Headdesking - Remus Lupin/OC

Chapter 14: Detention

James was sitting atop his desk, catching and releasing the snitch repeatedly. He had a crease in between his two eyebrows from having to listen to Sirius' bickering.

Sirius, with a quill in his hand (for the moment languidly resting against his essay) was in a heated argument with none other than Hazel Pembroke.

Hazel had abandoned her quill entirely. She was leaning forward in her chair, toward Sirius, and gesturing ferociously as she made her point.

"You're way off! The fact that we're here right now easily proves it!"

Peter was leaning his head against his hand, his elbow propped up on the table. His eyes were darting lazily between the two of them.

And Remus, with his shoulders slacking, arms dangling at his sides, and his head pressed against the surface of his desk was trying desperately to not let himself intervene.

It was seven o'clock. They'd been locked up inside a classroom, doomed to do schoolwork for two hours.

Sirius shook his head resolutely. "We're here right now because you immediately caved!"

Hazel's eyes went wide with aggravation. "She saw us exiting the forest. We were in our coats. We were obviously already done for!"

Bickering was an everyday dish, usually served by Sirius on a sizzlingly hot plate. The recent development being that Hazel got involved in it. It had started by Remus' friends seeing her in a new light after she had lied her way out of revealing to McGonagall the real reason why they had been in the forest on the night of the full moon. His friends had suddenly gotten a lot more chummy with her, something which he was just finding out came with a short (yet significant) list of side effects.

He couldn't deny that it made him happy to see her bonding with his friends. Alas, he wished that it could manifest itself in a way that didn't have the detrimental effect of giving him a pounding headache.

"If you had let me handle it, I would have lied our way out of it. There's nothing I can't explain away in one way or another."

"Shut it!" Remus snapped. Everyone's heads turned. He pulled his head up and pointed one steely finger at the person he was addressing. "You got her into this, Sirius. This is your fault."

His argumentative friend was about to retort, but Remus couldn't let him just yet...

"The correct order of operations would be to simply apologise. Instead of trying to argue that it's her own fault for not..." an expression of distaste was made "...lying about it well enough."

"Hey, I'm the first to admit." Sirius glanced at Hazel to make sure that she was hearing. James had stopped fiddling with his snitch to pay attention to what his mate was about to say. Peter dragged his elbow across the desk to put his ear at optimal hearing distance. "My plans, when put into practice, can sometimes have some less desirable consequences. But since we achieved the desired results, which is what I'm choosing to focus on, I consider it a success, detention or no detention — I would encourage you to do the same."

His voice took on some more enthusiasm suddenly. "And can I shock you? Hazel thinks so too."

Remus and Hazel's eyes met briefly.

"You'd know that if you bothered to have a conversation with her ever." Sirius raised his eyebrows at Hazel, as if waiting for her to chime in.

She didn't.

"And does any of this mean that I don't enjoy partaking in some friendly discourse, or what was supposed to be a tête-à-tête, merely for recreational purposes? I mean, haven't I been quite vocal about the fact that I was mighty impressed with the whip-smart excuse Hazel had at the ready while the tide was rising? And at the stupefying presence of McGonagall at that." he finished with a brilliant grin, then winked at James, who was shaking his head, looking somewhat amused at his friend's ramblings.

But to Remus, the words had gone right through him like a ghost. "It's our fault that Hazel is here in detention with us right now. Like it or not."

He was about to headdesk again, when Hazel suddenly asked him, "How come you're not upset that you are in detention?"

"Me?" He looked at her behind two sleepy eyes and found that it was a much too convoluted disposition for him to explain to her right then. "I'm always in detention. It doesn't matter so much."

Hazel was left in a state of quandary. She didn't quite see why it was such a big deal to him. Sure, the fact that she had been penalised was definitely a point of stress in the days since the news dropped. But the peculiar thing about it was, her mind had been far more occupied casting her back to the time when Remus had held her hand, than it had been chastising her for getting in trouble.