𝗰𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗸, remus lupin

˗ˋ 40

CHAPTER FORTY
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-: sixth year :-

── IN WHICH REMUS
PASSES OUT

. . .

As much as Pandora didn't have experience with parties, wizards, social situations and alcohol, she didn't have experience with drunk people. Namedly, one drunk person who had been the only one to ever do anything for her, to ever be nice to her - and ever openly admit he actually cared.

She didn't want to acknowledge whatever fluttering feeling she had gotten when he had complimented her. Not that she had a choice really; she had no idea what it even meant. Pandora only just about knew that the feeling wasn't bad - no, it was inherently good. But there was no way for her to be able to translate it to anything other than feeling someone.. safe.

That panicked her, only slightly.

She couldn't remember the last time she actually felt like that. Knowing her father was out there someone, albeit unstable locked up, had always kept her on edge, and each time she entered the shoe-box of a dorm she had been assigned without checking the wardrobe, standing still by the open door as a butterfly looked under her bed and in anyway a grown man could hide. 

Pandora didn't feel safe in the school halls or classrooms, just as much as she caused others to feel unsafe because of her. She wasn't going to pretend that she didn't see how people cowered away and hurried past her, or pulled their desks further from her's until they were almost crashing into their neighbour.

Which was good - Pandora liked that power. Or at least most of her did. She didn't care about the impression she gave them or the rest of the school, all she wanted to was experience life at Hogwarts -  seeing as they had been so insistant on sending her those damned letters every year at the first of the ninth month approached - and to spend time with Remus. 

And perhaps that was why Pandora was sat at the end of his bed, her legs curled under her and her back pressed against the engraved bed post that held the red canopy above the mattress. 

Curled up by the pillows, the dog ears headband halfway out of the mousy brown hair that was messy beyond belief no matter how hard Pandora had tried to get it to stand down, Remus Lupin was fast asleep.

It didn't seem to matter whether he had felt like he was sobering up, because the laws of the universe said otherwise and next thing Pandora knew was that she had his arm draped around the back of her neck, his fingertips brushing into the ends of the streaked hair and dancing over the pale, creamy skin of her exposed arm. 

Of course, she wasn't to go so far as to carry him up to the party all on her own, so lifting the rest of his body was a team of golden butterflies. And she only meant to take him back to where his friends were, but when she did reach the opening in the staircase, she wasn't given the chance to, considering that she couldn't see any of them.

So instead, she continued up the stairs and followed the path to the boys section once it diverged. And after finding his room, she didn't feel as though it was right to just leave him. And if she did, she would have to go through the party, and she was planning on leaving that to as late as possible.

Which is why, when Sirius and James woke up at some point in the early morning after having been amongst those to pass out in the common room - Peter was curled up by the stairs, half of his face covered in white paint and was not going to wake up for a while - and managed to get to their room, they found not only Remus asleep in his bed, but Pandora too.

"I'm not imagining things, right?" James muttered, fiddling with his glasses and cleaning them before replacing them on his nose. "Nope, definitely not."

"You see it took?" Sirius's eyebrows were raised. "I thought I was hallucinating.. now I'm trying not to frown because Merlin does that hurt." 

James glanced over at his best friend, who was clutching his head in hangover agony, before daring to take a step forward towards the bed, ending up stood in between Remus and Pandora on the bed.

"She's asleep, she's actually asleep in our dorm." James exclaimed, but he wouldn't get a reply other than a muffled groan from Sirius as he collapsed onto his bed. 

And because of several things being combined and culminating in James Potter with a massive headache, Pandora wouldn't be moved, and Remus Lupin would wake to find her sat in the same place as when he fell asleep.

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