"i know life well enough to know you can't count on things staying around or standing still, no matter how much you want them to. you can't stop people from dying. you can't stop them from going away. you can't stop yourself from going away either."...
'running scared, i was there, i remember it'- all too well
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
Soon, the holidays were over, and the first day back at school had already arrived.
Ophelia had it easy avoiding a certain professor for the past week, rarely venturing out of either the Gryffindor tower, Ravenclaw tower or the library busying herself by finishing her school work and helping Harry forge a plan to kill a murderer.
But now it was Monday, and not only did she have DADA first thing, but she was starting Patronus lessons with Harry too. She barely touched her breakfast, her mind running around some far away place, not noticing the spoon she had picked up a while before but not used. She didn't even notice the spoon still in her hand when she reached the classroom.
"Lee?" Her sister's voice beside her broke her trance-like state. "Why do you have a spoon?"
Ophelia's cheeks burned as she hid the piece of cutlery in her bag, pulling her books out and laying her wand down on the desk.
"Good morning!"
And there he was. Anyone could see he'd been ill, his clothes hanging looser on his weak-looking frame. The dark circles beneath his eyes made his face paler than usual, and his scars were more prominent than the last time she'd seen him. He wore a smile. A weak one- but a smile nonetheless.
There he stood, before his students, talking- teaching. And no one knew. No one but Ophelia. She made sure to keep it that way, knowing one word could end her professor's career. She figured Dumbledore already knew, that man knew everything, and Snape had been making the Wolfsbane potion, so he'd known too. That meant she wasn't in danger- no one was.
But she could shake this feeling- he'd lied to her all this time, what else could the man be hiding. He seemed touchy about the death of his wife, what if he had something to do with it? No, don't be stupid, Professor Lupin is a good man.
Isn't he?
He was at Hogwarts with Sirius Black, what if they used to be friends? What if they still were? Black had got into Hogwarts somehow on Halloween, what if he'd had help? Maybe it was-
"Ophelia?" The girl in question was brought back into classroom 3C by the voice of her professor who'd been standing in front of her desk. She could feel several pairs of eyes burning into the back of her head.
"Sir?" She cleared her throat awkwardly.
"I asked you what charm would you use to reveal objects hidden by dark magic?" Remus raised his eyebrows. Ophelia was usually a very focused student, and her sudden lack of interest concerned him for a moment.
"Oh-" her mind was blank. Her cheeks began to burn as she stuttered for a moment, pretending to look for the answer on the blank piece of parchment in front of her. Did she forget to take notes? Her eyes flicked to Ginny's paper beside her, nearly full of scribbled down notes.
