Selene || Remus Lupin

Ch. 71 - Sins of Her Past

Selene's POV

"Thanks for inviting me out, Prof – Minerva."

It had been over a month since classes had begun. Selene was glad to be back into her regular routine – to have her classroom and her office back, and to see all of her students again. They, in turn, had seemed pretty enthusiastic to see her as well, a fact that had made Selene beam in pride. She was – quite frankly – encouraged to see that her students had missed her enough that she received choruses of "Welcome back, Professor Black" and "It's so good to see you again, Professor" wherever she went.

Of course, with this came a less favourable part – which was that students kept stopping her in the hallway to offer their apologies and condolences. This, admittedly, would be touching to think about, if Selene could process it in such a way, but instead, she viewed it as the constant reminder of her best friend's recent death and the fact that she was now a widow.

Selene so longed to be back in her cottage with Remus and Harry, shutting out the rest of the world – and by extension, all of their problems.

"I thought you'd appreciate the company," McGonagall said, sipping primly on her cup of tea. The two women were sitting in the Three Broomsticks at a table in the back, hoping to maintain some privacy from the many students who were out in Hogsmeade that day. "Also, I suppose I wanted to ask how you were doing."

Selene stifled a groan. "Minerva..."

"Selene, it's not healthy to keep moping around the castle with all of your grief bottled up inside you," McGonagall said sternly, looking over her glasses at the younger woman. "You're a widow now, and your life has changed. Now talk about it."

Selene gazed at her reproachfully, as if she were a young girl being scolded by her mother. "I-I don't want to talk about it. It's hard to talk about."

"Well, I'm not giving you the option," McGonagall said firmly. "Tell me how you're feeling."

Selene gaped at her for a moment, and then sensing the uselessness in arguing, sighed, looking down at the table. "I-I'm not doing well, in all honesty," she said, tracing the outline of a stain on the table with her finger. "Minerva – did they tell you how Sirius had died?"

McGonagall winced terribly, and Selene was all of the sudden very aware that McGonagall had taught Sirius, as well as been his Head of House.

"I'm – I'm sorry," Selene said hesitantly. "I should have –"

"Go on, Selene," Minerva said, her eyes a little watery, but her tone strong.

Selene hesitated, but she did continue. "Bellatrix – she shot a curse at me, and – and Sirius pushed me out of the way. He took the curse that was meant for me – the Avada Kedavra – and he died because of it – because of me."

McGonagall frowned, but she said nothing. It was as if she had sensed the dam that had broken somewhere deep in Selene's heart, and she was not going to stand in the way of the outpour.

And so Selene pressed on. "Sirius lived his whole life sacrificing himself for me. Did you – did you know that he met someone after we graduated Hogwarts? Her name was Rosemary – she was a secretary in the Auror office, where I worked. I think that he actually met her out and about one day, but I think that he'd come by my office to flirt with her, and I even think they'd been on a few dates. Of course, she eventually found out we were married, and she tried to 'come clean' to me or whatever – I had to tell her that Sirius and I's marriage was more of a formality, and I ended up basically telling her my whole life story... She was taken aback, of course, but we became close friends after that... She and Sirius continued to go out, even though he was married to me – which of course, was not a problem to me, not since I had been pining after Remus for so long...