Bleeding Heart | REMUS LUPIN

Chapter Seven

"Tell us about them, Ivory," said James, looking the girl straight in the eyes. "Really, it's okay if you don't want to, but I reckon it'll be good to talk."

Ivory took a deep, constricted breath in and met James's gaze. The bespectacled boy grabbed Ivory's hand fleetingly in an effort to comfort her; no one did comfort like James. The gesture was much appreciated on Ivory's part and she sighed, prepared to talk about her parents. The atmosphere of the Three Broomsticks Inn made it oddly easy for her to talk as it was too loud for the silence to be able to seep through her bones and make her feel lonelier than ever.

"My parents are both Muggle-borns," Ivory began, looking anywhere but at the four boys. She stared off somewhere in the distance, keeping her eyes focused on another table or on a chair, or even on the empty bottles of Firewhisky. "That's the reason they were both k-killed, anyway... They're both Muggle-born. Neither of my parents were in Gryffindor, though. My dad was in Hufflepuff and my mum was in Ravenclaw. They both work at the Ministry of Magic.

"Dad is one of those people who just makes the corniest jokes that people laugh at anyway... especially me. I always laugh at his jokes, even when no one else gets them. We have the same sense of humour. He's awkward, too, but it's a funny type of awkward, and that side of him always makes me smile... He's always been way too protective of me, and I tell him that I don't need to be protected. He knows I can take care of myself, but he'd still murder anyone who hurt me. Well, both my parents would do that.

"And Mum never misses an opportunity to tease me, but I love that about our relationship. We tell each other everything... and I really mean everything. I write to her at least once every single week and I never miss a week. She's my b-best friend. She was the one that I had so much difficulty leaving when I first came to Hogwarts... The thought of not seeing her for a few months until Christmas or the summer hurt me so much that I almost didn't even want to come here. She wanted me to, though, because she thought I was way too dependent on her.

"They do everything for me... Both of them."

She swallowed the lump in her throat, realizing that she had used the present tense to describe her parents... But they were no more... They were gone and they weren't coming back.

Ivory cleared her throat and sniffled. "I mean... they did everything for me. Did."

She licked her dry and cracked lips, rubbed her raw cheeks with the backs of her hands. She remembered specifically something her mother had once told her.

"Mum once told me that she knew I loved her too much. I didn't understand it at first and I thought there was no such thing as loving someone too much. I thought about what a wonderful thing it was for someone to know how much you loved them without you having to tell them... but she said that she feared if... if anything ever h-h-happened to her, that I'd die of a b-b-b-broken h-heart... And m-maybe I will."

"God, Ivory, no," said Remus, not able to hold himself back from saying it.

Remus hated every time the girl mentioned that she didn't want to live anymore. He wanted to shield her from everything, he wanted to make everything better for her. The image of the Ivory he used to know was flickering before him. Impulsively, he reached his hand forward and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. His hand lingered there and his breath momentarily hitched in his throat as her watery hazel eyes met his.

Remus dropped his hand from her face, blushing slightly. He hated how he blushed so easily, for the slightest thing...

Ivory gave a little grimace. She wanted to keep talking and Remus, James, Sirius and Peter were clinging onto every word that came out of her mouth. She lowered her head, pulling on the sleeve of Remus's jumper. His scent on it, for some reason, calmed her.