(A/N): We're back with Elaine, Remus, and Dahrya, in the aftermath of Elaine making a deal with Dahrya to help her get back at Leo, in exchange for information on being a half-vampire. Happy Valentine's Day!

This chapter used to be chapter 513, and obviously, got moved forward because I thought it was a much better fit to be the Valentine's Day chapter because it does feature quite a bit of possibly gratuitous talk of love/romance/happiness.

Trigger Warnings: Brief, light mention of self-harm/self-destructive tendencies.

Elaine

I felt a little dirty, promising to help someone get revenge on Leo- even if it was only Dahrya, and I knew she probably wasn't going to go much further than making his life difficult, rather than actually trying to hurt him. Maybe it was partially because I was worried that his life being so difficult already was part of the reason he was inclined to hurt himself, or maybe it just felt wrong to go behind his back even though I'd done so in the past, but either way, I couldn't seem to shake the feeling. "Leo's not going to know what hit him." I couldn't help but wince at this, and Dahrya rolled her eyes.

"Elaine, relax- I'm not going to kill him, I'm just going to make his life a living hell." Remus and I shared a knowing look that she was either oblivious to, or outright ignored. "Don't get it twisted, I may be mad at Leo, but-" She hesitated, shifting uncomfortably. "I don't hate him. I don't want him dead. I just don't think it's fair that he can make me feel like this and I'm supposed to just take it." I could understand that. "If he gets to make me suffer, then I get to make him suffer." Er... I understood that a little less.

"Dahrya..." I started, then paused, knowing she wouldn't take what I'd been about to say well. "Dahrya, if there's one thing I can say I know about Leo with absolute certainty, it's that-"

"He loves you?" It wasn't a question- well, it was, but not in the way I would've expected. She was asking whether that was what I'd been about to say, not asking if it was true- she said it with perfect conviction, as though she knew it for a fact.

I froze briefly, too stunned to do more than blink, but thankfully, Remus had my back. "Uh oh, I think you broke her." Well, sort of, anyway. "You, uh... you said that awfully confidently, Dar; something you want to tell us?" Her eyebrows furrowed as if she was confused, even as her cheeks pinkened at the new nickname. A nickname that, I noticed, didn't reference her age the way the others the boys had given her did- I doubt 'Peewee' or 'Baby Vamp' would've gone over anywhere near as well as this.

"Like what?" She asked, and when Remus gave her a pointed- but still incredibly patient- look, her flush increased, this time slightly embarrassed. "Right, sorry. Um... I don't know what to say. Leo's just- well, he isn't subtle. Even less subtle than you are, Elaine-" Of course, my blush immediately outclassed hers. "It's hard to explain, but... I mean, aside from the obvious, he also acts like- and the way he looks at you-"

I cut her off, despite how much hearing someone detail Leo's love for me made my heart sing in my chest- especially someone like Dahrya. "What do you mean, 'aside from the obvious'?" She stared at me like I'd grown two heads. "I would think, if anything, his actions would be 'the obvious', but you separated them- why?" Now, she looked at me like I was being deliberately obtuse, which I didn't think was fair. It took her glancing at Remus and finding him just as clueless as I was- a rarity- to realise that wasn't the case.

"Well," She said tentatively. "It's not even really- it's not a smell, exactly, he just sort of... exudes love through the pores of his skin, whenever you're around. Whenever he talks about you- whenever he thinks about you, too, I bet. I've never known anything like it, and if I didn't know how he felt about you through other means, I probably wouldn't know what it was, but... I mean, he makes it kind of easy to identify."

He does? My heart felt like it was expanding so rapidly that it might crack the cage of my ribs open and make a break for freedom, and I knew Dahrya and Remus could both tell I was heavily affected, because Remus was looking at me with fond concern, and Dahrya appeared vaguely disgruntled- which I suppose was the closest she got to the sentiment he was exhibiting. "Oh," I breathed, and Remus smiled even as Dahrya rolled her eyes again.

"You know how when you asked me what you smelled like, after you read the letter, and I said you smelt like joy? That it's the smell you have whenever you and Leo are being all lovey-dovey?" I shot him a look- half curious, and half annoyed that he was bringing that up in front of Dahrya.

"The point, Remus- get to it."

He tilted his head toward me, as if trying to enhance his position by increasing our eye contact. "That kind of is the point, Elaine- you had that smell as you read the letter, and judging by the scent still clinging to it, Leo had that smell as he was writing it." Oh. "Look, I don't have the level of insane super senses that our friendly neighborhood half-vampires do, but... Elaine, whenever Leo's around you- and yeah, I suspect whenever he thinks about you, too, but I'm not in his brain, so obviously I can't prove that- his joy is almost overwhelming." I didn't know what to say to that. "Elaine," He said, drawing my attention even further. "When he's with you, he's happy." Right, yeah, I got that- but why was Remus-? "You make him happy," He repeated, albeit rephrased, and Dahrya and I both stared at him like he'd lost his marbles.

"Lupin," Dahrya said bluntly. "You're really not making me feel good about my decision to team up with Elaine rather than use her to make Leo miserable, you know that, right?" I didn't think she was genuinely considering turning on me, but it still made me slightly nervous- which she undoubtedly knew, if she could smell the 'love' pouring off of Leo.

Remus ignored her, his eyes boring into mine determinedly as if he were trying to tell me something. "Elaine, you make Leo happy." Well, something else, I mean.

"Obviously," Dahrya said- which again, was an ego boost pretty much no one else could give me, since I knew she wasn't the type to try to sugarcoat things or only say something to make me feel better. "You keep saying that as if you're trying to convince her- as if she ever thought she could make him unhappy. I don't understand why-"

But I did, now- and as the realisation hit me, Dahrya paused... almost as though she could sense it. She seemed almost alarmingly young as she looked to me for answers, to the point where I no longer knew whether it was better to keep it from her or tell her, because the truth would likely hurt worse than not knowing. Hm... that was turning into a bit of a theme for us, wasn't it? "I..." I hesitated. "I had a bad dream," I told her, which made Remus jolt slightly in surprise. "I got a little insecure about Leo and I's... relationship, and Remus was just... reassuring me that I didn't have to be."

Three seconds, that was all it took. Three seconds to realise that I'd made a crucial- foolish- mistake, as Dahrya's nostrils flared. Then, she narrowed her eyes at me and crossed her arms over her chest. "Liar," She accused- correctly, and she knew it. "You did have a bad dream, that was true- want to try again?" If I wanted any chance to get information out of her after this- and incentivise her to stick with our bargain and not use my relationship with Leo against him- then I suppose I had to, didn't I?

I took a deep breath and said, "Leo's been having some trouble lately- I thought it might be, in part, because of me. Remus was reassuring me that clearly, that isn't the case." This must have rang true to her because she relaxed a little, and her expression slowly turned to one of surprisingly timid concern.

"...Leo's been having trouble, too?" Too?!

(A/N): I was going to have Elaine say that she and Dahrya stared at Remus like he'd lost his gobstones (since gobstones is the wizarding equivalent of marbles) but I figured that might read as something... well, a little different.

So, the phrase 'friendly neighborhood blank' is probably most commonly known nowadays because of Spider-Man- 'Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man' was used as early as 1963- but had been around for a while before that, and was an extremely popular (and prevalent) advertising term used by chain companies to lend the familiarity/trustworthiness/reliability to their stores that smaller, local, mom and pop stores already natural possessed. The biggest proponent of this was Texaco (yes, the gas stations) who were using the slogan 'Friendly Neighborhood Texaco Dealer' in national campaigns throughout the 1940's and 50's, and it basically proceeded to go viral until it was picked up by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko to serve much the same purpose for Spider-Man- making this big, previously unknown and faceless superhero with strange powers entering into territory which was normally the domain of trusted local residents, appear more trustworthy, within universe. Whether Remus actually knows this phrase because he reads Spider-Man comics (possible, since Marvel UK started reprinting Spider-Man comics for distribution in the UK in 1972, and I think Hope Lupin- being muggle- would probably have liked to buy Remus little things to try to cheer him up whenever she could, since she couldn't really help with his lycanthropy all that much in other ways) or whether he actually doesn't know, and it's just a funny reference to the fact that the most prevalent fancast for young Remus is Andrew Garfield, who obviously had his run of Spider-Man movies, I guess we'll never know for sure.