CURSES AND CANDIES - REMUS LUPIN

𝑓𝑖𝑓𝑡𝑦 𝑒𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡.

i hate doing these it lowkey spoils but MATURE CONTENT WARNING

When Hollis woke two mornings after she had given her memories to the Gryffindors with a much clearer head than she had experienced since leaving Rosier Manor. As it had been the night they ventured to the foreboding house, Remus's hand was holding hers after its absence during the day as he laid on the floor next to her.

James and Sirius had both somehow managed to sleep on the couch with her without touching her at all except for James's cheek a few inches below her knee and Sirius's forearm dangling on her shoulder. 

Hollis was almost completely sure as her eyes fluttered open that they were somehow defying physics in their sleeping positions. This action was a very James and Sirius thing to do though, which made for an amusing, pleasant start to her day.

Rolling over a tiny bit to look off the edge of the couch, Hollis saw Remus on the carpet with a pillow and thick woven wool blanket to form some sort of a bed around him. One of his arms was above his head and resting on the end of the cream colored pillow, and his light auburn hair was just as messy as James's when he tried to make it that way.

Turning back over to lie flat on her back, Hollis was startled to hear Remus's deep voice speak with a slight bit of huskiness that came with the morning.

"I'm awake, you know," he said with a smile in his voice that Hollis could hear. "Very subtle, Rosier."

Hollis looked up at the ceiling with her hands folded over her stomach and grinned as well.

"I thought it was."

"C'mon," Remus said, standing up gracefully despite his still position on the floor he had been sleeping in for hours. "Do you think you can get up?"

Hollis raised a jet black eyebrow at him as he held out his hand to her.

"I'm not dead, wolfboy," she replied. 

You almost were, Remus thought with a tiny frown that Hollis saw creep onto his face.

"The pensieve, all of those memories," Remus started with a deep sigh. "I want you to trust me enough to tell me everything, with even the stuff that you think I'm gonna be mad at."

Hollis blinked a few times, thinking of that one day in the hospital wing when Remus had told her he could never hate her after she was arguing with Regulus.

She should have believed him.

"I'm sorry," Hollis said back, looking down at his hand and not his eyes. 

"Merlin, that's the last thing you should be saying right now," Remus insisted with sad eyes. "The only time you should be hearing 'I'm sorry' is coming from one of their mouths to you."

No clarification was needed as to who their represented.

"Well, what should I be saying then?" Hollis asked Remus, her expression softening.

The green-eyed boy opened his palm more.

"That you're coming to the porch with me to have something to eat."

With her bandaged hand, Hollis took his scarred one and let him help her up off the couch. 

Hollis felt a violent tremble go through her legs as she stood up like some invisible string was pulling at the back of her legs to make her fall over. Remus, however, was expecting this and quick to react with a firm hand on the small of her back.

"I got you."

Nodding and letting him wrap his arm around her waist, Hollis and Remus made their way to the back porch slowly. Almost all of her weight, which was alarmingly little, was resting on the tall boy to support her.