of course, when he came in Sunday evening, still drying his hair from the shower, and found James looking all smug and Peter practically bouncing around him, talking excitedly, words like amazing and brilliant falling out of his mouth, Remus realised that he should've known they'd not do it in front of him.
"What did you do?" He said, closing the door behind him and feeling very much that he didn't really want to know but ought to anyway.
"Thought you didn't want to know?" Sirius said, looking at him over top of the Muggle skin magazine he'd "confiscated" earlier in the day from a group of third year Hufflepuffs in the second floor boys' toilet on the grounds that they were far too young and impressionable for such filth.
"I didn't want to know when you were planning it, now that you've done it, though--" He stopped, exhaling hard and throwing his towel over onto James' bed, hoping rather bitterly that it would leave a wet spot. "Now that you've done whatever stupid thing you've done you probably ought to tell me so I can be prepared when you both get expelled."
"Have you always been this dramatic, Moony, or is it just since you got prefect?" James asked, mock seriousness in his voice.
"Perhaps his badge's on too tight?" Peter supplied.
Sirius snorted, flipping a page. "It's stuck up his arse is more like."
Remus rolled his eyes and sat down hard on his bed, pulling his pyjamas out from underneath his pillow.
"Look, the thing is," James said, putting his hands behind his head and crossing his ankles in a less natural-grace and more constantly-practised way, "she liked it so much, right? So I thought--"
"I thought." Sirius interrupted from behind his magazine.
"Shut up, you." James said, sitting up and shooting Sirius a look which Sirius ignored and then looking to Remus and starting again. "We thought it would be brilliant if she could wear it, you know, forever."
Remus made a face and looked up at the ceiling, disgusted with the obviousness. "What, did you jinx it so she can't take it off? She can just get someone else to unclasp it for her, you idiots."
"It was a permanent sticking charm, actually." Sirius said.
Remus gaped. "You didn't."
"I did." James said, puffing out his chest for a moment and reaching up to rumple the back of his hair.
"It was really brilliant!" Peter said, buttoning the last button on his pyjama shirt and sitting down on the end of Sirius' bed. "I've never seen her so angry."
Sirius lowered the magazine, eyeing Peter's back for a moment before looking over at Remus. "It was brilliant right up until he asked her out again, that bit was fucking sad."
"Ugh, would you shut up about that?" James made a face and gave Sirius the two-fingered salute, Sirius returned the gesture and went back to his magazine.
"You've got to undo it." Remus said, ignoring their exchange.
"Oh, no," James said, lying back down and shaking his head. "No way. She's been asking for it all week."
"She could turn you in for this! Messing about with her personal property and her--" Body, Remus thought, but didn't say because then James would make some crack about sex and Remus just couldn't be arsed to deal with it. "--person."
"Yeah, but she's not going to." James said, waving a hand in the air dismissively. "If she did that, she'd have to admit that she can't find a way to undo it herself which would be admitting that I finally got her."
"And our dear Miss Evans is far, far to proud to ever even contemplate something of that sort." Sirius said, turning the magazine on upside-down for a second. "Oi, Wormtail, this one looks like your mum."
Peter made a strangled noise and shoved hard at Sirius' feet which was obviously exactly what Sirius was hoping for. Remus rolled his eyes as they started to pummel each other. Falling back on his bed and frowning up at the canopy, ignoring Sirius' swearing and Peter's pained shouts and James cheering them on.
//
Lily came in later than usual for breakfast the next morning, looking rather tired and ragged, like she'd been up all night trying to come up with a way to get the bracelet off. James didn't even bother letting her sit down.
"Oi, Evans, how's the wrist?" James shouted as she walked passed them to her seat. Lily shot him a nasty look but James just mimed like he was trying to pull something off his wrist, causing several people (people who had obviously been in the Common Room and not the shower, debating whether or not to have a wank, at the time of James' great revenge) to start laughing. Lily flushed a lovely pink and Remus winced and stared down at his plate, suddenly finding his sausages quite interesting.
The rest of the day was an almost exact replay of the first day of the whole stupid business but, of course, it was James who couldn't stop smiling and Lily who changed colours. Remus felt decidedly ill all day but, mostly, he just reminded to tell himself that she wasn't really suffering from anything more than a bruised ego.
And it worked fairly well right up to the end of Transfigurations when Lily reached up to scratch the side of her neck as she was gathering her things and the bracelet made itself known.
"Miss Evans, I thought you understood you were not to wear that hideous thing in my classroom?" McGonagall said, her voice stern but, Remus thought, still a hint of disappointment. She'd always rather liked Lily.
"Oh, yes, Professor, but--"
"Two extra feet on tonight's assignment, Miss Evans."
"But Professor it's not--"
McGonagall raised an eyebrow. "Unless you would like three?"
"No, Professor." Lily said, shaking her head and rather quickly making her way out the door.
James nudged Sirius with his elbow as she passed, both of them grinning, and Remus had to bite his tongue to resist speaking up in her defence. It would've have done him any good, he knew, because McGonagall still would've had Lily do the extra work for not coming to her about it first and James probably would've tried to smother him in his sleep, but still he wanted so badly to wipe those smiles off their faces.
"You're going to be sorry, Potter." Lily hissed when they stepped out into corridor.
"What, you're going to jingle at me?" James said, his voice dripping with pure delight, grinning hugely when several people laughed at his joke. "You should've just gone out with me, Evans. This whole messy business could've been avoided."
Lily made a disgusted noise and stepped forward, poking her finger right in the middle of James' chest. "No, this whole messy business could've been avoided if you'd only grow half an ounce of a brain and some fucking maturity."
She stalked off after that, leaving James to rub at his chest pathetically and scowl. "I think she broke the skin."
"You're lucky that's all she broke, mate." Sirius said, throwing his arm around James' shoulder and leading him off toward their next lesson.
That evening, while James was at Quidditch practice and Sirius was showering and Peter was... probably off watching James at Quidditch practice, Remus went through their things for the book Sirius'd dropped the morning they hatched their rotten plan. Remus had imagined something much more sinister than a book on household charms.
"There's no reversal spell," he told her during their rounds a few days later. "But it'll come loose in a few days. Apparently they neglected to read the part about sticking objects to skin."
"Well, that's a relief. I've been seriously contemplating gnawing my own arm off." Lily said, pushing her sleeve up to examine it. "It's funny, it didn't bother me so much until I knew I couldn't take the ugly thing off."
"It's like that, I suppose." Remus said, nodding. He rather thought the fact that James no longer turned amusing shades of red whenever he saw it might have also had something to do with it.
"I'm going to have a whole pile of extra work from McGonagall by the time it finally does come off." She said, his heart clenched at the resignation in her voice.
"Look, about that..." He said, looking down the corridor and swallowing hard before holding out his hand. "Let me see it."
She looked at him, considering, but only for a moment and he tried not to notice how warm and soft her skin was or how perfect her hand looked in his or how he wished it was under different circumstances. He pulled his wand out of his robes pocket, concentrated hard on the image of what he would've given her instead. On what he would have given her had he ever had the idiotic confidence or the reckless boldness or the ability to bounce back from rejection that James possessed. On what he would have given her had his life ever been anything even remotely resembling fair. Something beautiful but not flashy, elegant but not formal, simple but not too.
With a tap and a word, it had changed -- tarnished brass replaced with shining silver and dull green with soft blue, the whole awkward, ugly mess of it shifted into a smooth, simple band. And when she lifted her hand from his, her fingertips slipping over his palm, there was not a jingle or a clack to be heard.
"I should've thought of that." She said finally, her voice almost breathless. He rather thought that she should have as well but couldn't seem to find the words, his tongue feeling suddenly thick in his mouth. He cleared his throat, forcing himself to look away from her before he did something even more idiotic, like kiss her or tell her that she was the loveliest girl he'd ever met. In his peripheral vision, he watched as she straightened up, pushing her sleeve down and then clearing her own throat. "It's much better now. Thank you."
"Not considering amputation anymore, then?" He asked, his voice much more steady than he felt.
"Oh, I am, it's just not my arm I want to gnaw off." She replied, her voice dark, and then, when he opened his mouth automatically to come to James' defence, quickly added, "Don't, all right? Let's just finish our rounds, maybe if we get lucky we'll catch a firstie out of bed and we can scare them to death."
There was a rush of thankfulness from somewhere deep in his stomach and a rush of something else from somewhere in the general area of his chest and he couldn't help but laugh, taking a step forward just as she did. "Honestly, did you pay the Sorting Hat?"
the end.