Wednesday, February 7, 1978
Peter stared down at the parchment as though the sheer force of his gaze could extract words from his brain. So far he had managed to produce exactly two (somewhat) coherent sentences. He reread them, hoping it would inspire him to write the rest of the essay, but instead he sighed and scratched them out, deciding they weren't so coherent after all. Mumbling under his breath, he returned to the textbook and began rereading the chapter, wishing someone had invented a spell to make essays write themselves.
"Are you having trouble with that, Peter?" He looked up, puzzled, and saw Lily watching him with mild amusement. "I don't think swearing at the book is going to help you write the essay."
"Well, I figured it wouldn't hurt to try." He grinned and added hopefully, "Have you done it yet?"
She nodded. "I'd offer to help, but I've got to go and brew another batch of blood-replenishing potion. Padfoot will help you, though."
Peter cast a dubious glance at Sirius. "I think he's busy."
"He's right, I am busy," Sirius said, lifting his head from Mary's lap. "Sorry, Pete."
"You're not busy, you arsehole." Mary finished pulling his hair into a braid and secured the end with a hair tie. "Anyway, your hair is done."
He reached up and explored the braid, then gave a nod of satisfaction.
"I'll see you later," Lily said, standing up and gathering her things.
"I don't recommend shagging in the potions workroom again," Sirius said, smirking at her. "Slughorn's bound to catch on eventually."
She blushed and hid her face in her hands. "He told you?"
"Evans, when are you going to realize that he tells me literally every time?" He laughed as the bits of her face not covered by her hands turned even redder. "Have fun!"
Once Lily had slunk out of the common room, Sirius got to his feet and stood beside Peter's chair to peer at his essay. When he saw the pitiful contents of the parchment he laughed and looked up at Peter.
"Wormtail, you don't even have an introduction. What've you been doing this whole time?"
Peter gazed down at his essay, which now contained his name, a title, and the scribbled out first sentences, and shrugged. "Fuck if I know."
Sirius sat down on the arm of his chair and reached for the textbook. "Bloody hell, how would you survive without us?" He flipped a few pages and handed the book back to Peter. "You have to reference this bit, so keep it open to this page. Get your quill ready, because I'm going to tell you what to write but I'm not repeating myself. We're not spending all night on this – we have things to do."
"What things?" Peter asked, but Sirius shook his head and jabbed a finger at the parchment.
"Write first, ask stupid questions later."
By the time Peter finished the essay, his hand was cramping and his sleeve was smudged with ink. He spread the essay out on the table to dry, then leaned his head back against the chair and sighed.
"Thanks, Padfoot. I think that's the fastest I've ever written an essay."
"I did one like that last year," Mary said, looking up from her magazine. "Black kept yelling at me to write faster. It was quite stressful, but I did get it done in record time."
"I'm such a good motivator," Sirius said, hopping up from the arm of Peter's chair and plopping down on the floor in front of the fire.
"That's one way to put it." Mary pushed a piece of hair out of her face and frowned. "Why are you undoing all of my hard work?"
Sirius finished pulling out the tight braid and shook his hair out, grinning. "It was too tight. I couldn't think properly."
"Right, because you need your brain working at 100% capacity for all this sitting around we're doing." She leaned forward in her chair and raised her eyebrows. "Unless you have big plans for us?"
"I was hoping to annoy Moony some more, but it looks like he's planning to spend all night in the library, so that's a letdown." He drummed his fingers against the side of his face as he thought. "We could throw Dungbombs off the Astronomy Tower if someone hadn't used all of them."
Peter looked at Mary in surprise. "Was that you, then? I assumed it was Kath and her friends or something. Filch was furious."
Mary shrugged and twisted a curl around her finger. "I still don't feel bad. It was great stress relief. I suggested we do it any time one of you boys is a shit, but then I realized I'd be going through way too many Dungbombs because Black is always a shit."
"I am a delight and you know it. An absolute bundle of joy." He stood up and leaned against the back of her chair, toying with her curls until she knocked his hand away.
"You're a bundle of something, all right. Peter, what do you think we should do tonight?"
Peter fiddled with his ink-stained sleeve and stared into the fire as he thought. There was always chess, but Sirius appeared to be too restless to finish a game. That meant Exploding Snap was out, too. If Sirius and Mary had decided to go up to the dormitory as they often did at this time, he probably would have wandered off to the kitchens to bake something…
"I have an idea," he blurted before he had time to wonder if they were about to laugh at him. "What if we bake something for Moony? To cheer him up?"
"Oh, I love it," Mary said, and the approval in her tone made Peter's shoulders slump in relief. "But are you sure it's advisable to let Black anywhere near an oven? The castle might end up burnt to the ground."
"Oh, rubbish." Sirius straightened and shoved his hands into his pockets. "Pete does it. How hard can it be?"
And before Peter had time to second guess himself, Sirius was shepherding all three of them out of the common room and into the corridor.
"It still sort of smells down here," Peter said, wrinkling his nose as they descended a staircase to the landing where Filch had spent hours scrubbing away the exploded Dungbombs. "You must have thrown a lot of them."
"We did." Mary eyed a large tapestry hanging from the wall, and a mischievous smile spread across her face. "I think it got into the fibers of that tapestry. Look, you can still see a few brown splotches. Oh well, I don't regret a thing."
When they stepped through into the spacious, gleaming kitchen, the house elves gathered around, beaming and trying to ply them with food. As soon as Peter gestured at the oven, however, they scurried away without a word, leaving them to use the space as they saw fit. Mary and Sirius looked on in wonder as Peter gathered ingredients and arranged them beside a large mixing bowl.
"You really know your way around this place, don't you?" Sirius asked as Peter opened a drawer and pulled out a set of measuring spoons. "I still don't understand how you found time to come here and bake sneaky biscuits without the rest of us catching on."
"Sneaky biscuits," Mary said, giggling. "What a phrase." She examined the ingredients Peter had laid out and looked at Peter with interest. "What are we making, by the way?"
"Chocolate biscuits," Peter said, bending to retrieve a measuring cup from a cupboard. "Unless you two have a different idea."
"No, that's perfect," Sirius said, pulling a spatula from a jar on the counter and using it to whack Mary's arm. "But can they be shaped like cardigans?"
"Knock it off, you idiot," Mary said, snatching the spatula from his hand. "He's going to ban you from the kitchen if you don't behave."
"He would never." Sirius reached over and pulled another spatula from the jar, then knocked it against Mary's like a sword. "Would you, Wormtail?"
Peter stepped out of the way just in time to avoid dropping a bag of flour as Mary lunged forward and slapped Sirius in the face with her spatula.
"No, but if you don't follow directions the biscuits won't turn out right, and Moony will be sad."
"Okay, okay, we'll stop," Mary said, laying her spatula down and glaring at Sirius until he did the same. "Just tell us what to do."
Peter instructed Mary to measure out the dry ingredients while Sirius greased several baking sheets.
"Shouldn't you be wearing some sort of funny apron, Pete?" Sirius asked as he finished the last baking sheet and wandered over to watch Mary measure flour and cocoa powder into a bowl.
"You told him about the apron?" Peter demanded, eyes wide with indignation.
Sirius burst into laughter. "What, there's an actual apron? I was just making it up. Why didn't you tell me about the apron, Macdonald? What sort of apron is it? Why did you see him in said apron, and was he wearing anything underneath it? I have so many questions."
"I'm ignoring all of that, because you're an idiot," Mary said, setting down her measuring cup and dusting her floury hands on her trousers. "Okay, what do we do next?"
"Now we mix up the wet ingredients," he began, "and then we'll–"
"Wet ingredients?" Sirius said, smirking and nudging Mary. "That sounds a bit suspicious."
Mary rolled her eyes, then grabbed her abandoned spatula and tapped it against his head. "Black, how old are you? He's going to kick us out of the kitchen."
"Don't hit me, Macdonald!"
He grabbed a tea towel hanging and whipped it at her, hitting the side of her thigh with a snap. She squealed and jumped backwards, knocking her elbow into the bag of flour. Peter watched in helpless disbelief as a coat of powdery white covered the floor and the leg of Mary's trousers.
"Oh, no, Black, look what you did!" Mary said, doubled over with laughter as she gestured at the floury mess.
"I didn't do that," Sirius protested, brushing a smudge of flour from her cheek. "You're the one who knocked over the flour like an arsehole."
"Only because you got me with that tea towel!" She rubbed her thigh, then scowled as her hands left behind splotchy white streaks of flour. "I think that's going to leave a mark."
"I don't believe you. You'd better show us just to be sure," Sirius said before dodging the spatula that she threw at him.
Peter chuckled to himself as he Vanished the spilled flour and retrieved the spatula from the floor. Any moment he expected the house elves to return and usher them out the door, but they apparently had more trust in the three Gryffindors than was wise, because they remained out of sight. Tossing the spatula into the sink, Peter cleared his throat until Sirius and Mary stopped fooling around and gave him their attention.
"Right, so like I said, now we need to mix together the wet ingredients, so you're going to stir the butter and sugar until it's nice and creamy–"
Mary giggled. "Creamy," she said when Peter and Sirius shot her confused looks.
"Macdonald!" Sirius said, aghast. "Wormtail is trying to teach us a useful skill, and all you can do is giggle at the word creamy? Is he a joke to you?"
"I'm sorry!" Mary said, repressing another giggle. "You started it – laughing at 'wet ingredients' like a bloody second year." She glanced at Peter and dissolved into helpless laughter. "Bloody hell, your face! You're never going to let us bake with you again, are you?"
"It depends if you can redeem yourselves." Peter pointed at the sugar and butter. "Just combine the sugar and butter, and try not to spill anything else if you can help it."
Under Peter's supervision they finished mixing the ingredients without mishap, then formed a ball of dough and set it aside to chill under a gradual cooling charm.
"Can't you just cool it all at once to save time?" Sirius asked, frowning as Peter sat down on the floor to wait.
"No, it makes the dough too crumbly," Peter said. "Trust me, I've learned the hard way."
"So what do you do while you wait?" Mary asked as she sat down beside him.
"Not much. Usually I just take the time to think, clear my head, you know."
It sounded silly to speak the words aloud, and he tensed, expecting to hear laughter or a mocking comment, but they both just nodded as though it was the most normal thing in the world. Peter exhaled breath he didn't realize he had been holding and grinned at Sirius and Mary. Somehow they had both become covered in flour, and Peter spotted the spatula poking out of Sirius's back pocket, just waiting for Mary to let her guard down so he could give her another slap.
"We can play a game while we wait." Sirius sat down beside Mary, stretching his legs out in front of him and pulling a flask from his pocket. "Good thing I brought this, just in case."
Mary laughed. "Just in case of what?"
Sirius shrugged and unscrewed the flask, taking a sip before passing it to Mary. "In case we need a flask."
His eyes scanned the room, alighting on the jar of kitchen utensils. He got to his feet and selected several items from the jar, handing some to Peter and Mary and keeping the rest for himself. "Okay, the game is 'spoon, whisk, spatula,'" he said, holding up each utensil in turn.
"I've never heard of this game," Mary said, eyebrows raised.
"Neither have I," Peter agreed.
"That's because I just made it up," Sirius said. "Now no more interruptions so I can explain the rules."
"That you just made up," Mary said.
"Yes. And quit interrupting or I'll dump that entire bag of flour on your head."
Peter grimaced but didn't say anything.
"Right, so two of us are going to stand back to back. Whoever isn't playing is going to count to five. We walk away from each other, then turn when they get to five and hold up either the spoon, whisk, or spatula. Spoon beats whisk, whisk beats spatula, spatula beats spoon. Whoever loses drinks and does the counting for the next round."
"This is the silliest game I've ever heard of," Mary said.
Peter laughed and stood up. "No it's not. Padfoot never told you about blind Quidditch?"
"No, but I don't think I want to know," she said, laughing. "Alright, Black, you want to go first?"
They stood back to back in the middle of the room, then strode away from each other as Peter counted them off. When he got to five they whirled around and raised the chosen utensil high in the air.
"Gotcha!" Mary crowed. "Spatula beats spoon. Kiss my arse, Black."
"I think I said spoon beats spatula," Sirius said, tapping his fingers against his chin. "Didn't I, Pete?"
"Nope, spoon beats whisk. Spatula beats spoon. Fair's fair, Padfoot."
Sirius shrugged and strode over to take a long pull from the flask. "Okay, now you two go."
They repeated the same steps, but this time when they turned to face each other they burst into laughter when they saw that they had both chosen whisks.
"What happens if we both choose the same thing, Black?"
Sirius hesitated. "Uh, put your weapons back behind your back and I'll count again. Whoever loses drinks double."
"You're making this up as you go along, aren't you?" Peter asked after his whisk beat Mary's spatula and she took a sip from the flask.
"Maybe," Sirius said, grinning. "It's fun, though, isn't it?"
They played several more rounds before Peter checked his watch and announced that the dough was ready. He pulled the ball of dough from its bowl, jerking it out of reach when Sirius tried to give it an exploratory poke, then sprinkled flour on the countertop and began to roll the dough into a thin, flat sheet. Sirius whispered something that made Mary giggle, but Peter ignored them, concentrating on the smooth, pliable dough as he drew his wand over it and formed a small piece into the shape of a jumper.
"Wow, nice work," Mary said, her eyes bright with admiration and alcohol.
"You should be able to replicate the shape now," Peter said, jabbing his wand at the air above the jumper-shaped dough and watching as the dough next to it took on the exact same shape.
"I think they're missing something," Mary said after a few minutes. She gazed down at the line of cardigan-shaped dough she and Sirius had just formed. "Can we do frosting, Peter?"
"If you like."
Mary beamed, then frowned at Sirius as he dragged his wand over a spare bit of dough to form it into a new shape. "What are you doing, Black?"
"I'm making you a special biscuit, Macdonald. It's meant to look like your favorite body part. Do you like it?"
Mary exchanged a look with Peter, and they both burst into laughter.
"It's lovely," Mary said, peering at the slightly misshapen piece of dough. "But why is it all wonky looking?"
Sirius scowled and flicked a bit of dough at her. "Shut up. I'm not as talented as Wormtail, alright?"
"Don't do that," Mary protested, picking up the abandoned tea towel and snapping it at him.
"Fucking hell, Macdonald, that got me good." Sirius's eyes widened as he rubbed his left buttock. "How'd you get so good at that?"
"I learned it my first day in the kitchen at the cafe last summer," Mary said, looking pleased with herself. "You know how you get it to really snap? Just fucking guess, Black, it's your favorite thing. It's all in the—"
"—wrist movement!" Sirius finished, snorting with laughter. "Told you wrist movement is important."
He picked another bit of dough from the counter and aimed it at her face. Peter slid the first tray of biscuits into the oven, musing that if they made it out of this kitchen without some major baking catastrophe, it would be a bloody miracle.
"Do you think Moony and Seven will be okay?" Peter asked when they had all stretched out on the floor to wait for the biscuits to bake. The scent of biscuits and the warmth from the oven began to fill the room as Peter accepted the flask from Sirius and let the firewhisky warm him from the inside out.
"They'll be okay," Mary said as she brushed flour from Sirius's hair. "Don't you think, Black? If we can make it as a couple, anyone can."
Sirius turned sideways to scowl at her. "Don't call us a couple, Macdonald, it sounds so wholesome." After a moment a reluctant smile tugged at his lips and he added, "They'll probably be okay."
Peter could tell he was pleased despite his best efforts to pretend otherwise, and it was comforting somehow.
Mary and Sirius returned to the common room with frosting smeared across their faces and sticky on their fingers, after Peter had carefully cleaned the spilled flour and chocolatey fingerprints from the counters. It was worth all the extra scrubbing when he saw Remus's face light up.
"These are perfect!" he said, holding up a jumper-shaped biscuit with frosting buttons and elbow patches.
"The frosting was my idea," Mary said, beaming. "But you can tell which ones Peter did and which ones were me and Black."
Peter looked down at the biscuits and grinned. His own precise work stood out beside Mary's lopsided buttons and Sirius's elbow patches that took up the entire arm, but it didn't matter. They had succeeded in cheering Remus up, and it had been Peter's idea. He bit into a biscuit, savoring the sweetness of the frosting and the heat of the fire and the satisfaction of an evening well spent, then began setting up his pieces to play a game of chess.
Thursday, February 8, 1978
It was close to one in the morning when Remus slipped out of bed and descended the stairs to the common room. The wind howled and rattled the windows outside, but the common room was warm and cozy as he settled into a chair by the fire. He opened his book and tucked a blanket around himself, then let the familiar story and the soft crackling of the fire drive away the lingering fear he had been fighting for the past hour.
His eyelids had begun to droop when he heard footsteps and looked up to see Seven standing across from him. She wore pajama bottoms and one of his old jumpers, and she looked apprehensive as she gestured at one of the empty armchairs.
"Do you mind if I sit down?"
He shook his head, afraid to speak. Of course he didn't mind, and in fact he would love to make room for her in his chair, but he had no right to suggest that after he had ignored her all week. Instead, he watched her curl up in the chair across from him, then offered her his blanket and one of the cardigan biscuits as a peace offering. She smiled as she wrapped the blanket around herself, and her fingers grazed his when she took the biscuit. After days of distance, the touch was a shock to Remus's senses.
"What, you're just carrying around biscuits with you now?"
She took a bite and brushed crumbs from her lips.
"Peter, Sirius, and Mary made them. It felt like an appropriate midnight snack. I, er, haven't eaten much lately."
He didn't know what had made him say it. She already thought he was feeling sorry for himself — she had made that clear during their last conversation. Yet here he was volunteering information that he had been actively hiding from his friends. There was something about the kindness in her eyes, the determination in the set of her mouth, the bare skin revealed as the jumper slid off one shoulder, that drew him out.
"I know," she said, and without asking he knew she was referring to everything he had said, as well as what he had left unsaid.. The acceptance and understanding in those two words left him unable to speak, so he ate a biscuit to buy himself some time. They sat in silence, munching their biscuits and listening to the wind until Remus swallowed his last bite and summoned his courage.
"Aren't you going to tell me off for not talking to you?"
She shook crumbs from her lap and retracted her hands back under the blanket. "I think I told you off enough on Sunday, don't you?"
Her words still stung, but they hurt worse because he knew they were true. I'm tired of being a substitute for your self-esteem. The helpless frustration on her face nagged at him. He couldn't blame her. Why shouldn't she be tired of it? It was a thankless task, reassuring him that he was worthy of love, and most of the time he didn't know why any of them bothered.
"Lily doesn't seem to think so," he said with a wry smile. "She hasn't let up since she found out about the fight. She practically stalked me and James during our prefect patrol on Tuesday night. I half expected to wake up in the middle of the night to find her standing over me, preparing to lecture me even while I'm sleeping."
Seven met his gaze and slouched deeper into the chair. "Is that why you came down here tonight?"
Remus bit his lip and shook his head. He had woken with a scream forming on his lips after seeing James's mangled body slumped on the ground, bright red blood blooming against the snow. Seven was far too perceptive not to suspect his nightmares were bothering him again, even if she didn't know the particular cause this time. Forcing the frightening images from his head, he took a deep breath and pulled his blanket tighter around himself.
"No. Just couldn't sleep."
She nodded, her dark eyes taking in his pallor and the defeated slump in his shoulders, but she didn't comment.
"If you still don't want to talk to me, I understand. I'll just sit here without bothering you, except maybe to ask for another biscuit if you've got one."
He handed over a biscuit, desperate to remind himself why he had been avoiding her in the first place, but even before their hands bumped again he knew he would give in.
"I want to talk to you, if you still want to talk to me."
A brilliant smile lit her face, although he could see her fighting to contain it.
"You don't have to tell me everything. Just give me something. I just want to know what you're going though so I can help."
Her tone was desperate, pleading, and he had to stop himself from throwing the blanket off his lap and closing the distance between them to pull her into his arms.
"What do you want to know?" The open question filled him with dread, yet she had a right to ask whatever she wanted. He owed her at least some shred of information for all the times she'd read to him and stroked his hair and traced his scars with loving, gentle fingers.
She hesitated, and the growing silence weighed on him until he picked at his cuticle to relieve the tension.
"What happened with your Patronus?" she asked. Her voice was calm and unassuming, yet he still felt a sick sense of shame and fury invade his mind when he thought about that silvery wolf.
"It… it takes a form I don't feel comfortable showing to people," he said finally. Even this vague confession relieved some of the weight that had dragged at him for the past week.
"I'm hardly people," she said with a slight roll of her eyes. "You can show me and I won't think any less of you, no matter what it is."
He sighed, shifting in his seat to pull his wand from his pocket. The common room fell away as he squeezed his eyes shut, focusing on his happy memory as he spoke the incantation. He heard a sharp intake of breath, and opened his eyes to see Seven, eyes wide with delight, watching his wolf Patronus lope around the room.
"It's just a regular wolf," she said as it faded into the air after returning to Remus. "It's lovely, Remus. And perfect for you, really, all long limbs and soft hair. You don't need to be ashamed."
"Seven." The affection in her voice caressed him like the summer sun, but he couldn't agree with her, not when doing so would put him in such a vulnerable spot. Just the thought gave him a dull sense of panic, and he attacked his cuticle again with a renewed fervor that sent a stab of pain through his body. "I can't let people see that. It gives too much away."
She stood up, sending the blanket sliding to the floor in a heap of red and gold fleece, and skirted the coffee table to stand beside his chair. He held his breath as she laced her fingers through his, stopping him before he could do any more damage to the skin around his thumb nail. A tiny smear of blood marred the smooth skin of her thumb, but she seemed not to notice.
"I don't think it gives anything away," she murmured. "But if you want it to be a secret, then I won't tell anyone.
She was so close that he could smell her shampoo and make out the faint scar on her chin. He longed to pull her down onto his lap, to kiss her and put the distance behind them, but first he owed her more. It felt wrong to let himself off so easy when sharing more might make her realize the sort of person he really was. She deserved to know the truth.
""There's more that you don't know," he began, faltering as he struggled to describe what he had done to James without giving too much away.
"I know about James's accident," she said, her voice so soft that he had to strain to hear.
"You do?" His initial shock turned to anger and betrayal as his mind whirled. "He told you?"
"Only because I walked into the locker room the day after it happened and saw him with his trousers off," she said with a wry smile. "He didn't tell me much, but I got the gist of it."
"Fuck." He put his head in his hands and pictured the deep scars he had seen on Saturday night. "They wouldn't tell me how bad it was. The first time I saw it was on Saturday night. Well, the first time I remember seeing it, anyway." A wave of shame made his stomach squirm, but he forced himself to pick up his head to look at her. "You've known all this time and you still…"
It hurt too much to finish the sentence. He leaned his head back against the chair and closed his eyes, wishing he could fall asleep and escape this conversation that laid bare all his vulnerabilities and secrets.
"Of course."
She didn't say more, but she didn't have to. Remus felt her cool fingers against his skin as she cupped his face and traced the scar on his jawbone. He didn't deserve her, but it was so nice to lean into her gentle, soothing touch.
"It might be the worst thing I've ever done," he admitted, opening his eyes and looking up into her face. He expected to see revulsion there, or fear, even pity, but there was only compassion. Compassion I don't bloody deserve.
"It wasn't your fault." Her hand trailed down to rest on his shoulder. "It was an accident."
"That wasn't an accident," Remus said, his tone bitter. "He didn't fall off his broom, Seven. I did that. Me. You saw it. How can you even stand to look at me when I could do something that fucking awful to one of my best friends?"
His voice broke but he continued to speak, because she should hear this. She needed to hear this.
"I don't know how many times I've apologized in the past two weeks, but what use is that? Sorry isn't going to heal those scars that he'll carry for the rest of his life. Sorry isn't going to make him forget how terrifying it must have been."
"Is feeling guilty about it going to make it any better?" she asked, sitting down on the edge of the coffee table in front of him. "Is beating yourself up and calling yourself a monster going to do anything besides make me sad?"
"I don't want to make you sad." He took her hand and gave it a squeeze, remembering how the tears had made little tracks down her cheeks. "That's the last thing I want to do."
"Then stop torturing yourself about something you can't control."
She leaned forward and put her arms around him. The end of her braid tickled his neck as he embraced her, and he breathed in the scent of her hair that he had missed over the past few days. Her thin shoulders felt so slight in his arms, yet her presence brought him more comfort than he would have thought possible. He didn't know how long they stayed that way, listening to the sound of their mingled breathing as his turbulent emotions calmed in response to her touch. When she finally pulled away, he had to take several breaths to get himself under control.
"You know, James was worried you'd be upset at him for taking his trousers off in front of your girlfriend," she said, settling back on the coffee table. "Or, I dunno, am I still your girlfriend?"
He had been gearing up for this question. Ever since Sunday he had spent hours listing all the reasons they shouldn't be together: why she would be safer, happier, generally better off without him. He had even rehearsed the conversation in his head. The last couple of months have been amazing. You're amazing. I don't deserve you, honestly, and that's why we've got to break things off. Yet her shy, hopeful smile broke down the resolve he had been building up for days.
"Do you still want to be my girlfriend?" His eyes locked onto hers, both dreading and anticipating her response. "I wouldn't blame you if you don't."
She rolled her eyes, then stood up and tugged at his hands until he got to his feet, too.
"You're not getting rid of me that easy, Remus Lupin. Come on."
"Where are we going?"
She didn't answer, leading him across the room to the same sofa Sirius had fallen from the other night. His heartbeat quickened as she lay down and beckoned for him to join her, a sly smile on her lips. He stretched out beside her and slipped his hands around her waist, letting the warm closeness of her body drive away his lingering reservations.
Later he padded across the room and grabbed the blanket from the foot of his armchair, then lay down beside her once again and tossed the blanket over them. Her eyes were half-closed and she wore a sleepy, satisfied smile as she nestled closer to him.
"I love you," he said, whispering into her hair as he trailed his fingers lightly up and down her arm. The words tumbled from his mouth, awkward and clumsy, yet it was a relief to speak them after holding them back all week. They had hung heavy and unspoken in Seven's expectant silence on Sunday, and they had weighed on him through the days of self-imposed separation. Now that he had let them pour out, he felt unburdened and light.
"I love you too." She tilted her head up to smile at him, then pulled the blanket up to her chin and sighed. "It's so cozy down here. I don't want to move."
"Neither do I." He hesitated, longing to give in to the seductive pull of sleep, but there was something that still nagged at him. "Seven, there's still more that I haven't told you, that I can't tell you–"
She pressed her lips against his, swallowing whatever else he was going to stammer out.
"I know," she said when she pulled away. "You still haven't told me how James managed to get away without more dire consequences, and it's okay. You don't have to tell me. I don't need to know everything – not all at once, maybe not at all. All I wanted was for you to let me in a bit, and you did. That's enough for now."
She brushed a lock of hair off his forehead, and he cringed as her fingers brushed the few glints of silver scattered throughout. What the hell does she see in me? he thought, marveling at the affection in her eyes as she kissed the scars on his cheek. It baffled him, truly boggled his mind, the same way he felt when he thought too long about where Vanished items go or what a boggart looks like when nobody else is there to see it. He wanted to ask her to explain, partly because it filled him with a warm glow, but mostly to satisfy his curiosity. The question formed on his lips, but then she leaned in and kissed him, and he put the thought aside. For now, he would be content with the knowledge that for some mysterious, inexplicable reason, she loved him in spite of everything that made him unloveable.