A/N: I feel like I should disclaim the next two chapters with a bit of a warning. PLEASE keep in mind that this is young love (aka the kind of stuff you all scoff at on facebook) and while it's not irrational to that extent, it is a little silly. And as always, reviews are appreciated!
Sally didn't see Remus when she went to breakfast the next day. She had slept in later than usual as Poppy and she had sat up for a while. They were speculating what the boys were doing out at night and why they were so set on keeping the girls inside. Nothing seemed to have happened the next day when Sally went to breakfast, which meant whatever it was, it wasn't a prank.
Remus wasn't at the Gryffindor table when she headed in. That worried Sally. Remus was always at breakfast by now. He usually came in after Sally did as he came down from the tower on the other side of the castle, but Sally came in a good twenty minutes later and he was never generally more than a couple minutes behind her. In his usual place were just Sirius and Peter. Sally slowed her walk to her own house table to debate if she wanted to ask where her boyfriend was, but then again, it was Sirius and Peter. Two of her least favorite people. If James had been there, she would have asked him as he'd started being nicer to her but these two were still quite standoffish. In the end, her curiosity got the better of her.
"Sirius?" asked Sally as she approached the two. Sirius looked up, raising an eyebrow at who had addressed him. Clearly, he didn't expect for him to talk to her as much as she didn't expect to talk to him.
"Have you seen Remus?" He gave her a strange sort of face and looked over at Peter. The two had some sort of silent exchange before Sirius looked back at her.
"He was tired, decided to sleep in," he said gruffly. "Be down sooner or later." Sally nodded and promptly walked away. She had gotten the information she needed, there was no need to prolong anyone's suffering.
She ate breakfast only half aware of what she was putting into her mouth. She had her eyes on the entrance to the Great Hall, waiting for Remus. She had decided in the time she spent laying in her bed, awake, that she'd talk to him about what would happen yesterday. The sooner it happened, the better, too. Poppy had spent too much time talking her down from assuming something bad was happening.
Poppy was a wonderful friend to Sally. She always talked her down from her hysterical thoughts (like something seriously bad had been going on last night, though now she was beginning to have them again) and made Sally feel like her hysteria was perfectly normal. She was always there when Sally needed someone. Poppy was lovely to spend time around and helpful and Sally wished she was half as good a friend to her as she was to Sally.
"You okay, Sally?" asked Poppy when she noticed Sally trying to consume a napkin. Sally looked at the napkin in some confusion and dropped it back down on the table.
"Remus isn't here," explained Sally, "He's usually here by now." Poppy sighed, patting Sally's arm.
"He's alright, I'm sure of it," she reassured. "He's probably just tired, is all. He was probably up late like we were, so he probably slept in!" Sally smiled slightly, looking over at the blonde.
"I know, I know, but you know me," she sighed. "I assume the worst of some things. Especially after what happened last night."
"Do you know what happened?" the blonde asked, "You did go over to Sirius on your way here." Sally shook her head.
"No, I just asked where he was," Sally told her.
"Well, don't worry about him, Sally. Remus isn't a child, I'm sure he can take care of himself."
Sally ate the rest of her breakfast (and not anything else on the table) and made small talk with the people around her at the Hufflepuff table. Every so often, she'd glance up at the Gryffindor table or the entrance, but there was no Remus. Once she was done, she said goodbye to Poppy (who was busying trying to flirt with Dirk Summerby) and decided to just head back to the common room.
On her way out of the Great Hall, she finally found Remus. In fact, she walked right into him. Her face bumped his chest and without seeing his face, she knew it was him. He had his own, distinct scent and as cheesy as it was, Sally could tell it was him just by the way he smelled. Sally took a step back, smiling at him but her face fell when she saw him.
Remus looked to be in an extreme amount of pain. Even her bumping into him seemed to make him hurt. His face was screwed up in pain and he was taking shallow breaths. He had a few cuts on his face and for some reason his scars seemed brighter than she had ever seen them. His hair was disheveled, and he just generally seemed undone.
"Remus, are you alright?" asked Sally in an almost overly concerned voice, chewing on her lip. Remus sighed heavily, rubbing his face and wincing again before looking down at Sally. A weary smile appeared on his face. He looked exhausted and older than he ever had before.
"I'm fine, Sally," he told her, "Don't worry about it." He looked over at the Gryffindor table and then back at her. "How about I grab some toast and then you and I go for a walk?" he suggested. She nodded, giving him a bright smile and he smiled a little more, something that made him seem more tired. He side-stepped around her to the table, grabbing a couple pieces of toast and giving his friends a nod before he was back to her.
"Where are we going?" asked Sally as he took her by the hand and led her out of the Great Hall. He was moving slowly, as if it hurt to walk too.
"Just…for a walk," he said nonchalantly, leading her up the marble staircase. He chewed on his toast, leading her down various corridors and looking over at Sally every so often. It wasn't until they reached a deserted corridor on the fourth floor that he seemed to even know where he was going. He led her into an empty classroom and closed the door behind him. Sally sat herself atop a desk and looked at him expectantly. He took his time finishing off his breakfast before he turned to face her.
"So, I feel like I need to apologize," explained Remus, sitting himself on the desk nearest hers so that their legs brushed up against each other. "For last night. I was being rather…" he trailed off, obviously looking for the right word.
"Standoffish?" supplied Sally, raising her eyebrows at him.
"Standoffish," repeated Remus, nodding a couple of times. "I'm sorry, Sally, I really am. It's just there was something going on that you really, really shouldn't be around." Sally made a face, running her hand through her hair.
"I'm not a child, Remus," she pointed out, "I'm more than capable of handling whatever it is you do with those friends of yours, you know." He shook his head.
"You really can't, Sally. It's…something I'm not so sure you can deal with, alright? I just don't want to have to worry about you dealing with that, either. I feel bad enough that my friends do," he said, giving her a look that was something between amusement and worry.
"And what is it that you think I can't deal with, Remus? If you can trust your friends with this secret of yours, it makes sense you can trust your girlfriend," snapped Sally, crossing her arms. "What do you seem to think you need to protect me from?" His smile faded and he shook his head.
"Sally, it's a secret," he said with a certain amount of urgency in his voice. "It's not something I think Sirius, Peter or James could handle, to be perfectly honest with you. It's a dangerous kind of thing, okay? I wouldn't have told them if I didn't think they deserved to know the truth."
"And I don't deserve to know the truth?" pressed Sally. He shook his head.
"It's not a big deal, okay? It's not something I think you'll ever have to concern yourself over because the four of us have it handled," he sighed, "I just don't want to have to worry about my girlfriend getting hurt. Why does that make me the bad guy?" Sally thought about it. To be honest, she wasn't sure she was entirely upset that he wouldn't let her come along yesterday, but now it was the fact he wouldn't tell her.
"Because you won't tell me what's going on, Remus," she sighed. "I don't particularly care that you don't let me in on anything you and your friends do. Not like you would let me in on whatever it is, anyway. To be honest, I don't want to know what you do ninety-nine percent of the time. The less I know the better off I am. But the fact you won't tell me this kind of upsets me. The fact you obviously don't trust me with whatever this is upsets me because it seems to be a big deal to you and I'm your girlfriend. What's a big deal to you is to me as well."
"Sally, it's not I don't trust you," he groaned. "It's the situation itself, I don't trust. It's unpredictable." He sighed, rubbing his jaw. "I just don't want you getting hurt. We have it handled, I promise you. Not the kind of big deal I'm ever going to want to dump on you."
"What's going to hurt me, Remus?" she asked, sliding off the desk.
"I can't tell you," he repeated, giving her a serious look. "Can we please just forget about all of this?" he asked, wincing as he shifted. Sally looked at him, frowning. The more he said he couldn't tell her, the angrier it made her. Surely, he could trust her. She was his girlfriend.
"Remus, you're hurt and I don't know why," stated Sally, "And you won't let me in on your secrets and you don't trust me to defend myself against whatever this happens to be and I don't like it. Not at all. I'm allowed to want to know what you do and I put enough faith in this relationship that I think I can be trusted with a secret or two, but you obviously don't think so because you've done this to me pretty much every time you do something with your friends!" She sighed heavily, taking a step away from him. "If you don't trust me with your secrets, I don't see how this is going to work." She paused, averting her eyes from the rapidly changing face of the male in front of her. It was hardly something she wanted to do, but the fact that he wouldn't trust her with whatever it was that was going on hurt. "Maybe we should just stop fooling around before things get any worse." With that, she crossed the room to the door and wrenched it open.
"Sally, wait!"
"No, I'm quite alright," replied Sally, not even turning back to look at him before she more or less ran for the Hufflepuff common room.
