Chocolate Covered Strawberries [Remus Lupin]

𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚑𝚞𝚗𝚍𝚛𝚎𝚍 𝚜𝚒𝚡𝚝𝚎𝚎𝚗

Chapter one hundred sixteen; When it's over

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"Smile!"

James' wand kept the film camera levitating in front of the group as they all huddled around one side of the table at The Three Broomsticks. A few of them chuckled as the flash went off. That's when Jasmine jumped up and ran before the freshly printed picture could fall to the ground and caught it.

She checked all the smiling faces of her friends: Lily, James, Remus, Robyn, ... and then her smile faltered at the end. "We have to take another one."

"What? Why?" James was curious.

"Sirius isn't smiling and Peter's eyes are closed." Jasmine looked pointedly at them.

Peter only smiled sheepishly while Sirius shrugged. Everyone else started complaining at him to smile as Jasmine rounded the table again and propped herself behind the group for another picture. Sirius still didn't want to smile so Robyn quickly jumped behind him and made him smile by lifting his cheeks with her fingers. The flash went off and finally, they were all smiling on the taken picture. Moments after they all settled down around the table, each was presented with a butterbeer.

Lily was the first one to raise her glass. "To NEWT's. May we receive the best results back."

Newt's passed and with that on their mind, a few groaned dreading to know how badly they had actually written the exams.

"To us." Remus butted in his eyes flickering to every person around the table, lingering last on Jasmine. "May we never lose each other."

"To finally being free. School's over." Sirius added a bit louder.

After that everyone cheered, clinked their glasses together and took their first sip of the butterbeer. The chatter of the bar around them was a nice background noise as most of them settled down their glasses, still full of butterbeer, ready to celebrate the end of NEWTs in the right way. Except for Lily, who drowned her glass entirely and slammed it down empty on the table, her hand flying up for the bartender to give her another.

"Lily!" Jasmine looked at her incredulously. "What-?"

"She's nervous about the results." James put his arm around his girlfriend as she received another glass of butterbeer. "Even though she's the one who should least worry at this table."

"And Remus," Jasmine added, looking pointedly at him.

In contrast to Lily, Remus was calm, leaning back in his chair. Relaxation was just written all over him, while he was among his friends and school was ending. Well, school was ending. This will probably be one of the last times they will spend together as a group. Their paths will surely part once they graduate.

"Where will you all go, once it's all over? Back home?" asked Robyn.

"I don't even know where home is anymore." Jasmine started. "I guess I'll go wherever my mum is. She said I'll be safe there, along with Smirnitsky."

"How is uncle dearest?" James joked, although with a certain strain to his voice. Everybody in the group was informed of the newest relation between Jasmine and Smirnitsky as was everybody aware that Smirnitsky gave a particular hard task to James on NEWT's practical testing. And ever since, he was snarky towards Jasmine as if she had anything to do with it.

"Hell if I know. We had no time to talk at all, and he looks to be avoiding me as if me knowing he's my uncle destroyed the entire mystery and he doesn't care for it anymore," said Jasmine.