Chapter Seven: Assumptions
After Dumbledore's voice faded, silence hung in the room. Elodie stared at the floor, grateful for Remus's hand at her shoulder, but afraid that he'd move if she stirred at all. She felt like she was on the verge of falling apart, and only the steady presence of Remus Lupin, the not-fictional, real person beside her kept her from dissolving away like the mist that had brought the news of her mother's death. He took in a breath, and she turned to look at him in a panic.
"Don't move, don't say anything," she whispered. "If we stay here, just like this, it's not real, yet." She knew how ridiculous it sounded, but there was a large portion of her life right now that could qualify as ridiculous. It wasn't so awful to exploit that in such a terrible time, she assured herself.
But Remus, whose very existence in the same physical world as Elodie was one of the most outrageous, was also the most perfect addition to it. He lifted his wand slowly and whispered a sequence of spells. Elodie felt herself enveloped in the (spelled warm and cozy, thanks to Remus) blanket she'd folded along the back of her bed. Beside her, a flowerpot poofed into existence, with a small, healthy looking Jade plant inside-her very favorite. Beside the plant, a visible swirl of magic like a miniature nebula swirled for nearly thirty seconds before finally coalescing into a bright spot of light. When the light faded, there was a bracelet there, with multiple charms attached to it.
As Elodie picked it up, Remus stood, but she didn't feel as bereft as she'd expected to. He seemed almost as surprised as she was to see the gifts that appeared beside her.
"Well that's unexpected," he said when she held up the bracelet. "I tried to create a copy of your favorite book!"
Elodie wondered what sort of power it would have taken to pull a copy of the book that formed the basis for this universe out of her own. The bracelet that formed instead was made of silver links with delicate charms that hung from them at regular intervals. She held it up and saw a lightning bolt, a moon, a paw print, a cat, and a book. Then, she saw the symbol for the Deathly Hallows, perfectly in proportion to the rest of the silver shapes. There were about four or five other charms, but Elodie let it fall into her palm and closed her fingers. She felt shaken and exposed.
Other readers of the Harry Potter series would instantly recognize the charms she'd seen already, in concert with each other-especially that last one. But would Lupin? Almost certainly not, Elodie decided. They were a little too generic for that. Had his been a wolf, and if there were a rat's tail left to discover, perhaps.
Remus was still standing beside the bed, looking like he was concentrating. She was sure he was trying to work out exactly what had happened. With the weight of her mother's illness and death looming in the 'Soon' category of Things Elodie Needs To Deal With, she chose instead to open her hand and look at the remaining charms.
A tiny cauldron hung next to a perfectly formed ball of yarn with a knitting needle stuck through it. Elodie hoped that meant she would meet Molly Weasley (or any of that family, really) someday soon. There was a pennant with an H on it (Hogwarts for sure, Elodie said to herself), an eyeball with what looked like a miniature belt around it (Mad-eye Moody!?), and finally, what looked like a badge.
"That's an Auror badge," Remus said. She looked up to see him hunched over, peering at the bracelet with great interest.
"There's a Hogwarts symbol, too, I think?" Elodie said, on impulse. She singled out the pennant and held it for him to see, the other charms conveniently clasped in her fingers out of sight. "If this is a stand-in for that history book I set on fire-"
"I doubt that!" Remus said, laughing. "But maybe something like a specific single book as a favorite is something that doesn't signify for you. Maybe my magic created a wearable compilation?"
Elodie felt a sense of relief that was so strong it felt tangible. She metaphorically pulled it, along with the blanket she was already wrapped in, up over her arms, burying her hands and the bracelet inside them deep in the folds.
"Well, there's a cauldron and a cat in there as well, and those are definitely applicable," she said without thinking. Her sense of what to avoid saying clicked in just a few seconds too late, but she could tell that Remus was still mulling over the mystery of its appearance, rather than the significance of each charm. Eager to keep him from thinking over what she'd just said, Elodie spoke again. "This was all very thoughtful, thank you. I'd almost forgotten why I needed it."
"I lost my mother when I was young, but my father… I lost him as an adult. I was an adult when he died, that is to say," Remus said, crossing back to his chair and sitting down on it. His adjusted comment wasn't lost on Elodie, but then, she knew that Remus Lupin's father had not been a kind man to his werewolf son. "-not the sort of thing you're ever prepared for," Remus was saying when she'd tuned back in.
"My father died-gosh, it was just last year," she said, shaking her head. "I don't think I'll ever be able to properly explain how odd it is to basically 'wake up' in what feels like fifteen years in the past. I loved him very much, so that made losing him painful in a way that I suppose is different, if you weren't on good terms."
Remus blinked at her for a minute, then gave a slow, rueful smile. "You're perceptive," he noted. "We weren't close. I felt guilty that I didn't feel worse about it, to be frank."
"I feel guilty, too. I missed my mother already, being so far away-but for me, I've gotten over her loss once already. It had been nine years, almost," Elodie said. "It's like being given just the most glorious gift, the kind a grieving person wants so much…" She trailed off, feeling the weight of her mother's loss breaking back out of the locked box she'd hidden it in just minutes ago. It was uncontainable, and she knew she'd soon be in tears. "Everyone wants to just miraculously wake up and find their loved one not gone. And I did. And then I took that gift for granted!"
"Being cursed is very different than turning time back, Elodie," Remus tried to say, but she interrupted him before he'd gotten to the second syllable of her name.
"You don't understand, Remus. I was torn," she confessed, her voice wavering between a whisper and just above one. "What kind of a person-what does that say about me? That I considered not going?"
"It says that you care deeply about whatever you chose to cast the penalty spell on," Remus told her, brushing his hair out of his eyes. "You're forgetting the dangerous parts entirely, you know," he admonished her.
Elodie scoffed. "She's my mother! It would only have been a few years' penalty." She meant to go on, but Remus didn't let her.
"Albus says you're meant to be twenty-one years old, you said you have memories of fifteen years past that," he broke in. "Overnight, fifteen years. Now you shake off 'a few more years' as though it's not your life. Do you not see why that would worry us?"
"She's my mother, Remus!" Elodie repeated. She waved a hand in the air as if brushing off his concern, standing up with her blanket cocoon, and starting to pace along one of the longer planks of wood in the hardwood floor. "And I'm not twenty-one. I don't even remember what it's like to be twenty-one. What I do remember is my mother's Muggle funeral. What it felt like, not to have a real goodbye."
"You act like you're arguing between two penalties, but you're not. If you'd done this, you'd have experienced both, and more besides," he said quietly. She looked over at him, and he held up one finger. "Firstly, you'd have activated your cursed spell. It's unpredictable, I gather, so there's no knowing exactly how badly you would be affected. Secondly," he held up another finger, "you'd be traveling a great distance just after experiencing not one, but two aging curses. Thirdly," Remus held up the count for her to see. "Thirdly, you'd be exposing yourself to Dragon Pox." He wordlessly added a fourth finger.
"Fourthly, I'd be putting myself within Francis's grasp again. All right," she acquiesced. "It's all bad. But I put myself in the position-"
Remus stood up, shaking his head. He wore a look full of righteous indignation, which on him meant a laser focus and the kind of moral displeasure one usually only found in one's own parents. "You put yourself in only one of those positions! The others were beyond your control, that's what I'm trying to tell you. Stop beating yourself up for the single one that was in your control-it didn't even come into play!"
Elodie crossed her arms, then uncrossed them when she realized that she always crossed her arms when she was unwilling to admit someone else was right.
"It's the choice itself that's the problem," she argued. Just because her body language had acceded his point didn't mean she couldn't argue against it. "I wasn't thinking, I would have really hurt her. I told myself I could have just found a way around it, and not gone into it, but that would have felt like-"
"Lying," Remus finished for her.
"Yeah."
"Don't," he said flatly. He was standing tall in her room, filling it with the strength of his personality. His authority and the way he wielded it was extremely attractive, but his attitude also had a great wealth of conviction, too. Don't, he said, as in don't lie to your loved ones. There he was, proof that holding back had disastrous, destructive effects on the people you held back from. If he'd known Sirius hadn't been the Secret Keeper, he could have fought for his friend, even if he'd lost. He would have known, really known, where the injustice lay. It wouldn't have festered in him, wouldn't have left him alone without the friends he'd thought he'd known.
"Is it always lying if you keep something-"
"Just… don't?" Remus said, this time framing it as a request. They held each other's gaze for a long, long moment, and every second of it, Elodie felt like she could feel the tether of friendship fraying under the weight of what she hadn't told him. "Are you going to be okay?" he asked, at length.
"There's a rolodex of platitudes I'm scrolling through to answer that, but honestly? I'm going to go to sleep. With any luck I'll wake up tomorrow, with however many hours or years it'll feel like I've gone through between me and what Albus told me." Elodie walked over and traced her fingers across a leaf of her new baby Jade plant. "I'll put this right where I can see it, first thing," she told Remus.
"And this," he said, pulling a full bar of chocolate from a pocket. He cast a spell on it that she assumed was meant to combat any melting due to body warmth, and handed it to her. "Half now, half in the morning," he said seriously.
"Yes, Dr. Lupin," Elodie said, flashing him a crooked smile. "Tomorrow, you should teach me that warming charm, too. I'm always afraid I'll set myself on fire in the middle of the night!"
"I will," he promised. Elodie waved awkwardly as he nodded a goodbye and left, shutting her door behind him.
I'm lying to him by omission. In multiple ways, even, Elodie thought to herself, miserably. I've lost my mom again, and I'm about to lose my new friend.
It was four days until he needed to take the first dose of Wolfsbane.
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Elodie woke to the sound of four tweeting, screeching, and meowing alarms. She lay still and listened, unsure whether to laugh hysterically, scream in frustration, or cry until she was dehydrated. Instead, she got up, silenced each alarm but one, then carried the tweeting thing down the stairs with her, toward the potion room. She didn't come across anyone on her journey.
It was only after she walked inside and saw Mellie's magical calendar, magically re-adjusted for the speed-up spell she and Horace had cast, that she realized she didn't have anything she needed to do with it today. It was then that she remembered waking in the middle of the night and frantically conjuring the alarms, certain that she would forget to stir the potion and thus completely negate the sacrifice she'd made not going to her sick mother. Elodie was never particularly good at thinking when she was really sleepy, but this was quite a doozy-she'd successfully cast spells, while at the same time forgetting that the very reason she'd cast them was negated by the penalty spell. Once she and Horace had been successful in casting it, the stirring phase had been completed. The second Wolfsbane wouldn't need stirring for a while yet.
Elodie left the potions the way she'd found them and snuck back up to her room using the staff staircase. When she got there, she had another realization, but this one was more mundane: conjured items could be de-conjured. Violently.
One by one, she obliterated each of her conjured alarms. It was incredibly satisfying.
Then, she laid back down on her bed sideways and piled her two pillows on her head. Within minutes, she'd fallen back to sleep.
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Remus wasn't at lunch, but she'd gone later than she usually did, and it wasn't like she owned him or anything, she told herself. What she did own, after a fashion, was their scheduled meet-up in the courtyard to read, every other day. It was almost that time, so she looked for one of her library books to bring down with her. Then, she remembered the agreement she'd made with herself about those courtyard reading appointments: that every other time, she needed to bring a book to teach herself something. And today's book was… less than inspiring.
"I should have looked for a book called Witches Who Hate Fashion Teach Proper Grooming or something," Elodie grumbled. It wasn't that the spells and advice in the book weren't helpful, it was that they were written by someone who loved hair, makeup, and fashion spells, for people who loved hair, makeup, and fashion spells. Which Elodie was not. So she had the dual difficulty of not understanding half of the terminology while at the same time finding the tone alternatively boring and over her head. She loved looking at people who were 'with it' when it came to fashion and looking good. She just didn't find the process of getting there anywhere as interesting as the author of Grooming For Gorgeous Girls did.
It didn't help that she'd just picked up the first book at the library that looked like it covered what she needed.
As she grabbed her book and started for the door, she caught a glimpse of the ridiculous cover, which had the word 'gorgeous' in huge font, with spirals of sparkles around it. Elodie was not interested in being seen reading it, but she still needed the information it contained. She also wasn't completely sure the library was close enough to her potion room to be within the 200ish yards she was held to. She frowned and looked at the blasted book for a minute until she remembered the way she'd spelled her borrowed history book as a joke.
"Pride and Prejudice it is!" she declared. The definitive film version was, in her eyes, the Colin Firth version, which came out in 1995, she remembered. That meant they were, holy shit, probably filming it somewhere right now. "Every time I have a tough morning from now on, I'm just going to pretend they're filming that lake scene," Elodie told herself. Then, she stood still and let a wave of grief crash over her. Her mother had loved that miniseries, and Elodie had often teased her that she was every bit as boisterous and annoying as Mrs. Bennet, even though that wasn't remotely true. Did a magical Laurel Merriman even know about that series? Given that Remus Lupin had more than a passing familiarity with certain Muggle pieces of media, it was possible. She really hoped so.
Elodie took a look at the altered book, moving it this way and that to be sure the illusion held. It did, and the inside remained the antithesis of the outer cover, in her opinion. Perfect. Given her own mother's lack of skills in the makeup department, it was a fitting tribute, she thought.
Two of the older residents were playing Wizard's Chess in the corner she could see from her room. The rest of the courtyard was empty except for Remus, who was sitting in a sunny spot across from the dining room. He'd chosen a section with two chairs fairly close together, but a little ways apart from any of the other seating arrangements. He looked up and smiled at her when she came over, but didn't say anything, and neither did she.
Elodie kneeled on the seat cushion and tucked her feet underneath her, opening her book to the section on cleansing hair without damaging it. After a minute, she set the book down and slipped her sandals off, setting them on the floor in front of her chair. She permitted herself a peek in Remus's direction, and saw that he was also reading. The book was thicker than she'd seen the other day, but she couldn't make out the title. As she watched him, his face broke out in a brilliant smile, and he chuckled, smoothing out the page in front of him.
Seeing him happy like that helped her own mood. He had suffered a lot at the end of the school year, and being that he was so private, she wondered if that weighed on him at all. She didn't really know him enough to be able to tell.
She turned back to her own book. The author was talking about two different complex cleansing spells that each had their own virtues, which the author simply assumed that her readers already knew about. Elodie grumbled about this under her breath. She turned the page, hoping that there would be a detailed description of the spells, but on that page, Ceciliana Chanel (That has to be an alias! she thought to herself, annoyed) had moved on to the six different ways-charms, spells, and one secret Muggle remedy!-that she personally used to get glitter out of her hair.
"Nothing else about simple dirt? How many times is the average witch going to have glitter in her hair?!" Elodie complained aloud. Then, she winced and looked up. Lupin had heard her, and was looking over, squinting at her lap, probably trying to make out the title of her book. Elodie smiled brightly, cramming the book beside her leg against the chair where he couldn't see it. When he smiled back at her and turned to his own book, she mentally wiped the sweat off her brow and cracked hers open again. Just this once, she'd decided studiously ignore the whole 'deliberately meeting to chat about our books' part of the reason she was out there sitting next to him in the first place.
Elodie flipped past the part about cleaning hair, looking for something about tidy, simple hairstyles. Preferably ones that kept the hair looking neat without it needing to be crammed up into a ponytail. This section was far more helpful, and she pulled out her notebook and started writing down the wand movements and charms she found the most interesting.
"Are you taking a class on classic Muggle literature?"
Remus had gotten up from his chair to see why she was acting so strangely, and in the process, he'd clearly seen her book's title and the fact that she was taking notes. Elodie snatched up her notebook and held it to her chest. So much for playing off the weird, Elodie! she told herself.
"No," she said, waiting for her usual talent of coming up with excuses to present her with a good explanation for her strange behavior. None was forthcoming. He came up behind her and rested a hand on the back of her chair. He rested his other hand beside the first, and with it came his own book.
"Differential Applications of Shield Charms," Elodie read aloud. She looked up at him with a quirked eyebrow. "That book looks truly hilarious."
"I was actually reading a letter," he said, having the grace to look ashamed. "It's a bit precious to me, I didn't want it to blow away."
"Shoot, I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have teased you. If it helps, I'm a complete fraud. I am trying to learn some hair taming spells and grabbed this book for giggling teenaged witches." Elodie said the spell-releasing charm and showed him the book. "I wanted to enjoy the weather but there was no way I was going to sit out here holding up that cover."
He came around and sat on the edge of his chair beside her again. "I can't say that I blame you. That sparkle is really something."
"Is there a reason you don't want to spellcast your letter? There are plenty of charms that won't damage the material properties," she suggested. As soon as she said it, she realized what his real reason was, most likely. A letter from Sirius Black wouldn't be something he wanted anyone else to see. Remus hadn't responded, and she rushed to tell him to forget her suggestion. He wasn't paying attention, though; he looked like he was re-reading through the letter itself, still held up inside the protective pages of his decoy book.
When he saw she was watching him, he stuck his finger in to hold the page, and shut the book. "I was just checking. My friend is a bit of a practical joker. It wouldn't be out of the question for him to spell the paper with something to cause trouble, so I generally keep from charming them, just in case."
"That's the best-for varying values of 'best,'-kind of friend," Elodie said, grinning at him.
Remus looked down at the letter and smiled, a little sadly. "Absolutely," he said. "I'm looking forward to getting more of these."
Elodie felt a pang of guilt. She knew far too much about his life than was proper, and thus often the things he said made her feel guilty because she knew exactly what he was alluding to.
"Well, as a new friend of yours, I will hope you do, too. Reading it made your face light up," she said, adding, "I apologize if that's too personal of me to notice."
"Actually, it means a great deal to hear that," Remus said, standing up and putting one of his hands in his pocket, his book and letter held up against his chest in a relaxed stance. "This friendship," he said, holding up the letter-encased book, "is a good one. One I am very grateful to have regained."
Even though she knew who it probably was, and thus why Remus would describe it that way, she still must have looked distressed, despite trying to hide it.
"Don't worry, Elodie, I wasn't done wrong," Remus said, a sad, wistful smile on his face that made her wish she could do something for him. He patted the book against his leg and shook his head. "Unfortunately, it was the other way around."
He walked away too fast for Elodie to really say anything, and his casual acceptance of how he saw his role in Sirius's incarceration was painful to watch. But, what could she say? The revelation of Peter as the true Secret Keeper was something Elodie herself had known about for years by now. Remus hadn't even known about it for a full moon cycle.
Speaking of a moon cycle, Elodie knew she now had just three days to tell him about the Wolfsbane that was being brewed for him, and she still had absolutely no idea how to do that without destroying their friendship entirely.
At least he'll have Sirius's letters, she told herself sadly before turning back to her glittery monstrosity of a book.
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Elodie didn't see Remus that evening at dinner, but she did see him at breakfast. He gave a little wave in greeting when she walked in the door, and she walked over to say hello, as the line for the pastry table was a bit long.
"That's a genuine Elodie morning smile," he told her as she came near.
"Oh dear," she said, frowning. "I fear what qualifies it as genuine! Wait. I didn't actually say that. Never mind."
"Well," he started, and she shook her head vigorously at him, waving him off with her hands. It didn't do any good. "Other morning Elodies seem to be grumpy, or at the very least, un-caffeinated, but this one-"
"I'm walking away, you're going to have to stop," she protested. She just did just that, but heard Remus still talking as she picked up a plate at the pastry buffet. Then she spied his favorite chocolate bread, clearly just brought out from the kitchen, and remembered he didn't have any on his plate. She grabbed a napkin and three slices, then covered them and populated her plate as normal.
When she came back to the table, the only other resident who'd been sitting at the table was gone, and she sat down beside Remus.
"Before you go back to elaborating your theory of Elodies," she said, holding up a hand. "Know that I have an offering for your silence."
"But I was just getting to the place where I was pointing out your socks matched, today," he said, looking disappointed and impish all at once.
In response, she slid one slice of chocolate bread out from its hiding place and took a huge bite.
Remus held a hand to his chest and leaned over close. "You monster," he whispered. It was a ruse. While she was laughing at him, he reached over with his big hand and grabbed the napkin and its hidden contents from her plate before she could stop him.
"Offering accepted," he said, around his own enormous bite.
"I'm considering it fair only because you didn't steal it with magic," Elodie told him. His wide grin in response made her heart skip several beats. Her pulse only settled down after another pair of residents sat at their table and engaged both Elodie and Remus in conversation, but the mild sense of danger related to her emotional reactions to him stayed in the background.
It was going to be the full moon week, and soon. She didn't really know as much about werewolves as she'd wanted to at this point, but she did know that there was a documented sense of emotional sensitivity related to hormonal scents and body language that she had to be prepared for. To a certain extent, it might be to her advantage-people were fools in love, after all. But to excuse her lying to him as a product of simply being attracted to him, that seemed like a ridiculous cop-out, and one someone as intelligent and perceptive as Lupin would figure out easily.
I am NOT falling in love with him, anyway, Elodie told herself. I'm just attracted to the qualities I liked when I called him my favorite character. It's just a translation error.
It wasn't, and she knew that deep down, but that lie just made her bigger lies more obvious, which left her feeling even worse.
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Escapism wasn't the answer, but it was an answer, so Elodie employed it, unhappily.
She cooped herself up in her room, practicing spells almost by rote, now, her mind a mess of excuses and recriminations. She missed dinner and spent almost an hour just sitting in the Wolfsbane room at dinner time, wishing she was in her room, wishing Remus was knocking on the door, asking where she was, or how she was doing. Instead, she sat and stared at the glowing anklet, its purple glow at its brightest and happiest when she was in the room with the potion it was tied to.
She forgot to cover it back up when she made her way back to her room after dark. As luck would have it, Remus was in the entryway speaking with another resident when she walked past, and she caught his concerned look as she started up the stairs. She was almost all the way up them by the time he'd extricated himself from his conversation.
"Hey," he said, uncharacteristically awkward.
"Hi." She didn't feel helpful, which felt terribly rude, which in turn made her cross.
"That's pretty powerful magic, but you already knew that," Remus said, nodding at her ankle. He leaned against the thick bannister and looked at her with a direct, but not unkind, expression.
"You're right," Elodie said. All at once she felt extremely, ridiculously tired. Tired enough to fuck up and tell him more than she wanted to. Instead, she fell back on her list-making habits. "It's related to the penalty spell," she said. (Item #1: distract with truth.) "It's a distance minder, basically. It'll be off in just over a week, don't worry." (Item #2: reassure.) "I'm still not going to tell you what it's related to, but I appreciate the concern." (Item #3: validate.) "Good night, Remus. Grief just makes me a bitch, sometimes. It's not personal." (Items #4 & #5: be self-deprecating, and be firm.)
"Good night, then. I'm hoping to see Albus tomorrow, maybe I'll see you then? Or at our book time, weather permitting." He nodded a respectful goodbye, then turned and walked back down the stairs.
Elodie sighed. She'd sent Albus an Owl asking, apologetically, if he'd tell Remus about the Wolfsbane. It was beyond hope that Dumbledore would do so without crediting Elodie, but she'd sent the message hoping that somehow that would be what the older wizard would suggest. After all, couldn't she just prepare the goblet it was to be drunk in, then leave it out beside the cauldron for him to find, every night?
In truth, though, Albus would probably not understand her reticence, and he probably had a point. For all that Albus Dumbledore was a major plot mover in his own story, though, he didn't know everything that had led up to what had happened on Halloween in 1981. He wouldn't have had to live as a werewolf all of those years since, feeling betrayed and hurt. He wouldn't have had to give up on any idea of getting Sirius Black out of prison, or of at the very least speaking with him in Azkaban to ask the all-important question of WHY? He wouldn't have had every single relationship since then feel completely dominated by his lycanthropy.
Remus had, and at some point in the next two days, he was going to revisit that last point.
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The next day dawned stormy, like her mood. Albus dropped by, and as Elodie had predicted, he didn't understand why she was concerned, and basically refused to tell her he would set anything up to obscure her hand in brewing the Wolfsbane.
So by midmorning, there she was, sitting in the brewing room, staring at Mellie's calendar and waiting for the other shoe to fall. She'd been proud of herself for successfully 'copying and pasting' the whole calendar to the second potion, but she hadn't realized all the bells and whistles that her counterpart had baked into the original. There was now a bright blue glow on tomorrow's space.
FIRST DAY! Must be drunk before moonrise every day this week!
This she already knew, of course. Seeing it there with the glow and the exclamation points reminded her that she'd succeeded in doing something truly noteworthy while at the same time avoiding something incredibly important. Elodie just hoped she had the strength of character to go through with everything she planned to say today.
The knock on her door came just as she expected it would, about an hour after Albus had left her room.
"I'll be right there," she called out. She wondered if it was Remus by himself or if Albus had accompanied him.
"Elodie?" Remus sounded very surprised. "I… I must have the wrong room. Sorry to disturb."
By the time she'd gotten to the door to open it, Remus wasn't in the hallway anymore. Elodie's heartbeat was racing as she leaned out of the doorway and looked quickly along both sides of the hall. It looked like Albus had basically tricked her into telling Remus herself by assumption, given how Remus had reacted to hearing her voice inside.
Around the corner, just out of sight, the door to the outside creaked loudly as it shut. It was very important to her plan that she speak to him now, before he had time to think about everything. She raced down the hallway and out the door into the pouring rain.
"Remus!" she called out, seeing him on the stone path ahead of her. He turned, and she rushed over to stand in front of him, the rain already dripping in various paths along her face, down her nose, and off her chin. It was time to tell him she was sorry for how she'd handled everything, but she didn't have the words.
For his part, Remus didn't say anything either. She watched the raindrops systematically soaking his shirt from its light blue to a darker one, the rivulets meeting and crossing until only tiny patches of dryness remained. Soon, they too were swallowed up by the steady, thick rain. Finally, she looked up at him. Like her, he made no effort to stop the rain from falling on his face, and they stood there, drenched, and waited for the other to speak.
"Who will break first?" Remus finally said, throwing his shoulders back to stretch them a bit before sliding his wet hands into his sodden trouser pockets.
"I think you just did," Elodie said with a sad smile. "But before you say anything else, will you shake my hand?" she asked. The sound of the rain hitting the roof of the building just beside them obscured how desperate she imagined her voice sounded.
"Why?" he asked, looking utterly confused.
"Because I want to say goodbye to my friend," Elodie said.
Confusion dropped from his face, replaced by something resembling anger. "Why on Earth would you need to do that?" He shook his head as if he wished he could shake free of the argument and the water.
"Because I've been lying to you," she told him. In a strange way, her heart ached with outrage against what she'd done, almost as strongly as her regret in having done it in the first place. "I lied by deflection, I've lied by omission-I have lied in so many ways that I can't count them all. But even worse, I planned to lie to you, before I ever met you." Elodie reached out her right hand toward him. "Friendships aren't build on lies, Remus, so shake my hand." She held her hand as steady as she could, as the chill of the rain was starting to sink in.
"Elodie, what? Look-I'll consider it, okay? But first," Remus came over and put an arm around her shoulder, walking the two of them back toward the door they'd exited. "Out of the rain. At least show me the potions room first? I don't want to damage anything."
She felt like he was humoring her, and she did feel rather melodramatic as they went back inside, leaving a rain-soaked trail of scattered drops on the hallway floor. He moved his arm from her shoulders to just a slight presence at her back, as though reassuring her he was still there as she unlocked the door. After they went in, he quickly cast a drying charm on himself, then offered to cast it on her. She shook her head; she felt she kind of needed to feel the damp, permeating wet, as a way to keep her focus.
Melodramatic or not, there was more going on for her than just distress about having lied. She felt like her heart was involved, now. Remus had commented to her less than a week ago that he felt less lonely with a friend to chat with, especially one who loved books. It had dawned on her then that just spending time with him could be putting her own favorite books in danger.
This situation, this was her chance to maintain the timeline. To pull herself out of ruining the way things should go. A lonely Remus Lupin would go to Order meetings, he'd meet Nymphadora Tonks, he'd fall in love with her despite his better judgment. She had to make that happen, because as much as she hated the way things went for him in some ways, she feared the unknown so very much more.
She also feared that she would fall in love with him so deeply that she wouldn't be able to bear to watch those events play out. She refused to let herself believe she'd already done exactly that.
Remus walked over and examined the Wolfsbane cauldron at a respectful distance. She saw his head turn to look at Mellie's calendar, and she explained the safety measure of appearing blank to strangers.
"Did Albus tell you to lie?" he said, still facing away from where she stood by the door, shivering.
"No," she said softly. "If he had, I'm sure he'd have had me brew it somewhere else."
Remus moved to the second table. She came up behind him, not knowing whether to explain anything she thought he might want to know, or wait until he asked her.
Suddenly Remus turned, gesturing to the two tables, and then at himself. "Well, you obviously didn't lie out of fear of werewolves!"
"No. Never," she said, shaking her head, shedding rainwater as she did so.
"Ellie, I'm not sure why you're trying to convince me to be angry at you." Her heart thrilled at his use of her favorite nickname, but she wouldn't make eye contact. "Your even being upset at all shows what a true friend you are-you're upset at yourself, right? For not telling me what you knew." He walked over to her and placed his hands on her shoulders, and she couldn't resist looking up at him. His agitation was persuasive, his words a ringing truth. "But I knew. And I didn't tell you. I'm the danger. I'm the one who should have been warning you. I'm the werewolf!"
I was foolish to think I could manipulate him, Elodie told herself. Out loud, she said, "You aren't a danger. And you won't be." She pointed to the cauldrons. "Albus told me a former student turned Professor would be needing Wolfsbane. The affection in his voice was clear. I trust Albus, and I knew he would have warned me if there was any danger."
"And you knew I'd just lost a job," he said, releasing her shoulders and taking her hands up to warm them in his.
"I couldn't imagine that introduction! 'Hello, I'm Elodie, and you're a werewolf. Would you like some tea?'" She shook her head, then stopped as the movement led to a great big drip to slide down beside her nose.
"Hold still," Remus ordered, and she didn't protest as he cast both a drying and a warming spell on her. "I can't speak for the effect on any grooming spells," he teased.
"Yeah, well. You know me!" she said, running her fingers through her dry, staticky hair and twisting it to rest on one shoulder.
"I do know you, actually," Remus said lightly. He pulled over the room's single chair, and she sat in it at his insistence. He then walked over and rested his back along the wall. "Which is why I was so thrown by your-how best to put it? 'Friendship self-destruct charm' isn't quite the phrase."
"Well, here's where I have more to confess. I've been doing some reading about Harry Potter, as I mentioned the day I met you. The wizarding community in America is pretty isolationist, and there was a lot I didn't know about the first war with You Know Who. There are a lot of books, but only one listed three names, as James Potter's possible choices for Secret Keeper. That the third name was the same name as Albus's friend who needed Wolfsbane, well. That told me everything I thought I needed to know." Elodie shook her head, holding back a sigh. The mistakes she'd made, those awful assumptions were so clearly a mistake that now that she couldn't believe she'd made them. "In retrospect, I was being cruel, but I just thought, here is a man who has every right to turn his back on anyone who lies to him. Especially after the year he's just had."
She got up and walked over to where Remus was standing and said, miserably but simply: "I'm sorry."
Elodie wasn't sure if Remus was going to say anything, but he did incline his head in acknowledgement. She put her left hand on the doorknob, but he reached out and stopped her with his right hand.
"Take it from me, Elodie, please: it's not better to lose your friends before they have a chance to really hurt you."
She nodded, feeling an ache in the back of her throat as she swallowed her urge to cry.
"So basically, today you found out your new friend has been lying to you since you met her, and then she tried to abandon the friendship when she realized you'd figured it out?" She clonked her head against the wall next to him. "Scraping the bottom of the barrel here, Lupin."
Her body leaning toward the wall had trapped his arm beneath her, as his hand was still holding hers steady on the doorknob. Now, he slid that arm up to curl around her waist and pull her in a hug against his side.
"That doesn't qualify as worst by a long shot, Merriman," he said, against the top of her head. When he let go, she was flushed, which she hoped was obscured by her hair against her face and the dim light of the room.
"Don't forget," Remus added. "I also found out my new friend has been brewing a difficult and dangerous potion for me for over a month, since before she met me. And she wasn't afraid of my being a werewolf, despite-"
"That last one is basic human decency, so I'm going to stop you there," Elodie said, pulling away gently before walking over to drag the chair back to its position against the far wall. "And it was less than a month. Okay, what time tomorrow do you want to come by for dose #1? I'm sure you're well aware of how awful it tastes, so might I suggest after dinner?"
Remus had a strange look on his face, like he was working out a math problem that didn't compute, but he nodded.
"Definitely after. Nothing will ruin my love for Winnifred's chocolate bread," he insisted.
"That's it, I'm going to have to find a really amazing recipe for chocolate-what do you call them here, biscuits, not cookies, right?" Elodie said. "Never tell a baker that your favorite baked item is by someone else. That is basically declaring war!"
"That's a war I'd be happy to be a casualty in," Remus told her. There wasn't anything her heart would allow her to do in response but smile.
