The Girl Who Cried Wolf || Remus Lupin

CHAPTER THREE

'Today we are going to be making the Calming Draught. Can anyone tell me what this is used for?' Professor Slughorn stood at the front of the room, holding up a small vial of a brownish liquid.

Lily immediately put her hand up, 'it soothes the nerves of the drinker.'

'Correct, Miss Evans. It is used to calm a person after shock, trauma or emotional outbursts.'

'Merlin, I could use some Calming Draught then.' Astrid sarcastically interjected, loud enough so Sirius, her partner in the class, could hear her and scoff in reply of her remark.

'Now, in your partners I want you to turn to page 110 and start creating the potion. If anyone needs any help, feel free to ask me about the potion.

Astrid sighed heavily, taking her head from the palm of her hand and rolling up her sleeves before turning to Sirius. It was the first class of her second week of the school year and already her energy and motivation - which were barely there to begin with - were at all all time low.

She just wanted to get this over and done with.

'Right, let's get this over with.' She began collecting the ingredients, swiftly dropping them into her swirling cauldron in the right amounts and in the right conditions, listing the ingredients off as she went along. However, Sirius hadn't moved the whole time.

Instead he was stuck in his thoughts.

What Astrid hadn't realised is when she rolled her sleeves up the pink lines that had buried themselves deep into her pale skin were extremely visible. Sirius' worry was increasing by the minute as the thoughts from the previous time he had spotted her scars came back.

What if she was doing this to herself? What if her parents were doing this to her? Which is worse? No, their equally as bad.Why would she do it to herself in the first place? Last year everything had been perfect.

'Well,are you going to help me, dear brother?' Astrid asked, waiting for the gaping boy to move. 'What are you staring at anyway?' Her eyes trailed down and followed to where Sirius' lay on her arms.

Her arms.

'Merlin,' Astrid uttered out awkwardly, pulling down her sleeves with a slightly emotional scoff, feeling her eyes well up in tears a bit which she roughly wiped away.

When class was over, it didn't take long for Astrid to quickly run out of the room.

Sirius went after her just as fast.

'Hey, Astrid! I think we bloody well need to talk!' He grabbed her wrist roughly and pulled her back to face her.

'Merlin, let go, I'm delicate!' Astrid wrenched her wrist from his grip.

'Now's really not the time to be joking,' he rubbed his hands over his face and talked a strand of his long black hair behind his ear exasperatedly. 'You know we're all worried about you.'

Astrid looked down at the comment. Things for her seemed hopeless, her life would be over if she told him she was a werewolf and her life would be just as bad if she continued the way she had taken to acting now. Stony faced and in a haughty tone, she replied, 'I can't keep you lot from worrying when there's nothing to be worried about.'

'You say that,' he rolled up Astrid's sleeve more gently than he originally had grabbed it and pointed to her arms, 'but then what the hell are these and where did you get them from?'

'Hey, don't take that tone with me... I remember that stupid party in Summer. When I hugged you... when I hugged you, you flinched away from me! Why didn't you tell me they were hurting you?' Astrid replied, 'you're keeping your own bloody secrets from me.'

Sirius scoffed, 'them hurting me!? I don't care if they hurt me but Merlin, if you're parents are hurting you, then it's all my fault isn't it? They only shout at you because I'm just a rebellious 'blood-traitor' to them.' The boy slid down the wall, his head in his hands as things began to look even worse than he originally thought.

Both of them had scalding tears welling up in their eyes.

'They're not hurting me, Sirius...'

'So that's why you said those things to Remus, that you 'can't be here anymore.'' Realisation hit her when Sirius spoke those words.

Her friends thought she was suicidal.

'I didn't mean it like that Sirius.' Astrid paused to compose herself but only seemed to break down even further. 'It's just... Something happened this Summer and I jus-' Her voice caught in her throat and soon the first sobs came tumbling out as the memories rushed back to her.

I'm a bloody monster, was what she was going to say.

Sirius scooted closer to Astrid and gingerly wrapped his arm around the girls shoulders, biting his lip and looking up to the ceiling to keep the tears that were threatening to stream down his face to fall. 'It's okay, sis, it's okay.' She sniffled into his shoulder. 'But you do know this needs to stop.'

Her croaking voice sputtered out a reply, 'and you do know you also need to sort your damn shit out as well.'

Sirius forced a small chuckle as he rocked the girl's frail body back and forth, settling the last of her sobbing down. 'Also, you need to eat, I can feel your bloody bones, sis.'

Then it was Astrid's turn to let out a small chuckle even though the thought of how her body looked still made her feel like shit. 'Yeah, I know, I sort of look like a twelve year old boy.'

'A beautiful twelve year old boy,' Sirius kissed the top of her head, continuing to rock the two back and forth.

'I'm going to pretend you never said that, bro.' The two both chuckled as they broke apart and lay their heads against the wall they were both leaning against.

'All jokes aside, we can do this together.'

'You're right. I definitely needed this,' Astrid sniffed again.

'Merlin, we must look a picture,' Sirius groaned and they both burst into laughter.

They were right, they were a picture. However, Astrid and Sirius' relationship was one of the things the girl held dearest in her life. He was the brother she never had, after all. So in that moment Astrid decided that whatever happened next, she would take it in stride and make the best of it. For Sirius, and for the rest of her friends.

I will get better.