Headdesking - Remus Lupin/OC

Chapter 13: A Visit to the Hospital Wing

Hazel looked up. A lone envelope was sailing down toward her face like a crumpled autumn leaf, signalling her decaying reputation. She refused to look away from it. Just before its sharp edge was about to slit her on the nose a hand grabbed it out of the air.

"Ha!" Lily said and sat down with her legs on either side of the bench to study the envelope. She turned it over and held it between her two hands. "Tea stained paper... Hogwarts emblem pressed into scarlet wax... If I didn't know better I'd say you'd just been made quidditch captain." The corner of her lip rose into a pleased smile. "Though that does make a more plausible option, judging by who you've been hanging out with recently, I'd say you just received detention."

The word struck her right in the chest. She had to look away from the envelope. Her eyes met Lily's green ones. She was leaning forward, her red hair falling in front of her face as she trained her eyes on Hazel, waiting for her to cave and confirm.

"I bet the only reason you know that is because they told you." Hazel said, voice a tang more acidic than it needed to be. She didn't particularly care for Lily's need to show off at all times.

She threw her hands up. "I haven't even seen the boys today."

Hazel squinted at her, but Lily wouldn't budge. Finally the redhead handed the envelope back to her through air thick as thieves.

See Lily was not the only one with intuition. Hazel could see the slightly elated chest of her companion's. The gathering of air at the back of her throat. She was holding something in.

Instead of saying something to press her, Hazel started on her breakfast, every now and again glancing back at Lily to let her know that she was still awaiting what evidently still hung in the air.

The silence was broken with a crunch when Hazel sunk her teeth into her toast.

"I mean, I did see James on the way to the hospital wing." Lily finally let out in a casual tone. As though this was only the least relevant bit of information.

Hazel's eyes went wide. "Why did you need the hospital wing?"

Lily brushed off what breadcrumbs had just been sprayed on her. "Not me. James was going there."

"Is he alright?"

"He's fine."

Hazel was getting really worked up by now. She half sighed, half grunted at the girl before her. "If he's fine, why did he need to go to the hospital wing?"

"He didn't." Lily explained plainly.

Hazel's eyes bulged open in frustration. She was getting real tired of Lily's current charade of giving her the smallest possible amount of information. But just as she was about to dismiss the girl altogether and return to her breakfast, Lily finally decided to get chatty.

"Remus did though." she added, like she was merely pointing out the presence of a butterfly. She pondered on, "I guess where one of them goes, the others follow. That's always been the situation with those boys."

Hazel had dropped her toast, the jam was now sticking to her plate as it lay face down on it. She was staring at Lily, who waved her hand dismissively.

"Don't worry. That boy is always there for one reason or another." She flipped Hazel's toast around again, careful not to get jam on her hands. She seemed all the more focused on that task than the current topic of conversation. "Unless you have an aversion to ill-explained scars it's no biggie. Never gets much worse than that."

But Hazel couldn't help but feel like this was definitely a subject that was worthy of her worry. She stood up and left the dining hall for the hospital wing immediately.