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CHAPTER FORTY ONE

-: sixth year :-

── IN WHICH SHE REMEMBERS

. . .


Dysnomia Rosier was an early-riser. 

And thus, so was Pandora. 

Even in the face of the Gryffindor Halloween party, when most attendees would wake late morning with their head pounding, throats sore and consequently voices hoarse, Pandora's eyes flickered open much earlier than any other party-goer would wish to awake. 

Dawn had broken long before, and the entirety of the sixth-year Gryffindor boys' dorm was lit in plain light. The sky outside of one of the diamond patterned windows showed only clouds of grey; rather fitting weather for the first of November.

Pandora's hands gripped the mattress, her torso twisting around to click the muscles there - she had a dull ache that would fade over the rest of the day that was a product of her falling asleep sitting upright against the column of none other than Remus Lupin's four-poster bed.

Had her mother still been alive and somehow allowed Pandora to attended the school, she was sure that Dysnomia would have thrown a fully-fledged fit at her even being near a boys' dorm. But alas, she was not, and Pandora settled for the rather positive idea of her rolling in her grave at her actions. 

But not only would Dysnomia have been shocked - but Pandora currently was incredibly so. She couldn't believe it; whether 'it' was the entire memory of the previous nights or that she had ended up sleeping in the Gryffindor tower. That was a particularly strange thought, given the notion that every member of the scarlet house that wasn't Remus Lupin seemed to hate her even more than those in Slytherin. 

Pandora's eyes, upon searching the room to take in the unfamiliar environment that she hadn't been able to see the previous night, landed on the sleeping Remus Lupin, wrinkling her nose at the drool and pushing herself to the edge of the bed and standing up, stretching in the process. 

Her stocking-covered feet crossed the wooden floor, limbs weary from the position she had slept in, and Pandora pushed open the bedroom door. Coming to a stop in front of the mirror, she wetted the ends of her finger to neaten the smudged makeup beneath her eyes, using tissues to wipe off what remained of her lipstick. She didn't have the means to fully take off the entirety of it, but if she deemed her appearance respectable, it could stay upon her features until she returned to her dorm. 

After washing one of the small glasses left in the bathroom several times over she finally got a drink, drowsing her parched throat before washing the cup once more and leaving it be, not daring to take the damp cloth hanging from the side of the sink but instead taking several sheets of tissue roll and turning back towards the bedroom.

Pandora didn't want to cause too much of a shock and instead of sitting closer to Remus's head, she crouched down, holding the tissue paper between pinched fingers as she wiped away the drool with a look of uunbearable discontent. 

Behind her, Sirius and James snored.

Peter was still nowhere to be seen. 

Pandora moved her hand forward once more, a clean tissue in her hand. But recognition flashed, a nervous flutter of butterflies erupting from her fingertips and causing her to back away from the scene, only stopping when her back hit the wooden frame of Peter Pettigrew's empty bed. 

She recognised the look of purity on his face. The unconcious, unguarded image of exhaustion that revealed so much about a person. She recognised it far more than she wished to. 

Dysnomia Rosier was an early-riser.

And thus, so was Pandora. 

When she was younger, waking earlier meant that Pandora had to find a way to spend the morning before her lessons began. Breakfast was severed no earlier and no later than 8am, and it was more often than not that Dysnomia awoke as dawn broke, and caused Pandora do the same.

With several hours between that and breakfast, Pandora had woken up in the basement of the Cursed Castle clutching the dress that her friend Laurie had given her before going home. Halloween had been the night before, and she was hoping that maybe her mother would allow her to go on a walk that morning.

To her surprise, Dysnomia had nodded and ordered the maid to dress her in the thick woolly winter coat before allowing her out of the house, watching from the balcony of the top-most room as her daughter descended down the long driveway and into the valley before. 

Pandora was more than excited to try and find Laura - it wasn't often that she was allowed out of the grounds, and when she did she was almost always with company. But now, she was completely alone. Lack of experience meant she didn't know where to go, but a book had told that if she were to follow the river, she would soon find civilisation.

And so Pandora walked alongside the dirt path sandwiched between the forest and the river, somehow unaware she was heading away from the village below the Castle, having taken a wrong turn somewhere. 

It was there that she stumbled upon a half-naked, unconcious child, whimpering through it's exhausted sleep - most likely due to the number of cuts covering it's body. Pandora didn't understand why it was there, but didn't hestitate to discard the long woollen coat and drape it over the figure.

And it was as she was crouching over the child where she first saw that look of pure innocence.

Maybe that was why Remus liked her so much.




𝗰𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗸, remus lupinWhere stories live. Discover now