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Remus & Mary || defence is paper thin

Listening intently, Remus picked up where Mary had trailed off: “…so magical?” He smiled, taking a moment to look around them and bask in the bright warmth of the Common Room.

Well, even if he was homesick, at least he was in good company. He sighed in relief. “It is a change of pace, that’s for sure. My parents and I live in a pretty isolated area, so being in a place so full of people is strange to me too. And the classes. I was home-schooled—mam was never the most strict of teachers, she’s more the type to cancel a lecture in favour of going on a picnic.” Remus huffed out a nostalgic laugh, remembering.

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“Yes, exactly.” She nodded. “Magical.” There really wasn’t a better way to put it. That was what it was.

She laughed. “That sounds really nice. Not very productive, but nice. Very nice.” She used to wish she was home-schooled. Now, of course, she was glad she had gotten some experience with other kids before she came here, even if it wasn’t great. She was lost enough as it was; if she was trying to get used to so many other kids as well, she didn’t know how she would be able to make it. And anyway, her parents would have been awful at home-schooling her.

#P: Remus #t: nov 71

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Remus & Mary || defence is paper thin

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“It is strange,” Remus murmured, offering her a tentative smile. For years, the idea of coming to Hogwarts had been beyond even his wildest dreams… and yet, by some twist of fate, here he was. He wished he could tell her—tell anyone—just how strange it was without revealing his secret, but he couldn’t. Still, it was reassuring to think that he might not be the only one having trouble adjusting.

He was in a strange mood tonight: pensive, out of sorts, but more talkative than usual. On a whim, he continued, “To be honest, I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it, not entirely. Hogwarts is… extraordinary.”

“But no matter how amazing it is here… I do miss home. I’ve never been away from my parents for this long—” or been away from his parents at all, not since the incident. Caught up in his own thoughts, Remus realized too late that he probably sounded a little too pathetic. “Err, you know, forget I said that last bit.”

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She shook her head. “Me neither. I’ve never been anywhere so...” She paused, trying to come up with the right word, but she could not come up with anything that quite summed up Hogwarts. “I mean, a few months ago, I didn’t even know any of this was real. Sometimes I still don’t believe it.”

Mary was relieved to hear him say he missed home. It was nice to know she was not alone in that. She frowned when he told her to forget what he said. “Why? I’m the same. Before I came here, the longest I was away from my parents was a week.” She smiled, a little self-consciously. “I was visiting my grandparents.”

#p: remus #t: nov 71

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“I don’t think so, not a for a few centuries at least. Honestly, I think poppy McKinnon was just trying to get a rise out of Mama - seeing as she’s muggle in all - when he was explaining it to us. Anyways, just a few broken bones here and there, but nothing too serious.” Marlene shrugged. All in all Quidditch was a pretty simple game - in theory. In practice it became a whole different story. “Though these games can go on for a long time, days, weeks, sometimes even months if no one catches the snitch. Longest match lasted three months, they had to use back up players just so the teams to get some sleep,” she gave Mary a knowing nod.

“Personally, I prefer football, but that’s cause my brother plays- he’s pretty good too.”

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“Oh, good.” Mary sighed in relief. So this sport was dangerous, but not deathly. The ‘broken bones’ bit still concerned her, but there were plenty of muggle sports that were dangerous too, so she supposed that was all right. For the most part, at least. Mary scrunched up her eyebrows at the sleep comment. “That long?” This sport just kept getting stranger.

“Really?” She smiled. “I’m not much of a fan, but I at least kind of understand football.”

#c: marlene #t: nov 71

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Remus & Mary || defence is paper thin

Sitting in one of the window seats in the Gryffindor common room, Remus carefully smoothed out the the letter he’d retrieved from his pocket. His father’s owl, Cerridwen, had delivered it at breakfast and the sudden sense of homesickness had been plaguing him all day. There hadn’t been anything unusual in the letter, just the same questions about his studies from his dad and well-wishes in his mam’s untidy scrawl… but he couldn’t seem to shake the feeling of loneliness.

Outside it was snowing. His mam always loved the first snowfalls of winter and sometimes, they would sit together in silence and just watch snowflakes float gently to the ground. Looking through the glass now just made Remus miss her all the more.

Turning so his back was to the window, he tried to focus on the cheerful din of activity in the common room. Immediately, he noticed a girl sitting nearby whose expression seemed to mirror how he was feeling. He recognized her from his classes but couldn’t recall her name… Mary, that was it.

“Hullo, Mary. Everything alright?”

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Even after two months, Mary was finding it difficult to adjust to life at Hogwarts. It was just so different from everything she had known before, and she still found it hard to believe this was all real. The fact that she had never spent more than a week away from home before coming to Hogwarts certainly didn’t make matters easier. That was not to say that being here was a bad thing, or that she didn’t enjoy it, because she did. It was just different, and it took some getting used to.

It was a shame that no one else seemed to feel the same. Well, it wasn’t for them, but it was for Mary. It would be nice to talk about it with someone, but only if they felt the same. She didn’t want to be a bother. Fortunately, it was usually fairly easy to find a distraction. At a school like this, there was always something going on, especially in the Gryffindor common room. One thing Mary had noticed about her housemates -- they all seemed to be incredibly loud. It was a bit intimidating, really, but they seemed nice enough.

Lost in thought, she almost didn’t realize someone was talking to her; luckily, she noticed fast enough that it did not become awkward. “Oh, yes. I’m fine. Just...thinking, I guess.” And then, before she could stop herself, she added, “It’s strange being here; I guess I’m still getting used to it.”

#p: remus #t: nov 71

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“That’s part of it,” Marlene giggled, “adds a bit of excitement to the game - don’t worry, no one dies in quidditch… Well not at the school level anyways. Those balls are called bludgers… they’re basically just to mess with the players… the ones hitting them - they’re called beaters.” She explained pointing to each individual player in the sky.

“You see that red ball,” she pointed over to the Gryffindor player holding the quaffle. “That’s the quaffle. Now each team has three players called chasers. They try to put the quaffle through one of those three hoops, if they do they get 10 points. The keeper defends to hoops…. Think of it this way - the keeper is like the goal keeper in football, and the chasers are the offence.” She took a pause for a breath before continuing. “Now there is one other player. The seeker. They have the hardest job. They have to find the golden snitch. The snitch is this itty itty ball that zips around. The game ends once it’s caught, and the team that catches it gets 150 points. At the school level usually whoever catches the snitch wins the game - it’s different at the pro level.”

She paused again wondering if she missed anything. She was pretty sure she had covered it all. “It’s a lot to take in, especially if this is your first match. Any questions?”

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Mary paused, taking in everything Marlene had just said. She had never been one for sports, muggle or magic, but she found her explanation easy enough to follow. She looked over the pitch, matching Marlene’s words to the action she was seeing. There didn’t seem to be anything missing from her explanation. There was just one thing that she still did not understand. “What do you mean, ‘no one dies at the school level’? Are you saying people die at the professional level?”

#c: marlene #t: nov 71

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“Sure. What part’s got you confused?” wondered Marlene cheerfully, looking over her shoulder at the girl in the stands next to her. Her name was Mary, and they shared a dorm, but other than that Marlene knew next to nothing about her. Now was as a good a time as any to get to know her dorm mate, and what better way than bonding over quidditch.

“I’m Marlene by the way. You’re Mary, right?”

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Mary was relieved to hear someone respond to her question in a way that actually indicated helpfulness. She had been trying to get information for days, but very few people she had asked actually gave her an answer, and now, watching the game, she found she could not remember the little she had taken in. “All of it,” she answered honestly, then decided to start with the most glaring point of confusion. “Why are they hitting balls at each other? Isn’t that dangerous?”

She nodded. She knew Marlene’s name already, but she was pleased to hear that Marlene knew her name too, considering she could count their previous interactions on one hand.

#c: marlene #t: nov 71