A Chance You Only Get Once

Chapter Twenty-One
What You Aren't Telling Me

When Petunia Dursley saw the baby sleeping on her doorstep, she recognized the distinctive hair of James Potter instantly in his son. She recognized his face. The milk slid from her hand. Why would Harry be here? Something had happened to Lily. The something that Lily had feared so much that she asked Petunia, who had made her think she hated her, to help them be safe.

Petunia was screaming as she dropped to the ground. Little Harry was waking up. He didn't start to cry as he looked up at her, perhaps seeing enough of his mother in Petunia to be satisfied for the moment. He looked up at her curiously. He reached out a hand for her.

Petunia drew away, covering her face with her hands and crying. She didn't need the note to tell her that Lily and James were dead. She could have saved them. Lily had said that she could save them, and she hadn't because she was still bitter about Hogwarts and magic and Vernon. The first two had been denied her and not her older sister; the third had been thrust upon her by her sister's disapproval. If Lily, the ever-perfect witch who had everything that Petunia had ever wanted and couldn't and wouldn't share it, hadn't tried to convince her to leave Vernon that night, she never would have slept with him. She never would have gotten pregnant and had to marry him and drop out of school. She could have worked and had a life of her own. She could have found someone as wonderful as Lily's James. Someone wonderful could have been the father of her son, as James had been Lily's.

But that bitterness had killed Lily. That petty blame for what Lily could not control had killed her. She was dead because Petunia could not forgive. "Forgive me, now, Lily," Petunia cried aloud, still sobbing. "Forgive me now."

Almost as if in answer to her plea, a small hand reached up and touched her arm. She looked over and saw that Harry had sat up and was the one who had touched her arm, as if giving comfort. It was what his mother used to do when Petunia had still permitted them to be friends. So Petunia was still crying when she took Harry into her arms, the answer to her call to her sister. Lily had forgiven her. After all, she had given Harry to her. Petunia had been forgiven.

Then she reached for the note pinned on him. Lily hadn't. Lily hadn’t forgiven her, hadn’t given Harry to her. Some meddling fool called Dumbledore had decided where Harry was to go, as the designated guardian, one of Potter's friends, was likely to be tried for their murder. A murderer! The one who murdered her! That was whom Lily had chosen instead!

As Petunia read on, she found that the only reason she had been chosen at all was because of her blood connection to Lily. In this place, Harry would be safe, not because Lily trusted Petunia to love and protect her son, but because of magic. The bitterness welled up inside her. Lily hadn't believed that Harry would find love and protection in her home. Now, Petunia's only part of the magic her heart had so long desired was to share in the power of the death of her sister.

Something she had wanted ever since Lily received her Hogwarts letter, to share in the magical world of her sister, came only in Lily's death and having no choice but to appeal to her.

That was what probably led Lily and James to come in the first place, too, Petunia realized. They would not have turned to her if they had any other option.

Dudley began to cry inside the house. Petunia rose with Harry in her arms, but then sank back down instantly. Dudley! With that one cry, all of Petunia's years of pain and bitterness flooded back to her. Dudley must never know the pain that she had lived with! He must never know the pain of not being part of a wonderful world, of watching your beloved sibling have it and being denied it yourself. Dudley must never know the desire and the pain that had so twisted Petunia's life until it was nothing more than this crippled existence. In Petunia's mind, for so many years, all of that had been Lily's fault. Whether or not a few minutes crying on the front porch led her to deny that, Dudley must never, above all else, feel the way that she had for so long.

Never. Dudley must be protected from the pain and bitterness that had twisted her normal, Muggle life into a pretzel. She would twist her life a thousand ways before she let that happen.

And there was only one way to do it. Vernon would agree instantly, furious at the reminder that Harry would be of the world his wife had wanted. The world his wife would have left him for, without so much as blinking, if she had any choice. The world to which he owed all his happiness with her. The world to which he owed the fact that she hated their life together. There was only one way to raise their son to protect him from their fate.

They must raise him to hate magic. Only if he were taught that to be normal was the highest virtue would he survive his brush with having to live a normal life compared with that of his brother. And he must not ever come to think of Harry as his brother, but merely as a visitor to be endured until he left. Only then would Harry's departure into the magical world, never to truly return, not cripple him. He must hate Harry and what Harry is, so they must learn to show that to both him and Harry as well.

Petunia cried for days at the thought of so mistreating Lily's son. So Vernon came up with thoughts to console her in what they had to do to save their own son. If they could crush the magic out of Harry, then they could love him. And if not, the wizarding world would comfort him. Petunia cried for days all the same, but then did like Lily had done and did what was necessary to save her son. They were sisters after all. Both would do anything for their sons. Lily had died for her son. Petunia would die too. She would die to who she wanted to be and never tell her son who that was.

* * *

"Marissa! You're not up yet?" Lily cried, flinging back the covers, light spilling in and forcing Marissa's eyes open against her will. "We're late for class!"

"What?" Marissa said confusedly, trying to sit up in her disorientation. She had felt so very tired lately, and now she had slept in? Marissa hated sleeping late, but she had found it harder and harder to wake up early the longer she was on the difficult regiment of medication. "What is it?" her voice was groggy and thick and the world was spinning. Lily's face was dancing in and out of focus.

"It's nine!" Lily cried. "Hurry, Riss, we've got to get going!" Lily took her arm and hauled her out of the bed, Marissa barely getting her sluggish legs under her in time. "Grab your robes and let's run! We've got to hurry! We've got McGonagall in five minutes!"

"I've got to get breakfast," Marissa murmured distractedly, sleepily, her speech still a little slurred as she made her way to her wardrobe.

"No time for that!" Lily cried, throwing open Marissa's wardrobe, grabbing a uniform out from the bottom and tossing it onto the bed indiscriminately. "Hurry! Put your clothes on and we'll make a run for it!"

"I have to eat, Lily," Marissa said, going to her vanity table and opening what Lily had always assumed was an extra cosmetics case. "McGonagall will understand."

"Since when is McGonagall the type that 'understands'?" Lily fired back, glancing over at her friend. What Lily saw in what she had always assumed held cosmetics made her stop her frantic scrambling. Pills upon pills, some of them quite fierce looking, were lined up in orderly rows. She stared at them for almost a full minute, watching in shock as Marissa expertly took a few from certain compartments and swallowed them with a vial of potion that refilled itself the instant that she set the vial back down in its place. "What the hell is that for?" she whispered.

Marissa whirled around in surprise, suddenly looking quite awake. Lily stared incredulously into her friend's eyes, "What are all those - why are you taking - "

"Lily, calm down," Marissa said in a steadying voice, putting out her hand as if to calm her with a gesture. "They're just vitamins. It only looks like a lot because I bought in bulk to save money."

Lily just continued to stare at her in dumbfounded silence for a very long moment. Marissa was about to slowly, tentatively, go for her uniform when Lily said abruptly, "Do you remember the night that Sirius dumped me?" Now it was Marissa's turn to stare at her in startled surprise. "When you were helping me get ready I asked you if you had any idea what he wanted to talk about. You said you had no idea. It was my first inkling that something was wrong. And do you know why? Because I knew that you would be able to tell if something had gone wrong with Sirius before I would. You noticed before my date that night that something was wrong. And do you know why I knew it then when you said that? Because you never could lie, Marissa."

"Well nobody's perfect," Marissa said, moving to grab her robes and slip on the rest of her uniform. "Hurry up, Lils, I'm starving."

"Breakfast is over, why are you so obsessed with this idea?" Lily cried shrilly.

"We'll go down to the kitchens then," Marissa said nonchalantly, pulling on her sneakers with a few clumsy hops. "I know you love Transfiguration, Lils, you can go on ahead."

Lily grabbed her arm roughly and would not let her move away, "Nobody takes that many vitamins. I don't care if they buy in bulk or not, which by the way you don't," she said harshly, staring at her best friend suspiciously. "I want to know what you took! I want to know what those pills were!"

"Caffeine pills, Lily, for heaven's sake! Are you happy?" Marissa yelled back, pulling her arm out of her best friend's grip. "I only take that many on days like this after I have patrol all night and feel out of it in the morning. And usually I have time for tea anyway. It's even less caffeine than in tea, so don't worry!" Lily didn't look convinced, but she could only stare at Marissa.

"Now, if it'll make you feel better about the time, I'll skip hair, but am I allowed to brush my teeth?" Marissa said, grabbing her backpack. "Oh!" she cried, as if remembering something. She grabbed her wand off her bedside table and freshened her breath magically. "See, time-saver!"

With that, Marissa skipped out of the door. A still dubious and worried-looking Lily hurried down the stairs after her. Marissa was barreling around the turn, not expecting anyone else to be there so late, and was so surprised she couldn't stop her momentum soon enough when she saw the Marauders ranged at the bottom of the staircase.

Remus had to catch her and set her back on her feet. "Well, what do you know, it's perfect," he said with a laugh. "We're back where we had our first kiss." And he gave her a quick peck on the cheek. "Happy Birthday, sweetie."

Marissa stared at him for a moment in confusion before she burst out laughing. "What time is it? Oh my goodness, you guys didn't!" she cried happily, spotting a delicious looking giant strawberry shortcake. Marissa loved the smell of strawberries in the morning, and strawberry shortcake had to be her favorite breakfast.

"Truthfully, we were expecting you down here quicker than that when Lily told you you were running late," Sirius said, suppressing a yawn. "Her hair's not even messed up. Lily, you weren't supposed to let her groom herself before coming down."

"Thanks, Padfoot, I really appreciate that fright she gave me," Marissa said with a mild glare at him. Then she turned back to Remus and gazed up at him happily, "What is this? You guys are too great."

"Oh yes, we tricked you and panicked you first thing in the morning; we're the greatest friends in the world," Remus laughed, his arms still around her, holding in her in the spot where she had first kissed him.

"You got up first thing in the morning for me," Marissa said with a wide smile. "I know how you sleep, Remus, and that was no easy thing."

All of the other Marauders started coughing violently. "You'll have to explain that one later, Moony," James said, nearly choking on his laughter. Lily, standing behind Marissa, looked considerably less amused, though for a very different reason than the one that had made Remus's face darken.

"Shut up, the lot of you," he barked harshly. "She didn't mean anything like that, and you know it," he snapped. Marissa reached up and kissed him quickly.

"Why don't you shut up and kiss me?" she suggested, the consummate peacekeeper.

"Did I ever tell you that you don't play fair?" he complained. "They just insulted your honor and you have to - "

"You have five seconds before I change my mind..."

"I hate you sometimes," he laughed, giving in and kissing her. Only when there had been excessive clearing of throats and coughing all around the circle of friends surrounding the couple did they break apart. "Well, I suppose they're right. We don't want to miss it."

"Miss what?" Marissa asked, a little breathlessly. "Does the food disappear at five thirty or something?"

"No, but the sun comes up at six," Remus said with a warm smile. "You're always telling us how much we miss not seeing the sun rise like you love to do," he told her when he saw her eyes light up in surprise. "And I think that, as you're dating a Marauder, we can find a place that has a better view than even you've managed to find in your years here."

He took her hand and the other Marauders grabbed the breakfast picnic basket and blankets. Lily only gave her a shrewd look, but then she followed the rest of them out of the Portrait Hole and into the quiet corridors that were lit with the dull, metallic gray of predawn light.

They stole up to the East Tower and, to the girls' mild dismay, climbed out a window and dropped down a short distance to a ledge. Remus caught Marissa neatly in his arms. Sirius and James helped hand Lily down less romantically but more gracefully than Marissa's flop out of the window. They stole across the worryingly narrow ledge and then climbed up to a section of roof. There the Marauders, with a few quick waves of their wands, had set up a lovely little picnic of Marissa's favorite breakfast and passed blankets all around. Remus gave Marissa his cloak anyway, insisting that it was better than a blanket.

She leaned back against him, putting her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her. "Thank you, guys; this is awesome," she said quietly, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.

"Don't go to sleep! Remus dragged us out of bed for this, to watch the bloody sun come up! I thought he’d gone batty!” Sirius complained loudly. Marissa just laughed and obligingly opened her eyes and began peering out at the horizon for the first sight of the golden ball of light.

"Remus may be the mastermind of this little plan," James said, "but I've got a little something I planned for you as well, Riss. Darjeeling tea, one of the rarest of China's white teas. Only a few chests made this year," he displayed a small teapot that immediately filled the air with a warm, fruity smell.

"Your brother mentioned it was your favorite when I was at your house this summer," Sirius explained at her look of surprise. "James asked his Mum, and she knew where to get it. She sent it just in time for James to tell the house-elves to make it for you." Marissa looked rather overwhelmed by all of this.

"But you can't have any tea, Marissa," Lily said rather sharply. "You already had that caffeine stuff you only take when you are up all night on patrol and don't have time for tea. If you drink that too, you'll be bouncing off the walls."

"Oh!" Marissa cried. "I'll go throw it up, I promise!" she laughed, looking longingly at what was indeed her favorite tea.

"You will not," Remus said sternly. "I think that since we got her up so early, she can have it just this once, Lily," he replied almost like a father granting his permission. "But if she starts getting hyper I'll be ready with a Calming Charm. We don't want her too crazy to enjoy the rest of her birthday."

"You take such good care of me, Remus," Marissa said with a highly contented sigh. She took the warm teacup from James and sipped it daintily as he passed the rest of them around. Next came the strawberry shortcake that nearly distracted Marissa from the beauty of the sky and that of Hogwarts as it gradually lit up.

The view from here was spectacular. The forest lit up into a thousand different shades of green trees in only a few minutes as the sun slowly climbed into the sky. The golden goals of the Quidditch Pitch flashed cheerfully at them. The sprawling lawn and the shining lake all woke up with an energy and beauty that was contagious yet at the same time utterly peaceful and quiet. Even the Marauders fell quiet in the splendor of mornings at Hogwarts.

Even Lily's whirling mind fell silent momentarily.

Marissa gave a great sigh as a soft breeze began to pick up and the cold increased. She didn't seem to notice as she stood up as if in a trance and walked a little way away from where the group had sat down. She walked to the top of one of the inclines of the tower and balanced there with empty air around her on nearly every side. She closed her eyes and spread her arms as if to accept the wind.

As if in answer, it caught her hair which streamed back in the wind as she leaned her head back with a serene look on her face. Acceptance, Remus would later call the look on her face. Now he called it peace. In this calm beauty that came every morning indiscriminately, when even the persistent gray clouds that had shrouded the castle recently turned the bright colors of the morning temporarily, Marissa Fletcher found both.

Remus's cloak caught the wind as well and flew back behind her. She looked as if she were gathering strength from the wind, taking its calming presence and all the power and fortitude that the wind possessed within her. She looked at the same moment both strong and very, very fragile, as if the small gusts would pick her up and blow her far, far away from them at any moment.

Then she exhaled and her shoulders dropped, her arms falling to her sides. She opened her eyes and picked up her head, smiling at her friends with that loveable and damnable mischievous twinkle in her eyes. A few flakes of snow began to float down around her, as if attracted to whatever she had felt in that moment. She laughed and then hopped down almost impudently, as if that very reverent and serene moment had never happened.

But none of them would ever forget that moment when they saw her looking both so very small and so full at once. In the years to come, this moment when she was very different from her usual self would be what they remembered most clearly.

* * *

"Did I tell you that November seventeenth is my favorite day of the year?" Remus told her as they actually walked to McGonagall's class much later that morning.

"If you keep this up, I'm going have as big a head as James by the end of this day," Marissa said, laughing but giving him a quick kiss on the lips that belied her criticism.

"Hey!" James protested. "The only reason you're getting away with that is because it's your birthday," he told her with a great show of magnanimity.

"You know what would be an even bigger birthday present?" Marissa said aloud. Then she gestured for him to come over and whispered something for a few minutes.

"But I'm always - " James began to protest. Marissa started whispering again, and he didn't finish. "I'm only humoring you one day of the year," James warned.

"That's why I'm making the most of it," Marissa said with a bounce in her step and a light in her eyes. She skipped a little ahead of them, waving her wand around so that vague sparks trailed behind her.

"She's really getting into the spirit of it, isn't she?" Sirius whispered to Remus, sounding highly amused. "Well, I hope she enjoys it, because tomorrow you start to pay for waking me up that early this morning."

"Oh please, you get far less sleep than that at least one night a week for some excursion or another," Remus said dismissively, watching Marissa with a warm smile on his face for her almost childish antics.

"So, you're going to tell her tonight?" Sirius said, also looking after the crazy but adorable blonde dancing around in a shower of stars because it was her birthday, and, from the sound of it, she had probably had way too much caffeine that morning.

"That's the plan," Remus said, suddenly feeling nervous.

Sirius sensed it and let out a bark of laughter. "Don't worry, mate," he said, clapping him on the back. "You've been practicing for a week. I mean sure, you started out all fumbling and nervous and not making any sense, but after a week of exhaustive practice we can actually tell that you're saying something in English now!" Sirius's words were, unsurprisingly, not very encouraging. "You probably won't revert back to the stutters the first time that you try it in front of Marissa either."

"You're such a very big help, Padfoot," Remus said, rolling his eyes at his friend.

"Anytime, Moony, anytime," Sirius said as impudently as Marissa could.

"Well, Miss Fletcher, you look very chipper this morning," Professor McGonagall greeted the girl who, at that moment, looked like nothing so much as a sprite dancing in the woods with the sparks flying all around her. "And we didn't see you or any of the other Gryffindors of your year at breakfast. Can I trust that you were not getting into trouble?" she said, casting a skeptical eye over the sixth year Gryffindors who were filing into her class.

"They woke me up at five thirty in the morning and made me breakfast," Marissa said happily. "I love these guys!"

"See, Moony?" Sirius said, elbowing him playfully as he spoke under his breath. "She can say it. Easy as pie."

"Shut up, Sirius," Remus mumbled. Marissa looked over at him and met his eyes were a great smile on her face. Remus's heart flip-flopped. Yes, he definitely had to tell her tonight. He just hoped that he'd get up the nerve by then. "It's her birthday, Professor," Remus explained Marissa's overzealous comment.

"I know that, Mr. Lupin. I know the birthdays of everyone in my House," Professor McGonagall said calmly and seriously. "Now please take your seats."

Before class actually began, however, Professor McGonagall found herself sitting an exam for the Marauders. She passed with flying colors in naming the birthday of everyone who resided in Gryffindor Tower - including Albus Dumbledore and Nearly Headless Nick.

* * *

Professor Galda MacBone had a talent for putting a somber mood on things when she felt like it. It was stronger than even the birthday euphoria that had quite taken over McGonagall's sixth year Gryffindor Transfiguration class, despite the teacher's best efforts. Or perhaps, as was possibly more likely, McGonagall had decided to humor the Marauders in their attempt to make this one of Marissa's best days. The kindly professor did know, after all, that it might very well be her last birthday.

Professor MacBone, on the other hand, was very good at spoiling happy moods. She kept shooting mournful glances at Marissa when she thought that she and Sirius weren't looking. It annoyed Sirius because the playful atmosphere suited his disposition rather well, and it had been going full-swing all day. Even if it had started too early for him, the spirit of the day had been quite good enough with everyone, even McGonagall unbelievably, in a great mood for silliness.

The Divination professor, however, it made extremely uncomfortable. Professor MacBone was not Cassandra, the great Seeress of their century, but she had been right, at least in a way, whenever she made a prediction. She didn't make many specific ones, and even fewer of them were believed. The curse that Apollo had given the first Cassandra seemed to have been given to her as well: to see parts of the future but to never be believed so never be able to change it.

It made her rather a joke as well. However, as it seemed to be affecting Marissa, who really shouldn't have to be bothered by anything on her birthday for crying out loud, Sirius was getting more and more annoyed with the looks that Professor MacBone was somewhat cluelessly sending their way because of whatever half-cocked prophecy she was trying to keep from telling them.

"Trying" being the most that Professor MacBone was ever capable of doing when it came to keeping her prophecies to herself. When she passed by their small table, she put her hand comfortingly on Marissa's shoulder as they were "trying" to gaze into the depths of the orb. Marissa just stiffened, but Sirius snapped, "Okay, you can stop this now!"

Everyone turned to stare at them (again - why did they always seem to be making a scene in Divination? Was their future really that troublesome?). Professor MacBone looked surprised, an odd expression for a Seer, even if not a perfectly clear clairvoyant. Sirius wasn't finished, "You can stop looking at her like the words 'this is your last birthday with us' are on the tip of your tongue," Sirius snapped.

He wasn't looking at Marissa, so he didn't see the look on her face.

What he did see was the sympathetic look that Professor MacBone gave her because of the expression that had appeared on her face. Sirius misunderstood and nearly exploded with rage, "How can you do that to one of your students?" he roared. "And Marissa! How can you put that on all of us? What would we do without Marissa? Are you trying to depress us? On her birthday?"

"Stop it, Sirius, please!" Marissa cried, rising to her feet beside the irate Sirius, tears in her eyes.

Sirius stared at her for a moment, and then he took her elbow and pulled her bodily from the classroom, snapping that MacBone could give them all the detentions that she liked. He pushed her down the ladder so forcefully that she barely managed to keep her feet under her and had no chance to try to stay in the classroom. Sirius was down a minute later and had thrown the ladder back up into the classroom and slammed the trapdoor shut with his wand.

After this stunning display of overreaction, Sirius turned to her as if he had done nothing at all remarkable. "You needed to get out of there before you started to get her blarney embedded in your head," Sirius snapped. "Don't ever leave us, Marissa. Don't ever let her think that you're going to. We need you."

Marissa couldn't help it. Not after that. She burst into tears, sobbing. Sirius immediately pulled her to him until she was crying into his chest. After a moment, however, he pushed her back and looked her in the eyes again, "Don't think about her. Ignore her. Do you think that I'm going to be looking behind my back June 1996? No, because I don't believe her babblings. Don't you either. This is your birthday, Riss!"

Marissa couldn't stop crying. To hear him say to never leave them... To hear how unbelievable the idea was to him... They would never be able to forgive her for not telling them. They would never forgive her for leaving. They needed her, and she was going to leave. She was going to leave them. Marissa didn't want to go. She didn't want to leave these people who meant more to her than anything else except for her brother.

"Come on, Riss," he said, grabbing her hand and pulling her along. "Where's the Muggle Studies classroom?" he mumbled to himself as he took her down a few passages she hadn't known about. He let go of her hand in the middle of the corridor and pulled open the door to the classroom as if he had every right to disrupt it. "Excuse me, Professor Perkins," Sirius called calmly into the mess. "Remus, that Aunt Marge of yours called in the Headmaster's Office."

Everyone knew about the fragile condition of Remus's Aunt Marge because of his frequent absences throughout the years to tend to her. Of course, this was nothing more than the cover for his monthly transformations, not that he needed to cover for them that often anymore as his dorm mates knew. Everyone else would think that he was just studying or somewhere else the evening that he was missing. Once the other Marauders found a way to be absent as well, the rest of the school just thought that they were up to something.

Of course, the teachers all knew that Remus's "Aunt Marge" was just fine. However, they couldn't exactly tell their classes that the Aunt Marge story was bull. It would be obvious to their teachers that it wasn't a legitimate problem, so they rarely used it. Professor Perkins, however, had never taken that much interest in the medical history of Remus Lupin. He knew that there was a werewolf at Hogwarts, all the teachers had been told who it was when he entered, but Remus hadn't been in his class at that time and he didn't think about it three years later when he became a part of it. So Professor Perkins wasn't as furious as another teacher would have been at the interruption and excuse. He merely excused a very confused Remus who followed Sirius out into the corridor.

The instant that he saw Marissa, he didn't care about the confusion. He went over and took her in his arms. She clung to him, still unable to stop sobbing. What would she do when she did have to leave these people? This man most of all, she realized. What had she done to him, to give him this only to take it away? Why was she torturing herself with this? Which of them would suffer more in the end for this?

"What happened?" Remus asked Sirius calmly as he held his sobbing girlfriend, looking over her head at his friend who was gazing at her with equal worry.

"Professor MacBonehead told her that she was going to die before her next birthday," Sirius almost snarled. Remus looked horrified. "It seemed to only make it worse when I told her to shut up and stop telling us we'd have to find a way to live without our Riss. She started crying when I pulled her out of class so that she wouldn't listen to that crazy old bat anymore."

"It sounds like you did the right thing," Remus said, tightening his hold on Marissa, who was beginning to calm down slightly. Remus thought about all that Sirius had told him about the crazy Divination professor. It didn't give him much basis to take her prediction seriously, but Remus still understood the monstrosity of what had been said to his girlfriend. Even just to him, it was terrible to have the thought that Marissa might be gone from his life soon hanging over his head. What must it be like for her?

Oh, what would he ever do without Marissa?

* * *

Marissa managed to calm down long before Potions. Sirius and Remus didn't mention her breakdown to anyone else as they made their way to the dungeons. Even so, Severus Snape knew instantly when he saw her walk over to his station. He didn't say anything to her immediately. They had stopped even exchanging conversation about the potion that they were preparing together. It was a true testament to silent communication, not to mention the fact that they both knew each other so well.

It was almost like a dance, seeing the way that they knew each other's movements so well that, even without looking, they could reach over and around each other to grab ingredients. They never had to speak to divide the jobs. Then again, they had worked together for months. What surprised Professor Delacour more was what she had known would be her most controversial pairing (not the only Gryffindor-Slytherin, actually).

Professor Delacour remembered, of course, when James Potter and Lily Evans had been great friends who finished each other's sentences and laughed at the same jokes. It had merely amused James that she didn't care for Quidditch, and Lily went anyway to support him. Professor Delacour knew that they had known each other so well from those first four years when they were very close. Professor Delacour even remembered when she had thought of Lily as Marissa's link to the foursome that dubbed themselves the Marauders.

In their third year, however, something had happened. Suddenly, it was Marissa who seemed bonded beyond any others to the Marauders. It was Marissa who clung to them and seemed truly at ease and truly herself only when they were around. Somehow, in third year, they had become her protectors. In the years since, she had learned to function without them, but she was what bound Lily to the boys now.

And in fourth year, Lily and James had stopped talking. Even now, as they prepared a delicate potion that, alone, neither of them was capable of concocting. With a competent partner, however, they found in each other an ability beyond their individual ones. That was why she had made these two pairings. A Gryffindor and a Slytherin and two more active enemies worked together like an art, like a dance. They didn't have to like each other outside of class. They didn't even have to like each other in class, but they had worked together just as she expected them to.

Marissa Fletcher and Severus Snape finished their potion before anyone else. Their work had still been the most methodical and complete. Severus Snape had always been a brilliant student, however, so this was hardly surprising now that he had a good partner.

They sat down on their stools and said nothing to each other. Severus Snape even had the temerity to take out a book. Marissa was watching Remus Lupin across the dungeons as he and Sirius Black tripped over themselves trying to complete the potion. They probably weren't going to finish, Professor Delacour realized with a sigh. If she hadn't been so entranced in watching her two flawless pairs, she could have probably recognized in time to save their work. Showed what a great teacher she was.

When Professor Delacour had looked away, Severus Snape spoke for the first time. Marissa was expecting it. "Happy birthday, Fletcher," he said stiltedly. He had spoken despite his best instincts.

"Thank you for remembering, Severus," she said quietly, not bothering to look at him. She knew that that could shatter this fragile conversation. It was a momentary pause. It only existed because Severus needed a reminder that someone in the world did care about him. Marissa didn't know why, but she could feel that he needed to know that there was someone who cared.

"Please accept this gift," he said formally, somehow managing to turn and present her with a small box without looking her in the eyes. The hurt he wouldn't admit that he felt was still there. Even more than that, if he looked in her eyes he would surely see her love for Remus Lupin in them. He would, as was his reflex with Marissa Fletcher at this point in their baffling friendship, look into her mind. He didn't want to see how firmly Remus was emblazoned there. He didn't want to see them kissing in her memories. He didn't want to see how far he had receded in her thoughts. He didn't dare look into her eyes or her mind.

How much Marissa understood of his Legilimency he did not know. How much she knew about Remus's unpolished but present natural talent for Legilimency he didn't care. Marissa seemed to understand, however, that he was being most polite and most distant when he was not looking at her. He only looked people in the eyes when they invited him, with the exception of Potter who didn't deserve any courtesy or privacy. That was why so few people even tried to talk to him. They thought that he wouldn't reach out to talk to them. Truthfully, Snape was afraid of reaching too far. He had to know that they wouldn't mind his partially unintentional invasion of their most private sanctum. Few would extend that privilege to anyone and none but Marissa would extend it to Severus Snape.

Marissa took the box delicately and held it as if it were very fragile. She was waiting for permission to open it. Snape nodded absently, trying to look away as she gently pulled the ribbon out of its bow and unwound it from the box. She pulled open the thin rectangular box and beheld a simple white quill. Marissa took it out of the box and placed it in her bookbag. "Thank you, Severus. It's a lovely quill."

"You are welcome," he said, nodding awkwardly. Marissa felt like sighing. Would she ever be able to repair her relationship with Snape? Probably not while she was with Remus. She stared up at the blackboard as if it had the answers to all the questions of her life. It was instinct, she supposed with the part of her mind that was left clear enough for other thoughts, to look at the blackboard for answers in this class when something surprising happened. Potions could be so simple. Tons of opportunities for error, but if you followed all the directions it turned out right. And if you saw a mistake, you could trace it right back to the step that you got off track. No wonder Severus Snape loved potions. It was easier than life was ever willing to be.

"You don't have to say it, you know," Marissa said after a moment, still looking ahead at the door. "It would just be those unnecessary words you hate so much."

Severus had no idea how to respond to this. It was unbelievable that someone could say something quite so perfect. It was impossible that it would be that easy. Except that he knew it wouldn't be. Marissa probably did too. That was why she made it easy to begin, because it would be hard to maintain their fragile friendship the rest of the time. Especially with her in Dumbledore's pocket and his side chosen very differently.

"You might want to tell me whatever you're working so hard to hold back, however," Marissa said surprising him even further. "There's something that you don't want me to know. And it's not that you have any affection for me. That you're too smart to try to hide." She sighed. "Very well. It is always your option."

"How kind of you," Snape nearly snapped at her. Had she just, obliquely, called him a liar? She had done it in a way that made it impossible for him to be offended. Or had she just meant that he was closed and unavailable? That didn't even deserve a response, it was so obvious.

"Thank you for remembering, Severus," was all that Marissa said.

* * *

Peter was starting to panic. Why did they care about Marissa? He wouldn't learn for years that it was the Death Eater's way of weeding out his weaknesses. They had asked him about all his friends individually in turns. Marissa had caused the biggest reaction and the most resistance. Therefore it was about Marissa that he was pressed.

It was mostly to find his weaknesses and strengthen his resolve. When the worst was over, he could tell them all that they really wanted to know about the far more significant James and Sirius. However, as they pressed, they found Pettigrew resisting. They found that he was beginning to fight them. The boy who had let his mother go to Azkaban with barely a whimper was refusing to tell them Marissa Fletcher's address. This was too dangerous to be allowed to continue.

Especially when Peter came over to her where she was leisurely finishing up her dinner alone (not seeming the least bit concerned about this either) and, looking more nervous even than during his interrogations, asked if he could talk to her.

"Yes, you can, Peter," Marissa said, gesturing for him to sit and regarding him with a sweet concern that might just give the little weakling the strength he needed. Lestrange was on his feet in a moment. He even made the somewhat dangerous show of going all the way across the Great Hall to the Gryffindor table to use the codeword.

When he arrived, Peter was trying to stutter something out and, extraordinarily luckily for both Pettigrew and Lestrange, he hadn't gotten very far. In fact, it looked as if Marissa was trying to understand what in the world he was talking about without seeming rude. Pettigrew would thank his lucky stars later. "Good evening, Pettigrew," he said sharply.

They both turned to look at him, Marissa's face looking mildly surprised and Pettigrew looking positively terrified and guilty. "Good - it's - good - it's - " was all that Peter could muster.

"Good evening," Marissa said politely, regarding him curiously and carefully.

"I wasn't talking to you, Mudblood," Lestrange snapped, casting a glare over Pettigrew then whirling around and walking out of the Great Hall.

Peter didn't dare to venture a guess what Marissa would think of this odd exchange. When he turned to look at her and found her peering into his eyes as if looking for an answer, he decided that she thought far too much of it. "You know that you could tell me, don't you, Wormtail?" she asked softly. Peter wondered, irrelevantly because the present subject was too deadly, if he was the only one who noticed that she had started using the nicknames for the Marauders. Nicknames were a distinction that had previously belonged only to Lils and Gus with Marissa. Remus was still Remus, but she said his name very differently now too. It was when she started dating Remus that the shift occurred. When she found out that Remus was a werewolf and what they had gone through to help him. That was what she wanted to remember about them constantly. That was when they became special enough to her to warrant nicknames.

"Even if it were something that you didn't think that you could tell the Marauders or McGonagall or even Dumbledore," Marissa said softly, examining him closely as she spoke. "Even if you thought that you couldn't tell anyone, you know that you could always tell me, right?"

Peter wanted to at that moment, but something still stopped him. It might even have been Lestrange who was glaring daggers at him from across the Great Hall. It was as Marissa looked at him so differently, however, he felt the wall that kept all his evil deeds from showing begin to cave in under the pressure from both sides. Peter had tried to build a wall around his heart to keep people out, but Marissa had already been inside it. He had tried to expel those who were already in his heart as much as possible, but Marissa's hold was too tight and he was too unskilled as of yet. So with her pushing her way in from both sides of the wall, Peter could feel it about to fall in.

Then he felt the sharp pain that meant that he was running late for a meeting. If he delayed long, it would become so terrible that he could barely breathe. He had to leave. Now.

Marissa seemed to sense that he had receded from their conversation, for she said simply and brightly again, "Or you could just take me upstairs to my surprise party."

Peter started. Marissa laughed, mistaking his reaction. So Marissa could err? Somehow, that made Peter feel oh so much better. He knew in that moment that Marissa was both the person who could best help him and the first one that he would turn to when the life he was to lead got too hard to bear. The Death Eaters knew it as well.

"Three Marauders, including my adoring boyfriend who never leaves me alone when he can avoid it, disappear all afternoon and the other does everything in his power to keep me outside playing in the new fallen snow until dinner? Not letting me up to the Tower to change even," Marissa said, ticking off her points on her fingers. "Subtlety was never you boys' strength. You a little more than the others, but even so, this was a poor showing."

She stood up. "Would you tell me, though, Peter?" she asked seriously again. "I will always be ready if you need me." Peter didn't say anything, merely looked away as they started to walk out of the Great Hall. Peter was in a daze, wondering if he really could ever admit it to her, and didn't panic until he saw that they were halfway across the Entrance Hall.

"I can't go up there with you, Riss," Peter told her, trying not to look like he was grasping at straws. "They'll know you knew, and they'll blame me. I can't go up there just now. Give me a few minutes to let the steam blow over."

"Oh Peter," Marissa laughed, eying him carefully behind her easy smile. "Don't worry about those boys. They'll be crazy for a few minutes, but they forgive even more quickly than they take offense."

But they won't ever forgive this, Peter thought glumly as he cast a glance toward the broomcloset where Lestrange would be waiting.

"It's not the Marauders I'm worried about," Peter said. "Lily'll be irate."

"Well, yes, maybe you'd better wait a few minutes," Marissa laughed slightly. "Don't be too long, Peter." She didn't walk away immediately; however, she tilted her head as if thinking about something as she regarded him, furrowing her brow slightly. Then she turned and walked away. "We'll talk at my party in a minute!" she called down the stairs which she had already skipped lightly up.

Peter hung his head and slowly made his way down to the second closest broom closet adjacent to the Entrance Hall to accept his punishment for almost telling.

* * *

The Fat Lady wouldn't swing open for Marissa. It was impossible that the password had been changed without her knowledge, even with Lockhart in charge and the thing changing at least once a week. The Fat Lady wouldn't even tell her why. "What, are they not ready with my surprise party yet?" she cried.

Suddenly, the portrait did swing open and Remus was sliding out of the portrait hole as quickly as he could, swinging the Fat Lady shut, something she normally would have protested wildly. "Don't close it!" Marissa cried when she saw him coming out. Her shoulders slumped as it closed with a soft thud behind him. "Juno's being stubborn for some reason." She turned and glanced at him shrewdly, "Or are you the cause of this?"

"I'm glad I caught you," Remus said, looking at her very seriously. "I know you're probably expecting a surprise party, and I just don't want you to be too disappointed when you go in there. You see, we tried, but we just couldn't get it all together. We had so many problems getting into Hogsmeade, and then half the House revolted when they found out that we couldn't get them food, and well, to make a long story short ... I'm sorry, Riss. I just couldn't keep everything together."

"Mm hmm," Marissa said with a smile. She took his hand and turned back to the Fat Lady. "Juno Reina, let me in! Password junipers." To Remus she whispered, "If I thought Gilderoy knew her name, I'd accuse him of being a kiss up." She was smirking at him as the Fat Lady, at long last, swung forward to reveal the Portrait Hole. Marissa led the way in to the Common Room.

It looked just as it should have right after supper. A few people were lounged on couches or doing homework on the tables. There was a chess game going on in the corner by the fire. Remus watched his girlfriend, thinking how very cute she looked as she peered at everything, just sure that there had to be a party here somewhere. She let go of his hand and went to peer up the steps to both the Girls and Boys Dormitories and was even checking under the couches when Remus finally stopped her.

"What do you say we just go see if the house elves will make you a birthday cake?" Remus said in a highly apologetic tone. Marissa looked over at him skeptically, her eyes narrowed, trying to see what he had up his sleeve.

"I swear I'm sorry. I'll do better next year. We'll have such a party that - Oh, let's just go."

"All right," Marissa said with a small sigh, still eyeing him as if he had a party up his sleeve.

"Wait, Moony," James Potter said, coming out from where he had been hiding in corner. "I feel terrible about this. Really, Riss, we all do," he said. "It's mostly our fault. Moony worked so hard and then Sirius and I ruined everything. But don't leave. I bet we can scrounge something together..."

"Will this do for a cake?" Sirius said helpfully, coming down the stairs holding a gigantic concoction of what looked like about three tons of flour and sugar.

"And the other food," James said, taking the Invisibility Charm off of two big long tables full of food. "That might just do it."

Marissa was laughing by this point. Lily popped out of hiding too and transfigured the "cobwebs" back into streamers and other party decorations. "See, Moony? Not that much trouble when you have friends."

"We're both lucky to have you guys," Marissa said with a laugh, turning and kissing Remus for a moment. She took out her own wand, "I think I'll choose the music myself though, thank you." She waved it at the ceiling and music began to play.

"Happy birthday, Riss," Remus said, spinning her out and pulling her back in as the music started to play. Marissa laughed as they began to dance. It was a perfect party; she was dancing with the perfect guy with the perfect friends looking on. It was the perfect birthday. It even made her forget that it was probably her last. It was the greatest gift that they could have given her, and they would probably never even know what they had done for her. They had released her momentarily from the shadow that hung perpetually over her life. So Marissa danced in Remus's arms for a long time before she had the heart to stop even for cake.

When Lily told her excitedly to make her wish before blowing out the seventeen candles, however, it came back to Marissa when she knew instantly what she wanted to wish for. Closing her eyes and making the wish anyway, she blew them out. When she opened her eyes, that first magic was gone, but it was still a wonderful party.

* * *

"Where'd the birthday girl run off to?" Lily asked Sirius, plopping down on the couch just to the side of the mound of wrapping paper that was left in the wake of Marissa's present opening ceremony. "Ah," Lily said, doing a quick scan of the Common Room. "I don't see Remus either."

"Usually that'd explain it," James said, sitting on the other side of Sirius. "But he's off preparing the setting for his gift-giving. Funny bloke, he has such a thing about public displays of affection. Now, Marissa's preference for them has helped him a great deal, but he still wants the really special things to be private. Silly bloke."

"Doesn't sound so silly to me," Lily said with a sigh, leaning back and closing her eyes. "So what, is he going to tell her that he loves her?"

Sirius let out a bark of laughter. "I told him that everyone could tell. Spelling it out wasn't necessary. Poor bloke wouldn't listen. Ah well, Riss'll probably appreciate it anyway."

"She'd better or I'll have to give her a reason to regret it," Lily said with a smile.

It was at that moment that Marissa came down the stairs of the Girls Dormitory looking considerably drained. Her face was pale and she looked very sad and shaken. Sirius and James were about to go over and see what was wrong (Lily would have already been over there if she had opened her eyes) when the Gryffindor Booster Club swarmed on top of her and bore her, laughing and smiling at their craziness, to a sofa in the middle of the Common Room. "I don't envy old Moony having to pry her away from those groupies," Sirius laughed as he watched the harried Marissa try to answer at least five different comments at once.

They turned back to their own conversation. Sirius and James immediately fell back on Quidditch and, to their immense surprise, found that Lily was a willing participant in the argument about the best professional team so long as James didn't start making comments that he was better than the lot of them.

A few couples were still dancing. Everyone was using the excuse to be loud and leave their plates and glasses lying around in random places. Nearly everyone had gone back for seconds on the cake with the excuse that it was the birthday of one of everybody's favorite people. The noise and mess level can be imagined fairly easily. So can everyone's reaction when McGonagall pushed open the Portrait Hole.

The silence was tense and uneasy. Remus came in behind her and nearly doubled back in panic as it was long after curfew. It took him a minute to remember that he could stay out later on Astronomy nights, at which point he seemed about to immediately argue that point to McGonagall.

The Transfiguration professor, however, barely glanced at the mess or obvious evidence of the party. She didn't seem to even hear the music pouring down from the ceiling. She was looking directly at the sofa near the middle of the Common Room where Marissa Fletcher was lying still, looking as if she had been asleep through all the noise and music of the party.

"Mr. Lupin," she said softly, not taking her eyes off of Marissa Fletcher, "I believe that Miss Fletcher has fallen asleep in her overzealous effort to stay up after everyone else to make sure that they all got to bed safely. Everyone seems to be up rather late tonight indeed." That was enough for everyone to scatter up to their respective dormitories except for the sixth year Gryffindors, who had every right to be up late as they had class in another hour. Well, Sirius didn't, but he preferred to act as if he did on Thursday nights.

"Mr. Lupin, I think that, as it is Miss Fletcher's birthday, we should give her a chance to get some real rest," McGonagall continued. "If you wouldn't mind carrying her, I think we'll let her spend tonight in the Hospital Wing where she won't feel any compulsion to come back down here and supervise the rest of you as you clean up this mess." Remus went over and picked Marissa up very gently, taking very close care not to wake her as he walked out of the Common Room behind McGonagall.

James let out a laugh the moment that they had gone. "Well, she knew the only way we wouldn't start right back up again the moment that she left, didn't she?"

McGonagall watched with carefully veiled concern as Remus gently laid Marissa on the bed. Remus spread her out on the bed very tenderly and carefully, but it still worried McGonagall more than she liked to admit that Marissa did not even so much as stir. Remus pulled the blanket up over her protectively, as if that blanket would shield her from all the harms of the world rather than merely a nighttime chill. He smoothed her hair back from her face and kissed her lightly but lovingly on the forehead.

When he turned around it was quite clear that he had completely forgotten that his Transfiguration professor was still watching him. Professor McGonagall just nodded at him, a faint smile tugging at her lips despite her worry. She gestured for him to leave. Remus smiled and seemed to blush slightly as he made his way out of the Hospital Wing.

"Poppy," she called when she was certain that he was gone, "I think you need to take a look at Marissa Fletcher." She was there in half a heartbeat.

* * *

"Poppy?" Marissa called groggily as she woke to find herself in the insistent and tireless white of the Hospital Wing. "Poppy, what - "

"Good morning, Miss Fletcher," the nurse said cheerfully, pulling up a chair as Marissa sat up in bed somewhat heavily. "Open," she commanded. Marissa was in the habit by now of obeying Madam Pomfrey instantly and unquestioningly. She felt her pills placed deftly on her tongue. A moment later she had swallowed. "There you go, though you made that more difficult than you had to," Madam Pomfrey said, belatedly producing a glass of water as Marissa choked on them.

When she had her composure back, Marissa looked around the Hospital Wing in mild surprise. "Miss Evans dropped off a set of clothes for you before her Astronomy class," she explained, handing her a small bundle of robes. "Mr. Lupin carried you up here. Looked at you so sweetly while he was here," she said with a small smile.

"All right, Poppy, now give me the bad news," Marissa said, stretching and swinging her feet around to sit on the side of the bed.

"You passed out last night in the middle of your party," Madam Pomfrey replied seriously. "You ended up on a couch so no one quite noticed at first. That's the good news for your secret and the bad news for damage assessment, as we don't know how long you lay there after you went out. I'm going to increase your clarity and strengthening potions slightly, which means that I need more ingredients than I had budgeted for this month. Unfortunately, I called several apothecaries and even waving the Hogwarts crest won't get me them in time to make the potion this week. I can't even make you this version with what I have left after having to treat you last night."

"Well," Marissa said with heavy sigh, "That's some news."

"I'm afraid that's the best happy birthday that I can offer," Madam Pomfrey said. "So you'll have to come here when you're on the medications without the potions, I suppose. Which one do you want, sick aunt or dead grandmother?"

"Remus knows all of those," Marissa murmured, starting to take off the hospital robe and put on her school robes. She was doing some very fast and very bad thinking. "Could I stay in my room? Have a bad fever or something? I'll be vomiting anyway, right?"

"I can still give you the nausea potions, or aren't they working as well as they should either?"

"You did warn me that this wouldn't be completely without side effects," Marissa sighed. "Well, do you need to monitor me or can I?"

"I don't think it's a good idea," Madam Pomfrey said. "But it's your decision." Marissa finished dressing and was almost out the door before Madam Pomfrey spoke again, "You know that you'll have to tell them eventually?"

"I've even picked a time," Marissa said heavily, trying to blink back her tears as she held the doorknob. Marissa couldn't bear the thought of losing another great day like yesterday had been. She couldn't bear the thought of losing three of them when her self-imposed deadline was rushing up on her. It was at that moment that Marissa Fletcher made a very, very bad decision.

"It'll be about three days before the potions wear off entirely," Madam Pomfrey said. "It might be abrupt or gradual. Either way, listen to what your body is telling you. Don't try to push it."

"When I start to feel the medicine working, I'll get right into bed," Marissa promised, watching what she promised very, very carefully. She then opened the door and hurried to class.

* * *

Although the Gryffindor six remained briefly united throughout the weekend in honor of Marissa's birthday (and because they were all hanging on pins and needles waiting for when Remus would work up the nerve to say those three little words again), at breakfast on Tuesday the fragile rapport had ended. Lily's patience with James Potter and herself had reached the breaking point. So they went back to their trios.

By lunchtime, it was clear that there was something wrong with Marissa. She had gone pale and looked very, very tired. She had even slept in Binns' class after Divination that morning. Sirius, of course, put it down to leftover perfume from MacBone's "class" and the fact that Binns was boring and it was about time that she noticed. Remus was more concerned, but then he was concerned if Marissa looked like she were about to sneeze. As he was used to crying wolf, she was able to calm him down, at least outwardly, after only a few minutes.

Lily watched like a detective gathering clues. She didn't miss anything of the way that Marissa seemed to be slipping in and out of consciousness and was having to concentrate extra hard when she was conscious. She was also getting paler by the minute.

The only person who noticed more was James Potter, who caught Lily's concern and took it three steps further.

The only reason that Marissa wasn't found out right then was the fact that she was the only one without a class the next period. She barely made it over to her room and slid under the covers, shaking. Could she really do this? No. She didn't think that she could now. But to lose three whole days...

Marissa was a clever girl. She didn't have top marks, but she practiced her own brand of magic at which she excelled greatly. She wasn't wonderful at Defense or Astronomy, but she was creative in Charms and inventive in Transfiguration. She had a great memory for Herbology and Potions. She had always loved History of Magic.

What she didn't know beans about was medicine, Muggle or magical. That was why she didn't take her medications as she felt the potions beginning to wear off. All because she didn't want to lose any time with her friends feeling drugged up. The fact that the clarity potion had nearly worn off entirely also likely affected her decision.

After resting, she felt deceptively better and more able to face the day. She made it down to Potions just in time to avoid being late. "Is it just me or has she been doing a lot of that lately?" Lily said to James Potter as she looked at Marissa arriving at the table out of breath although she had not, despite appearances, run there. Lily couldn't help casting a look at Professor Delacour. James raised his eyebrows at her, but she ignored him and began making the potion.

Snape noticed Marissa's state the moment she arrived. He did not comment, however. It was not his place; Marissa obviously knew exactly how she felt. It was up to her to decide to leave or not when she felt sick. So he began to do the potion. She seemed to find it calming as well.

Halfway through the class, however, Marissa suddenly sucked in a sharp breath and clutched at his arm in a desperate attempt to keep herself from falling. She gasped, drew a shuddering breath, and dug her fingers further into his arm, her face contorting briefly. He was stirred to anxiety. Until, that is, her fingers landed on the place on his arm where the Dark Mark had been burned and he recoiled, "Don't touch me!" he hissed.

Marissa didn't seem to hear him. She only clutched tighter to his arm, swaying on her feet.

"Get off me!" Snape cried in panic, wrenching his arm away from her. Marissa Fletcher touching the Dark Mark was unbearable. It could not exist in this world. The Dark Lord could not touch her. The Dark Lord could not be near her. He could not come near her in any way. He jerked his arm out her grasp at last, but Marissa's desperately clutching fingers stayed on his robes so his motion did not free him entirely.

Instead, his robe came off his arm and exposed the vivid black tattoo for a split second before she released it. It was enough. Marissa looked down at it and stopped whatever convulsion she was having. She just stared at him for a very long moment, and then she jerked several feet away, staring at him in horror. Her mouth was hanging open and she was retreating quickly.

"Marissa, calm down; don't scream," Snape said quickly, taking a step forward. It was a mistake.

"Get away from me!" she screamed shrilly and loudly. "Don't ever come near me again!" With that she turned and half-ran, half-stumbled from the room. Professor Delacour was at the door in a moment, but Marissa had already ducked into a secret passageway before the small Potions Mistress could catch sight of her.

Instead, Professor Delacour rounded on Snape. "Mr. Snape, someday I 'ould like to have a class where both 'ou and 'our partner stay een the class until ze bell!" She marched back to her desk and sat back down in a huff. "And you can forget eet, Mr. Lupin, because 'ou are not leaving to go after 'er."

What took so long to find her after class can be forgiven on a few points. Remus set right off to find Marissa, thinking that he knew exactly where she would want to go. James went to check the Hospital Wing first thing and then wandered around to a few places before going back to Gryffindor Tower. Lily didn't waste her chance. She caught up to Severus Snape in a lonely corridor and stopped him.

"What do you want, Mudblood?" he demanded coldly, his eyes blazing with a rage that nearly stopped Lily dead in her tracks. "What could you possibly want from me?"

"It's Marissa," Lily said, taking Marissa's "vitamin" box out of her bookbag.

"I think you heard her in class," Snape said, whirling around and starting to sweep away.

"I think she's sick," Lily called after him. Snape hated himself for it, but he stopped. He did not, however, turn around. "She won't tell me. She says she's taking vitamins, but after all these years I can tell when she's lying. I need to know what these are."

She had walked over to him. Very, very slowly, he turned around and did something that he had never done before. He looked Lily Evans in the eyes. What must it have taken for her to come to him? A dire circumstance, that was for certain. She may have come to his rescue once, but she had also abandoned it quite easily. She clearly hated him. That was easy to see in the way she was looking at him even now as she asked for his help. "Can you tell me if these are magical? Take them and see. I don't care if you even tell me, but please, do something."

Snape looked at her for another long moment, "If she is taking medicine then she is clearly doing something. I would only fear if she stops." He started to turn.

"That's just what she did this morning," Lily said. "That's why I knew it was safe to take."

Snape slowly turned, then took the box, opened it, and put one of each of the pills into a vial that he pulled out of his pocket. Then he closed it. He turned and walked away without another word.

* * *

They weren't there. They weren't there. She had to get the Hospital Wing. Now.

It had been almost half an hour since Marissa thought these confused, pain-wracked thoughts. She still hadn't made it to the Hospital Wing.

* * *

"Hey, Wormtail? I'm worried about Riss," Sirius said, bounding into their room where Peter had been waiting for them to get back from Potions. "Will you get the Map out? I'm a little worried about her. She's finally seen the light about Snivellus but there was something ... something not quite right about her today."

"I noticed it too," Peter said, struggling with the loose floorboard under which they stored the Marauder's Map. It was an elementary trick, but that was probably the only reason that it hadn't been discovered long ago. "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good." That always worked for Peter nowadays, even when his intentions were noble. They had put a spell on the Map so that when you said the password it had to be at least in part true. More fun that way, they had thought. But if not for Peter's treachery, the Map might not have responded even to its Makers' voices when their motives were pure concern for their friend.

Sirius was looking over his shoulder in an instant. It took a few minutes to locate Marissa's dot. For two reasons. One was that it was in a corridor that Marissa avoided like the plague. It was the same corridor that Malfoy had once dragged her to. She and all the Marauders avoided it even though it was the shortest distance they had yet found to one of the areas of the castle they found themselves visiting most. The Hospital Wing.

The second was even more worrying. Although all the rest of the dots were written in a dark, vivid black, Marissa's dot was a dull gray. Her name was written sloppily, as if the hand that wrote it had been shaking too hard to even hold the quill properly. Her only movements were painfully slow. Sirius was out the door before Peter could so much as blink. Peter, for his part, sank down until he was sitting on his bed. Oh, the great Marissa Fletcher who said he could tell her everything, what was she keeping from all of them?

Sirius sprinted faster than he had ever done to the corridor. With every step his feet seemed to pound out a rhythm that repeated over and over again, something isn't right. Something isn't right. Something is very not right. When he slid to a stop in the corridor, he thought for a moment that she was not there after all. He scanned it frantically, where could she have gone? He didn't see her...

He hadn't been checking the floor. There was a lump that looked like nothing more than a crumpled pile of robes lying beside the wall toward the end of the corridor. Sirius flew across it and knelt down beside her in an instant. He grabbed her, his heart stopping in horror as he turned her around. He had expected her to be unconscious. He hadn't expected her to be awake and suddenly latching onto him, her face contorting grotesquely, her hands like claws as they reached out for him, her mouth open in a silent scream. And her eyes ... nothing could have prepared him for her eyes. There was nothing but agony in them. Sirius had felt that before, had had that look in his eyes. It had been when Lucius Malfoy put the Cruciatus curse on him.

"Please, Sirius," she gasped in a raw voice that broke his heart completely. Marissa. The friend who had taken him in when he cut ties with everything. The bloody president of the James Potter fan club who thought Prongs was too egotistical. The perfect girl for Remus. This could not be happening to this girl. "Please, hos-pi-tal-" she was breathing panicky, desperate breaths that seemed too shallow to give her the oxygen she needed, her face was contorting rapidly and terribly.

Sirius reached out to pick her up and her claw-like hands grabbed at his shoulders, squeezing them painfully as whatever agony she was feeling seized her anew. The Map seemed to be floating in his mind. He had once thought that it was because of another incident in this corridor that they had become such avid explorers, as if they had thought that if they could know every Hogwarts passageway they could go back in time and catch or even stop Lucius Malfoy from doing that to Marissa. He had thought that they had made the Map to give themselves a legacy at Hogwarts. Now, he felt as if both had been done for this sole purpose: so that in this moment, he could get Marissa Fletcher to the Hospital Wing as quickly as it had ever been possible.

He ran as he had never run before, with a load in his arms that was painful when she dug her fingernails into him one moment, and far, far too light the next as she seemed to slump, limp and almost looking dead in his arms, the next second. He felt something warm and wet on his shirt. She had vomited into his chest. Marissa.

He burst into the Hospital Wing, hollering in a hoarse and panicked voice, "Madam Pomfrey! Marissa Fletcher - "

BOOM!

The door from the nurse's office smashed open and she was nearly flying across the Wing, her wand out in her hands. A few feet away, she shouted, "Stupefy!" at the bundle in Sirius's arms that he couldn't bear to think was one of his best friends. One of the greatest people that he knew or would ever know. The one and only Marissa Fletcher. This could not be Marissa that he was holding.

"Put her in the bed, quickly!" the matron said thinly, sounding panicked. "Hurry boy!"

Sirius did as he was told. He would have been shocked and appalled at the stunning spell if he hadn't been numb from the look of agony in Marissa's eyes as she had turned to look at him, not even looking like she really saw him there. He laid her down less tenderly and gently than Remus had a few nights ago, but his eyes shone with even more concern, for he knew that there was real danger. Sirius looked down at her, her hands no longer claws but the delicate, sweet fingers that he had seen a thousand times before but never truly appreciated. Her face had stopped spasming and had grown still. She looked deceptively serene.

Suddenly, her entire body spasmed again, though she didn't wake. Madam Pomfrey immediately caught her and forced her back down. She had a needle attached to a bag of some fluid that she stuck into Marissa's arm and left there. She was going for pills and a potion as he watched. She seemed to know exactly what to do. Sirius was merely glad of it then but barely noticed, and he didn't even remember it until years later when this ten minute period was one of the few memories that he was forced to relive over and over again in Azkaban.

"There you go, baby," Madam Pomfrey whispered, putting the pill in the back of Marissa's mouth. "Ennervate," she whispered as if wishing that she didn't have to. Marissa's eyelids fluttered open, her eyes immediately filling with tears of pain. "Swallow quickly, then I'll put you back out," the nurse said, pouring the potion down her throat. Marissa barely managed to swallow without choking, and once she had, Madam Pomfrey's wand was out again.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she was mumbling in that same raw voice that left Sirius's heart in ashes.

"Oh baby," Madam Pomfrey whispered, "don't you ever apologize to me about this. Not when you've already been punished so terribly." She took her hand for a minute, and then stunned her again. She looked as if she were crying for a long moment as she looked down at Marissa Fletcher with a caring expression on her face. Sirius had never seen the woman look quite like that. Oh, she cared about all her patients. She fought to the death to help them. She challenged anyone who came between her and their complete cure. It was a very active and very unemotional caring that she felt for all the students under her care. The way she looked at Marissa Fletcher, however, was considerably more personal.

"Get out, Mr. Black," she ordered abruptly as she stood and straightened her clothes.

"What's wrong?" Sirius asked, and immediately regretted it. He did not want this to have a name. If it had a name then it was real.

"Mostly withdrawal from the medicines she's been taking," Madam Pomfrey answered. Then she seemed to shake herself. She looked up at the disturbed young man and said what Marissa would have wanted her to say, "She has a very severe allergy to the key ingredient that you are using in your potions studies. With her medicine she can work with it and could even, in theory, ingest a potion made with it. As a great deal of important potions, ones that she may need if she ever needed medical treatment, particularly in an emergency, contain this ingredient, she is trying to build a resistance to its negative affects. She's trying to wear away the allergy. The medicine is helping her. She didn't want anyone to know, thinking that you'd worry. But her medicine went missing this morning, I believe. She didn't take it in the least. She attempted to brave Potions class despite it. It was unwise of her."

Sirius remembered her behavior in Potions class. The lie took hold easily enough as it wasn't half as horrible as he had been expecting. Madam Pomfrey only hoped that she hadn't completely destroyed Sirius Black's faith in her when Marissa eventually did decide to tell him the truth.

* * *

Remus and Lily were heading back toward Gryffindor Tower together when they saw Sirius walking slowly back there, looking as if he had been through hell and back in the time since Potions class had ended. They hurried over, concern written all over their faces. "I found Marissa," he whispered, the great Sirius Black sounding distinctly as if he wanted to cry. "She's in the Hospital Wing."

Remus instantly started sprinting toward it. "Pomfrey's not letting anyone in!" Sirius hollered after him hoarsely. Remus didn't pause for a moment. Sirius turned back to Lily with haunted eyes. "She said something about an allergy to a potion ingredient we've been using this year. Apparently Marissa couldn't take her medicine today and she - she was - " Sirius couldn't go on.

Lily could barely stand. Her backpack, which contained Marissa's box of medicines, suddenly seemed to way two tons and dig into her back. What had she done?

Marissa didn't take them this morning! her mind screamed. She didn't take them before you took the box! It was true, it was logical, and it was something to cling to, but it wasn't an absolution for the overwhelming guilt that Lily suddenly felt.

* * *

Marissa woke up blinking in the darkness, the moonlight flooding the hospital wing and reflecting off of all of the bright white in the wing. There was a soft yellow light from Madam Pomfrey's office. Marissa wondered drowsily if that woman ever slept. Her question seemed to be answered as the sometimes omniscient-seeming witch came walking briskly - Madam Pomfrey never ran or meandered. She was always walking briskly - with a sharp click of her heels on the floor.

Marissa started to sit up, but felt too dizzy and disoriented to do so. There was a dull pain in her arm where, she saw blurrily, a needle had been inserted into her vein. She wished that she could think more clearly. Madam Pomfrey arrived at her bedside and handed her a potion. "Just try and go back to sleep. When you wake up, I should have the potions ready again," she told her.

Marissa recognized the Dreamless Sleep potion as it was poured into her mouth. She probably wouldn't have needed it to fall back asleep. "Poppy?" she asked, turning over and seeing someone sprawled on a chair next to her bed.

"He wouldn't stop yelling until I let him in," Madam Pomfrey said, sounding amused rather than furious. "Not even McGonagall's threats could convince him to go to class or back to his dorm. Even she didn't have the heart to actually follow through with them. She's got quite a soft spot for you, Miss Fletcher. She's going to claim for appearances that Mr. Lupin is serving a detention on Friday. Full moon. Worse punishment than she ever would have demanded of him."

At what point in this explanation Marissa fell asleep Madam Pomfrey wasn't sure, but when Remus woke up with a pain in his neck that morning, Marissa was smiling at him, her eyes closed in a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Lily came whenever she wasn't in class. The other Marauders came nearly as often. The visitor Remus hadn't expected to be joined by came on the second day that Marissa had lain on the bed looking half-dead. He must have noticed her absence from Potions class. Remus immediately jumped to his feet angrily. "Get out of here!" he demanded.

Snape looked over at him coldly. "You do not have the right to determine who she does and does not see, Lupin," he replied icily. "However much pressure I am sure you have already put on her. I came here to speak with Marissa, and you cannot stop me."

"I can when she's unconscious," Remus replied, his voice full of anger and conviction. He could out-stubborn even Severus Snape if it was about Marissa. "Now leave her alone."

"What a common refrain from you Moroners these days," Snape said tauntingly. "What are you so afraid that I would do to her?" he asked softly, hissing in a way you could imagine Lucifer hissed to Eve. "Or is it as competition that you fear me?"

"The only time you ever had a chance with her was in your own mind," Remus snapped back at him. "I'm not afraid she'll leave me for you. I'm not afraid she'll ever love you the way that she does me. You're not capable of loving her the way that I love her."

"She's told you she loves you then?" Snape asked softly in surprise. The look on Remus's face gave him away, but he had covered it a moment later.

"She thinks you're not dangerous, and she won't stop believing it and trying to save you until you've truly hurt her," Remus told him, standing his ground as if preparing for a fight. "Only I'm not going to let you. Stay away from her, Snape."

"That's Marissa's choice," Snape snapped at him. "You can't make it for her. She is the only one with the right to decide - "

"Remus," Marissa suddenly cried out, still sleeping, shifting slightly on the bed, her face looking confused and a little frightened. "Remus, help - no," she was murmuring as she tried to move a little ineffectively. Remus immediately was at her side, taking one of her flailing hands and massaging it gently, running his hand lighting across her cheek, murmuring to her softly until she started to settle back down. He pulled the blankets she had dislodged back up over her.

He turned slowly, as if he had quite forgotten that Snape was still there. "Don't be too proud of yourself," Snape snapped. "She called your name out in what was obviously a nightmare." Snape slammed down the flower he had brought for her on the table as he turned and swept out of the Hospital Wing. He hadn't known what he would say to her anyway. What could he have? They were on opposite sides; she would have to learn to live with that. Or without him.

That was the part that scared Severus Snape. He hated being scared.

* * *

When Marissa woke up again, it was to the orange light of ending day, and the thickness that had shrouded the world and clouded her thinking last time she had woken was gone. She sat up and found that the world didn't spin. The wracking pain was gone except for a dull ache. Remus was awake this time. "Riss!" he cried softly in surprise, starting as if he had been half-dosing in his chair. How he could have fallen asleep there was beyond her.

Marissa smiled at him warmly and lovingly. "Remus," she said, disliking how thick her voice was from recent disuse. "You've been here the whole time." It wasn't a question but she still said it wonderingly. Her eyes were looking into his, part of her relieved that she could at last be totally honest with him. "I thought for sure you'd be angry at me."

She looked down at her knees as she said this. Remus stood up and walked over to her bed, sitting down on the edge of it. "Why would you think that?" he asked, taking her hand in his.

Marissa looked up at him, "I didn't tell you," she said quietly and simply.

"I wouldn't have told you a much bigger secret if you hadn't found out about it on your own," Remus said with a small smile. "Think of it this way, I'm allergic to silver and you're allergic to bezoars. Neither of us has any business being around goats. Simple as that."

Marissa opened her mouth in surprise, and then laughed in relief. Disappointment was also heavy in her heart, however. She put aside both of them. She would tell them all soon enough. Whatever lie Madam Pomfrey had told for her, it was enough to buy her more time before the end began. For when she told them it would be the beginning of the end of everything she had known before, the beginning of the end of her wonderful life with these people who had become her true family. She wasn't eager for that day, but this also meant that the lying would go on.

"Do you have some clothes for me? I'd like to get out of here," Marissa said, sitting up on the other side of the bed from Remus. "Let's take a walk once Madam Pomfrey checks me out."

"I've missed talking to you these past few days, Riss," Remus said agreeing. He took the small bundle of clothes that Lily had brought for her and put it next to Marissa on the bed. Then he went to get Madam Pomfrey, leaving Marissa to wonder at the "days" comment. Had she been out that that long? Had Remus really been there waiting for her that long?

Madam Pomfrey let her go after a few checks and a few swallows of potion. She did not even give Marissa a lecture about the medications. She knew that Marissa wouldn't try to go without them again. Then Marissa Fletcher and Remus Lupin were strolling leisurely through the corridors and out onto the Grounds. They talked easily of everything and nothing, resting in each other's company after the long and hard experiences that they had just had.

They were each other's safety, their place of rest, the place where they were always themselves. They brought out the best in each other. They let each other be themselves more fully than they could with anyone else. They could show weaknesses and strengths to each other, sides of themselves that they wanted to hide from everyone else. They had always relied on each other heavily, even before they fell in love. Now it was merely complete.

And now was Remus's moment. He had been planning on her birthday, had had everything ready before she fell asleep on the couch in the Common Room. Now he had it again as they strolled around the lake, the last rays of the sun sliding off of the water and the fading light that let all the windows shine out more brightly making the castle look like the most magical place in the world. He stopped and took her hand, looking at her seriously.

She smiled at him. "Riss, I just wanted to say - "

"Can I go first?" she asked suddenly. Remus stopped in surprise, but nodded a moment later. "I can't tell you how much it meant to me when I woke up and saw that you were there watching over me. I've never felt more safe. It's not something that happened to me a lot in my life, someone watching over me, taking care of me. I take care of my brother and I love him so much, but he's too young to take care of me the way that you have been. My father really only started trying recently, and he's far more clumsy about it than you've been. I just wanted to say how much it's meant to me for you to care about me that much. I feel like nothing bad could happen to me around you. I've never really had that, someone who made me safe. Somewhere that was a home. I just wonder if I can ever do anything for you that will mean so much."

"Riss, you've already done something for me," Remus told her seriously. "Think about what I am. I never thought that anyone would ever be able to look past it and see me, especially in the way that you look at me. Do you realize what you do for me just by looking at me the way that you do now? By feeling safe around me when I'm - "

"MOONY! MOONY!" all of the Marauder's voices could be heard, screaming far off. "RISS! MOONY! RISS!" There was panic in their voices. Real panic. Marissa and Remus both started, looking at each other in surprise.

Marissa realized first, suddenly look up at the sky, staring. "Remus, what day is? How long have I been in the Hospital Wing?" Her voice had picked up their panic.

"Tuesday," Remus said, obviously thinking hard and rapidly. "Three days..."

"Oh my God," Marissa said, staring at him in horrified realization. "Oh no."

Then Remus realized it too. "Run," he told her, giving her a push back towards the castle. She stumbled slightly, looking back at him in fear and concern for him. "Go! RUN! PRONGS! PADFOOT! WORMTAIL! GET HER OUT OF HERE!" He turned and ran in the opposite direction. Marissa turned and fled back up to the castle, running as fast as her stiff and unpracticed muscles would carry her.

Marissa ran for all she was worth until she saw James leading the other two towards her. She threw her arms around him, wanting to cling to someone in her fear. As she couldn't cling to the person she really wanted to, James would have to do. "Prongs, help me," she cried. She hadn't realized that she was crying until she heard her voice.

"We've got to get you out of here now," James said seriously, taking command of the situation as Marissa was obviously far too emotional to even think clearly at the moment. How could she not be? This was her first experience with Remus's great suffering in his transformations. James at least had several years to become accustomed to this idea. He could work despite the tearing at his heart thinking of his friend in so much pain caused.

Suddenly, they all heard a snarling and a snapping behind them. Marissa's eyes widened in fear. Remus had run as quickly as he could in the opposite direction while he was still human, but after his transformation, there was no stopping him from running after the smell of human flesh. Marissa let out a short scream.

James immediately swung her behind him just as Sirius, in his dog form, launched himself at Remus and fought him back. He was obviously trying to restrain him. James wasted no time, grabbing Marissa's hand and running full tilt up to the castle, not adjusting his pace even slightly for the fact that Marissa couldn't run nearly as fast as he could. He pulled her along behind him. When they reached the doors, he pulled it open and swung her inside. "Don't come back out, whatever you do," he said as he slammed it shut. Marissa had fallen to the ground when he had thrown her.

She heard a snarling, and suddenly a body was slammed up against the door. Marissa shrank back from it, then turned and fled away from the Entrance Hall. She didn't want to think about whose body had been thrown against the doors. Out of a window one story up, she saw a large stag and a huge dog fighting a slobbering, senseless wolf away from his prey. Marissa couldn't bear to think that the violent, mindless creature was Remus Lupin.

* * *

Remus always woke up on mornings after the full moon miserable, exhausted, and in pain. There was always regret and guilt in his eyes as he turned the night over and over a few times, as if certain that he had killed or, in some ways worse, bitten someone and just couldn't remember clearly. His friends were always silent during this ritual, calmly letting him go over the night in his mind. They waited until he looked up at them before speaking.

"She's all right, we got her to the castle in time," James assured him steadily. It had taken three times as long as normal tonight. There had been something for him to remember, and his pre-transformation memories would be crystal clear. Would he ever be able to forget the fear that must have come over her face as Marissa realized that he was about to become a monster before her very eyes? What would it do to Remus's always fragile psyche to have to know that he had tried to attack not only his best friends but his girlfriend?

"She's going to break up with me," Remus said quietly. "And if she doesn't then I'll do it for her."

"Moony, stop this crazy talk," Sirius tried. "This is Marissa we're talking about. She didn't care that you were a werewolf before."

"Before I nearly killed her," Remus said, and they had never heard his voice so full of guilt and regret. "But you're right, I'll probably have to break up for her."

"Don't do this, Moony, don't throw away happiness because of one irresponsible night," James said, worried and thinking quickly how he could talk Remus down off of this ledge.

"Don't you understand?" Remus said, anger flashing in his eyes. "This can never happen again!" But this seemed to exhaust him and he slumped back down to the floor.

"It never will," James said. "It only happened because you were both literally living in the Hospital Wing for three days and sleeping so much that you lost track of days and times. Madam Pomfrey was too worried to think of it. That'll probably never happen again."

"I'm not taking risks anymore," Remus said weakly, staying on the floor where he had woken up, although his friends had moved to the broken down couches and chairs in the Shrieking Shack.

"Don't make any decisions right now, Remus," James said firmly. "You never think clearly on these mornings." Remus was clearly not convinced by this reasoning. He didn't protest, however, and they began to help him up, supporting him as they carried him to the Hospital Wing to have his cuts and bruises treated before his body healed itself. Some of the wounds were very deep and would require a few hours to heal completely.

They made it through the long passageway with Peter heading up the rear and Remus with an arm over both James and Sirius so that they were mostly carrying him. Even if he wasn't as violent in his wolf form with them there, the transformations themselves were enough to take all of his energy, and he had fought last night. What he had fought to try to attack was what weighed on him the heaviest.

When they struggled up out of the Whomping Willow, they saw a small figure heading out from the castle. After a few minutes, they saw that it was Marissa walking toward them purposefully. Oh no. Whether or not she had come to break up with him, if she didn't turn back before Remus saw her, their relationship would be over before the Marauders could save it. And the two who perhaps most deserved it would lose their chance at happiness.

When she was only ten feet away, Sirius ducked out from under Remus and strode quickly forward, standing in front of her to stop her. "If you're going to break up with him, Riss, for heaven's sake leave it until later," he said, staring at her.

Marissa looked angry when she heard him. "Did you meet me yesterday, Padfoot?" she demanded furiously as she pushed past him. She walked over to Remus who, when he saw her shoes in front of him, raised his face to look at her. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but she shook her head at him. Then she simply slid under his arm and helped hold him up, just as Sirius had been doing a moment earlier.

Sirius just stared back at them for a moment, and then a smile slowly grew on his face. He had underestimated her. He had underestimated them. He had seldom been so glad to be wrong as he was that early morning as Marissa and James helped Remus up the hill to castle and then to the Hospital Wing.

The Marauders left when Remus had settled in the bed, but Marissa stayed. She had pulled a bed closer to his so that she could sit on it. "I stayed up last night getting caught up on all my homework. Do you mind if I stay with you and sleep?"

Remus just stared at her as she pulled back the covers on the bed she had pulled next to his. She took off his shoes and socks. She tenderly smoothed a few strands of sweaty, slightly bloody hair out of his face. Then she pulled the covers up over him then took his hand in hers. "Why are you doing this, Riss?" he asked, staring at her.

She smiled at him. "Well, I'm sleeping because I'm tired these days; otherwise I'd sit up like you did for me. I'm staying because when you were here when I woke up, I'd never felt more wonderful, and I still felt terrible from the medicine mess." She still had his hand as she took off her shoes with her free hand, never taking her eyes from his. "But most of all, I'm here because you just went through this terrible ordeal, and I most certainly care, Remus." She kissed him on the forehead.

Then she slid into her bed, still holding his hand in hers. She smiled at him for a moment as he looked at her. Then she slowly, wearily, closed her eyes and started to fall asleep. Remus was still entranced, staring at her in disbelief. He leaned forward, dragging himself off the edge of the bed and pulling her hand a little closer until he kissed the tips of her fingers. "I love you," he whispered, then sank back onto the bed, drained from the effort of that exercise.

He saw Marissa smile and sigh contentedly, but not until he closed his eyes and gave in to his exhaustion did she open her eyes and stare at him for a very long time, their hands still clasped between their beds.

Remus slept peacefully, no more thoughts of anything that would take this perfect creature out of his life. She was the most amazing person that he had ever met or ever would. She meant everything to him. He cared more for her than for all the rest of the world. And he had finally told her.

---

©KatyMulvaney4-16-2005