𝐆𝐑𝐄𝐘𝐁𝐀𝐂𝐊 ❧ remus lupin

XVII. Good Night and Good Luck

"Luck is when opportunity knocks, and you answer."

Juliet's POV

After tossing and turning and not getting any sleep, morning came as slow as ever, and I patiently waited for Lily, Marlene, and Alice to awake from their slumber. That night was the bloody longest eight hours ever. But at least it was Saturday, so I had more time today to figure out how on Earth I was going to be able to resist Fenrir's urges on the night of the full moon. At the moment, I was absolutely clueless and had no idea where to start.

It was still somewhat early in the morning and since I was up, I figured why not make myself useful? I had a big Potions test coming up, and I figured that I might go down to the library before breakfast to prepare for the test.

I moseyed down to the library, hardly seeing anyone in the corridors. Within no time the sun began to rise, the open sky tinted with beautiful purple, red, and yellow hues.

Once in the unknown, quiet, and secluded are of the library that I had gotten familiar with over the past couple years, I got down to business and began to study for my Potions test. If I had to choose one class to drop for my schedule this year, it would be Potions. I'm bloody awful at it, and the only person I know who actually knows what they are doing in that class is Sirius.

But he was asleep as it was still early Sunday morning, therefore I had no one and nothing to help me except for the many library books in which I have absolutely no desire to decipher. And this feeling raging all throughout my body isn't making it any easier. I couldn't get any sleep due to it, and it's for sure getting in the way of me trying to study for a class I know I'll fail.

While I tried to fight the pushing and pulling feelings I heard the out-of-breath breathing from a person standing only a few meters away.

"Hey, Juliet!" he nearly shouted as my head turned around, laying my eyes upon none other than the boy whose been helping me greatly over the past few days.

"Remus? What are you doing here?" I questioned, considering that it was still the early hours of Saturday morning, yet he looked perfectly awake.

"I've got it, Jules!" he shouted again, sounding so excited to tell me whatever it is that he got. In return, one of the librarians who preferred not to be bothered whispered at us harshly to keep the yelling to a minimum.

"What?" I asked Remus, who immediately sat down next to me, took his heavy-looking backpack off of his broad shoulders and whipped out yet another book. Before he spoke, he flipped open the book, which I had not seen before, to a specific page. Since he was flipping through the pages so fast, I couldn't tell what he was looking at, but the wording of the book seemed to be organized like a recipe.

"I've figured it out, Jules," he said again, "I've figured out a way to help you beat this curse."

I looked back at him with a hopeful face, and his chocolate brown eyes were lit up with hope, as if he had just figured out the meaning of life.

Soon we broke eye contact, and his eyes followed his finger on the page of a book I figured out to be Potions related.

"When we were leaving to library last night, I impulsively grabbed a few extra books that I thought could help cure your curse, and I accidentally picked up this Potions book," he said. "Anyways, I couldn't sleep last night and got to reading, and found this."

He looked back down at the book and said, "Now, I'm not fully sure that this will help things, but," he took a deep breath before speaking again, "have you ever heard of the potion called Felix Felicis?"

Soon my eyes lit up just as Remus' has only seconds ago, and I remembered learning about the unique and rare potion last year in Potions class with Professor Slughorn.

"Of course! Why hadn't that crossed my mind earlier!" I also nearly shouted, hoping not to get kicked out of the library by the angry librarian.

Remus started reading the information text about the potion aloud, saying how Felix Felicis is a water-like clear potion that grants it's drinker an unusual amount of luck more commonly known by the name of Liquid Luck.

I nearly got caught up with the idea by quickly saying, "I could use some right before the full moon! And then if things go well I could fully battle the Imperius curse once and for all, and I'd be free of this terrible feeling inside of me!" I was so eager to use the potion, that I nearly forgot about the single deal-breaker that Remus soon brought up.

"There is one bad thing about the potion however," Remus slowly said back to me, "It's extremely rare, and there's no place for us to get it."

But I completely ignored any sort of consequences and blurred out, "What about Professor Slughorn? He probably has some. We could just sneak into his office and switch out the potion for a vial of water," I suggested.

Remus looked back at me with a worried face; I knew that on any given day, Remus would never be down to do anything as risky as this, even with James or Sirius. But it only took him about a minute or so to give in and say that he'd help me steal the vial of Liquid Luck.

We only had until tomorrow to figure out how we were going to be able to steal a vial of the potion from Professor Slughorn and get away with it without him knowing, so that meat that we had to plan it now.

"I could borrow James' invisibility cloak," Remus suggested, "That way we wouldn't be seen by anyone."

"We should also bring water to replace the Liquid Luck once we take it, that way Slughorn won't notice that anything's missing," I said.

During all of this, I was still so shocked that Remus was going out of his way to help me go back to normal. I mean I know that he was dragged into this whole situation in the first place, but his constant care and worry for me amazes me. Even though both Lily and Zoe think that he fancies me, I still don't know how I feel about him. He's been my friend at this school since the start, and honestly I've got more things to worry about at the moment. I'll think about it later, once I have this whole mess sorted with.

Anyways, from that point on, we both agreed that we would sneak into Slughorn's office very late tonight, take the Liquid Luck, and leave as quickly as possible. All we had to do was wait.

Word Count: 1185

a/n: do you think they'll find the liquid luck and get away with it???