Chocolate Covered Strawberries [Remus Lupin]

𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢

Chapter twenty; The end or the new beginning?

▴ ◃ ▾ ▹

''I'm sorry.''

As soon as those words left her lips, Jasmine cringed. The look on Remus' face made it even worse as he looked more than confused about what she said. If she wanted to fix things she internally and mentally kicked herself to keep on talking.

''No, this came out wrong. I'm not sorry for helping you. I'm sorry for everything else. It's just-'' Her own words halted and refused to come out of her. Remus raised one of his eyebrows in question while she looked helplessly back at him. She let another deep breath escape her lips, slowly preparing herself.

''Again it's nothing that you did, this is totally all on me. The fact is that we can't be seen talking by anyone at this school ground. I think we've experienced how fast gossip travels through here and before I know it everything comes to William. And he's the core reason for all this. Well, he and my family at home.''

Jasmine felt like she was breaking down the wall with every word. The wall she was always continuously building around her since she never liked to burden others with her own problems. She realized once she started talking it went like dominos, and she couldn't stop it. The two only other persons who managed to climb that wall were Lily and Robyn and even they needed a lot of time. Jasmine surprised herself how quickly she was able to start revealing things to Remus.

She felt this weird connection like they were alike, like each of them had their own problems and could support each other in some way. The thing was, she was just about to reveal one of hers, while he didn't disclose anything to her yet.

''It started with that rumour Robyn and Sirius started about us being a thing. It came to William's ears and I've told you before that he likes to make my life miserable. Well, this time he really knocked himself out for it. What he does is he writes letters to my father describing what I do in Hogwarts when I'm not under my parents' watch. You can imagine he makes up all sorts of stuff so he can appear perfect and I appear as the worst daughter my parents could have. It is always why can't you be more like Willy, he never does anything bad, I wish he was my actual son.''

This is where she paused again, thinking what else could she add. She realized she was watching her hands so she raised her glance to meet Remus' eyes. Shock was evident in them.

''Your dad said that to you?'' He asked in disbelief.

Jasmine nodded with her lips pressed tightly together. ''He's done and said many other things to me as well, but that's not important.'' She quickly dismissed already regretting letting that information out.

''My dad is a lot of things but never a father figure to me. He's obsessed with this pureblood supremacy and he lets our family know every single day. He thinks both me and William should keep up some sort of reputation for our family so then every single thing I do, to his interpretations wrong, earns me an off-telling or a punishment. And this boyfriend/future husband obsession is even worse, father still thinks he'll be able to make me marry someone he will choose from a wealthy pureblood family when I finish my seventh year. Which means no boy contact, pureblood or not.

''Girls, gladly, have never been a problem so I at least could have friends here. Then there's also the constant threats from Will, who is nearly blackmailing me to do the extent of me losing my mind just so he doesn't tell some stupid thing to my father. The party at Gryffindor common room I was able to excuse that people who saw me there were too drunk and were imagining things. The rumour though earned me a strike one and you don't want to know what happens at strike two. Hell, it would be even worse if he would try and do something to you.''