The Boy With Black Eyes

We Need to Talk About Remus

*TRIGGER WARNING: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE, BLOOD, ETC. IF YOU ARE SENSITIVE TO THIS SORT OF THING RETREAT TO THE RELATIVE HAPPINESS OF THE FORMER CHAPTERS. IT GETS WORSE FROM HERE.*

The Great Hall had been decorated over the weekend, with yards of tinsel and fairy-lights that had been enchanted by actual fairies, but the Common Rooms needed some work. The Christmas season was soon to be upon them, this first week in December, and the rush to complete end-of-term assignments had generally been lifted from everyone's shoulders. In two weeks, the Hogwarts Express would take most of the students home, leaving behind only a few that did not want to or could not return to the homes they had over the short time. 

Melissa gave the task of figuring out who was staying over the Christmas holidays to the prefects, as after several all-nighters with tutoring involved, she needed something methodical and mind-numbing to focus on so she could come down off of her caffiene high. At the current moment, she was decorating the mantelpiece of the Slytherin Common Room with silver tinsel, preparing to set up a white Christmas tree in one corner, with green and silver baubles, and tiny white lights that danced around in the thick branches. 

The Slytherins always seemed content to handle her at an arms length, coming to her if there was an issue their prefects could not solve, but quite happy to keep to themselves, but today, Melissa had hot spiced apple cider and gingerbread cookies she'd nicked from the kitchens, and they were being much more amicable. She'd been flirted with, talked to, hugged. The spirit of the holidays was already in the air. 

Janus was sitting on one of the couches not too far away, scribbling onto a piece of parchment, occasionally glancing up at her, before dipping his head to scribble with a very sharp quill and a very watered down ink. She was under the impression she was being drawn, or her movements had inspired him in some sort of way. His marks had gone up considerably in the month, and the successful batch of Polyjuice had lifted everybody's mark by almost ten percent. Janus still came to her during tea-time for help, but the other two felt confident enough to continue on their own. 

Melissa stretched up on her toes to get a stubborn piece of tinsel tucked away and her young companion shouted, "Don't move!"

Her knees locked, and she froze, hearing the quill scribble furiously against the page, before he called out again, allowing her to relax. She turned over her shoulder and smirked, "What was that?"

"Your Christmas present."

"You didn't need to make me anything..."

"Well, I am. So deal with it."

"Yessir..." A final floofing of tinsel had her satisfied, before she moved over to the tree, humming gently as she put it up, spreading and manipulating branches, making sure that the impressive eight feet took up as much space as it could, filling the rather cold room with some holiday warmth. "Hey Janus." He looked up, grey eyes large in his pre-pubescent face. "Wanna help?"

**********

Severus wasn't around this weekend, off running errands to ensure he had a job in the coming fall, when they were of age and finally out of school. Nox took the time to go down to Hogsmeade, escorting Narcissa to Lucius before breaking off from that group and beginning to wander the village as she typically did, Remus always managing to find her, in the eaten-up Gryffindor sweater and his blue jeans. Now that the cooler weather was upon them, she'd seen him twice in his new cloak, hands deep in his pockets, searching for the hard sour apple candies that were cheap at Honeyduke's right now. 

Well, it was still just after Halloween, so everything was cheap at Honeydukes right now. Including the maple walnut fudge which she'd bought nearly a quarter-kilo of before telling herself that was probably enough and she'd have fudge to last her until NEXT Halloween. After the incident in the Entrance Hall, they'd built a friendship again from the floor up. He was the one person, other than her father, who made sure she had something to unwrap on her birthday.