A/N: Here's another chapter. I hope you guys enjoy it.
DISCLAIMER: I still don't own Harry Potter.
They hadn't spoken since that day. Which made the classes that they had together all the more difficult. She would walk into the room with her book clutched to her chest and her head down. Her pace would slow as she approached the desk that they shared and slowly she would sit down next to him. At first, Remus had taken this time to attempt to apologize to her. However, when he opened his mouth no words would come out. He was completely incapable of finding the right words to express how sorry he was. On one occasion, he was able to utter her name, and she didn't even look up at him. She just took her quill out and started writing notes. He had tried for days to talk to her, but after a while he just stopped. They would sit in class silent and avoid each other's sideways glances. Partner work was awkward. The communication was minimal. When their hands would touch, she would be the first to retract her hand. The tension between them couldn't be hidden nor did either one of them try to hide it.
"You're being ridiculous," Lily told Brianna one night.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"You and Remus," Lily clarified. "You are being utterly ridiculous. You won't tell me what he said. You won't tell me anything about it."
Brianna sat on the floor in front of the mirror in her wardrobe. Her delicate ivory fingers brushing against the pink scars on her cheek. They had started to fade nicely. However, that didn't change the days of ridicule that Kendall placed on her when the scars were red and fresh. Kendall would point and laugh. Or she would make jokes and snarky comments. Instinctively, she looked towards Remus, who would usually comfort her or at least try to, only to find that he had his head down reading or eating. However, after a two days the red faded to pink and the skin lowed, and she was able to cover it was concealer. Kendall's jokes stopped then and she went right back to ignoring Brianna as if she never existed.
"It's not important," Brianna said as she stood up and sat on her bed with her legs crossed.
"It is important. You haven't spoken to Remus in two weeks. You don't even try to cover it with a good morning and small talk, you two just don't speak," Lily informed, as if Brianna didn't already know that. "It's making things tense between all of us, Brianna. James and I are torn. He's best mates with Remus, but he's your friend too, and you're like the sister I never got, but Remus is my friend too. You not talking isn't just affecting the two of you. It's affecting all of us."
"Goodnight, Lily," Brianna said as she crawled under the sheets and turned her back to her friend.
They next morning when Lily awoke, Brianna was not in bed. When she went to breakfast, Brianna's seat remained empty. In the classes that they shared, her seat was vacant as well. Lily didn't think too much of it at first. It was possible that Brianna had gotten sick or something. However, when she went to the hospital wing, and Madam Pomfrey said that Brianna had not come in, she did begin to worry. She wasn't in the library. She wasn't in the chorus room. She wasn't out in the courtyard. She wasn't in the common room. She wasn't in the dormitory.
"Have you seen, Brianna?" Lily called to the boys as they lounged in the common room. She was standing at the top of the stairs that lead to the girl's dormitories looking down at them.
"Today?" Sirius asked.
"Yes, today?" Lily responded as she descended the staircase with her hands in her pockets. The boys were silent. "Have you?" Lily repeated again.
"I haven't," Sirius told Lily.
"Neither have I," James responded. "Why?"
Lily sighed, " I haven't seen her all day."
Remus sat silently in his position beside the fire. His quill had been rapidly moving across the parchment before him when Lily came down the stairs. However, after she started to speak, his quill stopped moving. He never looked up from the parchment, but he listened to each of them say that they hadn't seen her all day. It was then that he realized that he hadn't seen her at all that day either. Her seat in Xylomancy was empty. However, she had taken to sitting in the back of the classroom since they weren't speaking. Well at least for the last two days. Her seat in Arithmancy was also empty, she'd also taken to sitting in the back in that class as well. He hadn't seen her at lunch or during free period. He'd thought he'd seen her duck into a corridor as he passed by, but he wasn't sure, and he didn't go to explore it either.
"Remus," Lily called to him breaking him from his thoughts.
Remus dropped the quill into the jar of ink on the desk beside him as he looked over at Lily. Silently, he stood and placed the book and the parchment on the table. He sighed and pushed his hands into his pockets as he walked out of the common room. He could hear Lily calling him as he exited the common room, however he didn't turn back or respond to her. He hadn't seen Brianna that day. Or at least he wasn't sure if he had seen her. However, he figured that he might have an idea as to where she might be. He descended the staircase down past the sixth floor and down to the fifth floor. He walked across the landing that connected the clock tower to the main castle. The male leaned against the doorframe as Brianna's dark hair came into view. She was leaning against the railing that looked out over the grounds with the wind blowing through her dark hair.
"Why would you come here of all places?" he asked her from his position in the doorway. She looked over at him clearly startled, but she said nothing. Instead she pushed off the railing and walked off of the landing. The brunette brushed pass him as she walked out of the door, and started down the corridor. "Brianna," Remus called after her as he turned to follow her. He had never seen her move this quickly. By the time she was at the end of the landing and into the corridor, she was starting up the stairs. She walked with her fists balled up, he could see her knuckles turning white. She continued her trek up to the seventh floor. For a moment, he thought that she was going to the common room, however she stormed right by the fat lady and up another flight of stairs. The stairs that lead to the Astronomy Tower. After pausing at the base of the stairs, he followed her up. When he entered she was in the same position she had been in before.
"What can I do for you?" she asked without looking at him.
"Lily is looking for you," he informed her as he leaned against the railing in front of the window next to her. She slid away from him. "She worried about you."
"Then why isn't she here?" she questioned as she looked over the grounds.
"She looked for you," Remus told her.
"Not hard enough. I'm not hiding."
"The castle is rather extensive, Brianna."
"So how did you know where I was?" she looked over at him from the corner of her eye.
"I had a hunch, Brianna." He was quiet for a long moment and the only sound was the wind. "Are we still not speaking?" He questioned.
Brianna tuned so that her back was on the railing and looked over at him. "You called me dense."
Remus sighed heavily. "I know, and I'm sorry."
She paused again, "I know that you are, but for the wrong reason."
"Pardon?"
"You're sorry because I'm not talking to you," she told him.
"No, I'm sorry because I hurt your feelings. I didn't mean to call you dense, it just slipped out because sometimes it's so difficult to make you understand things. I was just trying to protect you from myself. I try so hard to not be a monster, Brianna. Of course, I've already told you that. Point is that it is hard to make you see things the way that I see them."
"Because I'm not a werewolf?"
He laughed. "No, that's not it. However, you being a werewolf would help this issue immensely. It's because you can find the good in almost anyone, Brianna. You've even found good in Kendall and she makes you life a living Hell. You found the good in me after I attacked you. You can see the good in everyone except yourself. It' s had to make you understand things that involve you because you can't find the good in yourself."
"Yes, I can," Brianna snapped.
"What's one good thing about yourself, Brianna?" Remus questioned. The brunette beside him was silent. "That's what I thought."
"You haven't said anything good about me," she told him as she folded her arms over her chest.
Remus almost laughed. In any other situation, with any other girl, that sentence would have been viewed as fishing for a compliment. However, with Brianna he knew that she wasn't doing that. She strived for perfection in every aspect of her life, and if she didn't reach perfect then she had failed. She could see nothing in herself but failure. "You are stunning in every aspect of life."
"That's a lie."
"It is to you, because you aren't perfect, Brianna. It's not a lie to me, because I see the you that you can't see."
Brianna was quiet for a long moment. "I have to be perfect," she told him quietly.
"Why?"
"Have you met Kendall?" Brianna questioned. "She's perfection, with the exception of her attitude."
He scoffed and looked over at her. "Kendall is not perfection."
"She's a Beauty Queen. They are perfection, therefore she is perfection," Brianna said logically.
"Kendall's eyes are a little too far apart for my liking," Remus told her lightly. "That's a flaw is it not?"
"That's only to you."
"Perfection changes from person to person."
"What's perfect to you?"
Remus looked at her carefully. Her dark hair blowing in the wind. Her brown eyes looking upward towards the ceiling. He could see the scars on her face that had faded over the weeks. Most people would never know that they were there. However, Remus would always know that they had been there and that he had scared her. He debated on answering her question. To him, she was perfect. She had a simplistic beauty about her. She wasn't the first person that most would notice in a room, but she was striking all the same. From her dark hair, that she said absorbed all water that touched it, to her toes, that she said looked like sausages, Remus thought her to be perfect. From her eyes, that she thought were too close together, to the curves of her torso, that she convinced herself was all fat, Remus thought that she was beautiful. However, those were confessions for another day. "Shall we go back to the common room?"
"Yeah, let's go," she answered as she ran her fingers through her dark hair.
"Wait," Remus called to her. "What happened that made you hide all day?"
"Lily said that us not talking was tearing her and James apart. You know with them both being friends with us and all," she told him honestly and without hesitation.
Remus nodded in understanding and followed her out of the Astronomy Tower. The walk to the common room was short and uneventful. Brianna didn't say anything to him, and he didn't say anything to her. They just feel into a comfortable silence. She muttered the password and stepped into the common room with Remus behind her.
"Bri," Lily exhaled as her friend walked into the common room.
"I'm tired, Lily," Brianna stated. "I'm gonna go to bed. Goodnight, boys." They all muttered their goodnights as she walked up the stairs and into the dormitory.
"Where was she?" Lily questioned, as Remus sat down in the position he had been in before he'd gone to find Brianna.
"Fifth floor," he told her. Remus paused and the sighed. "Lily, you might watch what you say to her. Things that might not hurt other peoples feels, hurt hers."
"What are you talking about?"
"She said that you said that us arguing was tear you and James apart. She's a none conformational being. She hates fighting, hell, she hates being around fights. She doesn't like to be the root of a problem so she disappears when she is. She thinks that it's better that way."
"Did she tell you that?" Lily questioned.
"Not all of it," he replied. "However, Brianna isn't really that difficult to figure out. It's not just you, we all need to be more careful about what we say to her."
Lily was quiet for a moment. This coming from the guy that called her a mistake and called her dense. This coming from the boy that could make Brianna feel so special, but then change it in a heartbeat. This coming from the werewolf that attacked her. Lily started to open her mouth and the thoughts come out. However, this was the guy that was able to locate Brianna and talk her back to coming to society. He was the one that was able to get her to talk. She supposed that it canceled it out.
"You're right," Lily said. "I'll watch what I say to her. We all will," she told him. She spoke for everyone, and she knew that they agreed with her. She knew that James and Sirius would do whatever it took to make sure that she was okay and healthy. "I'm going to head to bed."
