Train on a Track [Lexie]

[REMUS JOHN LUPIN]

The first weekend of Hogsmeade had come around for Hogwarts students, and the town was buzzing with life. Third years explored the most infamous shops - The Three Broomsticks and Honeyduke's - fourth years got a chance at snorting presumptuously about the third years who had just recently been themselves; Older students took the chance to get out and go on dates or spend the day with friends from other houses or siblings.

And then there were a few who were avoiding all this. Whose thoughts were less happy, and who asked themselves how blissfully the younger kids could forget about the war, the terror, all the things that were wrong in the world or the personal life.

Some may not notice the way people acted, how their behavior was a mirror of their feelings and thoughts - but Remus did. He watched the students and could tell which group they belonged to. His mother had called his instincts a gift, his father said it's "kind of creepy", and for himself, it was simply being himself. Since he had listened all his life, rather than spoken, it was the most natural thing in the world for Remus to understand other persons. Not that that would make him talk to them. He had learned when to shut up - or whom not to talk to. Even when almost nobody knew about what he was, Moony was aware that if they did they would regard him as scum. The scum of the society. A loud goods wagon rolled into the station. Steam rose, breaks screeched, and an old withered wizard got out of the driver's cab. Amber eyes watched him tiredly, betraying the sad thoughts within.

There was one person who was different, and she was new in his life. She had mentioned that she did not feel disgusted by werewolves, that she wanted to help them, even understood that they didn't chose to be who they are... could that have been empty sayings? Remus couldn't, and didn't want to believe it. Lexie was dead honest with other persons, even if it meant being "mean" to them. Before he knew, Moony found himself smiling at the thought of the girl. She was so funny - telling everybody off, just like that. Well, she had not told him off. If she ever did, Remus was pretty sure that he would just hide. In no way of the world did he have the guts to stand up to a spitfire, and much less when they were as pretty as her...

There it was again. Why did he think of Lexie, Alexia Davies, in these weird new ways? Remus kept catching himself thinking about her. Even now, he could see her familiar handwriting clearly when he closed his eyes.

The train station was, due to their situation of being secret friends - it seemed to be a silent mutual agreement between them - and the other students flooding the town, a plausible choice. In addition to the relative privacy it offered, nobody could really think that this was a date when it took place in a train station.

The loco on the rail track puffed and blew out a cloud of hot water steam.

It wasn't a date.
Wasn't.
Really.

[ALEXIA STARR DAVIES]

Alexia never really thought of it that way. Well, not until Remus said that he didn’t have dates. Or maybe it was more that she didn’t want to view their little meet-up as anything more that it really was, which led her to simply denying it to herself. And the fact that Remus somehow managed to bring the word ‘date’ up, made the possibility of it occur to her. Was it, really? Yes, he was nice. More than nice, truth be told. One thing Lex was sure of, she’d never had a friend like him. Lily was her best friend, but there was something – a lot of things – different about Remus. Lex felt like she could tell him anything; she didn’t have to worry about him judging her about it. He knew things about her that no one else except her family knew, and it didn’t bother her one bit. She knew by instinct that she could trust him.

What with her past experiences, she knew better than to expect anyone wanting to be her friend. She had a reputation, and it wasn’t all that good. But the Marauder did anything but avoid her. He could have had pretended that the night in the Owlery never happened, acted like he didn’t know anyone by the name of Alexia Davies, treated her like how he did the other seventh years… but he didn’t. And to Lex, that meant a lot.

She never really had any guy friends, and she used to never want to. Well, she still didn’t want to… Being friends with Remus was still a huge mystery to her. Nevertheless, he made her feel that someone still cared about what she had to say. Someone was still willing to listen to all her ramblings, her senseless talk. They could sit in silence and still be comfortable – something Lex never thought possible.

Why was she going to Hogsmeade with him? Lex tried to convince herself that she really wasn’t going with him; they just decided to meet up. And she couldn’t agree more when he suggested meeting by the train station. Very few people strayed near there, and surely neither Lily nor the rest of the Marauders would pass by.

When she finally saw him, all hesitation about going to Hogsmeade disappeared. They just saw each other the day before, but it really didn’t seem like a proper meeting unless one or the other said anything. She smiled at him; smiling seemed to come naturally to her when Remus’ name found its way into her thoughts. “Aren’t you feeling cold?” she asked when she was within earshot of him, feeling that the smile she gave him accounted for a morning greeting.

[REMUS JOHN LUPIN]

It was not hard to spot Alexia, even though she was not that tall - well, normal for a girl, but about a head shorter than Remus was himself. There were not a lot of people around, and she was the only woman here who drew gazes from other men towards her. For some reason, it made the werewolf want to walk over to her and put an arm around her quickly. And, possibly, give the guy who was just looking at her backside one of those looks that Sirius could pull off perfectly. They said 'she'll never go with you rather than me'.

Unfortunately, Remus was completely incapable of those gazes. And not only that, he would not believe in a hundred years that Lexie would accept his arm around her. Much less that he would actually have the courage to do it.
And since he didn't, Alexia came over to him all the way on her own, while he managed so much as a smile. Well, it was a start, right? And after all, they were friends, and nothing more, and from his other friendships – four was not a high number – Moony knew that the trick was not to be nervous.

When Alexia talked to him, there was no time to be nervous either way. Because he was already smiling back at her (and her fabulously white teeth), he had to come up with something to answer. It was then that he remembered that he was actually good at friendly talk.

“Yeah, a little”, came the confession, “but I never actually feel warm, so.. I don’t really notice… how are you? I hope this place isn’t too weird for you, I just thought, well, it’s the nicest place that isn’t crowded.” A train went through the station without stopping; the sound was deafening for a while, so much that the silence afterward seemed suppressive. “Well, maybe we can move somewhere else…”

[ALEXIA STARR DAVIES]

For reasons unknown even to herself, her mood always brightened considerably every time she’d think of him, or even see him in classes or in the common room. But maybe it was because they were friends? New friends, for that matter. At least, she hoped it was only that. She didn’t dare think that it would ever be more than that. It wouldn’t be uncommon for Lex, but not with Remus… It just seemed impossible.

As the train rolled past, she couldn’t help but wince slightly as the deafening sound hit her. It would have been useless to answer him now; her words would have been drowned out, so she waited until it was quiet again before speaking. “I definitely feel better than if I stayed inside,” she responded. “And how have you been since I saw you yesterday?”

“I don’t really mind where we go,” she said, letting out a small involuntary sigh. “I’m just glad to get out of the castle even for just a little while. And you know Hogsmeade better than I do,” she added. “Where do you suggest we move to?”

[REMUS JOHN LUPIN]

Although Lexie wasn't smiling and seemed a little stressed altogether, Remus couldn't deny how lovable her whole demeanor made her. Her sighing and the talking of which he heard almost nothing because he was concentrating on her face to much. Which was extraordinarily pretty today, with a hint of pink on her cheeks.

"...And you know Hogsmeade better than I do," he heard her say, "Where do you suggest we move to?" Snapping out of his little trance, the werewolf looked over her head towards the southern exit of the station. Through the window front, the far highlands were prominent against the pale white sky.

"How would you like seeing something else? Something further away than this, I mean? And I promise it won't take as long as the Hogwarts Express." Surprised by his own joke, Moony smiled hopefully at her. Showing the place he intended to her had been a secret wish of his for quite some time, and the most important reason might have been that he somehow felt as if Lexie had not yet seen a lot of nice places in her life yet. Which was a pity.

[ALEXIA STARR DAVIES]

As she looked at him, she began to wonder how lucky she was to have become this close to him. Could they really be considered close friends, though? They rarely talked to each other, and if they did, it was always something school related. As if all the talks about their lives – or anything just straying out of school topics, for that matter – couldn’t be taken out of parchment, quills and ink.

“Something other than Hogsmeade?” she said, the recently abandoned smile returning to her lips. “The prefect decides to break free, I see.” Alexia pulled her red-and-gold scarf tightly around her as a cold breeze passed; she liked it when it was cold, but too cold didn’t always work for her. Although spending a day with him was, she deemed, worth it.

She wasn’t in Hogsmeade often, and when she was, it was almost always on a date. (But today was an exception, there was in no way that Remus would ever consider this to be something like that. Although if she wanted to, the image in her head would appear only too clearly.) And given that fact, she wasn’t familiar with Hogsmeade as much the others were. She hadn’t explored all the shops yet, which she really should get to doing before the school year ended. But that day would have to wait.

“So how long exactly will it take us to get to this mysterious place?” Hogwarts only approved of them going to Hogsmeade. She took his words to mean that they were sneaking off, in a way. Lex wouldn’t expect it of him be in any other day, but if she were to do something against the rules, she wouldn’t hesitate with him.

[REMUS JOHN LUPIN]

Still smiling at Lexie, who seemed at the same time a bit perplex but also positively surprised at the opportunity to break a rule with him and run away at the same time - admittedly, it sounded a bit like a Muggle teenage book - Remus bravely assured her: "Prefects are only prefects in the castle.. besides, I never chose to be one." This was certainly true. The year in which the batches had been given out had been when Emily had died, and Remus certainly didn't care about anything school-related then.

Looking at Lexie carefully when she asked how long it would take, Moony looked into the general direction of their destination. "Depends on if you trust me to apparate you there", he explained carefully. Apparating would mean direct contact. His cheeks felt a bit hot, and he prayed that they wouldn't look flushed. "If you'd rather walk we'd be quite some time."

[ALEXIA STARR DAVIES]

(( I suck. >.< I accidentally modified this post and now I can't remember what was in it. ))

[REMUS JOHN LUPIN]

For a moment Remus asked himself if this was why a lot of people were bitter towards prefects - they might have thought that the selected students had actively decided to take on the responsibility. For him, it had much rather been a burden, most of all in the first couple of months, when he had occasionally let Lily wait or completely posted her. After he had adjusted to the new looks of his life, it had still been quite a bother to constantly steer around the rules to avoid upsetting Sirius and James, not to talk about all the long talks to bullies who were notoriously blockheaded, while Moony could have imagined to do a lot of other things instead of lecturing them. Either way, now Lexie probably had an idea.

When she admitted how few she had been apparating since the exam, Remus was a bit surprised. She, like him, must have been seventeen throughout these last holidays, although he wasn't sure about her exact birthday. He remembered that Lexie had mentioned in one of her letters that she didn't really perform magic at home, but apparition.. it was simply the most handy tool to Remus. Since he was allowed to apparate, he had been able to use the Shrieking Shack during full moons in summer, usually to be joined by at least one of his friends. It was easier for the wolf, for Remus, and for his father, who was not really all able to take care of his son. And this was only one of the reasons why he had become quite routined moving around.

"Well, no problem. I don't think I will splinch you, I've taken people before." And people refers to John after having one or two glasses of fire whiskey. He carefully put a gloved hand around her elbow before securely gripping her arm. In a whirl and a second, they had reached the destination he had intended.

The sight before them was breathtaking. Green hills lay at their foot, covered in the finest fog that would remind anybody that this was Scotland. Maybe it was his father's blood, or it was simply his affection for pretty sights that gave Remus goosebumps every time he laid eyes upon this landscape. The castle of Hogwarts looked like a toy building down there in the valley, and the lake glistened like a weirdly swung mirror. The town of Hogsmeade was also visible, an assortment of small toy houses, some of them with tiny tufts of smoke curling out of their invisible chimneys.

The world was at ease up here. "What do you think?"

[ALEXIA STARR DAVIES]

Despite being reassured that she’d arrive at their destination without missing a limb, being splinched was actually the lesser of her worries. Side-along apparition was impossible without contact, and as much as she hated to admit it – even to herself – just the thought of it affected her. She wasn’t sure how, but she knew that it wasn’t in a bad way. But before she could even attempt to convince her that it meant nothing ( and that it wouldn’t have any kind of effect on her), he had already gripped her arm and the familiar yet unwelcome feeling of not being able to breathe took over her.

In a few seconds, her feet connected with level ground again, and it reminded her why she hated apparating. As she struggled to maintain her balance, she unconsciously leaned against him, her hand on his arm. It wasn’t until she had fully recovered that she became aware of this, straightening up and taking a step away from him. “I’m sorry, I…” she trailed off, finally seeing where they were.

An involuntary gasp escaped her as she took in the view. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered. The huge castle looked just like the toy she had when she was a kid. After this, she didn’t think there was another view that could looks as beautiful as that did right then. There wouldn’t be anything that would make her feel at awe other than this. She looked back at him, her smile was brighter, eyes twinkling in fascination. Even her mood was considerably lighter. “How’d you find out about this place?”