CURSES AND CANDIES - REMUS LUPIN

𝑡𝑤𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑦.

tw - abuse

Hollis was having a very vivid dream about a fox and cracked wooden floors before she felt a gentle tap on her shoulder. Hollis's eyelids fluttered for a few moments to adjust to the sun streaming through the library windows, a dramatic contrast to the dark backs of her eyelids. 

The tap came again, this time slightly more urgent. Now Hollis was awake enough to flinch and pull back, making it known to whoever it was that she was now conscious.

The tense flinch was a rather morbid sign to Regulus that Hollis was awake, but at least it was something. Regulus had been worrying about her all night and had taken to sleeping in the library for that one night as well.

When Hollis turned her neck around to see Regulus standing behind her, she felt a small sense of relief that it wasn't Theodore or some mudblood Gryffindor. There was a horrible, pulsing pain in her head that was worse than any headache Hollis had ever experienced, taking over all her senses. 

Regulus was too concerned to do anything but get straight to the point.

"Do you remember anything from last night?" Regulus asked promptly, and Hollis just groaned and held a hand to her forehead.

"My head hurts so badly, dear Merlin," Hollis said, and this just made Regulus's suspicion of his brother skyrocket even higher. "And why, what happened?"

Regulus took this as a no.

"I don't know either," Regulus said in a low tone, kneeling by Hollis so that he was at her eye level from the oak wooden chair Sirius had placed her in. "What's the last thing you remember happening?"

Furrowing her eyebrows, Hollis realized there seemed to be a gap in her night.

"I was in a courtyard with Theodore at sunset, and then I woke up here," Hollis muttered, sitting up straight. "Did someone do something, why can't I remember?"

Regulus didn't answer, he was too busy trying to connect the nonexistent dots.

.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡　　　ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+

"I'm not going to lie, I was secretly hoping that we were wrong," Marlene said with a sad voice as the six Gryffindors sat in a circle on the floor of their common room. 

It was the morning after the full moon, and none of them had been able to sleep for various reasons.

James and Peter had been turning over who could have cursed Hollis in their heads for hours, tormenting themselves with feelings of being helpless to stop the curse.

Sirius was starting to feel like they weren't even kids anymore. They had all grown up without realizing it, forced into an older state of mind through this war and blood purity.

Marlene and Lily had been restless to figure out what the boys knew, every second of their theory not being confirmed making it harder and harder to drift off.

And Remus just missed his little fox.

"Well, I don't know if this makes anything better," James started. "But at least we know for sure now that she hasn't meant any of the stuff she's said to us. You know, about blood and stuff."

This did give all of them a sense of comfort, especially Remus. 

Because if Hollis had meant that he was a monster to her, then Remus might have given up.

"It is a bit of a relief," Lily muttered, thinking of how cruelly Hollis had looked at her when calling the ginger a mudblood.

Remus was not enjoying the association of relief and confirming that Hollis was under the Imperius Curse, but he knew he had to keep his temper in line so they could all think clearly and rationally.