NOTHING GIRL || Remus Lupin

-Twenty Three: Thank You to Dust-

"SNOW!"

Helia blinked sleep blurrily out of her eyes and turned to watch Lin bounce over to the window. She was up ridiculously early for a reason that  she was yet to be made aware of. All she knew was that Lin had insisted her 'most secret-y' friend meet her in the fourth floor corridor.

"Look, Helia! Snow!" Lin called excitedly. Helia made her way warily over to where Lin was standing to see that there was indeed afresh dusting of icy flakes covering the ground like icing sugar.

"I heard you the first time." She muttered. Snow in December was fine. It was Chrismassy. It got you in the holiday spirit. Snow in January was icky and wet and cold and annoying.

"Don't be so down!" Lin grabbed Helia by the arms and spun her around. Helia pulled away quickly.

"This'll be great for you, though, right?" Helia said. "The perfect romantic setting for your date with Black."

"Urrrrrrrgh!" Lin said, spinning faster as she whined like a child. "I don't want  the perfect romantic setting. I want the romance to just, you know" She waved her arms expressively "happen."

"Okay." Helia asked. Not for the first time, she felt like she was missing a vital part of whatever being a teenager is. "Why?"

"Because if we need snow for it to happen now, then what about lateeeeeeer?" Lin paused for a second to collect herself as her dizziness took a hold, looking at Helia with sad eyes. "What about when we're married with kids and-"

"Jesus, why are you thinking about this now?" Helia stared at her friend. "We're, like, sixteen. How can you expect anything we have to last forever?"

"I didn't say forever." Lin smiled mischievously "Just until our statistically inevitable divorce."

"Woah. Okay, Jade." Helia said, surprised by the pessimism. There was a brief moment of silence. "How do you already know you want all that crap anyway?" Helia asked. "Marriage, kids. It's just... what if all of the stuff that everyone tells you that you need in order to be a part of society, everything you grew up thinking you would spend your whole life working toward, what if it's all just bullshit? What if you don't need anything?"

Lin grinned at her. "I would never have gotten you up before coffee if I knew you would be getting all existential on me."

Helia shrugged self consciously. "Hey, I didn't ask to be here."

"I'm sorry." That was Lin. Ever thinking about other people. Helia didn't think she could ever be that good. She didn't think she had it in her to be that good. Maybe once, but her hopes of being a half decent human being had vanished years ago. "You can go back to bed if you want. It isn't that urgent."

Helia shook her head. "Nah, it's fine. I wanted to do something this morning anyway,"

......................

"Moony."

"Urgh."

"Moony!"

"No. No. This is not happening again. Every single goddamn time I want to sleep you wake me up. No more. I am asleep and there is no way to change that. Goodnight."

"Moooooooooony!"

.....

"Mooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooony!"

.....

"...There's a note from Blacksmith on your bedside table."

Remus shot upwards, almost knocking heads with Sirius, who had been leaning over him. He glanced over, and, sure as Dumbledore's spotty socks, there was a bone-coloured piece of parchment sat neatly folded on the small wooden table next to his bed. Untidy, spidery writing across the front said 'This is for Wolf Boy- and only Wolf Boy- to read, you little Gryffindor shits'. Remus grabbed for it, forgetting for a moment that the distance across the bed was more than the length of his arm, and falling face first onto the covers.