NOTHING GIRL || Remus Lupin

-Forty Eight: When They Fall-

PLEASE READ BEFORE CONTINUING:

It is very important for me to note that Helia is NOT suicidal. That said, if you have ever had experienced suicidal feelings or anything similar, I strongly recommend not reading this chapter.

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The trapdoor to the astronomy tower was already open, settling a cold blanket over Remus. He had already known what he would find, and yet every rung of the ladder he was praying to some unknown force that he was wrong, the map was wrong, it was all a mistake and he could go back to bed and wake up with a badly handwritten note from Helia on his bedside table and smile a smile that would carry all through breakfast, when they would sneak glances at each other from across the room. But he understood, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, that that was not going to be the case.

Sure enough, as Remus's head cleared the roof, he was able to see the dark silhouette of a familiar figure standing on the small stone wall that ringed the tower. Helia's hair was down, blown to one side by the wind. She was wearing muggle clothes; jeans and a dark shirt, making her look more normal than Remus could've imagined. She was facing the school grounds, with her head tipped down so she was looking at the sheer drop.

Remus tried to move quietly, so as not to startle her and send her over the edge, but she noticed him anyway.

"Hello, Remus" She said without turning, and her voice was eerily calm, more so than he had ever heard it. It sent a shock through him. The fact that she was conscious of his presence enough to identify him by name meant that she wasn't working under any curse, it meant that Helia had chosen to walk up the spiralling stairs to the Astronomy Tower and stand on the narrow stone wall, inches from death. It meant that whatever she was doing had been her decision, and that scared him more than almost anything else.

"Helia." His voice sounded raw, scorched. Each word had to fight to escape from his throat. He doubted Helia would have heard him if it were not for the stillness of the night air that wrapped around them like fog. "Please, come down."

Helia didn't move, "I haven't come up here to throw myself off, if that's what you're thinking,"

Remus felt the weight that had been pressing against his chest lessen slightly. "Just come down and we can talk about it then, okay?"

She barely seemed to register his words "It's just, sometimes, it's nice to think about how I could do it, if I wanted to." Remus inched closer.

"But you don't want to." His voice had now taken on a pleading note.

"If I jumped. Right now. That would be it. I would be dead and it would be on my terms. There would be nothing the Snatchers or the Death Eaters or Voldemort could do about it." Remus couldn't help the sharp intake of breath that came when Helia mentioned the Dark Lord. She turned away from the edge slightly, so that Remus could see her eyes shimmering like brilliant blue spheres; they were wild, untameable. "Yes, I said his goddamn name!" She started shouting now, tears streaming from her eyes. "And I'll say it again! I'll say it a million times before I die so that when I go, he'll know that someone had the guts to say it. Someone looked him straight in the eye, and spat in it. But I don't want him to be the one who does it!" Her eyes found Remus'. Her voice turned to a whisper, carried away on the slight breeze. "Is that so bad? I know I'm going to die. I keep getting second chance after second chance and no one seem to realise that I know there's no way I'm getting through this. I know, I've always known. It's everything that I am."

Remus felt as if the air had been kicked out of his lungs. He stared at the girl who had saved his life when he could see the world coming apart like a jigsaw puzzle. The girl who had stared him straight in the eyes and whispered live, live until he could summon the energy to push the pieces back together. He imagined, for a second, that now he was the one sitting over her while her blood stained the grass a dark ruby. He tried to tell her with his eyes, to say the same thing; live Helia, he begged, live. She looked at him, and he could see resolve form in that blue, blue stare. He could only watch, helpless.