Her Single Rose (Remus Lupin)

Fifty-Eight

**WARNING: Mention of suicide**

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The train ride had passed by relatively quickly, falling asleep for the whole trip and been woken up to get changed into her robes.

The dinner had been rather a bore, the sorting ceremony being a bit longer this year, but the food brought Heaven to her like it always did when she ate on the first day back.

By now, it was almost midnight and Marlene had fallen asleep alongside Mindy. Aries was slipping on her enchanted boots, enchanted with a silencing charm, so that they wouldn't make any noise when she went out late at night.

She had made it out of the common room and into the corridors, pulling out her map to make sure Filch wasn't around, Mrs. Norris was rather close by for Aries liking and she decided to just make her way to the front entrance of the school without the map.

Aries knew the way by now and decided to keep herself in the dark. Her body wasn't tired, nor were her eyes as she walked through the gusty cold corridors.

Though before she could move out of the shadows way, she bumped right into another invisible figure.

"Ow!" A voice whisper shouted as a series of similar grunts followed. A light had shown in Aries face as she squinted pushed the light down from her eyes.

The figure was, in fact, Sirius. Followed by none other than James, Peter, and Remus. "Meredith? What are you doing up?" Sirius asked incredulously.

What's that Mrs. Norris?

Without hesitation Aries pushed the group to the wall and took Sirius's wand, putting out the light with a counter spell, "hey!-"

"Shhh!" Aries hushed them, no more than five seconds later did Filch walk right past them. Mrs. Norris was hissing at him but he had ignored her and kept walking.

After making sure the coast was clear, she stepped back and crossed her arms, "I just saved you all from a weeks worth of detention, I owe no explanation." She shrugged.

"But you're not dumb enough to believe I'll let you off the hook just like that, so come off it." Sirius folded his arms in a brotherly manner.

"Late night snack." She told him.

"The kitchen is the other direction." Peter shook his head.

"Last minute detour." She added.

"And what was the detour?" James asked, not believing a word.

"Filch." Aries said keeping a straight face as she lied right through her teeth.

"Aries. What are you doing up." The voice came from Remus this time, he sounded tired of going in circles with the whole explanation thing, but his voice was still calm, it was even and soothing.

She didn't like how she felt like she couldn't lie to him, her mouth opening and closing as if trying to decipher her own words without sliding in a fib. Her brows furrowed as she looked down at the cold ground.

"Late night walk. I can't sleep on the first nights back so I go out of the castle and walk out on the grounds to think. Usually I visit Hagrid." She explained and hugged her arms together, Aries didn't know why she hadn't learned to bring her jacket with her by now.

"Guess pranking will have to wait." James said taking Aries hand and guiding her towards the entrance to the castle.

"Wait what?" Aries asked as Peter pushed her on and Sirius and Remus spoke.