claret, sirius black

13

chapter 13

LENORA CLARET ATTENDED all of her lessons the next day but only because her head of house had a stern talk with her about her dismal grades. Having a job in the wizarding world has never particularly appealed to her, to be frank she thinks she'd be terrible at any job. A muggle job would be less pressure so that's what she's settled for. A primary school teacher maybe, she loved her teacher to bits when she was in year three. Her mother left Hogwarts and proceeded to have a muggle career, Lenora thinks it would be best if she did the same.

Sirius Black is in Lenora's potions lesson, she simply hoped he had forgotten the entirety of yesterday but the docile look on his pretty, pale face as he sat with his chin rested in the palm of his hand meant he completely remembered. Lenora didn't turn to look at his desk for the entirety of the lesson, well maybe she did once or twice but each time she turned around he was at her. Simply doe eyed and confused. Fortunately, their desks were on opposite sides of the classroom. He was sitting towards the back whereas she was on the first row. She could feel his stare burning into the back of her head.

Lenora looked as ill as she did at Sirius' party. Under the light of the potions classroom her skin looked grey, the bags under her eyes were dark purple with a hint of yellow. It took all she had to keep her dulcet eyes open for the duration of the hour as her potions teacher waffled on. It was a surprise she wasn't told to go to the hospital wing as she looked downright awful. She chewed her nails until they were too short to chew on anymore, she then moved on to the skin around her nails until she went too far and her finger looked as if it was about to bleed.

Sat besides her was Remus Lupin, the four Marauders had been split up earlier in the month by their professor for constantly messing around. Lenora was relieved to be sharing a desk with Remus out of all of them. He noticed that she was chewing her nails but didn't say anything. She hadn't written any notes, nor had she looked up at the teacher in the past half an hour.

Remus swallowed. "Are you okay?" He asked quietly, Lenora looked up at him and swiftly nodded.

Sirius was watching them both.

"I'm fine," Lenora whispered, they were sitting at the front so it was hard to get away with having a conversation, "Thanks."

"I have the notes if you want to borrow them at some point," he glanced down at her empty parchment and her unopened book, his hazel eyes are always soft. "Ask whenever, they're probably the best in the class." Lenora noted that Lily Evans wasn't in that class.

She thanked him again with a smile, "I'll keep that in mind." Lenora didn't necessarily need any notes for that year, sixth year means everything is purely lessons and theory. There's supposed to be no exams but she has to resit some of her OWLS again in the summer, but she's never been one to revise. Potions was one of the two classes she did manage to pass when doing her OWLS the year before, alongside muggle studies. Her head of house and her mother weren't pleased to see she had managed to fail herbology, Hufflepuffs tend to pass that with ease.

"Also," Remus coughed, "If you want me to help you with anything I don't mind," a suspicious amount of empathises when he said 'anything'. Lenora's eyebrows furrowed. "I spend a lot of time in the library, so I'll probably be there."

"Thanks," Lenora smiled again, "I'm awful at being a student," she chuckled.

"You cast a Patronus that once," Remus said as he scribbled down what the teacher was saying, his eyes didn't meet the parchment once. "So you can't be too bad." Lenora remembers the lesson, Remus hadn't managed to cast his own.

"You remember that?" She asked, finally looking up at the teacher to make sure he wasn't watching them speak, she could still feel Sirius staring but she wasn't sure whether he was staring at her or his best friend. Maybe both. "It was hardly anything spectacular," she laughed hoarsely.