The Marriage Law // Remus Lupin

viii. right where you left me

Remus stared after at the front door for what felt like years, dumbfounded. The words she shouted at him, and the ones he heard her shout at her sister, replaying in his head.

"because I can't stand the sight of him," 

"let your friends humiliate other students,"

"decided you hated Slytherins,"

"What else is wrong with perfect Remus Lupin?"

He was knocked out of his repeating cycle, the words constantly echoing in his head, by Lois. He heard her enter the house, breathing heavy.

He turned around to look at her, and saw the tears running from her eyes, even as she tried to wipe them away with her sleeve. Remus didn't move to comfort her. But Sirius did. 

Sirius got up from his seat at the table and engulfed his fiancé in a hug. Everyone inside had heard both of the two arguments - if you could even call them that. It would have been a wonder if they hadn't. Aurora was yelling so loudly, Remus was pretty sure the whole street heard it.

After a while, Lois seemed to have gotten her breathing under control, as well as her tears. Both her and Sirius sat down at the table, and everyone waited for her to speak.

"So in fifth year, our argument wasn't only her fault. She told me I shouldn't hang around with you guys, and I got defensive," It wasn't a shock to the people around the table that either of the sisters would have acted this way. "She told me about all these kids in Slytherin who cried late at night in the common room, because they would be on the receiving end of pranks and bullies. Aurora said that it wasn't uncommon for her to go down to the common room and find the younger years there. She said that she would stay with them until they fell asleep, and she would get so irritated that she wouldn't be able to tell them that it gets better. Because apparently it didn't.

"And I, of course, told her that she was being over dramatic and exaggerating everything, because she didn't like that I was happy. Because she was jealous. And after what was nearly hours of screaming and yelling at one another, I said that I didn't want to speak to her ever again, and she never tried to talk to me again,"

"I am so sorry Lois," James said.  "Why didn't you ever tell us?"

"I guess I was afraid that if I spoke about it, it would only make it true. And then it became years, and it would have been much too awkward, but I guess it became true anyways,"

Everyone was silent, all rethinking the information, about what Aurora thinks, about the sisters' argument, about how they affected others without realising it.

"Did everyone think that she hated me because I'm a werewolf?" Remus asked, wanting to see if the girl's statement had been true.

"It went through my head when we first met her again," Lily said. "But I remembered how she defended werewolves in third year, when we learnt about them,"

"I wasn't sure," Sirius admitted, speaking up next. "I wouldn't have put it past a Slytherin when we were in school...,"

Remus sighed. Even if the thought crossed his friends' minds momentarily, it still proved her to be right.

"We can think about this another time, yeah? We've got more important things to think about for now," James said, referring to the full moon tonight. This had surprisingly been one of Remus' calmest moods beforehand as well. He didn't know what was different, but he preferred it to being annoyed.

"Yeah, we're going to the forest tonight, yeah?" Sirius asked, and Lois chuckled at the extra use of the word 'yeah' her fiancé was using. At the sound of her laugh, Sirius beamed, happy to have made his fiancé feel better, at least momentarily.

AN

two chapters in one day! woo! I have one more chapter that I've already written and am highly debating whether I should post it later tonight