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Brows knit together, tongue poking between her lips in a childlike projection of focus, she took another mouthful of her tea as she flicked through the pages of her revision book. Her mind felt sluggish and tardy, despite the haste in each of her movements.
"You need help revising?" A familiar, sympathetic voice offered gently from behind as a steady, warm hand splayed on her lower back. The kind, hazel eyes of Remus Lupin focused on her, as the scent of parchment and chocolate enveloped her.
She pushed away her notes in frustration. "I need a break." She admitted as she rubbed her temples. "If I study for any longer, my eyeballs will roll out of my head."
"Then take one." Remus said simply as he eased into the seat beside her and leaned his forearms on the table, bringing his hands together. "You've been staring at the same page for almost twenty minutes now, and you've only absorbed half a paragraph's worth of information. That is not how one studies effectively.
She leaned herself onto his broad shoulder as her arm wrapped lazily around his back. "I cannot wait for this to be over. I'm too stressed to even be stressed."
Feeling the familiar weight of her body against him, he felt a wave of affection wash over him. His hand immediately around the back of her neck, his thumb sliding along her pulse, comforting the both of them. "And yet you haven't cried once." He mused as he ran his hand through her hair.
"Woohoo, a new record." She joked as she pumped one fist slightly in the air to emphasize her words. "I definitely thought about crying, once or twice."
Hearing her words, and witnessing the small movement of her arm, Remus let out a small chuckle of his own, though it fell short of a full-fledged laugh. "I'm sure you did, but you managed to refrain yourself." His fingers tangled in her soft hair as they came to a stop at the end of the strands, lightly massaging in a circular motion.
She let out a small laugh as she shook her head, causing herself to go deeper into his hold. "I'm pretty proud of myself, by now I'm sure I would have broken something."
Feeling her laugh and the way in which her body swayed into his arm, pushing her head deeper into his neck, he chuckled again, this time more prominently. "As am I." He said after a moment, his fingers started to stroke her hair again. "Though, I'm glad that you didn't. That would have been quite the mess to clean up."
She smiled as she thought about her past tantrums over school work and how he was always the one to clean up the messes. She closed her eyes as she felt growing more comfortable. "Yeah... I'm sorry about that."
Witnessing her smile, Remus felt his own lips widening into a matching one, and his hold around her grew warmer and more comforting. "It's quite alright." He reassured her. "You can't control your temper when you're frustrated. It was only natural for you to take it out on something — on multiple somethings."
She found herself humming as previous memories flashed through her mind before she let out a silent yawn, the tiredness taking over her body slowly.
He hummed along with her for a moment, adding his own low-pitched voice to the rhythm. The noise soothed them both, until she let out another quiet yawn, her body slowly slipping into a more tired state. Her humming came to an abrupt halt as the exhaustion began to take over. In response, Remus' hand on her head changed from gentle massaging to gentle stroking, his thumb rubbing over the spot near her hairline in a calm, repetitive motion.
In such a short time, she found herself falling asleep to his small tune as the heat radiated off of his body keeping her warm. Once she was fully asleep, he pulled her a bit closer. "Goodnight, darling."
