NOTHING GIRL || Remus Lupin

-Thirty: Half the Truth-

Here's what you missed at: Hogwarts

The sound of a wooden door shutting snapped him out of his trance. He looked around. This was most certainly not the seventh floor corridor.

Merlin, Helia. How have you kept this hidden?

...........................

The silence stretched out as Remus stared around the room in shock.

It was around half the size of a classroom. Bookshelves lined the walls and crawled upward until they reached the painted-black ceiling, though the spines facing outward were not the leather-bound kind that you would find in the library, but rather the laminated card, colourful sort that wouldn't look out of place in a book shop. The carpet he found himself on was also black, but his shoes sunk into it in a way that made him want to take them off to feel it's softness on his bare feet. Beanbags in a variety of colours littered the floor, making Remus realise how early it was and how much his body ached for rest. Electric lamps were in every corner. Four battered, wooden doors lead off from the main room, each bearing the logo of a different Hogwarts house: Hufflepuff and Gryffindor to his left, Ravenclaw and Slytherin to his right.

But what were perhaps the most surprising things were the paper airplanes gliding lazily from one room to the next through little vents in the top of the doors. As he watched, one came to rest in Helia's outstretched palm. She unfolded it, and then frowned. Helia turned on the spot and walked over to the Gryffindor door, muttering a locking incantation under her breath. Once she was done, she threw the slip of paper into the air, where it quickly refolded itself and flapped off indignantly.

"What in Merlin's name, Helia?" Remus breathed.

Helia looked startled. "I mean, I couldn't show you how I got in here. I had to... distract you."

A blush fought it's way along his face as Remus realised that Helia thought he had been asking about the kiss. Of course  she hadn't actually wanted to do it; he had basically been ignoring her for a month. It  had just been a tool to get him inside without raising questions. Merlin. Since when had Remus been so transparent?

"So," He said, trying to retain a sense of normalcy, "This is where you disappear to every night?"

Helia grinned awkwardly. "Yep."

"Why all the houses?" Remus asked curiously "Why not just Ravenclaw?"

"Oh." Remus didn't think he would ever see the day where Helia Blacksmith blushed, but there she went. She rubbed her arm. "I'm not really a Ravenclaw, to be honest. The sorting hat just couldn't figure out where to put me."

Remus's eyebrows pulled together. "Too much of everything?"

"Not enough of anything." Helia responded with a wry grin, not quite meeting his eyes.

"You just had to go and be the special one, didn't you?" Remus grinned.

"Yeah," Helia laughed, and the noise alleviated some of the tension. "Yeah, I guess."

As Helia showed him round the space, Remus began to notice other things. Carved onto the ceiling were the words 'I don't want to be just one thing. I want to be brave and selfless and intelligent and honest and kind.'  Remus noticed Helia glancing nervously up at them a number of times. He guessed they were kind of reassuring for someone who got told that they belonged nowhere.

Each of the doors, too, had a quote pinned to them on a scrap of parchment. For Ravenclaw, it was 'A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men'. For Hufflepuff, the two sentences scribed there read 'The greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.' On Gryffindor's door, which was, of course, the one Remus was most interested in, the words spelled 'Good guys wear white. Have you ever tried getting the blood off a white cape?', but just under it, Helia had stuck another post it note, saying 'There's courage in being a nerd.' Both felt like he was being mocked. Slytherin's door proclaimed 'I am as sharp as broken glass, and just as fragile. I tell lies better than truths. I see all of the galaxy and never catch a glimpse of it.'