willowelijah

https://willowelijah.tumblr.com/fanfiction

[ddoevly]

the feminine urge to delete all social media except tumblr

[palmer]

I’m weird first and hot second. If you think I’m hot but you don’t acknowledge my weirdness then you’re missing the most basic thing about me.

[buffysummers]

It’s a dangerous thing to mistake speaking without thought for speaking the truth. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery (2022) dir. Rian Johnson

[sentrysvoid]

Knives Out (2019) Glass Onion (2022)

+ the last shot

[rylandsgrace]

#They’re the same character

[rorschachisgay]

we dont know anything about Benoit Blanc's husband except that hes called Philip but i want him to be a retired jewel thief who Benoit met during a case after he was hired to locate some stolen diamonds and Philip was posing as a gardener and Benoit kept asking him increasingly complicated questions about gardening so Philip thought he was onto him but really Benoit just thought he was hot and asked Philip out but the entire time Philip was like this is some kind of gambit so kept getting weirder and weirder until Benoit was like what is up with you so Philip confessed the whole thing and Benoit was like oh shit. but the guy he robbed was a total asshole so Benoit was like whatever it's fine so they started dating and the diamonds ended up paying for their apartment

[rylandsgrace]

The similarities are uncanny… (source @capfilms)

[dailyflicks]

GLASS ONION: A KNIVES OUT MYSTERY 2022, dir. Rian Johnson

[riotb0nes]

rian johnson you've done it again

[willowelijah]

Headdesking - Remus Lupin/OC

Read the rest

Summary: Follow Remus Lupin bury his head in various pillows as his friends tease him about a crush he’s developed on the girl they recruit to assist them in their mission to become animagi.

Content warnings: Swearing. Some angst.

Chapter 21: Anything But Human, So Much More Than Monster

A young boy lay sleeping in one of the beds of the hospital wing. His face was turned sideways and buried deep into the pillow. The duvet reached so far as to cover his shoulder.

There was a girl sitting on a chair close by his side. Her hand had found its way on top of his. She was presently paying acute attention to the marks on his face, counting each one with growing distress, only somewhat settled by the sound of his slow breathing hitting the pillow. Each scratch she made note of was inspected and followed up with an imagined enactment of its inception.

What she didn't want to imagine was the time when the tear streaks on his face would have occurred.

When James, Sirius and Peter entered the hospital wing, they saw something they had yet to be met with before upon their visits. A girl, already sitting by his bedside.

"How long have you been here?" James asked her.

She couldn't make out if he was in a good or bad mood, but assumed that he and his friends were probably pissed off at her. "Not that long." she said, moving her hand into her lap while examining the rest of the incoming crowd.

She knew that she should probably be pissed off at them still. But whenever her eyes found the boy lying in the hospital bed so vulnerably, and with the knowledge of what they were trying to do for him, she couldn't find it in herself to resent them anymore.

"I see." He exchanged a minor glance with Sirius. She could see the process of thoughts in their eyes, and was about to ask what was up when Sirius spoke.

"Remus had a... pretty bad fall yesterday."

Her mouth had opened to respond, but when amusement began tugging at the corners of her lips, she had to close it by way of stifling it.

They arrived by Remus' bed. James put his hands in his pockets and Sirius looked out across the empty beds.

"Was that before or after the wolf took over?"

She relished in the reaction her words had. The boys all looked at her with mixes of shock and disbelief.

"You know the truth?" came Peter.

"Did Lily tell you?" James demanded, like he was already planning the moment when he was going to take out his grief with her in his head.

She nodded toward Remus. "He told me."

James laughed without really seeming that amused. He crossed his arms with a superior expression. "No way."

"Hey, I'm not the liar in the group." she sputtered defensively.

Everyone's heads turned to Remus then.

With a wicked smile Sirius bent toward the bed. "We should wake him." he suggested, indicating a newfound investment in the unfolding narrative.

James pressed him back with his hand. "No! Don't wake him."

"Madam Pomfrey wouldn't like it." Peter stammered.

"'Think I care what Madam Pomfrey says?" he countered. Though a glance behind his back confirmed it to the rest of them.

"Hi."

Everyone turned back to the boy in the bed. Remus was mostly directing his greeting at Hazel. He turned over on his side and pushed his hand against the mattress in a shaky-at-best effort to sit up. He made it about halfway into an upright position before settling.

"Hi."

James rolled his eyes dramatically. "Can you be quiet for even one minute?" He took Sirius and dragged him over to the neighbouring bed, directly followed by Peter. The three of them sat down in an effort to give the two some space.

He looked at her through bloodshot eyes, and Hazel couldn't stop the tears from forming in her eyes.

His expression was still dazed from having just been asleep, but his two eyebrows still contorted toward his heavily lidded eyes. "Why are you crying?" he whispered hoarsely.

He gave a second attempt to get his body fully upright, and a hiss escaped him as he did so. Hazel made a move to help him, only stopping herself at the last second. The duvet fell down, revealing some heavily bruised ribs. When her eyes fell on them, a hand flew up and covered her mouth to stop a sob from escaping.

He smiled faintly, hoping that it might soothe her, but more tears came up still. She was now at maximum capacity, and they flowed down her cheeks. The longer she beheld him, the shorter were her breaths.

She moved out of her chair, and sat down on the bed next to him. Some more tears fell, but Remus could no longer think to press her on the matter of why.

The spectators of the scene raised their eyebrows, unexpecting of her forwardness, and were too curious to look away or to make conversation amongst themselves.

She looked at Remus dotingly, making his breathing temporarily stop (along with the rest of his friends'). Her hand went up to his cheek. The whole room had gone dead silent. He looked into her eyes, and she leaned in.

She hesitated.

He waited.

Then she kissed him.

As much as it puzzled him that she would do such a thing after the previous evening, he didn't want to do anything to stop what was happening. Instead he sat up further and leaned into her. Their mouths fell open. She turned her head to give him access, and soon they were utterly engrossed in one another.

The others stared at the kissing couple for a moment, until coming to the conclusion that the two were not planning on stopping anytime soon. The clouds outside the window suddenly became very interesting, as did the floor and the bedside lampshade, the latter currently being felt by James' fingertips.

This was the first time that Remus was letting himself enjoy her company without restraint. He let himself concentrate on the way her lips felt against his; the tingling sensations in his stomach prompted by her touch. He let himself enjoy being desired by someone, and the warmth brought by their touch.

When his hand left her shoulder and landed on her cheek, she could feel how much he was shaking.

"Hey..." she let out. But any language was soon stifled by him capturing her lips again, with more heat to distract her with.

His hand was still faintly rattling — and eventually she remembered it too. Her lips left his and she took his hand with hers and placed it in her lap.

"You're shaking a lot."

Remus was about to answer, but Madam Pomfrey walked through the doors right then. While making her way over, her eyebrows had just enough time to contort; her lips just enough time to form into a tight pout, before making it. It was the act of looking around and seeing all the people hovering by his bed that brought the stern attitude — the person sitting on it being the main culprit. That behaviour happened to be her most common gripe.

Her eyes had locked on Hazel. "You shouldn't—" she began. But what stopped her was the sight of the young girl absentmindedly sweeping the hair out of Remus' eyes while not paying Madam Pomfrey much mind at all yet.

The Madam fell silent instead of completing her sentence. She turned to Remus and handed him his medicine, while not quite letting her eyes wander off Hazel. She smiled awkwardly at the girl.

"Thank you." Remus said slowly, watching her curiously. He took it without her having to tell him to, as she seemed to be temporarily mute.

James' fingers fell off the lampshade as he took in the scene. Peter and Sirius' eyes drifted off the woman to join one another in mutual confusion.

Hazel smiled tentatively at the Madam, who blinked a few times in turn. Her voice came back to her then. "Stay as long as you'd like." she told them, though only with reluctance turning to direct the sentiment at the other three as well. "I think company might do him some good today."

She straightened and flattened her apron with her hands. "It is Saturday, after all." Only after some nothing-short-of disoriented looking around to figure out where she was going, she made her way to her office.

"That was different." Sirius commented.

Hazel looked over at him with a fleeting attention while her hand came back to enclose Remus'. Said boy looked down at the contact.

"Are you not still scared of me?"

She changed her hold on his hand while she pondered over his question, and what it could have originated in. "When was I scared of you?" she asked, finding his eyes.

"Yesterday in the corridor. You seemed quite frightened."

"You mean when you stopped me on my way to the seventh floor?" she asked. When receiving a nod of confirmation she explained, "It's no longer a full moon out. I don't have anything to be frightened of."

"But—"

"Did you think that I was always going to be scared of you always from now on, Remus?" The thought seemed almost too preposterous to be posed, but she had done so anyway.

His mouth fell open and the jaw moved, but he stopped and looked over at his friends, hoping that they would chime in and provide her with the context he couldn't quite formulate right that second.

But the three of them were all feeling too bored of this premise by now to make any effort to help him, so he had to carry his own load.

"It's quite frightening. Person turning into a monster at odd times."

Hazel sighed and nodded. "If I was near you during a full moon, I'd be pretty scared. I'll give you that — but look." she pointed at the window, revealing a clear blue sky.

Remus ignored the window. "You were scared yesterday." he reiterated.

She groaned. "Is this what it's going to be like from now on — you judging me? Come on. You have to give me a break. I had no idea what time it was. I had no idea what day of the month it was. But I'm not scared of you. Not normally."

Remus looked vacantly into thin air. Hazel studied him, but soon came to the realisation that she was not about to receive a response. She turned to the others instead.

"I take it you never found the box?" She let her eyes seize the three of them up. "You don't look particularly disfigured."

"Wow, flattery of the highest level." Sirius quipped. "Remus, will you tell your girlfriend to stop flirting with me?"

James lowered his chin as far into chest as it could go and snorted.

Sirius had successfully woken Remus from his thoughts, and the boy reached for the latest issue of the Daily Prophet on his bedside table, rolled it up and threw it at his friend.

Sirius dove away while laughing heartily.

Hazel tried to puzzle the pieces together of what she had said to cause that response, but came up short. "Seriously though, you failed right?"

Remus stopped shooting daggers at Sirius, and the barely noticeable tug at the corner of his lip disappeared too. "Just tell her." he muttered to his friends.

The three of them broke into identical smirks. They looked between each other.

"We don't have any classes to get to, what do you say we head outside and you can see for yourself?" Sirius wagged his eyebrows, receiving him a look of warning from Remus.

But Hazel didn't take note of how slick Sirius was trying to seem, she was far too focused on what he was implying. Despite the ethical dilemma she was struggling with, she couldn't help but break into a wide grin all the while.

"You succeeded!" she squealed out in glee. All that hard work had resulted in something incredible. She'd made their wish come true. They could now shapeshift at their own will. "I thought you didn't know where the room was. How did you get to it?"

"We're not sure." James explained, seeming as baffled as she. "We ran around like crazy looking for it, and eventually it appeared."

Hazel smiled warmly. "I suppose that's how the magic of the room works — it appears when you really need it."

Sirius wore a similar smile as he thought back, like reminiscing about his first love. "But the real trick was finding the wooden chest. It took us ages to find that."

The four of them smiled at each other for a moment. Even Remus managed a faint one. Then Hazel's face took on a dead serious expression suddenly. "I'm going to make you register."

"Never." James and Sirius chimed in unison.

A staring battle ensued, only broken when James gestured at the door.

"Shall we?" he suggested.

Hazel snorted before turning to Remus. A blush came into her cheeks and she kissed him on the forehead. "I'll be back in a bit."

The guys stood up, but before they could make a move Remus piped up.

"Wait, you're actually going with them?" he questioned.

"Well yeah." her eyebrows twitched in confusion. "I have to see it for myself."

His eyes flitted over her features. He reached his hand up behind her ear and let his fingertips smooth out the tips of her hair. "When will you be back?" he asked as nonchalantly as he could, but it didn't take much for his friends to work out what the boy was thinking of.

Hazel seemed momentarily distracted by similar thoughts. "Soon probably." she mumbled, her eyes falling on his lips.

"Are we going then, Hazel?" James interrupted, trying to keep himself from laughing.

She was snapped out of her trance, and slid off the bed to go and join them. "We'll have to go into the forest to ensure that no one sees us." she pondered as they began making their way out. "But we have to be careful. I don't want a repeat of last time."

"Since when do you suggest breaking the rules?" Sirius asked.

Hazel fell silent, mulling over what she had just said. Instead of defending herself, she changed the subject.

"Don't for a moment think that I've forgotten about the registry by the way. I'm going to make sure that you register."

"Sure." James sighed.

Remus smiled as he watched them go, then lay down. His shakes had stopped, and he was free of headaches or nausea. When he closed his eyes, he quickly drifted into a peaceful sleep.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKvzHBdcAdM&feature=emb_logo

END

[willowelijah]

Headdesking - Remus Lupin/OC

Read the rest

Summary: Follow Remus Lupin bury his head in various pillows as his friends tease him about a crush he’s developed on the girl they recruit to assist them in their mission to become animagi.

Content warnings: Swearing. Some angst.

Chapter 20: Werewolf

Remus was still refusing to tell the others where the Come and Go Room was located, meaning that they were powerless to stop Hazel.

No matter how many times they nagged Remus about it, or made big speeches about how helping them was the right thing to do, he remained intransigent on the matter.

After Herbology they didn't see Hazel for the rest of the day. By the end of it, they were sure that they'd lost the battle.

The next morning, when confronting Hazel about it at breakfast, she wouldn't speak a word to them. Whether the task was completed or not, she would neither confirm nor deny.

The gang remained in the dark until Lily entered the vicinity of the Gryffindor table at breakfast. They were all sullenly staring off at the Hufflepuff table when she sat down with them. She took one look at the expressions on their faces and smirked. The reaction would have gone unnoticed by them, had James not been there.

"What are you smirking about?"

The smugness she exuded increased by about 10% then. "I know something you don't."

Sirius placed his elbow on the table and slid it across until Lily was entirely in his vision. "That information is no use to us unless you go on." His tone was demanding, but Lily let herself be implored just this once.

She leaned in with the same pleased smirk as before. "The potions you're all so concerned with have not yet been disposed of."

"How do you know?" James ejected, having to pipe down midway through his sentence.

"I met her yesterday."

"And how come she told you of all people?" Remus asked.

"It wasn't necessarily willingly. But as I'm sure you're all well aware of by now, I have my ways of extorting information."

After that a spark of hope was lit.

Even stranger than the fact that Hazel would go against her own word of destroying the potions at her earliest convenience — when the boys took it upon themselves to confront her about this fact, they found out that she had postponed the deed not by one day, but two. The working excuse being that she had 'a lot of homework' that night.

Hazel had then parted the group without so much as a salute, and disappeared up the trapdoor to the Divination classroom.

"Very curious indeed." Sirius commented after the trapdoor had shut.

As the group made their way to their own class, Remus soon found himself encompassed by everyone's attention again, and the matter of whether he could ('please and for the love of Merlin') let them in on how to locate the box of potions was once again rekindled. Only this time, with a few days left before the next full moon and the bodily discomfort that came along with it, Remus was in honest truth finding it harder to care with each beg and plea being charged at him.

The altercations between the young boys got more arduous as the days rolled on, and with shorter intermissions between them.

The provocations reached a height on the fourth night, coinciding with the eve of the full moon. The boys had just got back to their dorm, having found out from Lily that Hazel had still not completed the deed despite having had more than three days at her disposal.

Instead of looking at this as good news, Remus' dorm mates took this as another segue to bring them onto the topic of whether he was going to help them or not.

"We're running out of time!" James yelled as he marched across their dorm. He kicked a pillow someone had left lying on the floor with the rest of all their clutter. "At any given moment Hazel could be taking it upon herself to shatter all our hopes and dreams. Do you realise what it would mean if she actually gets hold of the potions? We would have to start all over again. You do realise that right?"

Remus massaged his temple and went to sit down on his own bed. His wristwatch showed him 5:30 p.m. All he wanted was to lay down and let his body rest for the remaining few hours before it would be put through hell. He closed his eyes briefly in an effort to muster the strength needed to reply. "No James." He opened his eyes and coated his voice thick with venom as went on, "I've only had to listen to three idiots rehash that exact argument over and over for the last four days — but no, I hadn't realised that factor until just now."

"Don't get snarky!" Sirius spewed as he unlaced his shoes.

"Then don't test my patience!" Remus fumed, midway through his sentence having to dodge a shoe being thrown at him.

"You obviously have no regard for the effort we have put into this, and it's all for you!" Sirius stood up. He was still holding his other shoe, and Remus raised his arm protectively in front of himself until it had been lowered and dropped on the floor.

A pain came over his shoulders and neck, like ice chips digging into him, and he was forced to breathe out in an effort to fight it. Once the pain had subsided he felt sober enough to try and reason his way out of having to endure their arguments.

"If you're so determined to not give up on completing the transformation, perhaps you should stop to consider the fact that Hazel has so far had every opportunity in the world to stop you indefinitely — yet she still hasn't. Has it crossed your mind that perhaps there's a reason behind that? Perhaps you should be trying to convince her instead of whining to me about it." He motioned at the door, and his opponents' eyes followed his gesture.

About half an hour after that, Remus had been dragged down to the entrance hall by his friends. They were eagerly awaiting Hazel, hoping to encounter her at the moment of her getting back from dinner on her way to her common room for the night.

A heavy gust of wind blew by outside, making the large wooden doors rattle.

The three boys between whom most of the contention resided had managed to be quiet for a good long five minutes when Peter broke the silence. "There she is!"

Remus looked up along with the others, and spotted Hazel approaching from a distance down the corridor.

James pushed himself away from his resting position against the statue of the Architect of Hogwarts. "Should we hide?" he shout-whispered.

Remus rolled his eyes and grabbed James' sleeve with one hand, and Sirius' with the other. He pointed them so that they were facing the girl, who had now spotted them, and who was now slowing down with an apparent reluctance to.

He leaned in close to their ears. "You're going to respectfully ask her about what's keeping her from doing what she said she would, and see if you can all come to some agreement about it."

He then shoved them forward to stop at Hazel's feet.

"Hi Hazel." Sirius stated, pushing his long hair out of his eyes and straightening up.

Remus and Peter remained at a safe distance from the three.

"What do you want?" Hazel asked while throwing a longing glance at the stairs to the basement.

Large rain drops began hurling against the door then, and James had to raise his voice slightly to be heard over it. "We take it the box is still being safely stored in the wooden chest somewhere on the seventh floor?"

"For now..." she admitted, figuring that there was no point lying about it as she had found out earlier that day that Lily had not been keeping her promise not to tell them. "But I can assure you that it won't be for long."

Sirius took one step closer. "Oh yeah? Can we get a time report on that? Because it seems to be taking a lot longer than it realistically should do."

Hazel retracted her upper body and glared at him in response. "Surely that should only please you."

"Oh, we're delighted." James shot at her sarcastically. "We're just starting to get a little suspicious. Perhaps you were not as serious about stopping us as you originally implied?"

Hazel's eyes darted away and she smiled humourlessly. "I really don't see what the big problem is. Surely you have all the power to take the box yourselves? If it means that much to you, why don't you just?" She surveilled James, but upon receiving no response went on to the next person until eventually landing on Remus, who looked down at his own shoes when met with her appraisal.

The rain picked up outside, and James had to raise his voice even more. "We would prefer to come to some sort of agreement. Perhaps you could find it in your heart to forgive us? If so, then maybe this doesn't have to be the strife that it is currently turning into."

Hazel tugged her robe closer to herself, and crossed her arms over it to keep it in place. "If you didn't want a strife, perhaps you shouldn't have lied to me. If you wanted an agreement, perhaps you shouldn't have gone against ours." A rumble in the distance punctuated her sentence, like her hurt was echoing around them.

Sirius pressed his palms against his brow bones, shielding his eyes off. "Hazel." he grunted. Before continuing he hesitated; marched a few metres away from them, only to return immediately. "You have no idea what's at play here."

Remus felt his pulse accelerate. Every muscle in his body tensed as he deliberated what his friend was going to try next in an attempt to convince her, and prayed for his life that he wasn't about to reveal too much.

Another rumble came, louder this time. He exchanged a glance with Peter. They had both acknowledged the same thing, but dared not make any moves that would bring the situation to light. Instead his eyes fell back on Sirius while stifling an increasing urge to rub his own ever hardening shoulders.

"We have good reasons not to want to register ourselves." Sirius continued. "I know it's hard to understand when we can't explain it to you, but can't you find it in your heart to trust that we are trying to do a good thing here?"

"We swear." James chimed in.

Hazel remained silent for a full ten seconds. Remus held his breath, begging and pleading for no more rumbles.

Then Hazel burst out, "I don't care about your reasons! The fact still stands, it's against the law not to. You can't seriously be asking me to break wizarding law, can you?"

"If you're so resolute in making sure we don't break the law, then why haven't you stopped us yet?" Sirius roared, looking about ready to burst into a million pieces.

Hazel tugged her robe even tighter around her. Tears started to form in her eyes. "It's not so easy considering the work we've all gone through to complete this mission!" she exclaimed in a wobbly voice. "Don't you think I also realise that destroying it means that all we've been working towards for the last few months has been for nothing? It's not so easy to throw that all down the drain!"

Just as she finished ranting the whole room lit up around them in a flicker, creating large shadows on the walls from their silhouettes, disappearing and appearing three times over.

The group stopped in their tracks, perplexed by the interruption they all looked up at the walls while trying to make sense of what was happening. All but Peter and Remus, who didn't need any clues as to what was happening, and the latter of which clenched his eyes shut, fearing what was to come.

Then, not a moment later, came the deafening bang. The windows rattled and the ground shook as a result, followed by another cascade of rain gushing against the door.

The loud bang also brought with it a silence, which fell between them as soon as it had gone. It took no more than for everyone's eyes to fall on Hazel, for her to make a snap decision — and start running.

When she reached the stairs, the guys had caught up to what was happening and started after her. It didn't take long before they had caught up, and midway up the first set of stairs Hazel transformed into her animagus form. Suddenly she was taking the stairs two at a time, with a speed unmatched by anyone.

Remus lagged behind, and Peter beheld him anxiously. Only after Remus had grunted with displeasure and made to follow his friends did Peter decide to move as well.

"What are you going to do Hazel?" Sirius called out after her, but received no response. Besides, they all had a pretty good idea of what her intentions were.

She had the lead by a lot, but the boys were never too far behind, and the group made their way up the castle in junction with one another, with the seventh floor in mind.

When they reached the moving staircases another lightning strike crashed down near the castle. The sound of it echoed up the walls, and the people in the framed pictures gasped in unison.

They boys got on the moving stairs after Hazel, and the structure split in two, leaving her sailing away from them. Remus and the others grabbed on tightly, and looked wistfully after her as she was taken away to the sixth floor.

"Shit. There goes our chances." James muttered.

"Not necessarily. Look." Sirius pointed at the corridor they were being taken to. "It's the seventh floor."

"Yeah, but you have to remember that we have no idea where we're going." James jeered.

The stairs moved closer to their destination. A state of deep concentration overcame Sirius. His eyes became vacant as he looked off into the distance. He rubbed his hands together and mumbled, "Okay... We'll split up. That way one of us will most definitely run into her once she gets onto the seventh floor."

Just as the staircase clicked into place Sirius muttered, "Run as fast as you can." but locked eyes only with Remus.

The look Sirius was giving him surprised him. There was frustration and stress evident in his demeanour. But what he didn't expect to see was the pain in his eyes, like he wasn't just demanding something of him. He was pleading for it.

Sirius turned away, and Remus watched his friends rush off. He couldn't get himself to go after them, and remained still. He couldn't get himself to do what Sirius had pleaded for.

He stepped off the staircase onto immobile ground. They all disappeared in various directions. Remus walked with an even pace, and veered into the first corridor he stumbled upon with no intention of following the plan. As soon as he was alone his walking came to a halt.

He decided to be okay no matter what would be the outcome. But he suspected that his willingness to be accepting just this once was really coming out of an underlying assurance that his friends would fail.

He recalled Sirius' pleading expression again and felt a jab of guilt in his stomach at the image. They would always do anything they could to help him. If they could ease his transformations in any way, they would do it. Not only that, but it genuinely pained Sirius to know that Remus couldn't find it in himself to let them have his back. He had seen it in his eyes.

Perhaps the best thing he could do was to stop standing in their way.

He was just about to start making his way back to Gryffindor Tower when he spotted a small figure skipping into the corridor a few metres ahead. The squirrel stopped and looked at him, before turning and moving in the opposite direction.

"Hazel!" he called after her.

To his surprise, she stopped.

He jogged up to her, and she became human again, but it didn't make her tone any more humane when she snapped, "What?"

The castle was dark now. The storm clouds only let in a purple hue, making the most ordinary things appear otherworldly. Like her usually innocent eyes, now blackened by the evil sky and their betrayal of her. The draft from the outside storm made her clothes lift and hover. The sudden white light of another lightning strike provided a blank background to her figure, making her into a stencilled mark upon his world.

The sharp flicker disappeared a second later, and her eyes became brown again while his filled with anguish. He ripped the band-aid. "It's for my sake that they're doing the spell."

Perhaps if she really was as open as she said, she might not have the reaction he expected from people when they found out the truth. And if she really knew the real reason why they couldn't register, she might let them off.

Hazel opened her mouth and closed it. Her head turned slightly to peer down the corridor in a state of dazed deliberation. She closed her eyes, forcing herself to make a quick decision.

"Care to elaborate?"

She turned to him, giving him her undivided attention.

He felt himself start to shake, but trudged on. "I know it's against the law not to register. They know it too. But if they do, it'll defeat the whole purpose." He trailed off, preparing for the next thing he would have to tell her, but simultaneously he couldn't help but wish one last time that it would be enough to convince her.

"Remus, I know you guys have some special ulterior motive that you all seem to think puts you above the law. But unless you tell me the whole extent of it, I really don't see how what you're telling me is meant to persuade me."

He breathed in, closed his eyes, tried to grasp onto one last moment of bliss while she was still in the dark, then let his body push the air out of him needed to speak. "I'm... a werewolf..." He looked down at the floor, unable to bear whatever emotions were inevitable to flash across her face.

Hazel didn't move, and Remus still stared at the floor. He forced himself to keep explaining. "They just want to help me. If they become animagi, they can be with me during my transformations. That way it'll be easier for me."

He looked up. He did it without thinking. Hazel was stoic. Steady as a rock. He searched her face, knowing that she could see him doing it, but desperate for any hints at what she was feeling.

"That's not reason enough to break the law." she stated hollowly.

He hadn't expected her to comment on what he had just admitted to her, of course she would gloss over it. Of course there was nothing really that she could say, and she wasn't about to call him a name and curse him. That wasn't her, he knew that. But still, there was pretty much an infinity of ways she could hurt him without so much as uttering a word. The danger was not over yet.

"It is when you consider that being with me during my transformations involves being out after curfew. It allows them to be in disguise when doing so. That way no one ever finds out, and in turn they don't get expelled."

When he finished it was her turn to look at him for clues at where his head was at. She beheld him carefully, eventually voicing a thought, "Is this what you want?"

"No." he punctuated. "I think I've been pretty clear about that so far. It could be dangerous for them. They could get in a world of trouble for it."

"But you've decided to be on their side now. Why is that?"

He sighed tiredly. "They're all I have." As soon as the words left his mouth, her eyes darted away and she bit her lip. "And so I need them on my side. If that means that I have to switch sides, then so be it."

Hazel let go of her lip, but remained silent. She peered down the corridor again.

Remus went on, "They have my best intentions in mind, perhaps they're the only ones that do."

He'd barely finished when she blurted, "I have to go after them now." looking back at him finally.

"Okay but..." He couldn't think of anything else to say. If she was still not persuaded, he had no more arguments to make.

Hazel took one step away from him.

"Wait." If he could just think of some other angle. Some way to explain it to her so that she could see it from the perspective of his friends. But then again, was he really in it to convince her not to stop them? Or was his motive in this rather to get some indication that she accepted it — that she accepted him.

Her expression was apologetic when she took another step. His hand reached out instinctively for her wrist, and to his horror she jumped away in a skittish manner.

Their eyes met with a terror reflected in both participants.

"When is the full moon?" she blurted, as though it was in any way relevant to the conversation.

He let out a jagged breath, almost too tense to let one back in. "Tonight." He hated having to explain himself, especially to her, but forced himself to press on, "Don't worry, I'll be far away from you by the time when..."

In the skip of a beat, Hazel faded and disappeared from sight, taken over by her animagus form. But despite her quick transition, Remus still had plenty of time to register her reaction.

She skipped away down the corridor, and he watched her leave, paralysed by the terror he had seen in her.

After she had gone, he doubled over. The effects of every moon phase overcame him. His head exploded in a migraine. His muscles convulsed and he fell to his knees. His stomach cramped, and he clutched at it. His chest grew tight making his breathing short and tense. Black dots clouded his vision. He fell to the floor and shut his eyes. As his head came to rest against the stone, a high pitched screech blocked out the quiet her disappearing footsteps left behind it.

The floor was cold. So he lay there and shivered for a few minutes, regaining his grip on reality. When he sat up again he had to steady his shaking wrist with his other hand to be able to read his watch.

He knew what the logical next step was, and so it was on weak knees that he stood up and commenced the walk to the hospital wing.

Madam Pomfrey was organising her medicine cabinet when he arrived. She turned, and not one moment after her vision fell on the boy, she shut the doors to it and rushed over to him.

"What's wrong?" She guided him to sit down on one of the beds. A sharp breeze rushed in through a slim crack in the nearest window. It flew up his sleeves and gave him another round of shivers.

She threw a blanket around him and sat down next to him. Her hand rubbed his opposite shoulder and stayed put. The gesture made the pain his body was enduring subside somewhat. But his muscles had been clenched for so long that, when finally relaxing, the shivers got more ferocious.

He tried to breathe evenly, but everytime he exhaled, his lip shook as a result, and his arms vibrated and buzzed. He looked down at hands and balled them up into fists in his lap to try and fight the shakes.

"I don't want to. Not tonight please." he pleaded absentmindedly. It took him a moment to realise what he'd just said, and how futile his wish was.

Tears began forming.

Madam Pomfrey bent forward to get a look at his face. "What do you mean?"

He sobbed. "I don't want to anymore." Two tears fell over his bottom lid and made their way down to his jaw. "I don't want to."

She wiped them before they fell, and refrained from asking a second time.

*

Hazel skipped up the last set of stairs until she reached the seventh floor. She turned corner after corner in a hurry. She was close now. Her heart rate increased. When she turned into the last corridor she could see a free path ahead of her. It was looking like she was going to make it there without encountering anyone else, and she felt herself slowing down.

She kept walking until the desired wall was only a few metres ahead of her. Everything went quiet and she realised that she had stopped moving. Only her heartbeat kept pacing. It made her ears beat.

To her own surprise she swerved to her right, into a bathroom. Well inside she grew back into her true form, and slammed open a door to one of the stalls. She sat down, concealed her face with her hands and broke into tears.

The knowledge of his condition disturbed her. The reaction evoked in her at the thought of the boy she had grown to share a romantic attachment with being turned into a monster tonight plagued her.

She forced herself to remain stationed in the bathroom stall until she could come to terms with her own prejudice. Time passed. After a while she wiped her tears, straightened and looked emptily ahead.

This is how it ends. By me being too closed off to accept him as different. In a way he is right, the problem is with him — but really, it's with my response to the truth about him.

She didn't want to feel this way. But she couldn't help but be put off by oncoming visions of him transforming.

What will he think of me now? How would he feel if he knew how my stomach turned at the thought of his mind being driven into lunacy at the culmination of the night? The thought of how his eyes would blacken with it.

She wiped some more tears, and fought back another few. It was time to leave. She was done torturing herself. The way she felt couldn't be changed. It was the way it was.

Yet she found that she couldn't move just yet. She had feelings yet to be reckoned with. She let her thoughts wander, let herself envision the very things that upset her most.

But at the heart of every vision, the emotion it always boiled down to was sorrow. It wasn't resentment for the fact that he had pushed her away, it was sympathy for the fact that he would never get to have life without limitations. It wasn't repulsion at the thought of what he became, it was compassion for the fact that he had no choice. She wasn't threatened by him, she was mourning the loss of the life he could have had.

When she finally left the stall she wasn't sure how much time had passed, but the bathroom floor was being lit up by moonlight. She walked up to a window. The grounds below were still and peaceful now. The storm had passed. The moon was just crossing over the treeline.

*

Tears streamed down Remus' face as he stumbled into the shrieking shack. He only made it halfway up the stairs to the second floor before his shoulders thrusted forward. He had to grab the edge of a step to keep himself from planting his face on it. He tried to straighten, but with every next step his body hulked forward again and he had to force his back into a straight position.

Halfway up the stairs he collapsed entirely. He grit his teeth and grunted through them twice. By the time of the third grunt, he couldn't keep the beast back any longer. His conscience slipped away. Him and his body became unacquainted with one another. His claws dug into the planks, but the stairs no longer supported the shape of him. He slid down and onto the floor.

When he rose he saw, right in front of him, something he didn't immediately recognise. A dark hairy thing. He looked into its eyes and growled. He was just about to attack when recollection kicked in. He knew those eyes. The growl began fading, and he felt himself coming back.

[willowelijah]

Headdesking - Remus Lupin/OC

Read the rest

Summary: Follow Remus Lupin bury his head in various pillows as his friends tease him about a crush he’s developed on the girl they recruit to assist them in their mission to become animagi.

Content warnings: Swearing. Some angst.

Chapter 19: An Agreement Betrayed

Hazel was splitting a peach in half when she noticed a head of flaming red hair in the corner of her eye. She looked up to see Lily making her way down the Great Hall toward her.

Some juice trickled down her fingers, and she grabbed a napkin to wipe it off.

When the girl sat down opposite her, Hazel didn't immediately speak. She waited for Lily to give her whatever news she had, as it was usually the case that an incident of some sort preceded their interactions.

"Listen to this..." Lily said. She bent down over the table for secrecy. "I just met Remus in our common room, and you won't believe it... he smiled at me and said 'good morning'."

Hazel was about to reach for a basket of muffins, but stopped herself. "Are you sure it was him?"

"Confident."

She ended up grabbing a muffin after all and breaking off a piece. "It's still pretty early. Is it possible that you were still dreaming?"

Lily rolled her eyes but smiled. "I swear it happened! What do you think it means?"

Hazel's gaze dropped and she slowly chewed off a piece. "I have no idea..."

Lily's mouth dropped open. "You know something."

To Hazel's instant dread, she could see Lily begin to plot in real time. Her irises began twining like a cogwheel, setting a system into motion designed to uncover whatever was being kept from her. She knew the look so well at this point, it was actually beginning to feel trite. She was still terrified of it though, and decided to just admit what she knew instead of letting Lily drag it out of her.

"We... kissed." she said. It was the only thing she knew that Lily most definitely didn't.

"Interesting." she replied without much other reaction. "And can we expect this to be a regular occurrence from now on?"

Hazel shook her head. "Doesn't look like it. Apparently he has 'a problem' that prevents him."

"Do you know what it is?"

"No."

"Do you have an idea?"

Hazel paused to think back. "I got the impression that he doesn't like the idea of his friends becoming animagi. I think he has something against it and... well, he refutes this, but I thought for a moment that he might dislike the fact that I am one."

Lily had to quickly shush her. She motioned with her head in the direction of the door. Hazel looked up to see the four boys enter the hall. They began making their way toward them.

A smile spread over Lily's face. "Shall I dig into it?"

Hazel set her muffin down resolutely. "Absolutely not!"

"Don't worry, I'll be covert about it."

"Nothing about you is covert. Please don't."

But Lily was already turning and grinning at the guys as they joined them. Before they sat down she whispered, "You won't even notice it's happening."

Hazel felt a lump in her stomach forming as she watched Lily greet their new company. Her thoughts were soon set on a different path though when Remus sat down next to her. He looked at her curiously and smiled — so the rumours were true.

Hazel felt a small blush on her cheeks, and returned his smile.

As the others began talking animatedly, Remus and Hazel remained in a quiet exchange between just the two of them. Hazel smiled down at the muffin on her plate. She knew that if she looked at him any longer, she'd break out in a ferocious blush.

Remus placed a book on the table, and slid it over to her.

Her eyes fell on the book instead. It was clothbound, maroon in colour, and the title was engraved in gold. She glanced at him carefully, and asked, "What is this?" then picked the book up and felt the spine.

"I thought you might like it. It's an adventure, I know you like those."

Hazel was about to reply when her name was called. She looked for the person who had called it, and found Lily staring her in the face.

"Yes?" she replied, feeling that whatever was coming next out of Lily's mouth would not bode well for her, but simultaneously being powerless to stop it.

"We were just talking about how difficult becoming an animagus has proven to be. And how lucky they've been to have you to guide them along the way."

"Okay." Hazel said slowly, too clouded by the knowledge of Lily's plotting to see the compliment.

"And how they probably wouldn't have gotten this far without you." Lily continued.

"A very candy-coated reading of what I said, but sure..." Sirius muttered.

Ignoring Sirius' words, as well as Hazel's examining stare, Lily turned to Remus for her next pounce. She looked down at her hands, neatly intertwined on the table in front of her, then raised her eyebrows and asked, "What do you think Remus?"

He was not yet aware of any prodding going on, and replied casually, "It's impressive, yes. And yeah, we probably wouldn't have gotten this far without her help."

Lily looked up at Remus after a slight delay, but she found no evidence of foul-play. His façade remained pristine at this junction. She had to blow the whistle and switch the railroad. Once the new location was set, it was time for her second pounce...

"Quite impressive." she concurred. "Especially seeing as there are so few animagi in the world." She trained her eyes on Remus once more, making him feel obliged to weigh in.

But only an "Mm." came from Remus, and Lily watched the boy look over at the clock, ignorant to the fact that he was being closely examined.

This reaction intrigued Lily, and she decided to prod on. She turned to Hazel. "How many animagi are there in the world? Do you know?"

Hazel held the book closer to her, as if trying to protect herself from whatever Lily was trying to uncover. "Yes. There are about ten in England, most of whom are in my family."

"That's next to nothing!" Lily ejected, looking around the table to see if people were paying attention. As luck would have it, they were.

"But you're only counting the registered ones." Remus let slip.

James and Sirius immediately trained their eyes on him with a stern expression each to their own. Peter watched the two eerily, fearing whatever would happen between his mates should this conversation go any further.

To his dismay, Remus didn't budge. Despite having caught sight of his friends' change in spirit, he was sick of them always having their way, and didn't feel like caving to their desires this time.

"Most people who become animagi register." Hazel asserted without a sliver of doubt.

He turned to her. "How do you know? There could be a significant hidden figure of unreported ones."

"Guys, it's 7:30, we should get going." Sirius started to say then.

But Hazel wouldn't listen. She was staring warily at Remus. His chin was turned away from her slightly, like afraid to fully face her. He looked at her out of his periphery, jaw shut tightly. It all came as a sign, telling her to keep questioning him, "You mean to say that you think there's a large percentage of animagi out there without the ministry's knowledge?"

"Herbology starts in half an hour. We'll be late unless we leave now." Sirius went on, looking mostly at Remus.

But Remus wasn't willing to hear or even acknowledge his friends and their stupid lies. Lies which he refused to be a part of any longer.

"Yes."

"Remus." his friends choroused at once.

Lily leaned back in her chair with the knowledge that she didn't have any more lines left in this play, and could now sit back and watch the rest of it unfold from the stalls.

Hazel looked anxiously around at the rest of the company, trying to make sense of everyone's reactions, and the inner workings at play underneath the exchange.

"Of course there is." Remus went on hurriedly, looking Hazel straight in the eye now. "I mean if you think about it, registering oneself kind of defeats a large part of the appeal of being an animagus, doesn't it?"

James instantly stood up and grabbed Remus' arm, prepared to drag him out of the room if he needed to. But as it turned out, there was no need. Because Remus' words had already struck a chord, and what was being hinted at soon became clear to Hazel.

She dropped the book heavily on the table, and the cutlery clinged sharply from the quake of it. She broke eye contact with Remus, and pursed her lips tightly as she beheld the rest of them.

A silence lingered, until Hazel promptly stood up and collected her bag. Without another word, she marched out of the Great Hall.

As soon as she was out of hearing distance, the boys broke out into a loud spat, collecting their belongings while assigning blame to one another, most fingers being pointed at Remus.

Lily sighed and turned to her porridge as the boys disappeared down the corridor, not granting her so much as a goodbye before disappearing after Hazel as quickly as they could.

The boys continued to reprimand Remus as they left the Great Hall, but he refused to feel any remorse. They had put themselves in this situation, and they had continually let Hazel suffer for it. It only served them right that she should find out the truth, and hopefully it could mean that Hazel and his relationship could get on the right footing eventually.

When they caught up to Hazel, she was walking very fast, hugging her books tightly across her chest. Remus hung back a little, and let himself be a fly on the wall for the exchange.

"Hazel!" James called out, and put his hand on her shoulder, which she shook off immediately.

"Of course you weren't ever planning on doing this the correct way. I should have realised." Despite how upset she seemed, the words came out with a vulnerable aggrievance more than anything.

"We're sorry!" James proclaimed as he and the others hurried alongside her.

Hazel didn't turn or acknowledge their presence in any other way but with a sarcastic reply, "Sure you are. I bet you're full of regret."

"We are! I swear. But you have to understand that we had underlying reasons for not telling you." James' eyes drifted toward Remus, who was walking behind them.

Hazel caught it, but kept looking straight ahead. "And what are those?" she asked, trying to keep her voice as steady and as nonchalant as possible, but ultimately failing with a small quiver at the last word.

"Unfortunately, that has to remain a secret." Sirius stated.

The company was halted by a large door, about to lead them out of the castle and onto the grounds. Hazel looked across at each of them and placed one hand on the handle.

"In that case, you can forget any further guidance from me."

Sirius looked at her most searchingly, but said nothing.

It was only Peter that was willing to speak at this point, and he opened his mouth to say, "We don't need any further guidance from you. We know what needs to happen for the rest of the spell to work."

"Alright then." Hazel spat. "First thing when school finishes for the day I'm heading straight for the Come and Go Room to destroy the potions."

Sirius sighed and looked at the floor. James clenched his teeth together tightly and sent Peter a murderous look.

Her line of dialogue had made everyone quieten, and she took the silence as success. "You should have never been allowed to make it in the first place, as you've proven that you can't handle the responsibility that comes with it. It only serves you right that you shouldn't be able to complete it."

And with those words to mull over, she left the gang in the entrance. The boys didn't follow her as she headed to class.

After the door shut, James, Sirius and Peter turned to Remus at once.

"Remus," Sirius began with a shaky breath, "Where is the Come and Go Room?"

The boy breathed in, preparing for what was to come. His friends tensed as they awaited their answer.

"I don't know."

He'd barely got out the last word when they all broke out in loud complaints and grievances.

"Yes you do!"

"We know you were there!"

"Quit acting selfishly and do what's best for the group for once!"

"I'm not acting selfishly!" Remus threw back. "I'm trying to ensure that you are not put in any danger for my sake."

Another brawl broke out, and Remus had to raise his voice twice its normal capacity to be heard, "You shouldn't have to be put in danger!" he reiterated.

"And you shouldn't have had to deal with this condition your whole life. But you do." Sirius spat. "You're an 18 year old boy sentenced to being a werewolf for your whole life. How is that fair?" He raised his hands into the air defeatedly.

Remus' shoulders fell, and he looked inquisitively at Sirius. He was finding it hard to believe that such empathy could still be directed at himself after what he had just done, and it resulted in a speechlessness. He turned his back to them and stalked over to the grand staircase to sit down.

His friends followed and sat down with him. Remus felt quite overwhelmed by the sequence of events that had just unfolded, and put his face in his hands tiredly.

James laid a comforting hand on his shoulder. "You need people in your life who will help you and be there for you." he added. "Therefore it's vital that we finish the spell."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4QJtbSWaxw&feature=emb_logo

[willowelijah]

Headdesking - Remus Lupin/OC

Read the rest

Summary: Follow Remus Lupin bury his head in various pillows as his friends tease him about a crush he’s developed on the girl they recruit to assist them in their mission to become animagi.

Content warnings: Swearing. Some angst.

Chapter 18: Caving

The box was safe. From then on it was just a matter of waiting for a storm so that the boys could drink the potions and hopefully, if successful, the transformation would occur.

In actuality, Hazel had no other business with the four boys she had been so intimately entwined with for the last few months. Still, they kept frequenting her side, despite having reason to.

More often than not, the topic of animagi and the transformation would come up. Even though Hazel had already gone into explicit detail on how the excursion had gone, and where Remus and her had placed the box, they still kept pestering her on that matter too. It was like they couldn't quite put their thoughts of the mission aside while waiting.

Perhaps it was the chant she'd instructed them to perform every dusk and dawn, that kept them constantly reminded of the great feat they were attempting, and which made the whole thing so impossible to let go of.

Hazel couldn't quite compartmentalise either. Every time she saw them she would ask the same question before greeting: "Did you perform the chant last night?"

"Yes." one of them would sluggishly reply.

"And this morning?"

The second reply was usually received with a shoulder-slacking sigh, and another simple "Yes."

The only one who seemed able to detach was Remus, who never felt the need to bring up or join in with this particular topic, and who would often zone out while the matter was being discussed, only to return with a fractured attention at best.

Then there was of course the subject of the kiss, which had not been brought up once in the weeks that followed it. This was not a surprise to any of the parties involved. Hazel specifically had expected nothing else. She knew that there was a problem, and as much as she had enjoyed being intimately entwined (in the most literal sense of the word this time) with this one particular boy, she wasn't labouring under the perception that a kiss was going to solve it. Whatever it was.

Still she couldn't help but ruminate on the kiss, and wonder in secret what the problem could be.

As much as Remus seemed almost completely muted most of the time. She was not privy to the fact that with every new phase of the moon, it became harder for him to detach.

The moon had always and forever a hold on his spirit, steering his emotions to torment him. And come the new moon, he felt a dagger in his solar plexus every time her eyes met his.

During the waxing crescent his muscles would knot whenever she was near, and when he sat down next to her, they would without a doubt start to cramp.

By the time the first quarter rolled around, a tightness in his chest would always follow every encounter with her.

And finally, one Monday during the week of the waxing gibbous, exactly a week before the full moon, was the day when he caved to his own willpower.

Hazel was studying in the library when they came in. Without a word to each other, his friends made the decision to sit down with her. Remus was still standing, beholding them all in that millisecond while he was still contemplating whether to sit down or just keep walking to get away from it all.

He began slowly moving toward them, then sitting down carefully, almost leaning out of his chair, away from her — fully expecting his body to wreak its wicked ways on him.

At first nothing happened, so he relaxed in his seat. When nothing still happened, he breathed out and began unpacking his bag. Hazel sniffled a little, and Remus' stomach turned in fear, thinking that that was it. But still nothing.

He placed his quill on the table. Hazel sighed mindlessly and Remus instinctively peered over at her. She was reading. His eyes filled with moisture and his vision got blurry, but after blinking a few times he was back to normal. He tested his fate and kept beholding her discreetly. She rubbed her nose, and he tilted his head, wondering if she had a cold. The softness in her countenance made him pleasantly dazed. His limbs felt almost affected by some temporary anaesthesia, and for once he felt rewarded by watching her. He couldn't help a faint smile.

His eyes fell and lingered on the book in her hand. Another round of water filled his eyes. He rubbed it away and watched her fingers tread over the tightly stacked pages as she read, but his gazing was interrupted by faded black dots, clouding his vision, and he was momentarily haltered in having to blink them away.

Shutting his eyes felt good, he realised. Too good. It relieved the heaviness of his head.

When had that started?

He opened his eyes again, and they fell on the title of her book. The Hemlock Expedition. A tension spread over his temple and he shut his eyes tightly. The use of his facial muscles sent another wave of tension over his scalp. He had only had his eyes shut for a second when the sweeping sound of a page being turned came, so quintessential to the concept of Hazel. He wanted to relish in it like he always did in class, but before he could, thick blood came flooding the vessels in his forehead all at once, making all his other senses dull. His veins began pulsating, like clenching and unclenching over and over. It felt like they were on the brink of bursting, and he forced his lids to tighten again, wanting to groan but fighting the instinct.

And soon enough an annihilating; all-encompassing headache had taken over.

Damn it.

He let his head fall onto his wrist, locking it in-between his forehead and the surface of the table.

No one commented. Him doing these kinds of things was not anything out of the ordinary.

He stayed like that for a minute, trying to fight every muscle spasm by tensing and every groan by holding his breath.

To fight the reactions in him, he tried to focus on something else. The first thing he could think to grasp at, was the ongoing conversation now unfolding between his friends.

James had just asked Hazel something about her family.

She shut her book, and it set off what felt like a weighty bell inside his head, colliding with his inner walls in three successive bangs.

"I don't know exactly."

"It's just that animagi are so rare." James went on. "It makes me wonder what makes your family different."

Hazel's eyes wandered off in a moment of consideration before returning to the subject soon again. "I'm surprised more people don't attempt it. I mean, who wouldn't want to be part animal — to get to swap species?"

Remus pressed his forehead against his arm, hindering the blood in his veins from flowing properly. He suppressed another whine, only letting a small puff out.

Sirius furthered the discussion, saying, "They're afraid of it going wrong, though. They don't want to end up disfigured." He swept his fringe away and leant back.

"Seems to me like a small price to pay." Hazel argued. "People are far too afraid of being different."

Remus felt his chest contract as he sucked in a breath and held it, but this time it wasn't as a result of the headache paining him. He looked up at Hazel without considering how his body was going to punish him for it.

She went on with the same level of assurance, "It's absolutely worth the risk when you consider the positive impact it will have on your life if you succeed. At least that's what I think."

His headache showed him no mercy. Its brutality had indeed gone up a degree since refocusing his attention on her. But the only thing now letting it on was a small twitch in his eye. What mattered more to him in that moment was the ignorance currently being exhibited by the subject of his now almost malevolent gaze.

"That's just a gross simplification." he snapped, causing everyone's heads to turn. He only saw Hazel's bewildered eyes landing on him though. "You clearly don't have any idea how hard it is to be different, or you wouldn't for a moment think that it's worth it. If you had any idea how it felt to be shunned; to be treated like a monster; to be made into an outcast, you wouldn't be saying any of this."

Remus stopped talking. Everyone stared at him in a moment of tense confusion, Hazel included. She didn't reply, and he couldn't tell if she intended to, but upon realising that he didn't have any interest in anything else she had to say, he got up and left.

She wanted to know what was going on in Remus' mind. Her eyes found James, and he wore a worried crease between his eyebrows as he watched his friend go. Sirius looked over at her with the same crease. She knew something wasn't right. She knew that they understood something she didn't.

When Remus walked through the library's exit everything went quiet and still. His headache subsided, leaving a deep sorrow in its stead. He processed to saunter down the hall, his hands finding his pockets and his gaze finding the floor. The robe swayed behind him.

He walked until he thought better of it, and sat down on a small staircase leading to a door no one ever used. The words he'd spoken repeated themselves in his mind. He closed his eyes, and soon the full conversation came back to him once more. He put his face in his hands, but in the momentary darkness were the words again. He tried to steer his thoughts in a different direction, but couldn't stop envisioning the concern in her eyes.

A jabbing pain was felt in his temple, and soon the headache was back.

"Remus?"

He looked up from his hands. Her robe was scraping against the dusty floor. Chestnut eyes staring down at him. Sweeping locks of hair pointing out around her head. A pink tint on the bridge of her nose, but a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes, which she had to come to grips with before eventually sitting down beside him.

She looked at his ashy brown hair. Her eyes trailed down to the stripey red tie tucked under his pullover. Before lingering too long on his appearance, she asked, "What's wrong?"

There was no need to collect his thoughts, he could just continue his train of thought out loud. "I know that I was cross once again. I know I messed up again. I don't want to keep doing that." He looked into her eyes. "But if you came for an apology, you're not getting it. I refuse to sit by and listen to someone spin a tale about how being different is somehow without consequence. That's bullshit."

Her pupils shimmied a little as they watched him. Her bottom eyelid subtly twitched in concentration. She thought of all those times she'd witnessed girls behold him. How he made them blush just by saying please or thank you. How he walked around this school, attending his classes and hanging out with his mates, so totally unaware of the attention they received for something as simple as that. Yet he knew what being different felt like. Shunned even. It was as clear to her as it was perplexing.

If Lily had been in her shoes, she would have poked and prodded. But all Hazel could do was concede.

"I think it's less that the potential consequences aren't bad, and more so about not being scared of them."

Remus could hold her stare no longer. His eyes darted in other directions, and he interlaced his fingers. His refusal to apologise had overlapped with a refusal to answer.

She went on, "I mean, if you're going to become an animagus, you're going to have to accept the fact that there's a very likely possibility you'll end up disfigured — to perpetually live as a combination of animal and human."

Her shoe shifted two centimetres to the right, bumping into his. His eyes found hers again, less hardened this time.

She let him reminisce about her features for a moment before continuing, "Like I've told you before, that has been the case for some family members of mine." She found a spot on the floor to single in on. Her voice became hushed and distant. "Over the years we've all become quite accepting of disfigurations that would make others shy away in horror. The choice is easier to make if you're not scared of what might go wrong."

When she broke out of her concentration, she noticed that Remus was looking at her with a hazy expression. With a throat almost too thick to form words she finished, "Or if you're desperate for some reason..."

She let her thoughts on the matter ring out and fester, but neither reaction nor reply came. She tilted her head, hoping perhaps he'd be reminded that he was staring at her, but still there was only that expressionless stare. Had he even been paying attention to what she was saying?

"Remus?"

His eyebrows rose with a delay. "Hm?"

"What are you looking at?"

"Oh. Umm... I don't know." His face was clear of that hardness she'd witnessed a minute ago. But he didn't seem aware of any personal change, or the general freshly-woken-kitten vibe he was putting out.

"You don't know what you were looking at?" A smile threatened to reveal itself, but she stifled it. "Well, you must have been looking at something. I mean, I think it's pretty obvious what you were looking at."

But any implications were lost on Remus. He focused on her in an attempt to decipher what she was implying, but replied objectively. "Well, you were talking, so I guess that I was looking at you."

There was a glint in her eye when she nodded. "Good. I'll keep talking then, if you plan to hang around."

He shrugged. "I don't plan on going anywhere."

"Me neither." She emphasised her words keenly, realising that they perfectly encompassed what she felt. "So you can stop being so mean all the time." Her head dropped and she pulled her knees up to her chest; her hands snaring around her ankles.

Remus snapped out of his absent-mindedness when he noticed that she was upset. "Hey..." He moved closer, somehow the act made him feel less cramped. An instinct to put his arm around her overcame him, but he fought it. "I'm sorry." he said instead, immediately after recalling that he'd told her he wasn't going to apologise.

Soon his arm found its way around her also, despite everything, and he felt a surge of oxygen flood to his brain. She peered up at him. His eyes widened and his heart rate quickened as she did so. He opened his mouth, but was unsure of what to say next.

Before he'd had a chance to think of something, she put her hand on his, holding his arm in place around her. The pressure in his temple subsided, and suddenly he didn't need to exert himself in the name of holding his eyelids up.

She moved so that she was facing him. He got nervous, but didn't take his eyes off her. She inched closer, and he let the muscles in his jaw relax.

"Uhh..." he stuttered, unprepared for the sudden closeness.

Hazel stopped. "Should I back off?" she asked softly.

Remus frowned. How could he possibly agree to that? Sure, saying yes to her question would most definitely hurt him more in the long run. But 'the long run' was a concept he found surprisingly tempting to overlook.

Instead he looked at her lips, leaned in. His hand found the back of her neck, and hers found the side of his face.

Their lips had almost met when his eyes flew up to hers. By some trick of the light, two distinct crescents were reflected in them. In an instant he shut his eyes and flinched away.

Hazel let her hand fall and gave him some space.

At the loss of contact, a surge of pain echoed through Remus, so strong that the only thing he could think to do was bury his face in his sweater and lean down over his lap.

He felt a hand on his back.

"It's okay. We don't have to kiss."

"I really want to though." came a muffled voice, buried in his sweater.

Another jab in his temple, and he rocked back and forth while it coursed through the rest of his head.

The words gave Hazel an elated smile. But she pressed her lips together to quench it.

When no reply came from her, Remus rose from his crash-landing position. They were face to face a second later. He put his hands on either side of her face. Her hands went up to hold his soft wrists.

"You have no idea." he breathed and she smiled.

"So let's kiss for a bit." she suggested. "It's just kissing."

Remus slowly looked down at her lips again, like he was scared of what he was going to find.

He placed his lips on hers softly. When he retraced, he found her smiling shyly at him, and he knew that it was worth it. After returning her shy smile, their lips were together again. He moved his kisses up toward her cheek in a desire to get to kiss all those soft places on her face he had only been allowed to look at in secret before now. When he paused, she pecked him on the nose and he stared at her.

Their lips collided again. He pulled her closer and kissed her, committing to doing so under the false premise that he was a regular boy. He let himself imagine that there was no expiration date on this experience. That this wasn't their last kiss, but the second in a line of many more to come. The thought went from being a subtle simmering inside him, to boiling over. His expression became pained from wishing so hard, and he held her close as their lips moved against each other in what felt a lot like his last chance to.

He knew that he was failing miserably. He was not kissing her with the same liberation as a regular boy would. To truly kiss her with ease, he had to suspend his disbelief and pretend that it didn't have to be the last time they were ever truly close. He let himself stay in that world.

They pulled apart to breathe. But before Remus could fully catch his breath he decided that the kissing was more pressing and leaned toward her again. She stifled a gasp when his lips crashed against hers. He moved his hands from the back of her neck into her hair. She delighted in the attention, and smiled against his lips.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06PmS9GDG3A&feature=emb_logo

[willowelijah]

Headdesking - Remus Lupin/OC

Read the rest

Summary: Follow Remus Lupin bury his head in various pillows as his friends tease him about a crush he’s developed on the girl they recruit to assist them in their mission to become animagi.

Content warnings: Swearing. Some angst.

Chapter 17: Hidden Room, Hidden Box

It was late at night. The long corridors that encompassed the castle stretched out dark and desolate at this hour. The seventh floor was barren of framed paintings or windows. Not one lantern was lit throughout the whole floor.

Hazel shivered slightly under the cloak. It appeared like shimmering particles around them; like a forcefield, held up over her by Remus.

He was wearing a gloomy expression — had been since he first picked her up all the way down by her common room. They'd since then only walked in complete silence. At first Hazel hadn't minded his gloomy expression or the silence. Her focus was on the box, which she held steadily in her arms, and to which their silence was crucial.

Though she was fairly confident that silence between them would always be in the cards, with or without the box, she was only happy to have something to blame it on.

But despite how content she was with his bitterness and the perfectly explainable silence, she had a harder time with what was embedded in the silence. The fluffy chemicals that were released every time he moved the arm he was using to hold the cloak up around her. The energy in his breath, so close to hers. The sparks of electricity in the small space that separated them. The close attention being paid to his every move, whilst doing all she could to seem aloof.

As much as she could justify the silence, she could find few excuses for the tension.

She tried to imagine that it was one of the others by her side; tried to manifest the same relaxed demeanour she would have borne around Sirius or James. But no matter how hard she tried to focus on the box and the box only, she found that in honest truth only about 80% of her thoughts were regarding it. The other 20% were concerning what Lily had told her.

She thought of roasted pecans and scones and that glum expression of his and chocolate and jam and how right now it seemed like he would rather be anywhere else in the world than by her side.

A justified silence might seem like an adequate hiding place, but unfortunately for him, tension didn't need words to reveal itself. And the frequency of gulps coming out of that boy most definitely revealed something, as did the constant need to shift positions, making the cloak fall in her face more than once. Not to mention the way he'd jump away each time his arm so much as brushed against her. She wouldn't be surprised if he ended up sweeping the whole cloak off her in one of his thrashes.

On second thought, it was probably more like 60-40% actually.

See, it was hard to keep that steady focus on the box and their mission when every subtle gulp raised the question: was the tension in him stemming from animosity or amorosity? (woah) It was hard to keep a steady focus when it felt like a dense cloud was trapped under the cloak with them. A dark foreboding one, filled with static. Perhaps translucent enough in places to reveal a pink sky.

And the gloomy expression Hazel had been so unconcerned with back in the basement, was now on an entirely different level of her concern; shown by her grip getting gradually tighter around the box, but less steady.

She marched forward and stopped in front of the place where the door had appeared for her last time, moving with enough urgency that she almost slipped out from under the cloak. Only one step behind, Remus came up next to her.

Having already agreed beforehand on exactly what to do when they got to this part of the plan, they both started thinking...

I desire a quiet, dark place

She looked over at Remus, and he nodded to confirm that he was with her.

I desire a quiet, dark place

A door began to appear. Remus' arm was falling slowly, tired from having to hold the cloak up for so long.

I desire...

His wrist then brushed against the back of her hair and they looked at each other. She was taken aback by the fact that he didn't flinch this time, and forgot for a second to look away.

The door handles grew out of the door, and then everything went still.

It all seemed to be going according to plan, but when Remus opened the door and Hazel looked inside, she saw not the tranquil place she had envisioned, but what was essentially a wall of clutter.

Apprehensively they squeezed by the first layer and the room opened up more, but around them were still piles of –again– clutter, stretching themselves all the way up to the ceiling. It seemed to be currently used as some kind of storage facility.

Remus slipped the cloak off him, his cheeks slightly flushed.

She was about to suggest turning back to try and conjure another room, but without so much as looking her way Remus started forward down a tight aisle. He immediately got to work, looking around at the mess that surrounded him on all sides as he moved further through one of the small winding passages, searching for a decent hiding place.

Hazel frowned and hurried after him, once caught up she had to tug at his sleeve to gain his attention. When he turned she hesitated, then tugged at his sleeve again, this time with the intention of getting him down to her height.

"Should we try again?" she whispered into his ear.

His shoulder flew up and he took a step back from her. Without meeting her gaze, he said, "I'm sure it'll be fine." There was an urgency in his tone, and he entirely forgot to whisper. Before long, he'd continued down the path without so much as making sure that she was following.

Only then, as she watched him go, did it hit her. How she might have actually ended up picking the worst possible person to take with her — the one who didn't actually want her to succeed.

Just before the boy was to disappear out of her sight, Hazel reluctantly followed.

Shit shit shit, Remus was thinking as he stormed off.

His fight or flight instinct had kicked in, and it was pretty obvious which one he'd picked.

Her voice still reverberated in his ear, making the back of his neck tingle. He craned his neck to try and rid himself of the sensation, but to his dismay it did nothing. He was at least glad to not be huddled up with her under that cloak any longer.

Lucky enough as he'd been to not be met with her fragrance once. Lucky enough as he'd been not to have had to listen to her continuous breathing, what he was sure would have come out as the softest sweetest shiver only, had he actually heard it once. Lucky enough as he'd been that it, in many respects, was like she hadn't even been there.

The knowledge of her by his side was enough. The idea in his head of them, sealed off from the world together under a blanket was more than enough to make his cheeks hot and his throat feel like it might close up.

Shit shit shit

He hadn't realised until now just how big of a problem this was. She shouldn't be causing such a big reaction in him. She was just one girl, and he wasn't like James.

The crush had to stop.

As he went on, he began to realise that the room stretched pretty deep. Anxiety followed — he hadn't been paying that close attention to his turns and the thought struck him that by the looks of it, he could easily end up getting them lost. With Hazel coming up behind him though, he couldn't stop.

Perhaps it was what James had revealed to him that had heightened his feelings. It had made him go from saying stupid stuff and sticking his head in his pillow, to having and urge to flee whenever she got close.

But as much as he tried to focus on finding a good place to put the box, he couldn't stop his mind from singling in on her instead. Over and over he forced himself into other thought trains, but not ten seconds later the lane would switch back to her, and that conversation he'd had with James...

They'd been in potions class and James had been gone for a few minutes. When he came back, he did so in a flustered state, slightly out of breath. This could only mean that he'd been face to face with Lily Evans. They all discarded their ongoing tasks and turned their attention to him.

But he held up a hand to stop them before the questioning began.

"Not here."

Only after school, when they were all in their dorm room, did he allow himself to be quizzed on the matter.

"Something juicy must have happened. You looked like you'd been knocked for a loop — but not entirely displeased." Sirius said and sat down on James' bed with him.

"I'm not one bit displeased. Wait 'til you hear." He sat up and crossed his legs. "But I should tell you, it's not really to do with me. It's to do with you, Moony."

Remus was doing homework on the floor, and didn't look up until James added:

"And Hazel."

Remus didn't give much of a response, but gave James a wary look, fearful of what his friend could have possibly done that had to do with both him and his crush.

And in that fashion he kept watching James as he went on with a long exposition of his entire interaction with Lily and the crush in question –audacious enough as to omit the part where he did a very poor job of refuting Lily's theory about his friend, but somehow also managing to make it a meaty story– until he got to the part which was actually relevant.

James raised a finger. Peter and Sirius beheld him curiously, anticipating the pay-off. "I'm not certain — I was a bit out of it. But she said something about both parties, as in Remus and Hazel, expressing an interest. And she asked if you'd kiss her."

Remus' eyes went wide.

"That can't be right." Sirius contemplated.

James shook his head so determinedly that his glasses nearly flew off his nose. "No, seriously!" he fixed his glasses and went on, "I'm sure of it. She wants you, Moony."

Remus went beet red, though to detract from the fact he went straight into an animated refutation of James' statement, pointing at the boy with his essay in hand and saying, "You literally just said that you weren't certain! That you were 'out of it'."

But despite Remus' outward countenance, he couldn't deny (at least not to himself) that there was a large part of him (basically anything that consisted of atoms) that really wanted to believe James.

"Yeah, I know! But—" his eyes wandered away, rethinking the whole interaction. "Alright, I'm not entirely sure. But I feel like she was definitely insinuating something."

Peter and Sirius narrowed their eyes suspiciously. Remus looked up at James, lowering his essay in a deflated manner.

"Here's the thing." Sirius began. "The idea that she'd be into Moony is by no means unfathomable. It certainly is something we've all come to believe as a possibility. But this..." He motioned at James, who rolled his eyes in return. "...all seems like it's been scrapped together from nothing."

"Trust me!" James erupted. "I know her! I know when she's making insinuations."

As soon as the sentence was out, a large part of his audience seemed to lose interest. If his credibility hadn't been in question prior, it was most definitely put into it now.

Remus received a conciliatory pat on his shoulder each from Peter and Sirius, then the show was over. He was left sitting on the floor in front of James' bed, looking at his essay but not really reading.

"Here!" came a stern whisper behind him.

Remus turned. It was Hazel. Her lips were in a straight line, she was pointing at a large chest he had walked by.

"Great." he replied plainly and walked up to her.

The chest was large and wooden with flowers carved into it. The hinges were broken on it, and the roof came up easily when Remus lifted it.

Hazel placed the box carefully inside and bent up again to admire her work, but when Remus was going to shut the roof, his hand slipped and it fell heavily down, making a loud booming sound upon collision.

His eyes instantly found Hazel's, and they were not best pleased.

"I'm sorry!" he exclaimed.

"SSSHH!" Hazel erupted, as angrily and as quietly as she could. She was looking at him with a wild intensity, her eyes opened to max and pupils dilated.

Oddly enough, wonderful chemicals flushed over him at being looked at so intently by her. The desire to shove his face in another pillow for being so stupid as to have that reaction came along with it. But he had to be strong now, despite how lightheaded he suddenly felt.

Then suddenly Hazel was pulling at his sleeve again. She pulled him further down the aisle, far away from the chest.

"Do you want us to fail or something?" she snapped once they were in an enclave, carved into one of the walls of stuff. A large grandfather's clock ticked on behind her as she awaited her reply, showing the time 11 a.m.

"No. Of course not." he said, still looking at the clock. The words came out weak sounding, and he knew that he hadn't convinced her. He spared a thought as to whether he should keep going, but decided that it was pointless. This wasn't his mission. He had no desire for them to succeed. Succeeding only meant more guilt to come.

His fragile attempt to convince her had had the reversed effect. Hazel took one look at him, then stormed off in the direction of the exit (at least she thought it might be).

Surely he would never act this way if he had feelings for me? she thought as she went. How could anyone act this way and simultaneously hope that that behaviour could in any way inspire positive inclinations?

Remus caught up to her, and she quickened her pace. "It's like you think I'm trying to sabotage this on purpose." he said, half a reflection, half of an accusation. "I didn't mean to drop it. It was an accident."

Hazel stopped only when an inconveniently placed desk was blocking their path. She took the opportunity to give him a dirty look. This boy had been nasty to her for ages, and she wasn't going to take it anymore. She began climbing over the desk while Remus watched her struggle.

"Please." she snarled, "Why should I believe that you're in any way on my side in this mission? You've made it pretty evident that you're against this whole ...thing." Her voice betrayed her at the last word and she had to stop and collect herself once she was over on the other side.

Remus slid over the desk after her. She averted her gaze once he was beside her, but he could spot tears in her eyes, and his eyebrows contorted.

"I'm not—" he began, but Hazel took off again. "Hey!" he called after her and followed. "I'm not fully on board with the idea. But do you know how much shit my friends would give me if they found out that I had sabotaged, or in any way prevented us from succeeding. Believe me, I'm not trying to fuck this up."

"Great." Hazel said shakily while ducking under a coat rack that nested horizontally into the hive of stuff to their right.

"So I should just assume that it's your contempt for me that makes you act this way? That being around me for one night is so objectionable that you can't physically contain your dislike long enough to seem at least somewhat willing?"

Remus slowed down ever so slightly. A chill came over him. "What?" he breathed.

Hazel threw him a glance. "The fact that you have a problem with me is no news to me. And tonight in particular your whole demeanour screams contempt."

"I don't—" Remus began. But the road opened up to their right and Hazel deviated into another aisle. He had to catch up to her before continuing.

"I don't harbour any contempt for you. I swear." This didn't come out quite as weak as his earlier argument, but it still didn't seem to cut it, and Hazel only huffed in response.

"I mean it. I honestly don't."

The road opened up again, this time to the left, and Hazel diverged. "Come off it! You've literally been fighting me and my part in your group every chance you've gotten." she said as she disappeared again.

But Remus wouldn't let her get away thinking something so horrible. "I promise you, I don't have a problem with you." he said once he was back with her. But he knew as much as she, that he was in fact lying. She was a problem for him, a huge one. He just didn't want her to think it.

Hazel kept storming off. He didn't receive so much as a reply. So he tried again.

"I don't have a problem with you."

No response.

"Hazel, listen, I really don't. Please believe me."

He had nearly caught up to her now. He considered reaching out and grabbing her arm, but before so much as moving his arm, she began fading out and disappearing. At first he was startled, but then he saw her slowly take on her animagus form, transitioning from large strides, until she was bouncing rather than charging.

To his dismay, she disappeared where he couldn't follow, through a small hole in the wall.

"Hazel!" he called after her, and kept following the path he was on, hoping that she could still hear him on the other side.

He looked at the mess in front of him and up above him, and called out to her on the other side. "I'm sorry that I've made you feel like I dislike you."

His heart was beating in his chest now, and he quickened his pace. Praying that she was still near. The thought struck him that he couldn't win. He really couldn't win. He couldn't have what he wanted. He was going to hurt her as well as himself.

When he finally reached an opening, he found that she wasn't on the other side. So he called out to her louder.

"Hazel, I know that I've made you feel like I don't like you. But I swear it's not true. I wish I could take it back. I really don't want to hurt you."

He turned into another path out of mere desperation.

"Can you hear me?" he called, louder yet.

He turned into yet another path, then another, and then another.

"Hazel, please. I really don't want you to be upset. Can't we just erase everything that I've done so far and pretend that I was nice to you all along? I don't want to be mean to you. I want to be nice to you. I like you."

He stopped turning corners and walked straight ahead instead.

"Please believe that I'm telling the truth. I really do like..."

Then, just as he passed another opening, her now human form came out in front of him in a hurry. He nearly walked into her, and stumbled back.

"...you." he finished awkwardly.

Suddenly he began to feel incredibly self conscious about his latest revelations to her across the room, and he looked down at the floor.

"Did you hear all of that?" he mumbled.

Hazel couldn't help but chuckle then, and Remus couldn't help but smile too.

Ignoring his question, she decided to reply to his prior statement. "You do, do you?" she was blushing a little, and there was something about the content way she was smiling that gave him confidence.

"A lot, actually." he added, looking at her now.

"Lily told me." she slipped out. It was too glorious to let it go unsaid. No matter how hard it was to believe, the fact was, his friend had given her the scope. She pressed her lips together. Her hands interlaced behind her back as she awaited his response. It was audacious of her, but she refused to let his gaze go.

He searched her eyes and mumbled, "She's not the best at keeping her mouth shut." He couldn't help the harsh words. Lily's lack of regard for the secrecy of his feelings was quite the inconvenience to him. "But then again, so are none of my friends." He lost his breath toward the end of the sentence and stopped himself before he gave too much away.

Her chest was soaring. He evidently didn't like Lily's talking — so there had to be some truth to it.

"Must be really frustrating for you when all your friends reveal your secrets."

Everything was very calculated. She knew what to say to get the answers she wanted. But what wasn't planned, what seemed to happen without her thinking, was the step she took — closer to him.

"Yeah."

He stared at her, his breath heavy. She was coaxing it out of him, but he couldn't help but answer honestly. He'd seen the step. It was the only thing he could say to make her take one more.

But when she did, it thrust him into a thought-spiral, and he considered the aftermath of what might happen — either telling her the truth of his condition, or having to break it off before she found out on her own. Since he wanted neither option, he knew that the next step would only lead to suffering.

His attention was snapped back to Hazel. She was smiling bashfully. "Well, the interest is mutual. So..."

It was everything he wanted. But it didn't feel good at all.

"I lied." he blurted.

She looked at him confusedly, but she couldn't quite form words yet, too startled by the change in him.

"There is a problem." he further explained.

"I knew it! I knew you had a problem with me!"

"What? No! You're not the problem, I am."

"You're the problem?" she said doubtfully. Then her eyes went wide. "Oh my god."

"What?"

"It's because I'm an animagus, isn't it?" Before he could reply, she had rushed away from him again.

There was a pang in his chest, and he went after her. "No. That's not it, Hazel."

But she wasn't hearing. She disappeared behind a wall. "You don't want your friends to become animagi. You don't want my help..."

When he caught up to her, she turned her head and said, "It's because it creeps you out, isn't it?"

His eyes went wide and he tried to sputter out a response, to refute it, but his words got caught on his tongue. Hazel rolled her eyes judgmentally and turned a corner.

Remus dodged a chair in his way and went after. When he turned the same corner he became faced with a long aisle of dark wooden bookshelves, perpendicularly branching off into many aisles on both sides of him. He walked down the main aisle, looking from left to right without spotting her. The dusty shelves were filled with not just books, but other clutter — things that had not been successful in finding a proper home.

Then suddenly, her voice came, "Is it the idea of kissing me that's so off-putting? I promise you I won't turn into a frog." it echoed snidely.

"That's not it." he called out, then paced forward again, examining each aisle but finding them all empty. He stopped to try and listen for her, but not a sound was made.

"It's like... the opposite of that." he tried, cringing as he said it. It was the truth though, and he had to do something to make her talk.

"The idea of not kissing me is tempting to you?" she concluded stubbornly from somewhere in the void.

Remus groaned after hearing her words. He hesitated, trying to navigate where they had come from, and decided to go down the aisle to his left.

"Do you think I'd be trying this hard to convince you that I like you if I didn't like you?"

When did it get so complicated? he complained in his head.

No reply came, but he heard someone shuffle away not far off. He bit his cheek while trying to work out which way to go next, and headed forward in a snap decision.

He could hear shuffling on the other side of the shelf, and quickened his pace.

"I think that if you didn't like me, you'd most definitely come up with some dirtbag excuse like: it's not you, it's me."

Remus' eyes became thin slits. Does she really think so little of me? Then again, he had to remind himself that he had been acting like a dirtbag to her.

Still, her words struck a chord, and he couldn't help but get really frustrated with her refusal to accept what he was telling her. He couldn't keep his vocal chords from hardening when he said, "Or perhaps I'm not lying to you, and the problem really is with me. You're just too stubborn to accept it."

As he made his way forward, he could hear her move with him on the opposite side.

"How am I meant to believe that?"

Just as she said it, Remus saw his opportunity — an opening in the wall. He made a left turn and found himself face to face with her finally. Hazel froze, eyes wide, her cheeks flushing with colour. But Remus didn't stop, his hands went up to cup her face.

His eyes trailed across hers, seeing the anguish in her eyes, and the enticing shade of her lips. It was like he had temporary amnesia, and all thoughts of the aftermath were momentarily lost.

He tore his gaze from her lips, and asked determinedly, "Do you want me to prove it? Because I will."

The proximity had made Hazel lightheaded. She felt her cheeks flush hard at being looked at so intently by Remus Lupin of all people. His insecure demeanour and good looks had found their way to her, and she found herself wholeheartedly attracted to it.

In a way the circumstance was unprecedented — he saw the effect he had on her, by the way her breathing had gotten jagged and her ability to process what he was saying slow, yet his attention had not diverted yet, and he had found no reason to dismiss it.

"H-how would you do that exactly?"

The corner of his lip curled up, and his eyes darted away. "I was thinking of kissing you." he mumbled, tone a little playful to disguise how nervous he felt.

"That w-would be okay." she gulped.

His eyes twinkled mischievously at her reply, and he went on in a teasing tone, "I'm just disproving your theory here. See, I don't think you'll shapeshift."

Her mouth opened tentatively, and to his dismay, she began removing his hands from her cheeks. "If to you it's just about proving a point..."

Remus rolled his eyes and, just when catching her off guard, he placed his hands back on each side of her jaw, leaned down, and finally allowed himself to kiss her, with as much ardour as he had always desired and imagined.

He knew he had done the right thing, because she immediately assumed position again and kissed him back. Her hands were unsure where to go, and wavered in the air for a moment before finding his neck and softly gripping to it. When they did he breathed in, and she exhaled.

The whole room had gone silent.

He pulled her closer. Her back bent as a result, and his hand soon found its way there to support her.

Because he had resisted her for so long, the way in which he moved against her was almost feverish, hands failing to remain stagnant, lips clumsily navigating her lips. He was desperate for the delightful chemicals that secreted everytime he moved his lips.

Eventually he had to remind himself that this was his only chance, and to let it be slow while he still had her in his arms. He stopped moving, eyes still closed. His hands slid up to her neck, thumb gracing her ear.

"Believe me." he mumbled against her lips.

She breathed in, preparing to reply, but he was too impatient, and his mouth caught hers again. His lips drifted to the corner of her mouth and kissed her, then to her bottom lip, and she soon forgot to reply entirely.

Both parties refused to open their eyes or let the kiss be over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXIgEZAZ7vo&feature=emb_logo

[willowelijah]

Headdesking - Remus Lupin/OC

Read the rest

Summary: Follow Remus Lupin bury his head in various pillows as his friends tease him about a crush he’s developed on the girl they recruit to assist them in their mission to become animagi.

Content warnings: Swearing. Some angst.

Chapter 16: Truth or Potion

Hazel was in potions class. She was squinting to make out the text in her copy of Advanced Potion-Making, with only candlelight to assist her. The artificial smells circulating the room made her a little queasy, and she looked up at the valves above her for a brief moment of pause.

Once she had gathered some strength back, she gave the recipe another try. She was trying to get her head around the next directive, something that could be quite taxing in the best of circumstances. On this day it was proving to be particularly difficult, for reasons well out of her own control.

Add a droplet of salamander blood while stirring clockwise. On the fourteenth stir—

"Will you just trust me?"

Hazel sighed, then attempted to read on again.

On the fourteenth stir, pause for five missisippies, then add the rest of your distilled toxin.

"I swear we have time. Slughorn won't be back for ages. I heard him say he was going somewhere on the second floor."

Hazel lifted a small phial and stared at it forebodingly. "How am I supposed to have time to distil this crap before our time is up?"

Lily took one look at the green sludge that was Hazel's potion, it was the first time she'd shown any concern for it in ages. "You can't. You're screwed."

Hazel sighed loudly once more and lifted the book up to her face. Leave to brew for seven minutes, at half time reducing the flame to half strength, and adding a handful of moondew petals in the eighth—

"Come on Hazel." Lily interrupted. Her hands were clasped together and there was an urgent tremor to her voice. "Who knows when next we'll get an opportunity like this. Give this sorry project up and make something cool with me instead."

Hazel slammed the book down on the desk. "Can't you just help me instead of getting me in trouble?"

"You won't get in trouble. The professor's not here!" Her eyes began to sparkle with glee and she pressed her praying knuckles into her chin.

"I think he'll get suspicious when at the end of class he takes a look at what we've done." She mimicked Slughorn looking down over her kettle, "Hold on, this is not the Conundrum-Cast Draught I asked you to make, but rather something quite the opposite of that."

Lily then realised that she was going to have to try much harder if she was going to convince Hazel. Her green eyes squinted at Hazel's brown ones as she thought up her next play.

"We'll say we looked at the wrong recipe." she blurted. Her first strike.

"The wrong recipe? It's an entirely different course book!"

Lily had no response for a moment, and Hazel had to break their eye contact when the flame under her pot started spitting up extra flames of its own accord, causing the brew to make a gurgling sound.

She hummed faintly and twisted the knob that controlled the flame.

"Where is this excessive need to do everything right suddenly coming from? Is it only because you think you're going to get in trouble again after your excursion tonight?"

She felt an urge to argue Lily's use of the word 'suddenly', but let it slide. "It has nothing to do with that. I'm feeling pretty confident about it actually."

Her attempt to defend her actions was undercut by her own absence of mind. She was for the moment far more concerned with her potion. With a frown she looked down at the group of little bubbles that kept forming and popping in succession.

Feeling pretty assured that it wasn't supposed to be doing that at this stage, she twisted the knob again in pure desperation, in which direction she was at this point at a loss for.

"I think there's something wrong with this burner."

"So it's about the fact that you got detention?" Lily asked, insisting on advancing her line of questioning.

She let go of the burner. One breath, and then... "Do you realise how embarrassing it is for a prefect to get detention?"

"I have no idea. I only have experience with one of those."

There was a moment of delay when Hazel was trying to make out what she meant.

"I've never been in detention." the redhead soon clarified.

"You've never been in detention?"

"No. Which is why you should trust me and help me make this potion." She held out another battered book with a foreign recipe displayed across the pages.

But Hazel was still not on board. "Why can't you just make the potion that the professor assigned us?"

"I have made the potion that the professor assigned us. I already know what he's going to say." She held the book up again, uncomfortably close to Hazel's face. "Now I want to make something else. Something where the outcome isn't as predictable."

"What's so wrong with being praised for something that you did well?"

Lily's shoulders relaxed then, and she dropped that distinct tone of voice, the one intended to convince Hazel to do something she didn't feel like. She spoke softly when she said, "I don't mean to sound ungrateful... but I don't particularly want to be blindly adored. I want to be challenged, or I won't ever achieve the things I want."

Hazel looked carefully at her companion. Lily was fiddling with the corner pages of the dubious textbook she'd brought, either very lost in her thoughts or feeling unsure of what to say next. It was almost like she was, for the first time that day, speaking to her without an ulterior motive.

Almost.

That was until she looked up at Hazel again, puppy eyes now fully formed, the page with the recipe soon being presented to her yet again.

With a glare Hazel pushed the book away from her face. "Do it yourself."

At last Lily sank down on the table in defeat. "It demands another person's assistance..." she mumbled.

Hazel was about to inquire over why she couldn't just ask someone else, but she was fairly certain that it would amount to another monologue about being blindly adored. Instead she did herself a favour and let the quiet be kept, which lasted for one peaceful minute.

A bubble of excess air inflated out of the surface of Hazel's brew. When it finally burst, her attention was sent back to the task at hand. She almost got through another full sentence of the recipe before Lily spoke again.

"So how come you're feeling so confident about tonight?" she asked, stretching out against the table she was resting against.

Hazel looked up from her potion, though never quite turning toward Lily. She replied simply, "Remus is coming with me, but none of the others, so I doubt I have all that much to worry about."

"Really?"

The apparent surprise Lily was exhibiting at the fact made her feel oddly self-conscious. "He hates the idea. But yeah."

She gave the ladle a slow swirl around the kettle without putting much stock in what she was doing, probably only making things worse yet unable to find it in herself to care at this point.

"You know why, right?"

A foamy coat materialised around the handle of the ladle, and she spread it around mindlessly, creating a marble effect across the surface of the liquid. It was quite beautiful, and she was for a moment captivated by it.

She thought of how Remus had treated her ever since the dawning of her involvement in the gang's plan. He'd been mildly better recently, but when it came down to it, he had no interest in her help. He almost seemed to blame her for the fact that his friends even wanted to do it in the first place. Like it was her fault that his friends had decided against him.

"Yeah." she relayed with an eye roll, feeling no need to elaborate.

No reply came, and it took Hazel a moment to realise that this was not the result of a natural dip in conversation. She looked over to find Lily beholding her with a level of scrutiny unmatched by few.

"No you don't." Lily finally proclaimed, to Hazel's confusion.

After some hesitation Hazel mustered up the courage to ask something that might lead her to answers she didn't really want. Despite knowing better, she went ahead, "Do you know something that I don't?"

"Most definitely." Lily declared with an air of nonchalance.

Hazel spent some time deliberating whether it was wise to encourage Lily when she was like this, and whether she really should keep prodding her with questions she so clearly was doing everything she could to inspire.

Before reaching a conclusion, Lily made a decision not to wait for an outsider to blow on her spark.

"I'll tell you..." She glanced discreetly at Remus. He was chopping herbs, assumingly for Peter rather than for his own potion, since the very boy was watching his every move with envy. Most notably, the pair were well out of hearing distance. It would be an unrighteous doom however, should such an unfortunate circumstance keep her from getting what she wanted, of that fact she was certain. "...but he's sitting right there. We need to go somewhere private."

Lily pointed. Before looking, Hazel knew that it was the supply cupboard she was directing her to, and not the one that they typically had any use for.

"Bring the ingredient list with you." Lily added sweetly, pointing out the book to her as she took the lead.

Hazel gave a big sigh, but screwed down her burner.

Once they had managed to cram themselves into the supply closet, Lily tugged the door closed to shield them from the rest of the class, but wasted little time in getting to the point.

"It's because Remus has a massive crush on you."

After revealing her cards, Lily turned to the shelves, unable to stop a smile from playing at her lips. "Read me the ingredients." she ordered.

Hazel had gone beet red. "Wait, what?!" she stuttered on her next sentence, "H-how do you know?"

A bottle nearly fell to the floor as Lily twisted the different ones around on the shelf to read on the labels. "We all know." she explained once having stabilised it. "He looks at you like you're a piece of chocolate."

The words floated inside her like fairy dust, but she couldn't let herself focus on them, she had to be more pragmatic than that (or at least appear it). "Did he tell you?"

"No." Lily said this with utmost certainty. "He hasn't said anything. He outrightly refuses to admit it in fact."

Hazel sank down against the wall then. She stared dully at Lily. "So you don't really know then, do you?"

Their eyes met. Lily opened her mouth to argue, and Hazel could feel it, but wouldn't let her.

"If he hasn't actually told you, then—"

"I know, I know, I know!" came Lily at once. "But Hazel..." She placed a hand on her shoulder, almost like an act of comfort. For what reason Hazel wasn't sure. "I do know. And he hates the idea of having to spend an evening with you. Alone especially."

Before Hazel had a chance to jump in and disagree, Lily went on, "And that is because he doesn't particularly want to have a crush on you. But I mean, it's not exactly something that can be helped, is it? So he freezes you out."

"Why doesn't he want to?" Hazel asked softly.

Lily hadn't accounted for that question, but she did her best to answer. "Because he's a boy. Boys find that stuff embarrassing." It was the simplest way to explain the mystery of Remus Lupin to a person who didn't as of yet know the boy on a deeper level, and who was not yet familiar with his enigmatic ways.

"Now read me the ingredients." she ordered again.

Hazel, dazed and confused, looked down at the page in a stupor. "It's too dark, I can't see what it says." she said in monotone.

Just then, the door opened, casting a welcome light on the page.

James, on the other side, pushed his lip out and looked between them searchingly.

Obviously perturbed by the intrusion, Lily firmly placed a phial back on a shelf and grabbed the door. "We're having a private conversation." she hissed, shutting the door again.

James went out of sight for the moment. So did the words on the page. "Now I can't see though." Hazel said lazily.

Lily's mind seemed to be doing some quick thinking. She peered back at the string of light emanating from the door crack. "You know what? Fine."

When she slid the door open again James was still standing there, as though expecting a second chance, or perhaps too befuddled to move. He smiled awkwardly at them.

Lily crossed her arms and leaned against the shelf to her left, making some of the bottles sway dangerously. But any such thing slipped her notice. She was eyeing the curly haired boy with conviction. "Hello James."

He stiffened under her gaze. "Hi?"

"Will you confirm that Remus has a crush on Hazel? She won't believe me."

James' eyes went wide. "What?" he stuttered, instinctively stepping closer to them while turning his head to look back at his mate, fortunately still safely out of hearing distance. When he turned back to them, his hand flew up to scratch the back of his neck.

Lily was still awaiting his response. Hazel was looking anywhere but at the two of them. But James was unable to answer. He was flabbergasted.

"Definitely not!" He at last ejected, though immediately after his eyes glazed over Hazel and he retracted. "Or, I mean, that I know of obviously." One moment later feeling once again unhappy with his response, he cringed and added, "He definitely hasn't said anything." the latter stance being the only one that came out with some conviction.

His response, though not exactly the straightforward confirmation desired, seemed to be just the thing to satisfy Lily. She looked at Hazel with a meaningful expression, confident she had proved her point.

"Of course he hasn't said anything — it's Remus." She explained this serenely, in an almost pedagogical manner. "But the question wasn't: has the bookish boy with a jumble of insecurities told his friends about his crush, but rather, would said bookish boy like to kiss said crush, if both parties expressed interest and the opportunity presented itself?"

She seemed to be laying all this out like a thought experiment for them to solve. But unfortunately the way she went about it only made Hazel want to turn into a ghost and sink into the wall.

James didn't answer at first. He glanced at Hazel curiously, then back at Lily, more nervously when faced with the latter.

The redhead trained her eyes on him for a moment. His confidence had been significantly rocked by being put in such a precarious situation all of the sudden, but he met her penetrating gaze with as much integrity as he could muster in that moment.

Hazel would have guessed that this was some intimidation tactic of hers — one last attempt to get the response she was after. But when James didn't cave, Lily seemed to lose some of her interest in the prospect of making him cave, and she beheld him with curiosity more than anything else. The silence between the three soon turned awkward.

"Can I go?" James eventually pleaded. As much as he liked her attention, this particular circumstance was not ideal for that particular wish to come true.

"Yes."

When James left, Lily let the door hang open. She swivelled around to examine the shelf of ingredients again, a small lopsided smile forming.

Hazel wanted to make a comment about it, but found that she didn't have the same courage to bring something so delicate to light. Ultimately she decided not to make her new acquaintance uncomfortable.

But Lily soon moved past it, and turned back to Hazel.

"I told you." she summarised, then tapped the open book impatiently and said for the third time, "Now read me the ingredients."

Hazel complied with her wishes and read out the names of the components they needed in a state of absence. She was not quite able to believe what Lily was so convinced of, but she was also just as unable to let it go.

[willowelijah]

Headdesking - Remus Lupin/OC

Read the rest

Summary: Follow Remus Lupin bury his head in various pillows as his friends tease him about a crush he’s developed on the girl they recruit to assist them in their mission to become animagi.

Content warnings: Swearing. Some angst.

Chapter 15: The Hufflepuff Common Room

Remus, for the first time ever, stepped into the Hufflepuff common room. He was met with a nutty waft, like that of roasted pecans.

He looked around, familiarising himself with the new location.

In spite of the glory of being in another common room but his own, nothing really stood out to him as different except for a sense of how crowded it was. Not so much with people, but by how all around its mustard coloured walls sat picture frames or dried flowers or some other decoration. The surfaces that weren't occupied by groups of students –either studying, conversing or otherwise engaged in another form of merriment– were taken up by firewood, cases with blankets and pillows in them, or shelves. The latter was fully equipped with board games and puzzles.

All the residual space on shelves and countertops had been lavished instead with decorative little knick-knacks.

James came in after him, tripping over a wicker basket of windfallen fruit. He regained his balance and, both puzzled by their new environment, they exchanged a sceptical eye.

A kettle was boiling somewhere, but Remus, for the life of him, could not spot it among the abundance of stuff. Sirius had entered now too, and was looking around the room, tugging rapidly at his collar to air his chest. He stopped in his motion when his eyes fell on something. By the almost fearful look on his face, Remus had to follow his gaze.

When his head turned to the fireplace, a circular hole in the wall, he could almost immediately guess what had caught his friend's eye. There, on the wall above the fire, hung a tapestry with the embroidered words "Own hearth is gold worth".

Sirius wrinkled his nose, uncomfortable with such unironic sentimentality. It teased a chuckle out of Remus, and Sirius swung an arm around him to pull him close, suddenly now with a large grin on his face.

"This lady better be worth it."

Remus was about to pretend not to have heard him, but Sirius spotted a girl he knew and greeted her ostentatiously from a distance, thereby letting him off an attempt at fakery.

Sirius then diverged toward the girl, leaving James and Peter behind.

"Come with me." he whispered. He usually preferred backup when he was chatting to a girl. Remus wasn't sure whether this stemmed from insecurity, or if it had perhaps proved to give him a higher success rate. Nevertheless he made a quick decision on which of the three stock-laughs he should use later on when Sirius made a joke in front of her, then complied with his friend's wishes. He couldn't really do anything but tag along, as he was still firmly in his friend's grasp.

James didn't seem to notice their departure, and he was exchanging a few pleasantries with the Hufflepuff quidditch captain while Peter hovered close to him.

Sirius strutted up to the girl. She was one of the quiet girls in their year, and true still, she was currently wearing a dreary expression, bored of having to listen to a friend of hers. The other girl was sitting next to her, animatedly relating a tale for her. But when Sirius approached her –with Remus at his side, doing his best not to show any signs of pain as his bruised ribs shifted with every step– the girl broke into a brilliant smile.

It wasn't Remus' wish to make a scene. These things just sort of happened when his friends were involved. This time however, against all odds, he was the one to cause one.

See, he was still not fully recovered from the injuries he'd suffered on the night of the full moon — and walking wasn't as easy as it was on the regular. So when Sirius manoeuvred himself into the tight alley between the couch and the coffee table, toward the side chair where the desired girl was located, Remus soon felt himself biting off more than he could chew in terms of locations where he could keep his balance in his physically fragile state.

The girl stood up to hug Sirius, but the seating group lacked sufficient space for the three of them, and Remus was soon pushed out of the equation. Couple the lack of space for his feet with being jabbed in the ribs by Sirius in the name of a salutary hug, and soon enough the boy was off his balance. He fell to his right onto a coffee table, fully set up with a tabletop game. A few of the students sitting around the table gasped while the little pieces went everywhere as he tried to steady himself. A groan escaped him as he stood up, clutching at his side. Through a face scrunched up in pain he apologised profusely, opening at least one eye to look at them as he addressed them.

Sirius was beholding him, along with the rest of the room, "Alright there, Moony?"

But before he could reply, he first needed to properly steady himself. When Sirius saw his friend still struggling, he reached out to help him, but it was too late, and just before grabbing his arm Remus was tripped up again, this time by a pair of feet, and he went down onto the couch to his left, into the other girl's lap.

When it came to his hands breaking his fall, he at least managed to place them as inoffensively as possible.

He sat up halfway until they were face to face. Uncomfortably so. The previously so vocal girl was now dead silent, and all she could do was stare deeply into his eyes, making him feel self conscious — even more so than what every other spectator of the scene did to him. In the time it took for him to get all his apologies out, the girl's cheeks had already transferred shades.

Sirius chuckled, then addressed her pityingly, "Think of it this way, there are some far less handsome men that could have fallen into your lap."

Remus was about to turn around and reprimand his friend, when his eyes focused just to the left of the girl in front of him and he spotted Hazel on the other side of the room, finally.

Hazel had had the pleasure of watching the chain of events unfold from the comforts of her chair, and even better, she managed to duck her head down into her book just as his eyes landed on her, hopefully avoiding having been caught watching him.

Momentarily distracted, he failed to reprimand Sirius, or to say anything at all.

He saw that she was settled in a quiet corner on a large armchair, a bookcase behind and a plate of scones on the table next to her. He would have pegged her a loner had another student not called out to her just then from a few metres away in a minor but good-natured exchange.

He wanted to make his way over to Hazel immediately, and pushed himself off the couch and the girl in it. With one last apologetic glance her way, he excused himself from the company.

What he was soon to find however, was that making it across the room directly was an impossible task. He instead had to take a winding path to get there, like zig-zagging down a particularly steep snow slope. On the floor lay people's bags or gadgets, temporarily discarded. When he manoeuvred around the room, he had to take very close care not to step on something.

With the book concealing her face, and one eye fixating just above the words in it, Hazel could see the boy approaching her. Behind him, the girl's friends had begun gathering around her, and she was currently looking after Remus as he went.

As he got closer, he cocked his head to the side and took in the book first. It was a huge clothbound book, emerald in colour. The corners had been adorned with tracery, which the shifting light from the fire made shine gold.

The sheer size of it made him wonder how she could even keep it upright for so long. He was now in front of her, and close enough to read the word "compilation" on the cover. He smiled discreetly. "I wouldn't peg you for the type to buy the entire works of an author, compressed into one sorry book."

There was an air of judgement in his tone, but the charmed smile spoke of something more, and she found herself not offended by it. She was more so flattered by the attentiveness taken to her reading habits, and she smiled too.

"It's space efficient."

His smile didn't subside as he lowered himself down onto the opposite armchair, his hands on either armrest, assisting him in his descent. He was giving off the aura of an old man, and she pressed her lips together to stifle her smile, then looked down at her book.

"It also makes for a dreadful reading experience." He stole a glance at her to catch her reaction, then quickly looked out across the room to divide his attention. A mental image of her had already cemented itself, and his eyes soon fell to the floor, the likeness still playing in his mind. A pink hue underneath her eyes — she was tired. Rosy cheeks and nose — she'd been out in the cold. Loose trousers tucked into her socks — like she wasn't around people she wanted to impress.

She addressed him again and his gaze fell on her once more. Yet before anything she said sank in, he was first overcome by her countenance, and added her dark eyelashes to the list of things to note about her, as well as her messy hair, strands of it poking out in all directions.

"I'll cut my losses if it means that I can fit more on my bookshelf." he then registered as her response, and scoffed in turn, albeit somewhat delayed.

She smiled warmly at him. She couldn't help herself.

He looked soft that night, she noted. The flames from the fireplace reflected on his face, forgiving his otherwise ghostly complexion. It cancelled out the purplish shade under his eyes. Somewhat less fortunate however, it did nothing to conceal his bloodshot eyes.

Other than that he was for once looking fresh, like just out of the shower, his hair still somewhat moist. His skin was somehow simultaneously glowing while also having two distinct scratch marks across it.

He wore a clean grey pullover. She imagined it was the sort of thing he might have received for christmas.

Hazel was torn from her analysis of the boy when three other boys arrived at their side. They greeted her and sat down in various positions around them. She lifted the plate of scones in an indicative manner and James eagerly grabbed one.

She was reminded of why she had called for a meeting. It was regarding the box that contained the now almost finished potions. She'd been anxiously worrying about the safety of it for the last few days, and found that she could not be satisfied with it being stored in their dorm room. It was far too precarious a place for her taste.

When questioned for the 100th time on why the box couldn't for simplicity's sake just remain in their dorm room, coupled with the usual comment from Peter: "We haven't turned on the light once." Hazel smacked her hand across her face in frustration.

Sirius was sitting cross legged on the floor, but when he reached up to grab a scone, Hazel tugged the plate away and trained her eyes on him in a final attempt to make her point sink in.

"We have no idea when the next lightning storm is. It could be months from now. Do you really suppose that the four of you will be able to maintain a serene enough environment for that long?"

The four boys looked between each other, like making their minds up about who should take the blame for cultivating such a perception, though not before long realising that they had none to blame but themselves individually.

Remus was only half-listening. A big headache was coming on, and he felt himself getting more and more placid. As a last resort he blinked heavily, took in a sharp breath and shifted around to keep himself from dozing off.

Sirius retracted his scone-grabbing hand with some uncertainty, and just when about to open his mouth to answer (at the risk of it not being in line with her agenda) Hazel did it for him, "No. You definitely won't. It needs to go to a place where it won't be disturbed."

"And where's that?" James asked reproachfully.

With her arms folded across her chest, Hazel replied, "I suggest the Come and Go Room."

Sirius snatched the scone at last before she could move the plate farther away from him. "What the hell is the Come and Go Room?"

Despite the evident hostility being directed at her, Hazel smiled. She knew that her plan was perfect. "Something for that map of yours — it's a hidden room used mostly for storing things."

Sirius exchanged a doubtful glance with James. When he turned back to Hazel, his expression was nothing short of superior. "I'm not labouring under the idea that the map is by any means complete — but please, I've mapped everything from the basement to Gryffindor Tower, and you're telling me that there's some illusive dump that you know of, one which I have by some miracle of Merlin managed to overlook?"

"Well, since this room is on the seventh floor, you evidently missed it."

Sirius had gone mute at this point, narrowing his eyes at her. He was chewing his scone animatedly, feeling less than pleased with his own shortcoming.

"It's not a room you just happen upon." she further explained. "You have to be standing in a specific location, then think of what intention you have, and the room will appear. But it's not just that..." She shut the book in her lap and leaned toward them. "The room is different every time. According to what I've heard, it changes based on your needs."

"And you've been there?" Peter asked, wide-eyed.

"Once."

"Hmm..." came James. His interest had peaked, and his eyes darted around as his plan formed. "If we're going to be able to move the potions there, we're going to have to be as stealthy as possible. Ideally at nighttime, when there's no risk of encountering loud first-years in the halls. It'll definitely have to be after curfew."

But the longer he spoke, the more disapproving Hazel's expression turned, eventually one could have guessed she'd taken something sour and imbibed it. "After curfew? Well then I'm not going — I'll get detention again!"

Sirius, without the courtesy of chewing up before he spoke, said, "And how are we to find the room without you? You're the only one who knows where it is."

"I guess I'll just have to point it out to you beforehand. It's not that hard."

"And risk us once again hiding it someplace that doesn't satisfy you." Peter lowered his arms, that had been raised mid sentence in an act of frustration.

Hazel didn't appreciate his tone, but his point made her stop and reconsider.

"Or... we could use the cloak." James said, not quite meeting his friends' eye.

A unifying breath was sucked in by Sirius and Peter. Watchfully they beheld James, wondering what his angle for revealing this bit of information to an outsider was; wondering if he intended to go on to reveal the full scope of it.

Hazel was silent. She was waiting for someone to explain to her what was special about this cloak and how come it warranted irregular breathing.

James faced her head on and continued, "It's an invisibility cloak. If we use it you will no longer have any reason to worry."

"Oh yes." She nodded vigorously.

He closed his eyes and lowered his head — knowing already that nothing coming out of her mouth next was to be taken as anything other than slitting sarcasm, as well as lamenting over the fact that he had been clumsy enough to put himself in this situation.

"Great news!" she went on, "I'm very pleased to know that you've been in possession of an invisibility cloak this whole time, meanwhile I was getting detention even though it could have easily been avoided!"

He opened his eyes and raised a hand in hopes to settle at least one of them. "Before you fly into the ceiling, know that it doesn't fit all of us together, so there really wasn't any point in bringing it with us any of those times."

She crossed her arms and stared at him lazily. "You didn't want me to know you had it, did you?"

"We genuinely can't fit under it!" James' eyes poked out as he spoke. When Hazel didn't look like she was about to retort, he calmed down significantly and continued, "...and that leads me onto my next point, which is that perhaps some of us should sit this one out."

"Happily." Hazel stated to a chorus of heavy sighs, causing her to go on more adamantly, "I'm not breaking any more rules. I'm sick of it. I've hung out with you lot long enough to know that you create trouble no matter what you're doing or where you are. I know something bad will happen. I just know it."

"Do you have to make this more difficult than it already is?" Sirius snapped.

"It's really not difficult."

"But a lot depends on us getting it right, and so far you have been integral to that."

"It'll be fine if we're invisible." James interjected. "You can take just me with you, so there won't be very much risk involved."

She looked James up and down. It almost amused her the way he put it. As though being with him was meant to be a comfort to her. As if he was the responsible one of them.

Sirius set down his scone. "You? And the rest of us will just sit by then, while the two of you explore the castle after curfew. How is that fair?"

"You can explore the castle any night of your life." James reminded him.

"And how fun is that when nothing's at stake?"

Hazel scoffed. "Is that the sort of talk that's supposed to convince me to go on another midnight excursion with the likes of you?"

"What about the likes of Remus then?" asked James with a sudden enthusiasm.

Remus had his chin in the palm of his hand, elbow resting on the armrest, his eyes resting along with it. When addressed a second time — more sternly at that, he finally seemed to realise that he was being spoken to, thus opening his eyes, like kicked awake.

Hazel took this moment to pry into Remus' behaviour, something she'd been curious about all night. "How come he's so tired? And why are his eyes all bloodshot?" Though not quite so daring as to air these inquiries to the whole group, and all of its members, she instead directed them at Peter in a murmur.

When Peter only stared at her however, unsure of what to say, another was apparently next of kin.

"He's hungover." Sirius said hurriedly, watching Hazel's reaction carefully to make sure that she'd bought it.

Her brows contorted, and Remus sprung to life, "Hold on, no I'm not!" he argued irritably while looking mostly at the girl, checking for any signs of damage to his reputation.

"What is it then?" Hazel asked, looking curiously at Remus, causing him some minor petrification at being addressed directly this time.

To his reputation's doom, he realised that he had to simply clench his teeth together, give Sirius one devilish glare, then respond dully, "Fine. I'm hungover." subsequently collapsing back into his chair.

What the boy in the chair missed however, was the worried way in which Hazel was now beholding him.

James rubbed his forehead vigorously before continuing with his point, "Remus is by far the most responsible of us. He wouldn't do anything to get you in trouble. He is the best option."

Remus' eyes went wide as it slowly dawned on him what was being proposed, and he almost didn't hear what the response was...

"That could work."

Once again slow on the uptake, Remus began shaking his head, "No, no, no, no, no..." before he fully realised what had been said, "no, no, no... wait what?"

They all turned their heads to Hazel.

She shrugged. "I'll do it if he comes with me."

"Wait what?" Remus stuttered. James tried to stifle a big grin.

"It has to be done, right? It has to be me, right? Well then I'd like my best chances." She pointed individually at James and Sirius, "Neither of these two is my best chance."

"You'll get in trouble. I'll be complicit." he went on, mostly to himself.

Sirius, as if completely oblivious to the complexities of the situation, "What about Peter?"

Peter shrunk slightly. Remus and Hazel instinctively found each other's eyes.

James then went so far as to slap Sirius on the wrist. "I'm sure that Remus is fully capable of taking her. He is, after all, the most responsible out of all of us." Focusing fully on Sirius, he finished, "I'm sure she'd feel the most comfortable with him."

A silence fell over the five of them. Lasting until Hazel had finally gone over one too many disaster scenarios in her head, thus feeling compelled to interject one final time, "Can't we go in the daytime?"

"It has to be dark, you said so yourself."

And so it was decided. Hazel and Remus had been enlisted to go on the midnight excursion. Secretly everyone was kind of content with the situation. Even Remus could see some positives, especially after a conversation that took place not long after, on the boys' journey back to their common room...

Remus had become quite objectionable as they were walking through the halls, and he seemed to have second thoughts about the whole ordeal, as well as being vocal about his disapproval of Sirius' ways of handling certain aspects of their interactions with Hazel.

"Quit complaining, it was the only excuse I could think of. Besides, she became pretty attentive to you after I said it. Overall — I call that a win."

Remus wanted to keep complaining, and he definitely didn't want to seem like he cared. But he couldn't help himself, he had to know.

"Attentive, how?"

His friend paused to consider. "She kept peering at you."

"Peering, how?"

Sirius pursed his lips. "Sort of sympathetically."

"There was most definitely some sympathy in those eyes." James added, smirking.

Remus pondered this new information for a few minutes, then suddenly, "We're borrowing your invisibility cloak."

James smiled contentedly. "Of course."

Sirius was then overcome with a spark of generosity. "You can have the map if you ask nicely."

Remus turned to him. "Fuck off."

[willowelijah]

Headdesking - Remus Lupin/OC

Read the rest

Summary: Follow Remus Lupin bury his head in various pillows as his friends tease him about a crush he’s developed on the girl they recruit to assist them in their mission to become animagi.

Content warnings: Swearing. Some angst.

Chapter 14: Detention

James was sitting atop his desk, catching and releasing the snitch repeatedly. He had a crease in between his two eyebrows from having to listen to Sirius' bickering.

Sirius, with a quill in his hand (for the moment languidly resting against his essay) was in a heated argument with none other than Hazel Pembroke.

Hazel had abandoned her quill entirely. She was leaning forward in her chair, toward Sirius, and gesturing ferociously as she made her point.

"You're way off! The fact that we're here right now easily proves it!"

Peter was leaning his head against his hand, his elbow propped up on the table. His eyes were darting lazily between the two of them.

And Remus, with his shoulders slacking, arms dangling at his sides, and his head pressed against the surface of his desk was trying desperately to not let himself intervene.

It was seven o'clock. They'd been locked up inside a classroom, doomed to do schoolwork for two hours.

Sirius shook his head resolutely. "We're here right now because you immediately caved!"

Hazel's eyes went wide with aggravation. "She saw us exiting the forest. We were in our coats. We were obviously already done for!"

Bickering was an everyday dish, usually served by Sirius on a sizzlingly hot plate. The recent development being that Hazel got involved in it. It had started by Remus' friends seeing her in a new light after she had lied her way out of revealing to McGonagall the real reason why they had been in the forest on the night of the full moon. His friends had suddenly gotten a lot more chummy with her, something which he was just finding out came with a short (yet significant) list of side effects.

He couldn't deny that it made him happy to see her bonding with his friends. Alas, he wished that it could manifest itself in a way that didn't have the detrimental effect of giving him a pounding headache.

"If you had let me handle it, I would have lied our way out of it. There's nothing I can't explain away in one way or another."

"Shut it!" Remus snapped. Everyone's heads turned. He pulled his head up and pointed one steely finger at the person he was addressing. "You got her into this, Sirius. This is your fault."

His argumentative friend was about to retort, but Remus couldn't let him just yet...

"The correct order of operations would be to simply apologise. Instead of trying to argue that it's her own fault for not..." an expression of distaste was made "...lying about it well enough."

"Hey, I'm the first to admit." Sirius glanced at Hazel to make sure that she was hearing. James had stopped fiddling with his snitch to pay attention to what his mate was about to say. Peter dragged his elbow across the desk to put his ear at optimal hearing distance. "My plans, when put into practice, can sometimes have some less desirable consequences. But since we achieved the desired results, which is what I'm choosing to focus on, I consider it a success, detention or no detention — I would encourage you to do the same."

His voice took on some more enthusiasm suddenly. "And can I shock you? Hazel thinks so too."

Remus and Hazel's eyes met briefly.

"You'd know that if you bothered to have a conversation with her ever." Sirius raised his eyebrows at Hazel, as if waiting for her to chime in.

She didn't.

"And does any of this mean that I don't enjoy partaking in some friendly discourse, or what was supposed to be a tête-à-tête, merely for recreational purposes? I mean, haven't I been quite vocal about the fact that I was mighty impressed with the whip-smart excuse Hazel had at the ready while the tide was rising? And at the stupefying presence of McGonagall at that." he finished with a brilliant grin, then winked at James, who was shaking his head, looking somewhat amused at his friend's ramblings.

But to Remus, the words had gone right through him like a ghost. "It's our fault that Hazel is here in detention with us right now. Like it or not."

He was about to headdesk again, when Hazel suddenly asked him, "How come you're not upset that you are in detention?"

"Me?" He looked at her behind two sleepy eyes and found that it was a much too convoluted disposition for him to explain to her right then. "I'm always in detention. It doesn't matter so much."

Hazel was left in a state of quandary. She didn't quite see why it was such a big deal to him. Sure, the fact that she had been penalised was definitely a point of stress in the days since the news dropped. But the peculiar thing about it was, her mind had been far more occupied casting her back to the time when Remus had held her hand, than it had been chastising her for getting in trouble.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2ABvpdqYBE&feature=emb_logo