013. high heel shoes make you six feet tall
series masterlist → previous → 14.
The one time Billie isn't ready to plunge Lupin into a Latin lesson at any given moment, there he is. At buttfuck 8 in the morning directly outside her dormitory.
Billie swears she had just fallen asleep when Sybil shook her awake.
"Your lover awaits," Sybil said in the same lucid voice she used for prophecies.
"I'm not that strong of charmophiliac," Billie groggily mumbled into her pillow. Flitwick knows she's intelligent enough in charmswork to skip a class or two, or maybe a dozen.
"Oh, give her some grace, Sybil! No one can answer one of your riddles before breakfast," one of her other roommates laughed with amusement. Then louder and with an audible grin, "However, Remus Lupin can certainly handle a morning riddle. Isn't that right, Lupin?"
In response came a muffled and reticent, "Yup," from behind the door.
Billie shot upright. She paused and looked at her wide-eyed roommates. Is that Lupin? she urgently mouthed.
They eagerly nodded, biting back their gleeful smiles.
She should've expected that Potter and Black wouldn't relay her message faithfully. Why else would Lupin turn up outside her dorm so early?
Billie can't face Lupin— or anyone, for that matter, in her current state. She must be on two hours of sleep and one look into her vanity mirror clearly showed it. The ghoul glaring back at her was a sight only her roommates were familiar with.
"I'll be out in a minute!" Billie shouted, rushing out of bed and rummaging through her wardrobe. In record time, she tore off her nightgown and slipped into school uniform. Billie used a simple cosmetics charm to tame her hair situation. The buckles of her maryjanes remained undone when she burst through the door.
She stood in the doorway, attempting to block his view of the hurricane torn city that her room became. Not that it did anything though. He clearly towered over her and had a bird's eye view.
In all his terribly timed glory, there was Remus Lupin, wearing casual clothes.
"Hi," Billie said blankly, still taking in his brown trousers and knitted sweater as she was the parable of a dress code.
Billie processed the unconventional morning a little longer. Come to think of it, none of her roommates were properly up and dressed either.
Remus must've read her face and decided not to interrupt her thinking.
"Er, good morning," she said to fill the growing silence.
Then, Billie meekly asked, "What — what day is it?"
Billie glanced over her shoulder, her roommates stared back at her, tucked comfortably in bed and enjoying the show.
She finally had the bright idea to close the damn door. To give it a proper slam shut, she had to inch closer to Lupin. Now they were close enough to have their shoes lightly pressing each other.
It was only then did she realize how close they actually were. There wasn't much room in the narrow hallway to begin with. Billie leaned her back against the closed door as if that would magically make a difference in the small gap between them. He was still right there, taller than she remembered and wearing a sheep's wool sweater. The tips of her maryjanes still rested against his worn brown oxfords.
"What the fuck, Lupin," she blurted out in a mix of irritation and confusion, but mostly to distract herself from how close he was.
"Sorry," he said casually, without an ounce of regret. He wasn't even trying to hide his delighted smile anymore as he gave her a once over. "I never would've guessed you'd mix up the days of the week."
"Can you come back in the evening?" It came out more like a demand rather than a question. As much as Billie wanted to get the Latin over with, she couldn't do it with two hours of sleep.
"It's quite urgent," Lupin insisted.
"Look, when I urgently needed to find you yesterday I didn't come knocking down your dorm room, did I?" She refuted, patience growing thin.
Lupin's gaze glanced down. Without a word, he sank to one knee and reached for the undone strap of Billie's maryjanes. His cold fingers brushed against her bare skin, she hadn't had time to bother putting on socks. His chilly touch made her want to instinctively pull away, but she couldn't. He had frozen her.
No, Billie was just woken up too early.
"Are you getting back at me for sending my finch at dawn," she asked weakly.
Without looking up, Lupin murmured, "You'll trip."
He nonchalantly rose to his feet, all 190 centimeters of him. "I don't doubt your roommates are all pressed against the door right now. Mind if we spoke somewhere private?"
And when Billie opened the door, her roommates came toppling out. She stared down at the pile of bodies and then back at Lupin.
She won't fall for his tricks.
"I'll see you in the evening," she firmly said.
The next person who had the door slammed in their face was Lupin.
On her terms, Remus agreed to meet Delight before dinner in Flitwick's classroom.
During the hours leading up to their meeting, he worried she'd hear of their sudden relationship from someone else before he had the chance to tell her himself. Remus was certain Sirius declared the end of his bachelor era to half of Hogwarts by now. He showed up so early in the morning just to beat the speed of rumors.
And he clearly lost the race against gossip.
Somehow, she made it into Gryffindor common room and was invited herself into his dormitory. At least he had softly knocked...
"My apparent brother-in-law James told me you were here!" Delight furiously yelled. Well, that explained how she got past the portrait.
She seemed like a completely different person from the girl he met just hours ago, barely awake, awkward, shoes undone. Now she stood in his dorm like she owned it. Delight intimidatingly marched up to Remus and backed him into a wall.
She seemed like a completely different person from the girl he met just hours ago, barely awake, awkward, shoes undone. Now she stood in his dorm like she owned it. Delight intimidatingly marched up to Remus and backed him into a wall.
He saw this a couple nights ago, too. That same shift in her personality. The scatterbrained and clumsy girl in the library turned into someone radiant and witty when they had that late night baking escapade.
"I can explain," he blurted out. Remus dug into his pocket for the pouch and then handed it to Delight.
The heaviness of the bag puzzled Delight. "What is this?" She asked.
"Most of what I owe you for getting me into your cult," he replied.
Delight gave him a disapproving look for that comment. She opened the pouch, eyebrows rising at the contents. "I can't believe you got the money back so soon already," she said in disbelief.
"Well, it's only seventy— What do you mean, so soon?"
"Didn't you get the note from my finch?" She asked.
"Well, did you turn it over?"
Remus blinked, and she knew what his lost expression meant.
Delight sighed, muttering mostly to herself, "Of course you didn't." Then with exasperated patience, she spoke louder, "The back of the note said I'll be content with ten galleons for now and to pay the rest back by the time I turn 20."
"Oh," Remus said quietly. Why did she want ten galleons specifically?
"A hundred galleons is excessive," she went on. "Merlin knows why'd you wager that much in the first place."
Delight wasn't wrong. Remus had stupidly thought she was lying and knew she needed money for whatever deal she has with Snape. He blurted out a random number without thinking she'd actually agree. But it turns out she wasn't as desperate for galleons as he initially thought.
"If you didn't need the galleons right away, why have you been hunting me down? Involving Lily? Showing up outside my common room?”
"Oh, I'm hunting you down?" Delight huffed out incredulously. "Do you really want to talk about surprise visits?"
"Since we're counting now, you've surprised me more," Remus shot back. He then listed on, "Your freaky RISSK cult dragging out of bed in the middle of the night, your damn finch, then you brought Lily into this, and you're the one who gave James and Sirius the idea that we're dating!"
"Lily was just a—" Delight broke out in a frustrated groan and decided not to explain Lily's role in her devious plan. "Your idiotic friends jumped to their own conclusions. You're the one who didn't bother correcting them! You haven't even explained why. You just handed me hush money on top of your debt."
"That's not even all of the hush money yet," Remus confessed. "Sirius made a bet that the first one of us to get a serious girlfriend got fifty galleons from him. He assumed we were dating, I needed the galleons, for you, so I just kinda played along."
Delight stared at him, then glanced at the heavy pouch in her hands. "You said this is seventy. Where did the other twenty come from?"
Remus hesitated. It's when his plan went from calculated and intelligent to flat out stupid.
He took a deep breath as he prepared to say the next part. "I'm gonna sound like a scumbag, but here me out," he said, which is never a good start. "Sirius, that prat, started giving me money for every 'move' we make. He said he'd give me twenty galleons if we — if we kissed yet — and I said yes. Once I get you back the full 100, we can split whatever else Sirius gives me.”
Remus braced to get slapped, and he probably would deserve it.
Instead, Delight said with serene venom, "Then you're gonna tell him we fucked. For fifty galleons." She continued, voice rising to mock cheerfulness, "Amazingly thought out plan, Lupin. Wow. I'm impressed. This is the smartest guy in Defense, everyone!"
Remus knew he had to start apologizing the moment Delight started manically talking to a fictional audience.
"I'll go tell him I lied—" Remus began quickly, stepping forward to leave.
"I want 65/35," she interrupted, folding her arms.
"I want 65 percent," she repeated, "of whatever Sirius is gonna give you for saying I sucked you off under the quidditch stands."
Remus nodded, he didn't care about his cut. "That's not a fantasy of yours, is it?" He said with a roasted eyebrow.
Delight rolled her eyes. "People are gonna think you dumped me after one day no matter how sweet you twist it."
"I never pegged you as someone who cared about what other people think."
"I've been trying to discredit Sybil's prophecy that we're having three kids by next March, so yeah, I care what people think," she said bitterly.
"That means this arrangement is perfect!" Remus said brightly, trying to lighten Delight's mood. "Your Ravenclaws assumed we were dating, my friends thought we were dating, and now we're all living in the same delusion."
"Yeah, perfect," Delight muttered. She ran a hand through her long black hair tiredly. She then pulled the chair from James' desk and dragged it besides Remus'.
Remus supposed it looked obvious which desk belonged to him. Sirius's was covered in Gryffindor paraphernalia. Quidditch equipment scattered James' desk. And Peter's was messy, to put it lightly.
Remus' was the tidiest one — if they're not including the chairs. His clothes hung off the chair like a coat rack. They weren't dirty enough to be put in the laundry basket, but he can't be bothered to fold it again.
She sat on James' chair and rummaged through her bookbag.
"What are you doing?" Remus asked.
"I wasn't 'hunting you down' to get the galleons," Delight replied. "As my RISSK recruit, I need to educate you on the customs." Her textbook landed on his desk with an earthquake level thud. "And there's a lot."
Remus glanced down at the thick book and then her. "Some light reading, huh?" He said sarcastically.
She returned a stubborn look.
Taking in defeat, he swept the clothes off his chair and slumped into it.
By the time Delight left, Remus learned one thing. It wasn't a Latin phrase or something RISSK related.
He has veered so off course from finding out what's inside the vial.
@daydreamandforget @selenewowww
