NOTHING GIRL || Remus Lupin

-Forty One: Nervous-

And Here's What You Missed At: Hogwarts

Helia shook her head, breaking eye contact with Remus. "Nothing." She said. She looked at the ground and then glanced up to meet Remus's startled eyes with her own once more, gaining a questioning look from Jack, as if she were making some sort of decision. "Nothing at all."

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

The three of them ended up trailing back to Helia's house.

Her dad was up, and bumbling around the canvas again. Remus was able to notice things about the home that he hadn't on his last, rather delirious, trip through. There were paintings on the wall, each and every one of them with the same muse and, Remus would bet anything, the same artist. It was a boy, around his age, looking at something just beyond the observer of the painting, with a smile just beginning to curve his mouth in a way that reminded Remus of Helia. Some of the paintings clearly showed Dean Blacksmith in all his detail, whereas in others he was barely recognisable as human, colours blending together to form something abstract that struck a chord deep in Remus.

Helia lead the boys into the kitchen, flicking the switch on the kettle as they sat down at the small wooden table.

"Coffee or tea?" She asked over her shoulder as she clanged mugs about. Jack made his way over to her.

"Tea." Remus announced.

"I got this." Jack gently pushed Helia out of the way. "Beans on toast are in the microwave. You can deal with Dave."

Dave, Remus guessed, was Helia's dad. Remus smiled at her as she past and she responded with a light tap on his shoulder before moving over to the microwave and leaving the room with a steaming tray of beans on toast. Remus looked over at Jack, who was opening cabinets and holding Helia's utensils with the air of someone who had done this exact thing countless times before. At least he knew who was looking after Helia's father now.

"Look, mate." Jack slid into the seat opposite him, the bubbling of the kettle hiding his words from Helia in the other room. The boy suddenly seemed very serious. "I don' want this to be all patronisin', like, an' I know that you an' Hel 'ave sommat goin' on that I don' know bout, some secret or sommit, but I let tha' girl down once an' I won' do it again, you hear me?"

The kettle finished boiling and Jack slid a cup of tea over to him. "I'm sorry. I really don't know what you're talking about."

"Ay, an' I'm t' Queen o' England." Jack muttered darkly. "When 'er brother died, I went out me mind fer a bit. I left, got pissed up me socks in some galley somewhere in York. I were only gone a week, like, but by t' time I got back, they'd already packed 'er off to some boardin' school up in Scotland. Just like tha'. Her brother had been dead nigh a week and she were just gone. I let 'er down. I thought... I thought maybe we could'a 'elped each other through it, yer know? We were all we 'ad left. But I let 'er disappear in into the land o' hills. An' she's changed, yer know? I can see it. She ain't got much happiness left in 'er." Jack's eyes hardened, as if he realised that he was spilling his life story for the first time. "An' God 'elp me if I let someone else ruin what she got left, you understand me?"

"What?" Remus was wondering where he fit into all of this.

"I seen the way you look at 'er." Jack said, his thick accent making it almost impossible for his voice to soften, yet he managed it. "Just don' hurt our Hel, okay?"

I think she's more likely to hurt me, Remus thought, but he didn't say that. "Okay."

"What are you two looking serious about? You're scaring me." Helia swept back into the room, tray in hand. She lightly poked Remus on the back of his head as she passed to show that she didn't mean it. "We have to get you home, Moon Boy. You're parents are going to ring up the wizard cops looking for you."