Lily returned home by floo to find the living room empty. She'd expected at least her husband to have been there, but the telly was on playing to no one but a half eaten box of chocolate digestives and a discarded copy of the morning Daily Prophet.

Clicking off the telly, Lily caught sight of the car in the drive way lurching and stopping and sighed, putting her hands on her hips, and raising an eyebrow. She shook her head after watching it crawl forward for a couple moments, though it seemed not to actually be going anywhere, and headed upstairs.
"I swear to Merlin, if Sirius Black gets a single ding on that car - or on James - he'll have another thing coming," she muttered as she climbed the steps, passing the photo frames filled with Sirius's silly Polaroids, all waving at her with bright eyes and big gestures.

At the top of the stairs, she was about to head left to her own room when she heard a weepy gasp and turned about to see Remus Lupin, sitting on the floor in the hall, looking forlorn and frumpled. "Oh honey, why aren't you in bed? You should be resting..."

Dora had gone to Minnie's under the guise of making a special breakfast, giving Remus her room for the morning's recovery so he could stay near to Spencer, but Remus had abandoned the comforts to the hall. He looked miserable, and his back hurt from sitting on the floor in his own melancholia.

"I talked to him," Remus murmured, "I was awful at it. I didn't know how to do it and I could feel my - my patience was thin and I just wanted to get it over with and I probably scared him more than I did anything else and --"

Lily could feel Remus's upset, though faded because of the still lingering wolf so soon after the full moon. She frowned and came over and slid down to the floor beside him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders as he dropped sideways into her.

"Oh Lily, I'm a very bad person."

"No you're a very good person," Lily said, then, remembering a story that Newt Scamander had once told them about the very first time he'd met Ned Veigler, she added, "You're a very bad werewolf, but you're a very good person."

Remus appreciated the quote and he hugged onto her tightly. "I wish I was even half as gentle as you are."

Lily stroked the curls that hung over his forehead.

"I don't know how to speak to people when their nerves are shot like that, I think it's why Sirius and I tend to fight when he's keyed up, rather than me comforting him as he needs." Remus's eyes travelled to a small run in Lily's tights, tracing the pattern of it as it ran over her ankle, and he thought about imperfections and how they make each one of us different - sometimes in good ways. Sometimes, imperfections were rather beautiful - like the way the fibers of her nylons created a spider-web like pattern, like thin lines of gossamer, almost shimmery in their brokenness, letting her skin show through. Letting humanity show through.

"You simply put yourself in their place for a moment and say the things you'd like to hear in a moment such as theirs," Lily replied.

"I'm afraid I'm far too selfish for such a thing as that," Remus said. "I can only ever think about how much I'd rather be anywhere else, any time else."

Lily said, "And you think they don't wish that very thing?" She kissed Remus's forehead. "I'm willing to bet that Spencer very much would've given anything to be anywhere else," she teased.

Remus groaned and covered his eyes. "I'm sure, especially when I levicorpused him to the ceiling to prove I am a wizard."

"You did what now?" Lily tilted her head to look at Remus with a raised eyebrow.

Remus looked up at her, cheeks flushing. "Oh Lily, I really am horrid. I told him with no gentle words that he was a werewolf and that I bit him, he argued werewolves weren't real or there would be laws, and I told him that he wouldn't know about those laws since they wouldn't be under parliament but rather under the Ministry for Magic, which led to me telling him I'm a wizard and then trying to prove magic is real and I got short tempered with his excuses rather fast and I --" Remus's eyes floated to the ceiling. "Not upside down or anything. Just... floated him up."

Lily looked up at the ceiling, then back down to Remus. "Alright, that might've been done a bit gentler, I'll admit, but you're under great duress yourself so it's forgivable. Poor Spencer, though."

Remus groaned and pressed his face back into Lily.

"There, there," she whispered.

Inside the room, there was suddenly a shout and something breaking and Remus sat up, hand going for his wand, but Lily caught him and stopped him. "Let me," she said, getting up.

"But --"

"You can make yourself useful in other ways," Lily said, smoothing her skirt. She drew her own wand as she stepped up to the door. "Your husband and mine are outside and yours is telling mine Merlin knows what about driving. Can you go and see to it that they don't go getting themselves in trouble, breaking the car, or breaking themselves, and that everything is sane out there?"

Remus looked at the door.

"I'll take care of Spencer, don't you worry."

"Alright," Remus murmured and he started down the hallway.

"Remus," Lily called. Remus paused and looked back. "Spencer will be alright, and so will you. I love you."

"Thank you, Lily," Remus replied, then, too awkward to say the I love you back, he flushed and trotted down the steps.

Lily sighed.

Inside the room, something else crashed, and Lily turned to the door and knocked.

The record player sat on the back seat of the mustard yellow Astra, Steppenwolf blaring so loud the windows and mirrors vibrated. Sirius sat in the front passenger seat, one booted leg up on the dash, seat leaned back, sunglasses on, air guitaring to the beat. James was behind the wheel, hands gripping onto it with a white knuckled terror, as the car's wheels moved in incremental amounts toward the road.

"Ah the thrill of a drive, there's nothing quite like it, Prongsy!" Sirius called over the volume of the music. "One day, you might even get to experience it if you go faster than a snail's pace!"

"Fuck off, you were meant to be teaching me how to do this, not having a lie about!"

"I did teach you! Put the key in the ignition - check your mirrors - start your engines - long pedal makes it go fast!" Sirius said.

James clutched the wheel tighter.

"If you press down on the gas pedal harder, we'll move faster." Sirius grinned and raised his glasses up, "A concept I reckon you might be familiar with? Faster, harder, James!"

James let go for a breath of a second to smack at Sirius and Sirius laughed as James realized what he'd done by letting go and whirled back forward again as Sirius's barking laughter echoed over the beat of the music.

The car had rolled perhaps five feet since starting.

"Bloody snails have been known to slither faster than this."

"Slither?" James asked. "That hardly seems the right word."

"Why not?"

"Well slithering is what snakes do, innit?"

"Other things can slither too," Sirius argued. "Snakes haven't got the corner on slithering!"

"Yes but I don't think that's what snails do."

"I'll bet you that it is," Sirius grinned.

"And I'll take that bet because it isn't," James argued.

Sirius's eyes sparkled. "Yeah? A hundred galleons on snails slithering."

"Two hundred on they don't!"

"'S'what this car's doing," Sirius muttered.

"You and your music are making me nervous."

"Just speed up, man."

"What if we hit something?"

"Once upon a time, you goaded Lily to go faster."

"That was different, that was in the sky - there was nothing to hit!"

Sirius snickered.

Suddenly the back door opened and Remus got in. Sirius burst into laughter as Remus slid across the seat, pulling the door shut as he fell dramatically to the seat on his back. "What's funny?" Remus asked.

"You getting in without James even stopping," Sirius wheezed.

Remus looked baffled, "Stopping? He's going?" Sirius hooted and Remus fell dramatically onto the seat on his side, pushing the record player out of his way.

James glanced fleetingly in the rear view at Remus, then jerkily moved his foot from the gas pedal and slammed it onto the brake. The motion made the car halt as the brakes clamped and although they weren't moving the hard brake made them all jolt slightly.

"Moved faster stopping than you did moving," Sirius ribbed James.

James was looking in the mirror at Remus still. "Are you alright, Rey?"

Remus's voice was quiet, "I'm a horrible person."

Sirius looked at James and James turned the car off, then twisted in the driver's seat to look over into the back as Sirius waved his wand, turning off the record player. James rested his chin on the back of the seat, looking down at Remus. "You're not. He's going through a very hard thing and you were a person put in a very hard position. You're doing the right thing through and through and it isn't fair to yourself to think of yourself as a horrible person for doing the right thing."

"I wouldn't be in the position I'm in if I hadn't put myself into it," Remus argued.

"You didn't mean to give him the aconite," Sirius said. "Right? You didn't go up and mix up some nice aconite tea with the intention of giving him a nibble did you?"

"No of course not."

"Then you're not a horrible person," Sirius said, shrugging at the logic.

Remus looked pained, but he didn't argue another round.

"What'd he say when you talked to him?" Sirius asked.

"To get out," Remus replied.

James looked back at the house through the window, "So - so you did? Should one of us go up and watch to make sure he doesn't --"

"Lily came home and she's taken my place in the corridor," Remus replied.

James looked concerned.

"'ey, Moony, settle a bet for us. Do snakes slither?" Sirius twisted in his seat to see Remus's face.

"Yes?"

"How about snails? Do they slither?"

"What? No."

"Fuckofftheydotoo!" Sirius said.

James turned back to look at Sirius with a smirk and held out his palm.

"No, you put that away," Sirius said, pushing James's hand off. He turned back 'round to Remus. "They do slither. What's it called if they don't?"

Remus said, "They glide; the muscular foot - the bottom of them - it contracts and expands in a synchromatic manner to propel them forward, causing them to glide across a layer of slime produced which coats their bodies, often leaving a trail of goo in their wake."

"And the Remcyclopedia strikes once more, leaving you proven wrong," James accused Sirius, who started loudly complaining.

"You wouldn't see a snail and say there it goes gliding along the road," Sirius argued, "Nobody would say that. They would say he was slithering."

"Only you would say he was slithering!"

"Poll the people! Poll the people and see who says he was gliding and who says he slithers! Let the people have a say!"

Remus sighed and closed his eyes.