Serendipity (S. Black)

FORTY-FIVE

"you can run with a lie, but you can't hide from the truth"

*

Despite the cold winds of winter, the Divination classroom always managed to be the warmest place in the entire school. Smelling of burnt tea and musty books, it was a perfect recipe for accidentally nodding off, which plenty of students struggled with.

The first few months of school had flown by. October boasted one of the best pranks ever pulled by the Marauders, involving all four of them dressed up like the Beatles and staging a concert in the Great Hall during breakfast. Gryffindor won their first Quidditch match against Slytherin, making Eva wildly popular among all the other Houses for a few weeks. Jokes were made, detentions were given, and as always, life went on.

James Potter stifled a yawn behind his hand and then rumpled his hair out of habit. The night of a full moon always gave him anxiety. While they did tend to have fun tromping around school grounds in their Animagi forms, too many what-ifs plagued his mind.

Eva doodled on the corner of her textbook, effectively tuning out Professor Ruffo's shaky voice. She wondered why she even took Divination for her seventh year. Maybe she should have dropped it like the majority of her friends. She, James, and Kriss were the only survivors.

Kriss sat across from the Gryffindors, twirling a strand of pin-straight hair absentmindedly. The last month had been hard on her. At the beginning of November, she received a letter from her parents with the news that her older brother, Adam, had gone missing. Even though they were separated by five years and different Houses, she still loved him. And he was gone. No one knew where he was. Kriss had a vague suspicion, but she wanted to be wrong with all of her heart.

The quiet girl took great comfort in Remus, who never gave her sympathy or pity of any kind unless she needed it. The normalcy of prefect rounds at nighttime became a thing for her to cling to, a safe place to talk. Merlin, she loved Remus John Lupin. Between worry and studying, she almost forgot about their fights.

Almost.

They hadn't gotten into an argument for a few months, which made her happy, but something replaced the yelling: silence. In some ways, she would have rathered the first option. She understood yelling. If he told her what was wrong, she could do her best to come to a logical solution. Now, it seemed like just when things were looking up, he'd ignore her. It happened a few days previously, and she couldn't for the life of her figure out why, but it was a cycle. He'd shut her out and barely speak to her, then come around a few days later and claim he'd been busy with something, studying or friends or some other lame excuse she didn't buy. Remus Lupin was talented in many ways, but his lies never fooled his Ravenclaw girlfriend.

Today was one of those days. He completely brushed her off at breakfast and she didn't even see him at lunch. She'd exhausted too many possibilities as to why in the last few months and couldn't help but think that she was missing something important.