Biscuits & Surveillance
Remus shifts so he's sitting more comfortably against the hard bark of a pine. The coarseness of it digs inbetween his shoulder blades but he's having much too much fun to pay any attention to it.
"So let's hear about him then. This disastrous ex-boyfriend."
He's trying to keep the tone light and casual but he's quite keen to hear what sort of bloke she's interested in. Not that the information could be of any use to him.
She smiles and takes another biscuit from the diminishing pile between them.
"Well…he was in my year at Hogwarts. He wasn't anywhere near as bad as I make him out to be. We just grew apart after school because I was always so busy with training. He found someone else pretty soon after though, and they settled down very quickly. Too quickly. I hadn't moved on yet. I think that's when I got a bit bitter about it. But he was a nice enough when we were together."
Remus nods sagely, and agrees that his moving on so quickly was unforgivable, and that overall he sounds like a total prat. She laughs.
"And after him…well, no-one serious. There was one bloke, but…well. Things ended badly between us. He wanted…oh, nothing. You don't want to know." She's come to an awkward, halting stop. She looks at a loss as to how to move on, so he hurries to help her gloss over the moment.
"Of course, you don't have to tell me." She still looks uncomfortable, so he adds "But if you do, I'll give you the rest of the biscuits." This makes her laugh, and the tension lessens a little.
He hopes she understands that he respects her privacy, but that nothing she could say could make him think any less of her.
But she is shaking her head. "Buy me a drink, or two or three, and I'll probably tell you. I'm a cheap drunk. And anyway," she prods him with the toe of her boot "It's your turn to spill."
He sighs, thinking he probably should've seen this coming.
"Well…I think it's safe to say my love life's been pretty disastrous. Things certainly took a nose-dive when I was outed as a werewolf all over the front pages of the Daily Prophet. It had quite the sobering effect on any interested parties - past, present, and future."
He smiles at her ruefully, and resumes drawing random patterns on the ground with his wand.
"At least it solved one problem though, one I'd never quite got my head round: how to break it to someone you've been seeing that you're a werewolf. And, worst still, that you've been lying to them about it all along."
He doesn't look up, for fear of seeing judgement cloud her eyes.
"Oh." She pauses. "Perhaps you should get the last biscuit then." He looks up at her and they both laugh.
They sit in silence for a while, quite companionably.
Out of the blue, her voice breaks the silence. "He wanted me to morph for him. You know. In bed. And I liked him so much I told myself it was for both of us, that I wanted to do it for him."
She grimaces, avoiding his gaze, staring down at the forest floor.
"I came to my senses, eventually. I just feel so stupid now, looking back. He didn't give a toss about me."
For a moment he's so taken aback by what she's told him, he can't quite formulate a sentence. When he does, his tone and his choice of words surprise both of them in their intensity.
"What an utter scumbag." He takes a breath to steady himself, then smiles, trying to sound casual. "I shall ensure that he is the Order's next target, and go and break his legs personally."
She laughs at this and smiles at him very widely. She reaches over and breaks the last biscuit in two.
"There. I think we both deserve it."