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Remus Lupin smelled like a dog. Or Professor Lupin, rather, Aster thought.
Compared to Sirius who had his top three buttons undone, the unfamiliar man was dressed in full professor regalia in the middle of summer and looked ready to whip up a lecture any second. It didn't really matter. School was out and he hasn't been formally instated.
But Aster knew if he was someone who can handle Sirius at his worst then he probably wasn't any better either.
Professor Lupin smelled like a dog. Something tells Aster there's a story there somewhere but she wasn't really interested in that so far. Whatever affairs Sirius had remains his as long as it doesn't hinder her.
She smiles at him brightly enough in return and introduces herself as well but now that she sees him she decides he wasn't worth any trouble.
Aster excuses herself and dashes away before he starts any comparison and goes down memory lane about her parents as well, going by the teary-eyed look he's giving her. She'll have more than enough of that when she sees him around Hogwarts.
She comes to learn she didn't need to wait for school to open back up again for her to see more of the Professor around. Aster was no love witch but something was definitely brewing between him and Sirius.
He comes over often much like a suitor to court his beloved, though it was actually quite the opposite.
It turns out Grandfather quite liked Lupin's company and often they'd accompany each other in the former's study where Sirius proceeds to sniff them out. Every time, without fail, he laments not at all quietly about how his own grandfather had made him into some unfavoured mistress.
Apparently, to himself, he decided he needed to earn back Remus's favour.
Aster soon comes to learn the romantic ways of Sirius Black. Regretfully. Painfully.
Some days it was bouquets all freshly picked from their gardens, to the point Aster had to team up with her grandfather to cordon off their prized blooms away from his grubby paws. She caught him one time whining at her bedroom door to ask for one of her rare and exquisite flowers she kept and raised in her quarters. She did not let up, of course.
The amount of chocolate that piled up in their storage was disgusting to say the least. But it seemed to be working in Sirius' favour. So she let that go. She might've sneaked a few for herself, no one needs to know.
Sirius definitely knows.
She cheers him on for his efforts. They pay off.
To the point where Sirius finally manages to whisk Remus away from Arcturus' study and settles him in the garden where he had a blanket laid out. Decadent pastries in layered tiers and fizzy drinks littered on it, from what Aster and Arcturus can see from the study window until her grandfather pulled the curtains closed, blocking her view.
