Elodie Merriman wanted to hex Remus Lupin.
It started when she, Remus, Harry, and Sirius came home after the long day of trial stress and then work at Grimmauld. Harry gathered up the things he wanted to take over to the Weasleys and Flooed over with Remus and Sirius while Elodie got the room in the basement ready for when Harry would sleep there next. She was still down there redecorating for a teenage wizard instead of a thirtysomething witch when she heard the sound of shouting from the rooms upstairs.
She hovered at the bottom of the stairs to listen, loathe to insert herself into such a rare disagreement between her housemates. The sound disappeared for a few seconds before the noise came back, as if someone had hit 'mute' and then immediately hit the button to cancel it.
"-bloody cast Muffliato like you're ashamed of what you're telling me right now!" Sirius shouted. There was a thump that probably meant he'd either thrown himself on the couch or stomped a foot, both of which she could picture perfectly.
"You know perfectly well I would avoid this if there were any other way to keep you safe, Padfoot! It's a short period of time, and the benefits-"
"Don't Padfoot me, you smug, responsible git! I'm willing to risk a little danger in favor of the thing I've wanted every minute since James died!"
Another thump. "No amount of turning the word into a pejorative will make me think making responsible decisions is the wrong choice for everyone who lives here, Sirius."
Odd, hysterical laughter had accompanied Remus's words, and now Sirius laughed louder. "You threw a book at me! Am I bothering you, old man?"
"I did not throw it at you, Sirius, I dropped it, down at my feet. You were nowhere near," Remus responded after a significant pause. He still sounded quite upset. "You are, as you well know, very frustrating and childish sometimes. I am sorry that the other two adults in this house have to pick up the slack in making important decisions."
"Leave me out of this, Remus Lupin!" Elodie whispered from her hidden position on the basement stairs. She wondered after she spoke whether he could hear her, thanks to the lycanthropic changes he went through every full moon week. If he did, though, he gave no indication that she was aware of.
"She agreed with you? You talked this over without me?" Sirius shouted, all humor gone from his voice.
"Shit, Remus, honestly! Now he'll be just as mad at me, ugh," she said, not whispering now. The sound of Sirius's tantrum was so loud that she doubted either of them would hear her, now. The sounds of things being thrown while Sirius stomped around were loud and frightening. Luckily, she had already gotten into the habit of protecting her books and certain notebooks and Muggle pens with impervious charms just in case Sirius got angry.
"You are every bit as bad a role model as Vernon Dursley in this moment, Sirius Black, and you ought to know that! Stop this nonsense," Remus shouted at full voice. "There's no reason to punish Elodie for seeing reason in this situation by throwing her things, and besides, I know she spelled them against damage just in case. What that says about you, given how much she loves you, I have no idea. You are an ungrateful, unworthy arsehole!"
With that, she heard the sounds of someone stomping off toward the front door, opening it, going through, and slamming it behind them.
Elodie had no idea which of the two men upstairs it had been.
She stared at the kitchen door at the top of the stairs in trepidation. It was true that Sirius had a volatile temper and she had protected her things in an effort to mitigate the damage if he chose to hurl them in his indiscriminate rages. But she hadn't told him that, she'd just assumed he knew. If he hadn't, would he see her action as insulting? Un-loving? If he did, Elodie admitted to herself that she would be angry with him. He was allowed to throw her things, but she wasn't allowed to pre-emptively protect them? That would make her infuriated!
"Elodie, you are arguing with an idea right now, cut it out!" she told herself. "Go upstairs and help Remus clean up before Sirius gets back," she added, starting back up the stairs. When she got up there, though, it was Sirius who was lounging on the couch in the living room, not Remus.
"I threw some things," he said when he saw her. He looked upset.
"I see that," Elodie said in a carefully neutral tone of voice.
"Already handling me, are you?" Sirius challenged, throwing his arms up along the top of the couch and tossing his head to move his hair from his eyes.
"I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not Remus. I was not the one arguing with you," Elodie said coolly. She didn't feel cool. Her anger had jumped up to at least a seven out of ten at his insolent response. How dare he act like she was conspiring with Remus against him?
"You might as well have been!" Sirius complained. "Talking about it behind my back, making plans!"
"Want to see the memory?" Elodie challenged. She whipped out her wand and placed it at her temple. "The Pensieve's right over there, you can watch us 'conspire' against you to keep you safe. Watch me tell him there has to be another way. Watch me tell him you'd never agree. Then watch him nearly in tears thinking about the way his friends at school never paused to think about what he wanted, when they conspired to become animagi. Tell me how unfair we're being, trying to keep Harry from losing you TWICE!"
She even made the air quotes with her hands, as she shouted at him.
"Elodie-" Sirius said, his eyes wide. He straightened his posture.
"Save it," she snapped. "I was so lonely this week, Sirius. You have no idea, because I didn't let myself tell you. I wanted you to have the time with Harry. I was jealous, and I hate that I was jealous, but I tried to act like a loving partner and give you the space you needed. I was looking forward to having you back for even one night tonight, but no, you had to go throw my things like I'm some sort of demented mother figure you're trying to get back at! We are on the same side, you absolute jerk!"
She saw him open his mouth to say something, and the fact that she knew him so well made her completely convinced that whatever it would be, it would make her more angry. So Elodie did the thing that had to be the most insulting, infuriating, unfair thing any witch or wizard could do in an argument.
She cast a silencing spell around herself so she couldn't hear him.
Then, she marched over to the door, opened it, went through, and slammed it, just like Remus had.
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Elodie wanted to hex Remus.
He didn't need to tell Sirius he'd talked about the plan with her! She wasn't really that much in favor of it in the first place, and of course Sirius would see them as a united front instead of the shades of subtle agreement and disagreement that she felt on the subject, instead.
When you got right down to it, Elodie thought that Sirius had acted precisely as expected- he got angry, defensive, and bitchy. Remus was the one who had acted out of character, first by setting her up as the fall guy for his argument with Sirius (a completely predictable argument, it ought to be noted), and then by losing his own temper, something that hardly ever happened.
He was out there, somewhere, just like she was, and if Elodie ran across him, she was going to challenge him to a duel.
Not a dangerous one, just… a duel. Her honor had been questioned, and she wanted to defend it.
With flaming frogs, if she had to.
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Elodie was going to hex Remus, if she found him.
That would be difficult, because she was currently lost, angry, and in no shape to be Apparating anywhere lest she splinch herself again. It was full dark now, and Elodie had no intention whatsoever of using her wand to light her path, firstly because it was almost the full moon, and secondly, because she'd be easier to find, and if either one of the men she was in love with found her right now, she would hex them.
She hadn't even had the self-preservation to march off in a single direction, to her eternal regret! She'd tramped around in the thicket beside the forest where she went collecting herbs sometimes, had even taken off her shoes and hose to stomp in the stream for a while. After that, Elodie had no idea what direction she'd walked, and now she was walking beside a country road.
She knew Muggles lived nearby, but she wasn't sure she remembered how to act Muggle enough not to frighten them.
She also knew that the people they'd bought the house from lived somewhere within walking distance, but she had walked at least four times that by now.
At least one Muggle car had passed by (Elodie had cast a disillusionment charm on herself until it was out of sight), and she could hear the sound of another car engine approaching. There was something different about it, but she couldn't put her finger on why. She turned to squint at the top of the hill, the farthest spot of road she could still see, and suddenly she realized what it was.
It was a motorcycle.
She felt a surge of gratitude which quickly soured into irritation. If Sirius rescued her, he was going to be completely insufferable for at least a week.
Maybe that will ease his frustration about being banished from his, you know, HOME? Elodie's internal voice pointed out.
She sighed.
It would.
So, she didn't cast anything on herself, she just waited by the side of the road like the proverbial damsel in distress, until Sirius rode up beside her.
"You're still angry, I assume?" he asked her, his voice neither contrite nor angry itself.
"A little," she allowed.
"Want a ride?"
She crossed her arms, sighed, and nodded.
Sirius got off of the bike and walked over. "Can I tell you something?"
"Unless it's 'I'm sorry for wrecking your shit,' I'm not sure I-"
"You are incredibly hot when you're wearing business clothes and angry, do you have any idea? If I wasn't half mad with anger myself I would have gone and had a hot shower wank and been weak-kneed for the rest of the night!" he said, his voice rough and low and all kinds of naughty.
"Sirius Orion Black!" Elodie gasped. She felt herself blushing so fiercely she felt sure he could see it in the dim headlamp glow of his motorbike.
"Come home and sleep with me, please? I'll even let you sleep, that's how sorry I am," he begged her.
"There is so much wrong with that statement I don't even know where to begin!" she said, helplessly.
"Elodie, get on the bike, Remus says Moony is about to break through, anxious about where you are," Sirius said, sounding more authoritative.
"Goddamnit, Sirius, you just screwed it all up!" Elodie groaned. "Now if I come with you, later on you'll wonder if it was because of Remus! UGH!" She punched him on the shoulder as hard as she could, but before she could get off another shot, he'd caught both of her arms and pulled her close.
"You're right, that was bloody stupid of me, I take it back, Moony can go fuck himself, come home?" he growled into her ear.
"Do you want me to faint so you can throw me over your saddlebags and ride home in triumph?" she whispered, blinking up at him innocently.
"Witch, you will be the death of me," he said, pulling her close so she could feel how aroused he was.
Right before he lowered his head to kiss her, she couldn't resist one final jibe. With wide, guileless eyes, she said, "Oh dear, that's not going to hurt on the ride home, is it?"
"It is. You're right." Sirius abruptly let go of her and walked over to the bike. As she watched in surprise, he walked it off of the road and into a small gully that allowed drainage from the nearby field to travel under the road. Then, he took out his wand and cast a series of spells on it, hiding it from view and keeping it safe from interference.
Then, he marched over to her and without stopping at all, he leaned over and lifted her up over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.
Then, Sirius Apparated them right into their bedroom.
"Your bike!" she said in amazement.
"It'll keep. You were right, that would have been a right awful ride home. I'd prefer another kind," he said, wagging his eyebrows at her. "First, though: I am feeling… aggressive. It's not to punish you, at least not negatively," Sirius told her, his eyes warm and sparkling with sexual energy. "Let me know if that's all right? If not, if you don't mind, I'll take a shower and get some of that sorted before I spend any time with you."
He wasn't even blushing, Elodie realized. His confidence and the way he was comfortable and unashamed about what he wanted was intimidating but very attractive.
"I trust you," she said. It came out as a timid squeak, and he narrowed his eyes at her.
Elodie gathered up her courage.
"Sorry, let me try that again. Fuck me into the mattress?"
Sirius let his head drop back, his hair falling away from his face as he let out a deep, animalistic groan.
"Yes," he said, looking right into her eyes and walking toward her. When he got close, he lifted his hands and speared them into her hair, taking her mouth in a rough, needy kiss. His hands were wound up in her hair, and she reached down to unbutton his jeans, sliding down the zip and scrabbling at the loosened waistband. Every so often she was so overwhelmed by his kisses that she slid her hands over his chest and across his back before trying to take his trousers off again.
"Fine! Impatient wench," Sirius mumbled into her mouth. She thought he was going to push his trousers down for her, but instead, he grabbed his wand and cast a spell that rid them of their clothes completely!
"Sirius!" Elodie protested breathlessly, as he leaned over to lick her neck, his thumbs brushing unerringly at each nipple. "I liked that skirt!"
"So did I," he husked. "It's in your closet right now. I don't think you'll make it over there to check, though."
With that, he pushed her back onto the bed and knelt, kissing her inner thigh, one hand tangled with hers.
"Come up here, the bed is softer," she whispered, overcome by anticipation.
"You're soft," he said, kissing higher. "And warm," higher, "-and wet, fuck yes," he groaned when he got where he was going. He seemed to know exactly how to touch her, one gently firm hand on her stomach, the other sliding in and out of her in rhythm with his tongue. He moved faster with her gasps and moans until she was right at the edge. That was when the hand on her stomach angled down to rub her clit in counterpoint to the tip of his tongue and she shuddered and quaked, coming so hard she almost forgot how to breathe.
He pulled his hands away gently and crawled up on the bed, pulling her boneless body up beside him into the middle of the blankets and pillows.
"Was I mad at you once? I don't remember anymore," Elodie joked, turning on her side to kiss his chest.
"I wouldn't use orgasms to change your mind- well, I would, but I won't," Sirius said in a lazy, amused tone of voice.
"You didn't change my mind on one of the most important things I said, you know," Elodie said, climbing over on top of him to kiss more of his chest and neck.
"Merlin, I love the way your hair smells," he groaned, burying a hand in it as she kissed the hollow of his neck. "What didn't I change?" he asked.
Elodie arched up to whisper in his ear. "You haven't fucked me into the mattress."
Sirius flipped them over so fast she wasn't certain he hadn't used magic. He hovered over her, his grey eyes nearly black with desire. If his hands hadn't already been at her wrists, pinning her to the bed, she would have felt pinned by simply the look in his eyes. It was predatory but joyful, pure Sirius, and she ached for him.
"Leave them like this, or I'll use magic, agreed?" he told her, sliding her wrists above her head. She could tell this was his way of asking permission while maintaining the illusion of control and power over her. She nodded and bit her lip, earning her a bruising kiss. He nodded in approval when she kept her hands still even though she lifted her head to push against his lips as they'd kissed. He spread his large hands wide and slid them down from her neck, over her breasts, down to her thighs. He spread her legs for her, lifting them up and bending them to bracket his hips.
"I am not this man," he murmured almost too quiet for her to hear. He sounded like he was struggling. "But fuck, Elodie. You're mine. Say you're mine?" He positioned himself over her and looked into her eyes.
"Yours," she smiled.
"Mine," he repeated, and thrust into her. He set a rough pace, and she welcomed it, squeezing him closer to her with her legs around him, squeezing him inside to hear the way it made him groan. It was hard to keep her hands still but she managed, lifting her head to chase his lips when he leaned his head close.
Sirius had other ideas, though- he latched onto her neck and sucked, swirling his tongue as he pistoned into her. It was an odd kind of pain, and she realized with a gasp that he was marking her. This was his contribution to the deception being perpetuated at Phoenix House. She would bear a love bite on her neck that would take days to fade, and if anyone from the Ministry saw it, they would see it as proof of her relationship with Remus. It was so Sirius of him, to rebel against the confines of the world around him and make his mark, his literal mark, where he could.
"Come for me, obey me," he pleaded, and she did. Her arms trembled with the effort it took not to touch him, and she screamed out in pleasure instead, the words lost in his own shouts. His hips stuttered and he came, burying his head in her hair, his hands coming up to thread his fingers through hers.
Elodie stopped paying attention to anything for a few minutes after that, and when she came back to herself, he was beside her and was playing with her hair.
"I don't have an ownership kink," she lied. "That was just…"
"It was," he rumbled. "That kind of pleasure just should not be allowed, it's ruination."
"You took directions well, and the mattress has somehow survived," Elodie praised him. He chuckled, deep and dirty, into her ear. "I assume my neck has a large purple mark on it, now?" she asked.
"I'm not sorry," he immediately said.
"You don't have to be, I just… are you comfortable with the implications?" she said delicately.
"You mean," he said, hitching himself up on an elbow to look down on her. "Am I comfortable with people making incorrect assumptions about how it got there? Yes. In fact, I am looking forward to that."
"I knew you would, you bad man," Elodie teased. "It's clever. When I realized what you were doing I almost came right then."
"Good to know," he said, interested. Then, he yawned, and laughed again, ruefully. "Now, love, I am going to sleep the sleep of the deeply satisfied."
"You earned it," she said, and snuggled up against him.
It took longer than she thought it would to fall asleep. The complexity of her relationship with both men and the way Sirius had woven himself into the pretend marriage made her feel powerless in an odd way, but she liked it. She couldn't help any of it, and instead was swept away in the wave of passion that was Sirius Black, desperate for his love and grateful for the ability to return it. It was frustrating to feel a lesser reflection of those feelings for Remus, because Sirius deserved all of her heart, Elodie thought. What she felt for Remus was every bit as strong, but without the physical grounding of a sexual relationship it seemed like those emotions were experienced as if through a veil, hazy and hard to hold onto.
That thought made her hold tighter to Sirius's sleeping body. She needed to make a plan about that, Elodie knew. Plans to lock down the Floo, to cast Anti-Apparition wards all around the house, and to lock this brilliant and passionate man in and throw away the key, come June.
She wasn't going to let him fall.
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Elodie hadn't forgotten about hexing Remus.
She woke up in a tangle of naked limbs with Sirius, which was wonderful, although sticky. Sirius gave her a lovely morning kiss and gathered his things for a shower, stopping before he opened the bedroom door with an apologetic look on his face.
"Remus felt it best to have me lock him in the cage downstairs, last night," he said.
Elodie sat up in horror. What time was it? She didn't want to stop to check; she got out of bed, throwing Sirius an angry look for waiting so long to tell her. Elodie grabbed clothes without really looking at them, pulling them on despite her need for a shower, too.
"He wanted me to tell you to open it in the morning, Elodie!" Sirius protested putting up his hands in a sign of surrender. "He told me Moony sees you as part of the pack, someone I'm responsible for, and I failed by letting you leave the house."
Elodie took in a deep, furious breath. "I am a grown woman and I have every right-"
"Arguing with the wrong wizard, love," Sirius said, leaving the room and shutting the door without letting her finish.
Elodie threw her shoe at the door. It made a satisfying thump, and she knew Sirius heard it, too, because she could hear him laughing from the hallway.
So, she threw the other one.
She hadn't calmed down much by the time she hurried down the basement steps to let Remus out of the cage. They'd specifically spelled it to be impervious to him if it was locked by anyone else, under the assumption that if he allowed someone to lock him in or was forcibly locked in, it was for good reason. Elodie didn't think that 'Elodie is missing, Moony is upset about that' sounded like a good enough reason, but she hadn't been there to help decide.
When she came down, she saw that Remus wasn't reacting to any of the sounds she made. She released the cage locks and walked around to where Remus was sitting faced away from the door. He was hunched over on the lone chair at the back of the cage, his head hanging down.
"Remus?" she said, kneeling down to try to get into his eyeline. He didn't seem like he was asleep, more like he was meditating. She reached out a hand, trying to cast a shadow into his line of sight, and he started in surprise.
When he looked up at her, his eyes were edged with gold, and his surprise in seeing her kneeling was evident. She saw him reach down to hold onto the frame of the chair he sat on, his knuckles whitening with the strength of his grip.
"Sirius sent me down," she said, then stopped when she realized he hadn't cast anything to cancel the silencing charms.
Remus stood and reached for a high shelf, fiddling with something that she assumed made sure it was a human hand retrieving the wand. Then, he traced out a few Finites.
"Sirius sent me down. I had no idea you were here or I would have come down earlier," she said in a rush, getting up from her knees in a decidedly ungraceful way.
"Thank you," Remus said. "So, you also had an argument with Sirius and walked out?" he asked, sounding a bit amused. He rolled his neck, rubbing certain spots with his fingers as he walked out of the cage.
"And got lost. Yep," Elodie said, laughing. "I wasn't just mad at him, you know. I'm pissed at you, too."
Remus stopped his self neck massage and looked over at her in surprise. "Oh?" he said, clearly in information gathering mode.
"You didn't have to tell him I helped you make the decision about spending his days at Grimmauld! I did nothing of the sort, and now he's upset at me. I almost want to hit you, but I think instead I'll challenge you to a duel," Elodie said, taking her wand out and crossing her arms, wand pointed in his direction in the cradle of her arms.
"What!" He sounded flabbergasted.
"Duel me," she challenged.
"Wait, let me catch up," Remus said, holding his hands up in the same surrendering position Sirius had already used that morning. "You went and got yourself lost, after an argument with Sirius, and you blame me-"
"Wrong!" she interrupted cheerfully. "Try again."
He shot her a cross look, and she tried very hard not to find it sexy. She failed. "All right," he said. "I told Sirius about a decision I made that you agreed with after a conversation between the two of us. You wish that I hadn't?"
"That's close enough, I suppose. I don't think you had to tell him. I'm irritated at you. I was irritated at Sirius, too, if it helps any."
"Did you offer to duel him?" Remus asked.
Elodie stared at him and raised an eyebrow. It took all of her self-control not to say something snarky, like 'I asked him to fuck me into the mattress. Something tells me you're not up for that?'
Remus took a step closer to her, and he must have caught something in the way she smelled. He lifted his head like he was sniffing, and then his ears turned red and he stared at her. Elodie blushed too, because she had been so concerned with getting Remus out of his self-imposed imprisonment that she hadn't taken a quick shower or even used a cleansing charm to at least lose the traces of what she and Sirius had done the night before. The shirt she'd grabbed by pure chance happened to have a high, decorative neckline before plunging into a v-neck, and she could feel the brush of the fabric up against the love bite Sirius had left on her neck.
Cinematic universe, again. If she sought to hide it more thoroughly now, he'd notice.
Remus was still staring at her, his stance wide, one hand clenched into a fist at his side, his wand in the other. He cast a spell that she assumed masked his hyper-sensitive sense of smell. She could see the edge of gold in his eyes, and it was frightening and fascinating to her.
If Remus was like this with a single 'missed' dose, what must it have been like before the Wolfsbane!
"Duel me, Remus. Let's get the frustration out of our systems? We might have to fight side by side, someday, and knowing how we fight should help, shouldn't it?" she said in a soft voice.
Remus walked over to her. He closed his eyes and swallowed, hard, and when he opened his eyes, there was no trace of gold in his eyes. He nodded, then bowed stiffly. Elodie bowed to him, then as Remus turned, she turned. He counted out three paces, then turned.
"Protego!" Elodie cast, blocking his immediate Expelliarmus. In her next breath, she cast a stinging hex twice in a row, the second catching him on his leg. His surprised grunt made her third Protego miss, and she dodged in enough time to limit his attack to only locking her right knee.
Remus was much faster than Moody, but his spells were smaller and more irritating. He seemed to have a style of attrition, his mind quick and his casting efficient, where Moody's spells were damaging and inexorable. Elodie lost her socks, her hair wrapped itself around her face, and she had to hobble because the leg-locking curse was persistent. Remus had dodged most of her spells and blocked almost all of the rest, but she could tell that the ones that stuck were pretty irritating.
His shirt sleeves had grown to impossible lengths, and Elodie was impressed by how fast he'd rolled one up and sliced off the other, but she had managed to soak him with a conjured water bucket before he'd cast a shield charm with his newly liberated wand. She couldn't succeed in landing the freezing hex, and trying too many times let Remus in on her penchant for spell combos. He took to casting Protego twice in a row, and it threw her off balance enough that she tripped against the wall. A quick Expelliarmus later, and she was disarmed.
Remus caught her wand, smiling in magnanimous triumph.
Elodie had practiced the freezing hex a lot, with Moody. Enough that she was able to cast a pale cousin of it without her wand.
When his hair froze against his face, Remus shook his head and laughed.
"I should have known you would never give up so easily," he said. Then, he tossed both of their wands into the corner of the room. "Well?" he panted, out of breath but still ready to challenge her.
Elodie knew that Remus was an expert at wandless magic. She knew she would probably still lose, but this was impossible to ignore. With the wall at her back, she cast a number of mildly irritating charms, all of which Remus deflected easily. In frustration, Elodie threw her hands up and shot harmless lightning from her fingertips, but the way Remus's eyes lit up told her she'd made a tactical mistake.
Seconds later, her arms were caught in a spell that bound them to the wall behind her.
Remus walked over, his hair dripping meltwater down his face. "Do you yield?"
"No," Elodie said. She had been able to cast a shield charm localized around her chest, once. She might be able to-
"Elodie! You're beaten. Admit it and I'll give you your wand back," Remus said.
"I can move my wrist, see?" Elodie showed him. The shirt she was wearing was hiked up, the collar bunched behind her with the way she was positioned. Elodie saw Remus notice the hickey, saw his eyes flare full gold and back to normal. Her breathing quickened, and she saw him notice the way it made her chest move.
"If you can make me move from this spot, using just magic, I'll declare you the winner," Remus said in a low voice. He was standing a foot in front of her. She could shove him with her feet, but that would be cheating. She didn't know anything wandless she could use against him, and he knew it.
"I don't like to lose," she admitted.
His eyes flared gold again. "Neither do I." He reached out and brushed a finger across the bruise on her neck. His next move was to lurch away from her. The action made it clear to her that Remus was fighting Moony's influence.
"You need to leave," he said, his back to her.
"Does that mean I win?"
"Elodie!" Remus said, marching over to her and slamming one hand on either side of her. "Stop."
She saw the outline of gold that ringed each pupil. As he looked at her, they grew, then took over entirely as he looked back down at the hickey on her neck.
"I will enjoy the chase, Ellie, until I make you ours," Moony promised her.
She shook her head at him in shock, horrified at how upset Remus must be at the intrusion. A second later, Remus regained control and pushed off of the wall, stalking over to the corner with their wands. He picked them up and wordlessly held out hers.
"I will not become a monster that destroys the happiness of the people around me," he said quietly, as if to himself.
"I'll go," Elodie whispered. She cast a wandless summoning spell to retrieve her wand, and Remus looked up at her, respect and gratitude in his eyes.
"You'll need to stay away this cycle. Maybe every one. I don't know." He raked his fingers through his hair, leaving it in disarray. "He's confused by the physical deception. I'm sorry," he said. His tone was so full of despair that Elodie's eyes filled with tears. She mouthed a silent apology and he held up a hand, shut his eyes for a second, and then added, his eyes still shut, "It's quite possible this would have happened even if you never spoke to him in person. Don't blame yourself, please."
"Remus, you are-" she started to say, pouring forgiveness and affection and reassurance into her tone.
"Don't," he said loudly. Then, quieter, "Not now. Please."
"It kills me to just-"
"I know, Ellie," he said. The same level of affection and grace was evident in his tone, and it hit her like a caress. "Just go," he whispered, and she went.
At the top of the stairs, she turned and rested her forehead on the wood. In that moment, all she wanted to do in the whole world was make things right for Remus. Yet, in that moment, she was the last person who could.
She was, it seemed, the very person causing him the most distress. What should she do? What could she do?
"Heard you two dueling," Sirius said, walking in like her world hadn't just been set on its side, spilling the oceans out into the deserts and destroying all life as she knew it. "Who won?"
"I have no idea," she said.
There was only one thing she knew of that benefited from the surplus of emotions she was plagued with right now.
She started gathering the ingredients for Gâteaufidél.
