𝗰𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗮𝗶𝗻 𝗵𝗼𝗼𝗸, remus lupin

˗ˋ 52

CHAPTER FIFTY TWO
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-: sixth year :-

── IN WHICH REMUS WORRIES

. . .

Since the revelations that occurred over Halloween and the days proceeding it, there had been a change in the atmosphere surrounding Remus Lupin's life. For once, despite the outside troubles that didn't seem to penetrate the ancient stone of Hogwart's Castle, his life was almost entirely peaceful.

Of course he couldn't rule out the pain of his transitions into a werewolf that followed Halloween and a month later - nor could he ignore all the troubles that he made sure that his friends do to keep it a secret from Pandora. Which was hard to consider successful or not, seeing as other than the puns on his painfully appropriate name, Pandora had not given anything away on the status of whether she knew that he was a werewolf or not. There was nothing in Sirius's mind that could convince him that she didn't know and was simply storing the information to use against him later but both Peter, Lily and then James agreed that just in case, they would keep up appearances.

But other than those troubles.. Remus was living a peaceful life. Mostly peaceful - he kept continuing to contradict himself everytime he thought about it - but he had stopped Pandora from doing anything too dangerous to anyone. That wasn't to say he had completely eliminated the times she found herself wanting something and somebody not giving it to her, but nothing too serious had happened. Nobody had gotten hurt and thus, Remus considered it successful. 

Time seemed to pass so quickly now that there wasn't anything for them to do. Halloween had come and gone, Gryffindor had no more Quidditch matches the celebrate and the Hufflepuff versus Ravenclaw in the last week of November was nowhere near exciting enough. 

December was cold; every classroom had the fireplace within them lit and if they didn't have one, teachers would manually warm the room with a spell during class time. The Great Hall served steaming bowls of soup and stew, and there were always options of warm drinks. When the lake froze over in the third to last week, ice skating and carriage rides were available, and when the weekend came, many chose to go out into the deep snow as opposed to favouring the warm inside as Flitwick supervised the decorations being put up. 

It was during the study period in the Great Hall after classes ended on Monday, when Remus and Pandora sat at the end of the Gryffindor table as Flitwick decorated the Christmas tree several feet away in the Entrance Hall, that the first problem arose. 

In Remus's eyes anyway.

Pandora's attention had wavered away from her Potions' essay that had been set earlier that day (Remus had mentioned once that it was easier just to complete things as soon as possible to reduce worrying, and since then she had taken it completely seriously) and was now on the simply enormous tree that the part-Goblin teacher toddled around looking quite frankly miniscule as he charmed baubles and lights to wrap around the pine needles. He had asked her once, the first time that she had seen a hint of decorations and stared at them during a conversation in which Remus had needed to say her name seven times in order to get a response and it seemed that, much like Halloween, Christmastime was something she was yet to experience. 

And so, he didn't nudge her until he looked up again and her attention was still on the tree. "Come on." He muttered, poking her hand with the pencil he was using to sketch something out for Transfiguration. "He'll have it done by dinner, and then you can stare at it as much as possible. Slughorn's actually beginning to like you."

"I don't care whether a social-climbing old fraud likes me or not." Pandora replied and Remus swallowed. The description was accurate.. but Slughorn was nice enough. That seemed to be another new thing; her honesty shone through in the most brutal of fashions, with complete disregard to anyone who was listening. "Besides, you can't see it from the Slytherin table."

"Then just sit here." That managed to tear her attention away from it, and her eyes widened as they met his. "Don't look so surprised.. I come and sit at the Slytherin table all the time. Just come and sit here." 

"Your friends wouldn't like it." Pandora replied snidely. Remus couldn't argue much about it, but her expression changed to one of curiosity once she saw McGongall making her way up the hall, a Quick-Quotes Quill and sheet of parchment over her shoulder. "What is she doing?"

"Oh, she must be taking the opportunity of so many people being in one place at once to find out whose going where at Christmas." Remus watched the exchange between Professor McGonagall and a couple of Hufflepuff students before looking back at Pandora. "She needs to know numbers for who is planning on staying in the castle and who is going home."

Pandora nodded, turning her head back to her parchment and staring at a blob of ink that had dropped from her quill and sunk into the parchment. She muttered something and Remus watched as a butterfly emerged from her fingertip and came to land above the paper. The gold faded away as the butterfly seemed to soak up the ink like some form of sponge, before her fingers moved quickly and the butterfly rose from the paper and dived into the top of the unstoppered ink bottle sat between, disappearing.

Silence hung between them for a moment as she got to work again, neat words forming in lines across the page. Remus cleared his throat, unable to wait any longer. "Pandora, what are your plans for Christmas? I mean... you're staying right?" He asked.

Pandora's quill swirled as she came to the end of the word. "Why would you assume that?" She replied. "I have no reason to stay."

His brow furrowed. "What do you mean?" 

"I have a home. I don't need to stay here."

"People don't decide to stay here just because they don't... nevermind." Remus took a sharp draw of breath. "So you're.. planning on going back home."

"Yes. The place I have lived my entire life." Pandora met his eyes. "That's the point of a holiday. You go back to where you came from. And stay until you're required to come back." 

That seemed to be the end of it in her eyes, but there was a panic quickly arising in Remus. He couldn't let her go back to that place. Pandora had changed since her arrival in September.. but who was to say that as soon as she stepped foot back into that place that her hard work would be reverted, that the poison slowly draining from her blood and brains wouldn't flood back in. 

He had to do something. She couldn't go back. 

But the question was.. where could she go?

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