in which hollis rosier falls asleep in the wrong compartment
or the right one, depending on who you ask
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part one of two
editing closed, logged off wattpad (sorry only like half of it is edited, but its obviously still all good)
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#...
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"their first full moon"
Remus, Hollis, Peter, Sirius, and James had just finished eating an intentionally late dinner in the Great Hall, the tables around them almost completely empty with the exception of a few Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw second years eating together. The five friends wanted to draw out the time until dark for as long as possible so that their presence in the corridors late at night would seem less suspicious.
Either unnoticed or dismissed by many, tonight was a full moon.
Normally, or ever since their fifth year, Hollis would wait in the boy's bathroom for James and Sirius to half carry in an injured Remus. After that, she would heal him up and they would either go to sleep or spend the rest of the night somewhere in the castle together until all five of them fell asleep.
Tonight, however, Hollis had different plans.
As James took one last bite of his chocolate pudding and stood up, the others followed suit as they walked out of the Great Hall's enormous pale stone and wooden doorway. Usually, the four boys would walk outside towards the Whomping Willow while Hollis split off to prepare the supplies in the bathroom. This time though, as they approached the metal barred door leading out into Hogwarts's mountainous grounds, she cleared her throat.
"I'm coming with you," Hollis told them firmly, her shoulders back.
Remus replied in less than half a second.
"No," he insisted, shaking his head, "absolutely not."
She gritted her teeth; she had been expecting this reaction, but it was still frustrating.
"I want to be with you," Hollis cried, then quickly correcting herself. "All four of you!"
Sirius raised a dark eyebrow that implied he had noticed Hollis's slip up.
James was frowning and exchanging a glance with Remus, neither of them wanted Hollis to come. Not out of exclusion, but safety. Peter was hiding slightly behind the two taller boys, trying to avoid the conflict. Looking between the four Gryffindors, Hollis continued with her point.
"Come on, you guys!" Hollis sighed, exasperated. "Without me, no way you guys would have finished the Animagus process this much earlier than you originally expected!"
Sirius sighed and scratched the back of his head as he turned to James. They were both becoming slowly convinced that Hollis had a point here. Remus's eyes were still insistent and hard against the idea.
"No way, Hol. Something bad could happen to you," Remus told Hollis with a definitive tone. "Sometimes I'm not the only one that ends up with cuts after full moons."
She knew exactly what he was talking about.
Once, in his last full moon before Christmas Break, Remus and Sirius had both come back with bloody scratches all down their backs. Peter and James were struggling to get both of their friends to Hollis, and she ended up having to stay up until four to heal both of them completely.
Still, she didn't care.
"Do you think I would be asking if I wasn't aware of the dangers here?" Hollis exclaimed, holding out her arms in exasperation to Remus. "And don't you try and use the then let me help you argument here, because you know that you didn't have to do all that for the burn from Moribund. We're past that enough for you to let me come."
Those words had been on the tip of his tongue before she sliced them off.
Past that enough, he thought bitterly. Never more than enough. Enough for who, Hol? Certainly not me.
The logical part of him knew that she was right. Transforming would be easier, less painful, with her in the Shack. The other, more deeply emotional section of his mind was screaming at him to not let her come with him at any cost. He had seen her badly hurt both physically and mentally by others.
Remus wasn't prepared to experience how it would feel to be the person who had inflicted that damage.
"I can't hurt you, Hollis," he said firmly, looking her right in her determined eyes.
"Been through worse than a few werewolf claws," Hollis retaliated quickly, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly.
Two lines flashed through Remus's mind.
One white, one bloody.
Neither ever truly gone.
But he trusted her.
And now was a test of that.
Shaking his head, he was already regretting how his mind had made itself up.
"Fine."
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+
A stag, rat, and black dog waited as a tiny bloodred fox sprinted ahead of them across the thawed, greyish grass towards the Whomping Willow. Deftly avoiding the tree's enormous wooden clubs, the fox made it safely to the thick, gnarled trunk after a few moments. She pounced on an oddly shaped knot in the bark with her tiny paws, eliciting a small, scratching noise from the tree.
The Whomping Willow's barbaric branches froze mid-swing as soon as the concealed button was pressed. The other three animals and boy hidden underneath an invisibility cloak quickly ran through the secret, earthy tunnel running entangled with the roots of the willow tree.
After a few minutes of traveling through the hidden passage, the five creatures made it to the battered interior of the Shrieking Shack.
Remus threw down the cloak with a puff of dust onto an old piano with a crack running down its black middle. A sliver of moonlight shone through the chipped wooden shades that were supposed to be covering the open-air window. Hollis, James, Sirius, and Peter all raced behind a table in animal form as the silvery light hit Lupin directly in his pained, green eye.
Slowly, Remus's bone structure began to alter into one resembling a wolf, every bone in his body broken and reformed. Even as this pain seemed to become more and more severe and more gruesome to witness, the worst part about all of it was his cries.
They were deep and incredibly sorrowful, as if begging someone to help him make the pain stop. The sound cut through Hollis like a knife, especially as her fox ears picked up on the sounds better than her human form would.
There was a loud bang and crack of splitting wood as he staggered into an old chair with it's pink upholstery torn by claw marks. For what felt like hours, all she could do was helplessly watch him go through this until the transformation finally stopped.
Staring back at the four of them was Remus Lupin in his werewolf form.
His teeth were as white as the moon and looked like they could tear through flesh like wet parchment, his fur coat was grey and black heathered, sleek and shining in the moonlight.
To her surprise, though, his eyes were the same forest green.
