Chocolate Covered Strawberries [Remus Lupin]

𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚑𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚒𝚏𝚝𝚎𝚎𝚗

Chapter one hundred fifteen; The truth

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Jasmine stared blankly in front of her, not even capable of muttering out a crazy 'what!?' because of the shock waves coursing through her. She only started receiving signs from around her when Remus put a comforting hand on her thigh. That's when she realised that amidst her shock she sat down and was staring at the table. She would have felt embarrassed for uttering out the most stupid assumption if she didn't have so much on her mind already.

"I thought I'd never see this picture again," said Aleah as she held the picture in her hands, eyes flickering over the smiling faces.

"Me either actually, after it was stolen from my classroom." Smirnitsky pointedly looked at the two students and slowly sat down at the table as well.

"We're sorry about that." Remus apologised with as much sincerity as he could muster.

"You guys made quite a mess but it was not at all hard to figure out who had done it." Smirnitsky's eyes lingered on his niece.

Jasmine blinked a couple of times, finally regaining control of her receptive feelings. "So who is that on the picture then?"

Aleah turned it around and first pointed with her finger at the little girl. "This is me, standing next to me is little Adriel and behind us our parents."

Suddenly the picture made a lot more sense as Jasmine connected the faces to the names. Many theories have been thrown around it but the truth stung much less than the one, where she thought Smirnitsky was her dad.

"Are they still alive?"

"Yes, they are very much still alive and living back in Russia, where I came from."

"So you are really Russian?" Jasmine was full of questions to the brim. Letters came back into her mind as well as certain Russian books she took notice in their old family home.

"Half Russian." Aleah and Smirnitsky answered at the same time.

Jasmine made a face of confusion at them. She thought she already gave the impression that she wanted to know it all, but her mum was still giving her answers that were a single sentence long.

"It's a long story." Said Smirnitsky.

"A very long story," added Aleah. "But it's time you hear it."

"Our father is British but our mother isn't and they met when our mother moved to London temporarily from Moscow. It turned out it wasn't only temporary as they got married and started a family in London. They had me and five years later they had Adriel. Now we were born in the sixties which was the height of the Cold War between the US and Soviet Union and believe it or not our mother was very frightened about it even though Britain was neutral. She was homesick and a big part of her thought we'll all be safer if we move back to Moscow."

Smirnitsky jumped in with something else. "It's important to know our parents are also Muggles."

"Wait a second, Muggles!?" Jasmine pushed back in her chair. "You're not pureblood, mum?"

"I'm not. And neither are you." Aleah said as if it was nothing.

"But father –"

"There's a lot you still don't know, Jasmine, so please just listen. I'll explain everything." Aleah continued. "Yes our parents are Muggles but both me and Adriel were born with magic. By the time our mother decided to move I was already in my fifth year at Hogwarts. She said it's best to move then so Adriel can start the new school at the new place fresh but she hadn't taken me into consideration. Being the typical fifteen year old I refused to move and your aunt Talisa supported me in my decision, even offered me a place to stay. Another reason for not wanting to move was because I was in love and to a teenage girl first in love moving sounded like the worst torture in the world. After weeks of begging, I actually named enough good enough reasons for my parents to agree and let me stay in Britain. They took mum's maiden name Smirnitsky out of safety when moving to the Soviet Union and I kept dad's family name, Cadman. I regretted the decision to stay for multiple years to come.''