selenophile || remus lupin

chapter ninety one

12 August 1977

12:03 am

Ophelia and three quarters of the marauders were in the living room of Potter Manor, tired after a long day of playing games, eating Mia's snacks, and spending summer like teenagers are supposed to. Ophelia fell asleep first, and the remaining three boys were whispering quietly amongst themselves, trying not to wake the girl up.

"So, I'm thinking, we need a big prank to start off our last year, to show everyone what's coming," James started. "Any ideas, lads?"

"I've been thinking about that actually, and I haven't sorted out many details, but what if we were to do a mass portkey charm on all of the textbooks in the castle. So then, every time someone goes to pick up their books, they get teleported to a different, random part of the castle. So like, the transfiguration textbooks transport the students to the dungeons, the herbology textbooks transport the students to the astronomy tower, and so on."

"Remus, you amaze me more every single day," Sirius said.

"I know," he said.

"Rem, how do you even think of this s-," James started, but abruptly stopped and his smile dropped and eyes focused on something behind Remus. "Sirius, she's shaking."

Sirius quickly looked behind Remus and saw his sister on the couch, muttering something in her sleep while she was twisting around and shaking in place. Sirius looked at her for a moment, a battle going on inside his head before he finally said, "wake her."

"But-"

"She's been sleeping fine since she's gotten here. She doesn't need any extra sleep anymore. Wake her."

Remus stood up and walked over to where his witch was sleeping and placed a hand on her shoulder. He slowly brought her into a hug, waking her up. The muttering and twisting halted, but the shaking only increased due to the sobs coming out of her.

Remus put his head on her shoulder, whispering, "It's okay, Phee. You're safe. You're with me, and Sirius, and James at the Potters' house. You're not in danger. I'll always protect you, I promise. You will be safe as long as you're with me."

After the sobs subsided and Ophelia's breathing evened out enough, she looked up to see two warm pairs of eyes looking at her in concern.

"Don't. Don't do that," she said.

"Do what?" James cautiously asked.

"Pity me. I don't need nor want your pity. So you and your worried looks are free to go. And you don't need to walk on eggshells around me either. I'm fine."

"Do you want to talk about the dream?" Sirius asked. "It always helps me."

"Not particularly," she started, "but I suppose it would do me good."

James reached over and grabbed her hand, gently rubbing circles on the back of it.

"It was just being back at Grimmauld Place, I guess."

"But what was happening while you were there?" Sirius pushed. He wouldn't force her to talk about what their parents did to her, but he was deadly curious as to what they could've done to make her feel and act this way. He knew she wouldn't talk unless she was comfortable enough, he just hoped that she trusted them enough to talk about her experiences.

A tear escaped Ophelia's already tear stained face as she looked up at Sirius with a blank expression.

"What didn't happen while I was there?" Ophelia was already overwhelmed by the idea of talking about her past, but she was ready to share and she knew that she could trust her boys with her life.