Forging New Ties || Lily and Remus
There were a good many drawbacks to suffering from the ‘furry little problem’ Remus Lupin had been dealing with since his early childhood. Some far worse than others, but at the less horrible end of the spectrum was the fact that he ended up missing at least one day of classes every month - sometimes more, depending on how badly he’d injured himself during his transformations. Fortunately, since the Marauders had started joining him on their ‘adventures’ - though that was perhaps too fun a word to apply to what they did - the seventeen year old’s mind was far clearer in his transformed state than it had ever been, and he’d found that his turnaround time after a full moon was usually only one day (two on occasion) - spent recovering from the physical toll of transformation and a few cuts and scratches, as opposed to the greater self harm he used to inflict upon himself when he lost control of his mind.
Still, those one or two days more often than not meant a day of missed classes and, therefore, a day of missed notes. Remus would trust his best mates with his life, but with his notes for class? Not so much. In fact, the seventeen year old was quite certain none of the other boys actually took notes - seeing as they always ended up stealing a copy of his right before exams. Which he happily gave them, mind - it was the least he could do after all they’d done for him. Normally one day of missed note taking was not a major setback for the sixth year; he was a quick learner, and often a glance over the textbook was more than enough for him to grasp whatever concept he’d missed. There were times, however, when he missed something of particular importance - a particular transfiguration lesson a couple of weeks ago, for example - and it was important that he get a copy of the exact notes. Which meant finding someone to get them from.
While there were plenty of people in their year Remus would trust with that sort of thing, asking them meant dealing with the odd looks he got every time he mentioned his absences. Just because the seventeen year old had grown used to the looks didn’t mean he liked them. Fortunately there was one person - sitting just across the library, as a matter of fact - that Remus both trusted to have taken notes that were up to his own standards and to not give him too much of a hard time about it. His best friends - Sirius and James (especially James) in particular - had kept Remus from ever growing close to his fellow prefect over the years, but he’d always been on friendly enough terms with Lily Evans, slightly more so since sharing the title of Gryffindor Prefect over the past two years. So when he saw her sitting just a couple of tables away, he had no problem sliding into the seat across from her and giving her a grin and a nod in greeting. “Hullo, Lily.” He kept his voice soft - they were in the library, after all, and while Remus’s mates may not have allowed him to spend as much time as he’d initially thought he would spend in the room at the start of his first year, he'd spent enough time in there to have a perfectly normal grasp of what was and was not acceptable behavior (unlike a certain group of best mates). And speaking of what was rude in the library, “I - er - sorry to bother you - “ a hand found its way to the back of his neck as he continued, “But you wouldn’t happen to have the notes from Transfiguration a couple of weeks ago, would you? On…it was color changing charms, I think? I, uh, missed class - visiting my grandmother - and I…haven’t had a chance to get them yet.” Alright, perhaps he was not quite as comfortable around his housemate as he’d have liked, but that was a bit hard to do when said housemate had been the object of his best mate’s affections for Merlin knows how long (and spurned said affections Merlin knows how many times) and he was talking to her about a class he’d missed because of the problem he didn’t want anyone to know about. Oi.