Weightless

1977

"Remus," she said, her eyes shut tight and her mouth starting to quiver. She hadn't realized how tightly her jaw was clenched until she had to open it to speak. "Why? Why are you just telling me all of this now?"

When she managed to open her eyes to glance at him, his back was to her. The only indication that he was feeling anything remotely similar to her was the miniscule raising of his shoulders. "'All's fair in love and war,'" he quoted.

"And which is this?"

Remus turned just his head and gazed solely at the bed next to her before facing front once again. "You tell me," was all he said. "Why were you on that broom tonight, Ada? Couldn't get away fast enough?"

"I have to pass the blasted broom practical at some point and it's way harder in France, so I thought—"

"So that's that? You're really leaving?"

She didn't answer. There was no point anymore. Every plan she'd had for making it work flew out of her head.

He let out a harsh, short snort of laughter before beginning to walk away from her. "I'd stick to books over brooms if I were you."

She narrowed her eyes, trying desperately to think of something to get him to stop again. To not leave yet.

"You're a coward, Remus Lupin. A bloody coward."

Gods, the Hospital Wing was long. Even his stride hadn't carried him all the way to the door yet. And that word at least baited him enough to throw another line over his shoulder, just as she knew it would.

"Rich coming from the girl who can barely stand to be around a niffler—"

"They are mischievous and thoughtless and so not the point, Remus," she bit back. "And if you weren't so broken and idiotic and—"

She didn't get to finish her sentence as the door slammed behind him.

Ada pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned back on the metal bedrail, desperately trying to let the cool surface on her neck slow her breathing. The room had started spinning around her, so she pressed her eyelids closed once more. She was angry, the kind of angry that made her chest tight as if her sternum was burrowing into her. And while she was normally perfectly content to stay tucked in her own brain, this anger was crowding her out. She couldn't retreat—she had an uncharacteristic need to do something.

She could go after him, apologize, tell him that she was out of line—but she didn't think she was, and he would know that in an instant.

She could get on the Hogwarts Express tomorrow as if everything was as it always had been, go home and force a smile to pretend she was okay. But this anger would snap out of her eventually, and her family shouldn't have to bear the brunt of it. No, it would be easier to send them an owl tonight and say she had alternate plans, that they need not go to King's Cross. She just had to come up with somewhere to go.

She could hide away, try and stay in the castle a few more days until she had a plan, or even ride out the whole summer. Dumbledore's general presence and existence, of course, made this seem an unlikely possibility. Maybe now was the summer to travel—Venice, Paris, Greece. She'd have to travel like a muggle once she was out of the magical world, but the pace would do her some good. If she could find enough out in the world, maybe peace or hope would fill her lungs and push this pressure out. Forget Remus Lupin.

But she had to go now. Right now. Before she lost this moment of courage.

Ada pulled her robes on and made her way to the Ravenclaw common room. She held out her wand to light the dark and slumbering castle as she had so many nights before, but the quiet felt more suffocating than pacifying. The portraits whispered to one another as she passed, taken aback by the sudden sureness in her stride, the steel of her jaw.