maple syrup | remus lupin [1]

43. more than handsome

"IS IT ALRIGHT if I go and talk to James real quick?" Claudia asked her friends as they all lay in Inez's bed, comforting their friend who was stress-eating a pint of ice cream.

"Why do you need to do that?" Betty asked as she tried to take the ice cream away from Inez, who quickly smacked Betty's hand to get her away from her favourite "sulking food".

After Inez had complained and cried a bit longer over her secret being leaked, Betty and Pandora had showed up with the same goal to comfort their friend.

"I promised Inez I'd stay here," she explained as she continued to french braid Pandora's hair.

A specialty of Claudia's was most certainly hairstyles. She had after all spent so much time cooped up alone in a dark and cold room, without any books to read or any friends to see, so in order to keep herself busy she had become quiet the self-taught hairdresser.

"You don't have to, Claudia," Inez said guiltily as she pointed her spoon at the girl, ice cream falling off it at the same time on Betty's face. "I'm fine, and besides it's James' birthday. He wants you there."

"He does, but he wants you to feel better even more, trust me," Claudia said as she finished the braid up. "I'll be right back."

Claudia's mind was completely packed during her walk spent under the cloak to the boys' dormitory.

She felt the regular unreasonable guilt washing over her when she thought about Inez's secret being exposed. She couldn't avoid to feel that it was somehow her fault, even if it in no way possible could.

It did, however, have more to do with her than she thought.

She wondered why Rosamund told everyone. Why the girl, who normally just sat alone with a perfect posture and gave no responses to the small comments she would receive had done something so terrible.

She wondered why the sister of the ever so popular boy in Ravenclaw was like a living statue.

But, she had to push those thoughts aside as she approached the door, and knocked this time around because she had recently walked in on Betty and Sirius having a very intense snogging-session.

"Hey," she said with a smile as Peter opened the door. "Where's Sirius?"

None of the three other boys got the chance to answer that question as a completely naked Sirius walked in the room from the bathroom, singing loudly to some song by Queen, and clearly not seeing his girlfriend's best friend, who at the same time was also one of his best friends, standing there.

"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Claudia exclaimed as she covered her eyes with her hands. "Why is it that every bloody time I come in here nowadays your arse is always the first thing I see?!"

Remus frowned out of confusion. "Wait-"

"Because you have terrible timing, Claude! Or, actually come to think of it, you have wonderful timing! Didn't Betty ever tell you how nice my arse is?"