Daisy - R. Lupin
Pairing - Remus Lupin x Hufflepuff!reader
Description - Late Hogsmeade trips led to early Hogwarts adventures, and then maybe some adventures of the soul.
Warnings - Swearing, mentions of self harm,
part one - part two
A/N: not proofread!!
She didn’t know where the boys had gotten an invisibility cloak from, or how they knew where to exit the castle from, but she knew she trusted them, and that she loved it.
It would’ve been better during the day, they could’ve gotten some sweets from Honeydukes, but it was still more fun than she’d ever imagined herself having. They ran all throughout the castle, gone through all those many passages, and then they’d done something to a statue (Remus had to cover her eyes so she wouldn’t see) and had gone out to the little village.
After their little night time adventure outside the caste grounds, they had a little night time inside the castle grounds. James seemed to think that she didn’t get out often enough and made them run through all the halls, got her to play games in long forgotten classrooms, got her to duel with them in the prefects bathroom, and then he got her to fly.
She had been afraid of heights for so long, they figured that out in first year during their flying lessons when she sobbed at the thought of getting off the ground more than a foot or two. Everyone called her a wimp, Sirius had called her sane.
She became even more afraid of heights the summer before their four year, a boy had asked her out, and he took her on a date near an old transport bridge, it was a place where they could see the stars and the entirety of their town, the date had gone fine. But she had never known of that bridge before, it was the only one in her hometown, and so he introduced her to it, and something happened to her on that bridge later in the summer, something that could have made sure nothing would ever happen with her again.
She didn’t know if it was the sincerity in his eyes, or the emotions showing in his face that had made her do it, but she knew something did.
They were on the quidditch field, one moment her and Remus were watching him and Sirius fly around, and then the next James was in front of her, holding out a hand, asking her to get on and fly with him. She didn’t want to, there was no way in hell that she would be getting on that broom but, it was like James knew that.
She started to panic, her hands gripped the grass like they gripped her sheets at night and her face was turning pale at the memories resurfacing in her brain. James didn’t know what was going on in her mind, he didn’t know what she was afraid of, or what she was trying to save herself from by not getting in the air, but he knew he could try. He could try and push her a little bit, get her to loosen the reins a little bit.
She would never get better if he didn’t try.
“ Y/n, I don’t know what’s scared you enough to make you afraid, and I don’t know what dark thoughts are swirling around in your mind right now but, I know that if you take one bad memory and try to replace it with a good one, it helps you regain that control that you’ve lost.”
Her eyes flickered in that moment, and her emotions changed, she went from being a scared little doe to being an angry little beast. She snapped out, standing with her fists clenched, nails digging into her palm.
“ I was hurled off a bloody bridge and fell into a river two hundred fucking feet down James. It’s not that simple!”
His voice never faltered though, “ I know that Y/n, but it’s not supposed to be.”
His voice was no more than a whisper, and yet he’s heard him loud and clear.
It’s not supposed to be.
She grabbed his hand and as he helped pull her onto the broom James couldn’t help but think back to the day that he’d seen her fall off that bridge, he was in town for a week with his mum, dad, and Sirius. His parents went and put their things down at his aunts house and his aunt had said Y/n was down by the river again, likely collecting some more flowers or something.
Him and his cousin had never been the closest of relatives, nor had they had the best connection to each other when hanging out, but he knew her well enough to know that she would be by the bridge, gathering some flowers where they had grown near the end parts. But he didn’t expect to see her leaping off of it when him and Sirius arrived, they were to gather her for lunch, not gather her for a funeral.
He snapped back when he felt her freezing cold fingers wrap around his waist, he could feel them through his shirt they were so cold.
“ Are you ready?”
“ I don’t think I’ll ever be.”
And he took off.
The higher and higher they went the more and the more she thought. He began to hover in one spot soon after he felt the tears from her face. “ You okay N/n?”
He could feel the shake of her head against his back and he went to go back down.
“ don’t go back down yet James, I’m okay. We’ve gotta replace one bad one with a good one remember.”
James smirked, “ We’d better make this memory magnificent then.”
-
She didn’t lose her fear, she just learned how to get past it long enough to have fun. When one bad memory came up, think of a different good one.
She was thinking about the feeling of safety that surrounded her when she was lying with the boys in the grass in Hogsmeade when James brought them down, it replaced the feeling of fright and helplessness from when she hit the water. She was thinking about how solid James’s body was and how the feeling of him being with her brought her comfort when James brought her up, it replaced the distant, unattached thing that she felt when she climbed onto the ledge. She let James’s reassuring words and Sirius’s grin from where he floated across from them help calm her down when they stopped in the air and sat, it replaced how she felt when she was flying through the air, plummeting towards the river.
After the first little bit though, she found that she didn’t need to exchange memories, because having James there to keep her steady and afloat was enough.
Eventually Remus came up with them, and they all laughed and played together for what seemed like decades.
She didn’t know what it was but, something about Remus made her feel like she could be herself, something about James made her seem like she could relax and let her walls down, they called it the cousin calamity touch when they were younger, and of course there was something about Sirius too, she just felt like she go go wild around him, like she could be more than just the quiet little puppy she normally was, like she could let that caged angry, emotional animal inside of her out without wrecking something.
-
It was around three in the morning when they came back inside the castle.
Remus had been walking when he remembered something, “ Say Y/n why were you out and around in the halls earlier?”
The three of them were going to walk her back to Hufflepuffs common room before retreating to the Gryffindor one. She was about to respond to Remus when Filch appeared, they were nearing one of the halls near the kitchens when Filch appeared, they turned around a corner when they saw him, stalking with his cat and his lantern.
He grunted when he spotted them, luckily she was hidden tucked in the back so he couldn’t have gotten a glimpse of her, but if he did, it wouldn’t have been a long enough glance to recognize her.
Remus grasped her hand, and then they ran.
-
“ Remus slow down!”
Y/n was panting, they ran and they ran and they ran, every way they turned Filch seemed to find them.
James shouted out. “ We have to get to the tower first!”
They swerved another corner, coming up to the changing staircases that she despised so much, and then they started climbing. It didn’t matter how much her body begged, she didn’t slow her pace. She kept pushing, pushing, pushing until she couldn’t push anymore without wanting to vomit.
Remus reached back, locking his fingers with hers and pulling her along, “ Hold on Y/n, we’ll be near an alcove soon and we can hide out until Filch leaves.”
There was a stitch in her side and a cramp in her leg, she could feel the wounds on her leg start to open up.
“ Better be soon.”
-
They did stop eventually, and it was an alcove where they stopped at as well.
The first thing Y/n did when she regained her breath was hurl. They didn’t expect that of her, so when she doubled over against the wall, wrenching her guts out, they didn’t know what to do other than hold her hair.
They hadn’t known enough about her then, not even James had, and he was her cousin, to know that she would vomit from all that, of course it could have been from some other reason like, maybe she’d eaten a lot earlier running just stirred it all up.
“ Woah, woah,” Sirius helped Y/n steady herself for a moment, and then scrambled to grasp her hair again. No matter how short or long hair was, there was always the possibility of it getting in the way.
By the time she stood up again, there were two hands on her shoulders. Sirius has his hands on her shoulders, and he was looking at her, his head cocked to the side, “ You good Hufflepuff?”
She nodded tersely and began to lean against the pillar beside the alcove, “ Yeah,”
She laughed, it was a shallow, breathless sound, “ I haven’t ran that much in a while.”
The grin on her face made grins break out across all of their faces and, at the sudden realization of what she’d previously done, and at the realization of the attention they’d been giving her, her face flushed. She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear, folded her arms tightly under her chest and grimaced.
Sirius had already let her go and went to spell the mess away, she turned her head and the grimace and negative things in her head showed on her face. “ I’m sorry you guys- it’s my fault honestly, Sirius move I’ll fix it up. You should head back to Gryffindor.”
She was greatly embarrassed, and yet they didn’t judge her, they waved off her apologies as they walked out of the alcove and kept on swatting them away as they walked up to the tower. James insisted that she stay in their dorm for the night, if only because they were almost caught by Finch and didn’t want to push any luck.
They walked down the hall, their arms wrapped on each other’s shoulders, and went on to finish their adventure. They ended one and began another all in one night, she would never regret taking Remus’s hand, not even after they saw the disaster she called her skin, not after they heard of the things that occurred in the jungle she called her mind, not after they saw the little splotches of darkness in her bright little soul.
No, she would never regret that decision, because it made her heart fill with glee.
-
“ Remus, are you sure I can borrow this?” She looked at herself in the mirror, the shirt was long enough that she didn’t require a skirt to keep herself covered but, the sleeves weren’t long enough to conceal all of the scars running over her arms. Well, they were but if she stretched certain ways they showed everything.
“ Yeah, besides, I doubt you’d want to use one of James’s or Sirius’s, they haven’t gotten their things cleaned in about two weeks.”
She bit down on her tongue and tried to keep in her groan. She would wear the damned thing, although with her stockings and with whatever underthings she had on, and she would deal with what questions she got asked.
James had already seen some of her scars, it had been once or twice during the last summer and a few times in their classes. But he never directly addressed any of it, only asking or conversing about the situation indirectly or by pretending it was something else that they were discussing inside of the tearing of her skin.
Y/n walked out of the bathroom and walked over to the Remus’s bed, ignoring the two bare-chested boys in the room. She sat down lightly, her hands under her legs to keep her from running them up and down her arms.
“ Whatcha reading there Remus?”
He looked up from his book and his face became a light shade of pink when he saw her sitting there in his bed, that little look to her face as she asked the question.
He put his head back down and kept on reading, ignoring the filthy look she gave him. She scooted up close to his side and began reading over his shoulder. “ You know Remus, it’s quite rude to leave someone’s question unanswered, especially after acknowledging their presence.”
“ Yeah Remus!” Sirius chimed in.
“ Take that Moony, answer her next time!” James added.
He couldn’t believe this, he was being schooled by those two dults.
“ I’m reading Science and Passion.” His cheeks turned a deep red when he said it and despite herself, Y/n laughed.
She leaned further into him and looked down at the book, she had never read anything so filthy!
“ Remus!” She smacked his arm and took the book from him, shoving herself back.
“ Hey, give it back I didn’t save my place!” Remus scrambled off the bed and started to follow after her when James went to pull him back. Sirius was sitting beside with Y/n on his bed, reading the book along with her.
“ James! Let me go!”
Remus was flailing about and it was only when Sirius started reading the paragraphs aloud when James let him go, scrambling to book the thing from Y/n’s grasp.
“ Y/n you don’t need to read that!”
-
She left early in the morning, taking extra care so she wouldn’t disturb the boys. She left the room as she had found it, the bed was made, her uniform was back on, and the shirt was folded on the edge of Remus’s bed.
She couldn’t help but think of how Remus had looked at her last night in Hogsmeade while she strolled down the halls. She didn’t know what it was about the way he looked at her, but while she was holding his hand under the stars, looking at him look at her from the corner of her eye, she felt safe.
And kind of giddy.
-
When she returned to her dorm, Y/n grabbed the article of clothing nearest to her, and she began sewing. Not sewing up any holes, not fixing any fought patches, but sewing in patterns. It was the pattern of a daisy that she stitched into the cloak, it’s weight solid in her hand.
Daisy’s made her happy, and Remus did too.
And so she sewed daisies, she sewed on one daisy, and simply went on to sew another on a different article of clothing. On and on until she felt at peace, only then did she rest.