𝖘𝖚𝖓𝖌𝖗𝖆𝖟𝖊𝖗 ⋆ remus lupin

6

     Nearing Halloween, it finally got nippy enough for Milo to break out the scarves (to his great delight).

     Monday heralded a lavender woollen piece he'd bought when he was thirteen. He knotted it around his neck in the morning, and immediately got a heartwarming compliment from Javier.

     Tuesday came, and so did a furry white thing with alternating stripes of green and yellow. Renée tugged at the tassels on each end with glee, and somehow managed to get the multicoloured woolly fibres stuck in her lioness frizz.

     Wednesday brought around Vincent's favourite scarf, which imitated the flag he had hung on the wall above his bed. The colours reflected light onto Milo's jaw and cheeks, and he walked around glowing with the rainbow. He quite enjoyed it.

     Thursday was a miserable day with miserable weather, because the only classes Milo had were Ancient Runes and Arithmancy. He wore a dull grey scarf with no embellishments to reflect this.

     Friday was another day the same as Thursday, brightened only by his classes. Divination and Astronomy were his two favourites, so he wrapped himself in a midnight-blue thing with charmed-to-glitter constellations embroidered into it. He wore the matching socks Cass had bought him last Christmas, and suddenly Friday was a much better day than it had woken to be.

     Milo left Divination, his last class of the week, shuffling a pack of tarot cards between his hands. He'd been practising his shuffling, and he was getting quite proud of it. He caught up with Renée outside of the Transfiguration classroom.

     "Can I read you?" He asked immediately, with that stupid hopeful look on his face that nobody could turn down.

     "Course," she answered, and they found a spot to settle in a courtyard near the western regions of the castle. "Go on, then. Tell me when I'm going to get die."

     Milo snickered and got Renée to kiss the top of the deck before he lay out three cards in slow procession. "Okay, so... that's... this is the past, which is the Five of Wands. That's the competition card."

     "Well, a boy from Ravenclaw was competing with you for my affections while I fancied you," she said unsurely, a smile making it's way onto her lips. "Good thing I chose you, right?"

     "It doesn't necessarily mean that," Milo murmured. "Could be that you're regretting a big decision you made, or something's weighing on your mind you could have changed in the past. Okay, present is... The Hierophant. Yikes. And it's reversed, that's even worse."

     "What?" Renée demanded, tilting her head to see the crowned, sceptre-bearing man illustrated on the card. "What's The Hierophant? What does that mean?"

     "You're making decisions on doing the something," Milo replied. "Something's bothering you and you're dead confused about how you feel. Are you?"

     She shrugged after a moment of thought. "I don't know. Maybe it's subconscious."

     "Maybe."


     "Go on, do the future one."

     "Queen of Swords," Milo said, his tone sombre as he flipped the final card to show the illustration. "You'll need to put your foot down and be more forceful to get where you need to go, even if it doesn't seem like the right path at the time."

     "What's sad about that?"

     "What? Nothing. I'm not sad."

     "You seemed sad."

     Milo frowned and sniffed. "I'm not sad," he repeated.

     Renée gave him a studying look before taking a deep breath and standing. "Come on, then. Doesn't look like the rain's going to hold out for much longer. Wouldn't want to ruin your spooky cards."

     He chuckled and packed the deck back into his bag before twining his fingers with hers and letting her lead him back into the building.

     Milo didn't see the point in telling her that he'd done the reading with their relationship in mind. He didn't see the point in relaying the information that they were probably going to split up soon, and she'd be the one to do it. He just wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.