Sev couldn't help it. He couldn't help but glance at his closest friend, noticing how her hair shined in the candlelit library. He couldn't help but notice the lavender perfume that got in the way when he was trying to bend over his cauldron in Potions class to see if their concoction smelled just right. He couldn't help the slow smile that would spread over his face as they sat at their usual table, sharing a couple of butterbeers in Hogsmeade. And he couldn't help the pang of jealousy he felt every time he saw her holding hands with Remus Lupin.
He knew it wasn't right. They'd been dating for ages now. They were happy. And he had no right to be jealous. But for some reason, he found himself irrationally angry, irrationally envious when she hugged him goodbye. Sev was on the receiving end of her hugs a lot too, but it was different. No matter how much he tried to bury the thought, he wanted to be the one whose hand she held, the one who she would kiss goodbye when they were studying on the grounds and she had to run to class. No. That's wrong. She's perfectly welcome to snog whoever she likes. Even if it is Lupin. Why do you feel like this at all? You don't like her, do you? Oh no...
"I'll see you later, okay?" Her words echoed in his ears as Hazel took off for Charms. Ugh, Charms with the Gryffindors. And that stupid boyfriend of hers. Sev sighed, trudging off to the library.
Remus dropped into the seat to her right just as Professor Flitwick walked in and warned them that their lesson would be a dangerous one. And dangerous it was. Gouging Spells claimed a couple of students for the Hospital Wing before the end of class. Luckily Hazel, Remus, and all of their friends made it out unscathed. "Do you want to study a bit before dinner?" Remus asked, catching her by the elbow as they were all set free to roam the halls.
"I promised Sev I'd meet him in the library. Why don't I find you after dinner?"
He would sometimes join her and Sev, but most of the time it felt wrong to him, being there with the boy he had almost killed. But lately he'd started to wonder if something was a bit... off. Hazel was always defending him, and was always willing to stand up to James and Sirius when they taunted him, but something about her and Sev felt like it had changed. At least in Remus' mind. The way Snape seemed to light up when she was around... but then again, he always did that. Still, she'd seemed to smile more than normal when she talked about him. But ultimately Remus shelved the thought. They spent a ton of time together. They were just good friends, that was all. "Sure. Gryffindor common room? Password hasn't changed, but you can just walk back from dinner with me if you'd like."
Hazel ended up going to find him after dinner, since she'd gotten caught up talking to Pandora and Xeno. When she got to the common room, she found Remus buried in a book. "He's not in a great mood," Peter warned, looking up from where he sat on the sofa. "Slughorn's essay's killing us all. He says he's behind, and we've only got a couple days until..."
She nodded, winding her way past where Sirius and James were flipping through their History of Magic textbooks in a panic. "C'mon, Evans, you've got to tell me what the hell the Great Goblin Rebellion was," James sighed, flipping to the index again. "I don't remember Binns mentioning it at all."
"That's because you never pay attention," Lily answered serenely, buried in her Divination book.
Marlene summoned her essay from where it was drying, telling them that, "It's pretty much all stuff I made up, but here, this might help."
Remus was buried in his Potions book, cross-referencing it with a copy of 1,000 Magical Herbs and Fungi he'd pulled from his trunk. "Remus?" she asked, coming to a stop behind his chair. He didn't answer, still absorbed in his Potions textbook. "Rem? Remmy?" She started to massage his shoulders and leaned in to whisper, "My wonderful, handsome wolf?"
"Hey," he smiled, turning to give her a kiss before summoning a chair so she could sit next to him. "Sorry, I... I have no clue what I'm doing. I've written about everything else, but there's nothing about ergot in here at all. I know it's in the Essence of Insanity. It's in the textbook," he pointed at the list of ingredients, "but what's it supposed to do?"
"I think your problem is that it's not a magical fungus per se," she said, flipping through his copy of 1,000 Magical Herbs and Fungi. "Yep, it's not in here. Either way - it's a kind of mold that grows on wheat and stuff. It causes hallucinations if you eat too much of it. In the Essence of Insanity, it's one of the ingredients that actually help induce insanity. That and the alihotsy, but you've already written about that, right?"
"I - yeah, thanks," Remus nodded, scribbling down a couple of notes. She probably learned that from Snape. "Do you know anything else about it?"
"It's also used to treat headaches - well, as part of the potion that does," she listed, waiting for him to catch up. "It's impervious to heat and water, so it holds up in potions really well."
I bet she got all of that from Snape too. "Thanks," he smiled, setting his quill down to hug her properly. "How do you know all of this stuff?"
"I study," she shrugged. "And I read. Probably too much." Looking around the common room, she took stock of everyone. James sat in an armchair and Sirius sat next to him on the floor surrounded by their History of Magic textbooks, rolls of parchment, quills, and precariously-balanced bottles of ink. Peter was on one of the sofas. Lily sat on another, still buried in Divination work. Marlene and Em were further away, working happily and chatting about their predictions for the next Quidditch game. A couple of second-years had just walked in, talking loudly until they reached their dorms. Judging it to be fairly safe, Hazel took his hand, leaning in to ask, "How do you feel, Rem?"
Remus frowned, looking out the window and up at the moon. "Two more days," he said, clearly-feigned excitement tinging his voice. "At least it's the weekend this time and I can sleep all day."
"I'm sorry."
"Why? It's probably the best full moon for a few months."
She leaned her head on his shoulder, both of them studying the view of the sky from Gryffindor Tower. "No, I mean I'm sorry you have to go through this at all. Oh! That reminds me..." She fished something from her bag, handing him a chocolate frog. "A very wise man once told me to 'eat, you'll feel better'. So here."
"Thanks," he smiled, handing her a piece of the frog as she laid her head back on his shoulder, paying no mind to the others, who had started to talk again. He flipped over the accompanying card in his hand. "Cool. Falco Aesalon. 'The first recorded example of an Animagus, he could transform himself into a falcon.' Nice. Would you ever want to be an Animagus?" he asked, gently rubbing her arm as they kept their eyes trained on the moon.
"Oh, er..." Hazel didn't know why she hadn't told him about all of the work she and Sev had done the previous year, about how they'd more than just studied Animagi. She'd just never told him. It had always been their secret - hers and Sev's - and it seemed wrong to tell anyone else, even him. "I don't know. I've never thought about it," she lied. "Maybe. Hey, do you need a lookout? This weekend?"
"Nah, we figured we'd just send Peter."
"Okay, well, let me know if there's anything I can do to help. Other than just being there in the morning."
"I can think of one thing." He turned to kiss her, pulling Hazel closer as James turned to ask them about goblin rebellions.
"Agh! Peter, look away," James laughed. "Guys, this is not suitable for children."
Hazel laughed, shaking her head. "I don't know what you're on about, we've been together for -"
"Not snogging in the common room!" Sirius joined in. "But good job, Moony, you deserve it. What've we got, two days? Three? Our boy needs some extra loving."
Hazel would've told him to lower his voice, but Marlene and Emmeline had gone to bed. Lily already knew, of course. She closed her book and went off to bed as Hazel sighed. "Leave him alone about it." She rolled her eyes, looking over to where Sirius was supposedly working. "What's that you've got there? Who are you spying on?"
"Nothing and no one," he shrugged, throwing his half-completed essay over what looked very much like a map.
"Hmm." She turned back to Remus, who gave her another kiss. "I'm going to get going and let you get some sleep. Like I said, let me know if you need anything, okay? I've got Quidditch practice most of Saturday, but if you want I'll come up here and take a nap with you or something when I'm all clean."
"I'd like that," he smiled, pulling her in for one last kiss.
James leaned back in his chair to get a better look at them. "Mine ears dost deceive me, or whatever Shakespeare said, but did someone just say -"
"Shut it."
"I hope you two know that the three of us know when you're up to no good," James said, watching as Remus looked towards the map that Sirius had buried under his work.
Hazel rolled her eyes, promising Remus that she'd see him in Transfiguration in the morning. As she left, she could hear the four boys talking, one of them quite distinctly saying, "Take out the map again, Pads. I bet she's going up to see bat boy before bed."
Sure enough, the four of them watched her footsteps head to Astronomy Tower, not Ravenclaw Tower.
Sev was busy practicing for Transfiguration, trying to turn an old cauldron into a cabbage. So far he'd managed to give it leaves, but most of it was still metallic, even if it had turned green. "Hi," Hazel smiled, sitting down beside him.
"Hey. How's Lupin?" There was an edge in his voice, an edge that wasn't always there when he was talking about Remus, but one that seemed to creep into their conversations more and more.
"Fine. Tired. Full moon's this weekend," she sighed as she took out her Transfiguration book to check how he was doing. Supposedly this was the last step before fully mastering the spell. "You're welcome to stay in our common room, if you want." It was an unspoken agreement between the two of them, ever since Sev had been nearly mauled to death. Every full moon she would offer. Sometimes he would end up sleeping on the sofa, Hazel in an armchair or crammed onto the sofa beside him. Sometimes he would stay in the dungeons, but she'd find an owl tapping at her window at 3 A.M., Sev scrawling her a note about the nightmare he'd just woken from.
He finally turned to look at her, willing himself to not want to reach out for her in the moonlight. "Thanks. That would be nice." He'd found himself accepting her invitation more and more often nowadays. Turning back to the half-cauldron-half-cabbage, he asked her a question of his own. "What do you see in him?" What do you see in him that you don't see in me?
"He's very sweet once you get to know him. We met in our first class of first year, and well, he's smart and he's kind and he's a genuinely good person." There was something in her voice, something that sounded like she was trying to convince herself of it.
"Even when he refuses to stop James and Sirius from bothering me? Reparifarge." The cabbage turned back into a cauldron again, good as new. Or almost, since he'd borrowed one of the spares from the Potions room.
Hazel frowned, telling him that, "He's afraid they'll turn on him if he tries too much. Rem's... Not a lot of people know what he is, because a lot of people are afraid werewolves will hurt them even when they're in human form. James and Sirius and Peter, they don't care. But Rem's afraid that if he does too much, he'll lose them too."
"He won't. Like you said, he's a good person. He won't lose people." Sev kept his eyes fixed on the cauldron, waving his wand and turning it into a cabbage, no metal and no feet left.
She would never be able to explain why she did it, but Hazel reached for his hand. Sev was nearly as surprised as she was. "You're a genuinely good person too, Sev. I'm not leaving you. Nice job on the cabbage, by the way." She gave him a smile, Sev giving her a half-hearted smile in return. "Mind if I try?"
The two of them sat up practicing the spell for a while, but neither of them was thinking about Transfiguration. In that moment, that brief moment of contact after trying to justify Remus hardly stepping in, Hazel realized that she'd spent an awful lot of time defending why she was nice to Sev and Remus had spent an awful lot of time complaining and questioning her about it. They weren't the same couple they had been even two months ago. She also realized that she felt a lot better here, in Astronomy Tower with Sev, than she had in the Gryffindor common room with Remus and James and Sirius and Peter. For his part, as he was watching her turn a cauldron into a cabbage and back again, Sev realized that he really did want to be the one holding her hand all of the time and kissing her goodnight.
It was almost a relief when, two weeks later, she burst into Astronomy Tower while he was in the middle of making a potion, tears dripping down her cheeks as she told him they'd broken up. She nearly collapsed into his arms, Sev holding onto her for ages. He didn't want her to be in pain, and he wasn't sitting there reveling in newfound possibility. He did, however, enjoy the smell of her lavender perfume a little more, and he did smile to himself as he walked back to the dungeons, buoyed by how right it felt to have her in his arms.