NOTHING GIRL || Remus Lupin

-Eleven: The Bwest Of Fwends

"Remus Lupin?"

Helia glanced up from where she had been sitting, reading in the library, to stare at Lin, who had spoken.

"What?" she asked, expression giving nothing away.

"Really? Remus Lupin?" Lin slid into the chair opposite Helia and continued to watch her with an incredulous expression. 

"Slow down, Puffy." Helia said, sounding more amused than anything else, though her mind was racing. The smallest things could tip Lin off; the girl was incredibly insightful when she wanted to be. "What are you on about?"

"You've been talking to Remus Lupin?" Lin's incredulity would have sounded unusual if it had been directed at anyone else: Helia didn't just  talk to people, and certainly not by choice. 

Severus, scribbling away in a potions book at the next table over, snorted. "You can do better." Helia could hear the subtext, loud and clear: Even a mudblood can do better than a werewolf.

Helia fixed a glare on him. "I wasn't aware you held me in such high regard."

Severus fully abandoned the pretence of writing to match her stare. "At least I" he pointed out "have never tried to rip you apart."

Helia sighed dreamily. "Well, the night is still young, Slytherin. And you would be in the minority. Don't worry, though, I have faith in you. It seems attempting to one up Helia Blacksmith is some form of initiation ritual now. Or, at least that's what I heard from your Slytherin friends."

Now it was Lin's turn to look confused. "What are you on about? When did Remus try to rip you apart? What is going on with the world? Please tell me this is a misunderstanding." Lin's inner protective friend was emerging, and channelling angry Hufflepuff.

"Sorry, Linny. Made a promise. My lips are sealed." Helia lent back in her chair. Lin watched her carefully, her Sherlock Holmes brain switching on behind her kind eyes. Lin had always been good at reading people, emotions were her thing, but unfortunately for her, discovering dirty secrets was Helia's forte. Eventually, Lin gave up (for now), and began following what she could read from Helia's impenetrable expression.

"I thought... but I wasn't sure until... And then Remus said... Are you dating?" Lin's nearly unintelligible ramblings wouldn't have made sense to anyone except Helia and Jade. By now, they were used to the way her mind worked, not in straight lines, like most people, but jumping about from idea to idea, raining chaos. And always with a miraculously correct conclusion at the end. Looking through Ty's eyes, Julian had once said, was like looking through a kaleidoscope, shaking it up, and then looking again. You saw all the same glimmering crystals, just in a different order.

"Lin, you've known me for six years now. Since when do I 'date'?" Helia was leaning on her elbows, carefully balanced on the mahogany wood of the table.

"Well, whatever it is people with ridiculous commitment issues do instead of dating then." Lin amended, hitting the nail on the head as always.

"Oh, ouch." Helia said, not even bothering to deny it. "This is getting too real for a Saturday night. I'm going to have to invite the entire north pole to get enough chill in here after that burn."

"I don't understand muggle expressions." Lin said helplessly.

Helia placed her hands, palms down, on the table in front of her. "There is absolutely nothing romantic between myself and Remus Lupin." she stated calmly, aware of Severus listening to every word they said. 

Lin had her reading-your-mind face on again. "But you'd like there to be."

"Jesus Christ." Helia had never gotten into the wizarding way of cursing, instead opting for muttering under her breath the same way she'd seen her brother do growing up. "What I'd like is to finish this chapter on Grindylows so that when Professor Scamander inevitably gives us a surprise pop quiz on them tomorrow, I will not lose to Evans again. And you are currently distracting me from that."