Scarred
A/N: I don't even know what to say, except, it's been a while, eh? I don't want to make excuses, I really don't, because I hate it when other writers make excuses, but I feel as if I should anyway . . . I'm a senior this year. High School. Twelfth Grade. That means I'm going to be super busy. That means I'll only write when I have days off . . . which will be very, very rarely, so I'm extremely sorry. I really am. I hated leaving this story, and "Unregistered Animagi" where I left off, but I simply had no time, whatsoever. I've been writing the next chapters bit-by-bit, and finally, I finished this one. (sigh) Again, I'm so sorry. I don't even have time to reply to everyone this time.
So, on with the story, I guess.
Disclaimer: It belongs to J.K. Rowling and the readers' who already shaped Harry's world in their minds before it was put on film.
---
"Remmie, you're a pervert!" Sirius said, laughing.
"But you just said it's normal!" I protested.
James nudged me. "What exactly happened in your dream, Remus?"
I shook my head, trying to hide my blushing face from them. "I'm not telling," I mumbled.
James and Sirius exchanged identical grins, and I buried my head in my blanket. The day I'd tell them what happened was the day that Enna kissed me for real.
---
Three
"Come with me," Enna said, as I stepped out of the hospital wing later that day. I had just come out, and she was leaning against the wall, waiting for, as if she knew I'd been in there.
My first impulse was to say no. Last time I had gone with her, I'd gotten struck by lightning. However, I really couldn't say no to Enna. And it was Friday. I'd been excused from all of my classes, and I really didn't have anything else to do until James, Sirius, and Peter were released from Double Potions.
I sighed. "Where are we going?" I asked.
"There are a hundred and forty two staircases in this school," she said, matter-of-factly.
I blinked. "Have you counted?" I asked, wondering how she could possibly know that.
She just rolled her eyes, and didn't answer me. I didn't know whether that counted as a yes or a no. She led me to a familiar staircase that usually went up to the second floor where the library was located.
"Are we going to the library?" I asked, completely confused, now.
She shook her head. "No. This one goes somewhere different on Fridays."
"Why aren't you in class?" I asked her, the thought just now occurring to me.
She scowled. "Today is Friday, Remmie. I have Herbology on Fridays."
"So?" I replied. "Do you not like that class?"
She started up the staircase, and I had no choice, but to follow her. "I have Herbology with Slytherins," she said, looking down at me.
"Oh," I said. So she just skipped class whenever she had one with the Slytherins? But why? Was she afraid of them, or something? I looked up at her, but she had turned around and resumed climbing the stairs. Silently, I decided that there had to be more to it. Enna didn't seem the type to be afraid of anything.
I ran up the stairs, thanking Merlin that I didn't have on any school robes this time. Instead, I had on pants that were slightly too long, and a jumper. At the top, I stopped and looked around in awe. I had never been in this hallway before. And that staircase seemed like it had been a lot longer, than the two stories it usually was.
"Where are we?" I asked, in a hushed voice.
She didn't answer me, just beckoned for me to follow her down that hallway, up another flight of stairs, and then to a door. She pushed it open, slowly, and then disappeared inside. I followed her, after checking behind me to make sure no one had snuck out of class to follow me, or anything.
She closed the door as soon as I was inside, and I gasped, looking all around us. Three walls, and the ceiling, too, were made entirely of glass. Enna was standing to the side. She appeared to be observing my expression.
"What is this place?" I asked in awe.
"Astronomy Tower," she said, carelessly. "I come up here every Friday, around this time because I know there's no class."
I suddenly stopped breathing all at once. I had heard stories, loads of stories, of older couples sneaking up to the Astronomy Tower to snog at night, and sometimes in the middle of the day, too. Sirius had even bragged about being up here a few times. Is that why Enna had brought me up here? Did she want to . . . snog with me? My heart started pounding fiercely.
I watched her. She had sat down right in front of one of the walls, and was staring out at the sky. Hesitantly, in case she really did want to snog, I walked over and sat right next to her. She pretended not to notice. I scooted a bit closer. She didn't say a word. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. She was just staring at the sky with an expression on her face that I couldn't identify.
When she said my name, I jumped. I looked at her to find that she was looking back at me. My heartbeat started up again. "Y-Y-Yes?" I stammered.
"How did it feel . . . when the lightning went through you?" she asked in a soft voice.
I was surprised. "Um, it hurt a lot," I said. "Like . . . like every part of me was on fire."
She tilted her head to one side. "You were glowing, you know," she said. She reached behind me, and touched my back, gently. "It went inside you right around here." It tingled pleasantly where she touched me. "And it came out . . ." she moved her hand around to my front, and touched my chest. ". . . right here."
Images raced around in my head, dirty images. I shivered again and closed my eyes. Why was her hand still there? Why wasn't she moving it? I opened my eyes again, and froze. Her face was directly in front of mine. Her lips were mere inches away.
"Can I see it?" she asked, quietly.
My eyes widened. "S-See w-what?" I asked, starting to breathe a bit faster. She leaned back, and took her hand away from me. The spot felt cold all of a sudden.
She rolled her eyes. "The mark where the lightning went in. Duh," she said. "What did you think I wanted to see?"
I blushed. "N-Nothing," I stammered.
"So, can I see?" she asked, again.
I started to nod when I suddenly stopped. No. No, she most definitely could not. As much as I wanted her to, she couldn't. That lightning scar wasn't the only one that I had. I had millions, some of them fresh from being newly made the night before. I couldn't show her all of those. What if she asked questions? What if she discovered that I was a werewolf, somehow, and she didn't want to be around me, anymore?
"No," I said.
She stared at me. "What do you mean, 'no'? Why not?" she asked, curiously.
I couldn't think of an answer, so I just blushed again.
She smirked at me. "Oh, I get it," she said. "You're embarrassed." I stared at her. "That's right. Sometimes I forget you're still a little kid."
I was burning with humiliation. "Little kid?" I said, hotly. "I'm not a little kid!"
"Look at you! You're blushing!" she said, her voice going sugar sweet.
"I'm not!" I said, my cheeks flaming even as I said it.
"Don't be embarrassed, Remmie," she said, patting my long-sleeved arm. "You're like a little brother to me. Now, lift up your jumper so Big Sister can see."
What!? A little . . . brother? Big Sister? But – But . . . That was all wrong. Numbly I sat, completely unaware of what she was doing. I felt the tears climbing to the surface. Is that really how she thought of me? As a little brother? Well, I suppose I was a year younger than her, but it really wasn't that much of a difference. Maybe, it was too much of a difference for her, though.
I heard her gasp, and my face paled. She had lifted up the back of my jumper. She had seen . . . I twisted away from her, the tears already streaming down my face.
"I said I didn't want you to see!" I screamed. She was staring at me in shock . . . and . . . fear. NO! I didn't want to see that on her face!
I jumped up and ran out of the door. I found the super long staircase, and I didn't stop running until I reached Gryffindor Tower. I hurriedly gave the Fat Lady the password, "Hidden Treasure," and (classes must've been let out, because the tower was full of people) I raced up the boys' staircases to collapse on my bed, crying with everything I had.
"Remus? What's . . . what's the matter?" I heard Peter ask. He would be the only one in the room.
I didn't answer him. I just cried even harder, letting out weeks of pent-up sobs and frustration. Why did I like her the way I did? Why was she the only one who was able to make me feel this way? Why couldn't it have been some other girl . . . some girl in my own year that I was having all of these crazy dreams about?
I heard Peter leaving the room, and barely a minute after that, the door opened again. "Remus! What's the matter with you!?" Sirius exclaimed.
"Sirius!" James hissed. I heard him come over to me. My sobs had lessened some, but I was still crying. I felt like I had an unlimited supply of tears . . . an unlimited supply of pain. I felt a hand on my back. "Remus, buddy, what's wrong?" he asked, quietly.
For some reason, it had sounded better when Sirius said it. I started to cry loudly, again. "E-Enna," I managed to choke out, between sobs.
They were quiet. "What did she do?" Sirius asked after a moment.
I didn't want to tell them about the scar incident, so I didn't. "She-She called me her . . . her little br-brother," I said, feeling embarrassed. My head was buried in the pillow, and I knew that my voice probably sounded muffled to them.
They didn't say anything, so I knew they heard me. After a moment, or two, I lifted up and looked at them. They were giving me sympathetic looks. Sirius looked uncomfortable. "Well, it was bound to happen, right?" he said, trying to smile, but not quite making it. "After all, she's older than you, isn't she?"
"It's never happened to you," I sniffed. "And you date girls older than you all the time."
Sirius turned crimson. "Well, um . . ."
James grinned. "Remus, friendship lasts longer than relationships do, anyway," he said. "You should look at it in a good way. How long has Sirius's longest relationship lasted?"
"B-But it's different," I said, as Sirius scowled at James.
"How so?" James asked.
"I . . . I think I love her." As I said those words, and they stared at me in shock, I started to realize that they were true. I barely knew this girl, and every time I saw her, she caused me some kind of pain, but still . . .
I loved her.
---
I didn't see Enna the day after that, or the next, and I wasn't surprised. I didn't expect to see her. Enna appeared when she wanted to. When a whole month went by without me seeing her once, I started to accept that maybe she just didn't want to see me anymore. I didn't like it, but really, what could I do? If I ever saw her again, she would want an explanation, and I didn't think that was something I could give.
One Friday afternoon, I was sitting in Double Potions daydreaming about the weekend ahead. It was a Hogsmeade weekend. Vaguely, I wondered if Enna liked Hogsmeade. I silently chastised myself for thinking about her. And her too-big-lips, and her very, very small nose . . . She was probably in the Astronomy Tower right now, avoiding Herbology with the Slytherins . . .
I suddenly gasped aloud. She was in the Astronomy Tower!
"Mister Lupin, are you all right?" aging Professor Kipernickle asked me from the front of the room.
I turned red. I hadn't realized I'd be quite so loud. But . . . maybe if I played my cards right . . . "Professor, I-I actually feel a bit sick," I avoided my friends' questioning stares as I said this. They would immediately know I was lying.
"Would you like to go to the Hospital Wing, Mister Lupin?" the teacher asked, giving me a concerned look.
"We'll take him!" Sirius and James chorused.
"No!" I exclaimed. "I-I mean . . . I can go alone. It's alright."
"Well, by all means, go then. And take your things. Class won't last much longer," the professor said.
I gathered my things, stuffing them haphazardly into my bag. I had to hurry. What if she left before I got there? I walked out of the classroom swiftly, and as soon as I set foot in the hall, I took off at a run.
I went to the first floor, and sprinted over to the staircase that would normally take me to the library. Hitching my robes up, I took the stairs two at a time. By the time I got to the top, I was breathing very heavily.
I stopped to catch my breath and took in my surroundings. My heart started pounding. This was definitely the same corridor. I followed it, the same as before, and found the second staircase. I walked up, my feet feeling heavier with each step. What if she didn't want to see me? What if she had decided that she didn't like me anymore? What if . . . she had someone else in the tower? I swallowed, forcing myself to forget about that last one.
She wouldn't. She couldn't. Enna didn't like people, remember? I tried hard to convince myself, and all too soon I was at the Astronomy Tower door. I hesitated. What if she had calculated wrong, and there was a class inside, or something? I'd really look like an idiot then.
My heart was hammering in my chest. I lifted a shaky hand to the door, and pushed it open. Color splashed into my cheeks as I caught sight of her. She was laying face up, staring at the sky, through the glass ceiling.
"You're supposed to be in class," she said before I had a chance to even close the door. So she knew it was me, then.
"Hi, Enna," I said.
"I wondered how long it would take you," she said, going on as if I hadn't even spoken. "You took a long time. I was about to give up."
I was beginning to wonder if she was talking to me, or someone else that I couldn't see, when she turned and looked at me. I felt my breath catch. "Why did you take so long to come back?" she asked.
"I-I just remembered that you said . . . that you come up here every Friday," I admitted, suddenly realizing that she had let that slip intentionally. So she had wanted me to find her!
She shook her head. "You're an awfully slow one, aren't you?" A part of me felt insulted, but mostly, I didn't much care. "Come lay down," she said, patting a spot on the floor, next to where she was.
Slowly, I walked over there, and lay down next to her. Our shoulders were a fraction of an inch away from each other's. I wished my shoulders were broader, so that one of them would be touching hers.
For the longest time we lay there, not touching each other, just staring up at the sky.
---
"I should go," I said, sitting up. She sat up, too.
"Where?" she asked.
"To dinner," I said, as though it were obvious. "Are you coming?"
She shook her head. "No, Remmie. I don't eat around them."
"Who?" I asked, confusedly.
"The Slytherins," she said, impatiently. A tinge of red highlighted her cheeks.
For a long moment, I just stared at her. She was frowning, her tiny nose scrunched up, and her eyes on the approaching sunset. She looked beautiful. She turned to me as if she could sense my eyes on her.
"Remmie . . . can I see them?" she asked, staring into my eyes.
I blushed, knowing somehow that she was talking about my scars. I started to shake my head, no, but then . . . really, what was the worst that could happen? She could be disgusted, but she was the one who had asked to see them. It wasn't as if I begged her to look at them. Hesitating, I began to lift my shirt over my head. She didn't move, and as I gained more confidence, I pulled my shirt completely off, blushing the entire time.
At first, Enna just stared, a strange look crossing over her face. Her gaze traveled upwards until she locked her eyes on mine.
"You hurt yourself," she whispered, a look of pain in her eyes. I nodded, feeling ashamed of myself, even though I knew that it wasn't my fault.
She lowered her eyes back to my scars, and then reached a hand out. I watched, disbelievingly, as her hand inched forwards to my body. The moment she touched my chest, I sucked in a breath in surprise. Her hands were cool in contrast to my body temperature. I was burning up.
"Wh-What are you doing?" I managed to stammer.
She looked up at me again, that same look of pain in her eyes as before. Then she said simply, "I'm going to make the pain go away."
Enna then did something that I never would have expected from anyone. She leaned down and pressed her lips gently on one of my scars. I sat there frozen as she proceeded to kiss every visible scar on my chest. When she was done, she crawled around me, and began to kiss all of the scars on my back as well.
When she finished, she came back around to my front, looked me in the eyes, and smirked. "Did big sister make it feel all better?"
What I did next, I can't say I did with all my wits about me. My head was still spinning from the contact of her lips to my body. I was completely on fire, and I needed her to extinguish it.
So I leaned forward, and I kissed her softly on the lips.
---
I lay in bed that night staring up at the ceiling, and thinking. I hadn't said a word to the other guys all evening. In fact, I hadn't even eaten dinner, or anything. After I kissed Enna, I ran, not bothering to wait for her reaction, and I didn't stop until I had reached the dorm. This running thing was starting to become a habit, I noticed.
The other guys didn't bother me. They must have figured that I had another "fight" with her, or something. I sighed. I wish I hadn't run. I wanted to see the look on her face, but what if . . . what if she rejected me, or something?
I was her "little brother." I scowled. Didn't she understand? I didn't want to be her little brother. I wanted to be her . . . something else.
I turned over and buried my head in my pillow, trying to forget about her.
It didn't work.
---
I was quiet the next morning, and I must have been really bothering the other guys with my silence because all through breakfast, they were giving me concerned looks.
"Remus, is anything wrong?" James finally asked, as we all lined up to wait for the carriages with the invisible horses to take us to Hogsmeade.
It was supposed to be our "first" weekend as third years, but the four of us had been a few times before. Sirius had found this secret passage leading to Zonko's Joke Shop in our second week of being first years. Although, he never told us how he managed to come upon it, we figured he was probably up to no good.
I gave James a small smile. "Fine," I said.
"Do you not want to go?" Peter asked. I shook my head.
"Is it that time of the month?" Sirius whispered, trying to hide a grin.
I shook my head, somewhat amused. That whole "time of the month" thing was a long-standing joke between us. "I'm just . . . not sure if I want to go," I said, watching the carriages pull up in a line.
They all stared at me as if I were crazy. "But, Remmie!" Sirius whined. "This is our first time that we're actually allowed to go!"
"Shh, Sirius," James said, glancing around to see if anyone had heard us.
"But I've already seen it all before," I pointed out.
"Oh, come on, Remmie! It'll be fun!" Sirius said, tugging at my arm.
"No," I said, extracting my arm from his grasp. "I think I'll just stay here. I'll see you when you get back, okay?"
"Are you sure?" Sirius asked, looking disappointed.
I nodded. "I'm positive. You go. You'll have fun without me."
"We'll bring you loads of dungbombs," James promised, ruffling my hair.
"Bye, Remus!" Peter said, cheerfully. I waved at them all, and then headed back up towards the school. I sighed as I saw them off. How could even begin to enjoy myself, when my head was full of Enna?
Dejectedly, I turned slowly and walked back inside, then I began to walk with no real sense of direction. I stared at the ground as I walked. I knew I probably looked like the poster child for depression. I glanced up, and realized that my feet had taken me to that staircase.
I shook my head. "It wouldn't work, Remus," I told myself. "It only works on Fridays, remember?" Still, my feet insisted that I climb the staircase, so I did. I stopped at the landing, and was disappointed to find that I was indeed at the library.
'Well, as long as I'm here . . .' I thought. I straightened up and walked through the library doors, knowing that Madam Pince didn't like slouchers. If she saw me slouching, she would probably figure that I was up to no good.
I walked back to my favorite table and selected a random book. I just needed something to pass the time, and help me forget about her. About Enna.
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A/N: tell me what you think. I know, it's probably different from how I usually write, but I haven't done this in a while, so be honest . . . I promise I won't bite your head off. lol.
Ariana S.