Remus & Marlene || Lend Me Your Ear
“Your secret is safe with me,” Marlene giggled, looking over her should at Remus. “And it’s mistletoe, by the way. See,” she tapped the doodles in the corner of her notes from class. “The leaves are round, not jagged, and the berries are white - mean’s it’s mistletoe. I used my red ink pen for the holly berries,” she explained. She found it easier to doodle images of her potions ingredients in the margins of her notes instead of copying out the recipes from the board in Slughorn’s class. Sometimes it took her a little longer, but she found herself making fewer mistakes doing this instead of trying to read and copy the list from the board onto her parchment.
“And if you call recopying the same paragraph three times progress, then yeah. Loads,” she grumbled with a sardonic grin, looking down at her messy, blotched out parchment. She lost count now just how long they’d been at it - though she was grateful to have Remus there helping her. Having someone there to read over her work, and read the text for her, helped keep the frustration at bay. Things only got worse when she got flustered.
Meow.
Looking down to where her school bag lay neglected by her feet Marlene grinned when she saw a familiar head pop out from her bag. “And where have you been you lazy little lump of fur?”
“Mistletoe… you’re a life-saver, thanks Marly,” he scribbled a few hasty notes on his parchment and grinned gratefully at her. “That’s a neat system, by the way, using coloured pens. I wonder if colour-coding my notes would make it easier for me to remember… you know, there must be a spell for this sort of thing.” Remus chewed absent-mindedly on his quill while he tried to remember if he’d seen a similar spell in his textbooks, before realizing what he was doing and abruptly spitting it out.
He shook his head in sympathy at her grumbled exasperation. “Here, why don’t we take a break for a bit? If I stare at this textbook for one more minute I think my head will explode.” With feeling, he shoved his Potions notes unceremoniously into his bag and cleared the table in front of him. However, Remus stilled as he noticed the furry head poking out of Marly’s bag. “Ah,” he started, eloquently. “Hullo there.”
He kept his movements small and deliberate, trying not to attract the cat’s attention. Animals had never liked him, not since… the incident. Back home, whenever he and his mam had gone into town, the local cats and dogs had always shied away from him, hissing and snarling. It was like they knew that there was something different about him. Something wrong.
Hoping that Marly’s pet wouldn’t be too offended by his presence, Remus decided to keep his distance and ignore the cat entirely.
“That would be lovely,” Marlene grinned as she leaned down and picked Ringo up, lifting him out of her bag. Gently she cradled the cat in her arms, cooing gently at him. “Wouldn’t it, Ringo,” She scratched him lightly behind the ear.
With a slight mew, Ringo leapt out of marlene’s arms and onto the table, landing right on her potions homework.
“Apparently Ringo agrees with us,” Marlene giggled before noticing Remus’ face. “Oh, you two haven’t been introduced. This is Ringo - Papa told me I could bring him with me, so I’d have at least one familiar face here until I started making friends. He’s a bit of a goof, but other than that he doesn’t really do much.”
As though on cue, Ringo instantly plopped down and started batting playfully at the end of Marlene’s quill.
“Oi! You quit that right now,” Marlene scolded, reaching out to tap his nose no. “Wee scamp,” she cursed as Ringo leapt up and out of the way before she could reach him.
With another meow, Ringo perched himself on the edge of the table in front of Remus. Catching sight of his cloak, reached out a paw and started swatting playfully.
