Chocolate Covered Strawberries [Remus Lupin]

𝚜𝚎𝚟𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢-𝚘𝚗𝚎

Receiving marks was her least favourite time in the summer, but in the previous years she was always in the same room as her father when she opened it. Anyone can already imagine that those times didn't go exactly well when she didn't reach his expectations. Maybe surrounded by friends calmed her nerves down a bit but when she received the letter that had her name written on it after James accioed them into their hands, she couldn't bring herself to open it immediately. She looked up to check if anyone was looking at her but luckily to her, no one noticed her hesitation. Her eyes then rather observed the others as they opened their letters first.

She leaned into Remus to check on him when a prefect pin dropped in his hand meaning he would be a prefect another year. ''You didn't get Head Boy?'' Jasmine frowned and raised her eyes to him.

Remus shook his head emotionlessly as the P on his badge flashed red when he turned it towards the fire. Jasmine furrowed her eyebrows in confusion as she was clearly convinced he would get it. The next thing Remus checked his grades and a smile curled at his lips, clearly satisfied with his results.

''WHAT?!'' The obnoxiously loud question came from the other side of the fire and Jasmine straightened her posture to look over it.

Lily was smiling down at her hand and once she felt eyes on her, she turned the Head Girl badge to the rest of them to check out. The more peculiar thing was James next to her who stared down at his hands with wide bulged out eyes.

Sirius let out a loud laugh. ''No way! James is Head Boy!''

Jasmine thought she heard him wrong. But when she looked closer she really did see a badge laying on James' palm. He hadn't been prefect in the past two years which was even more confusing why he became Head Boy. It was weird why Dumbledore picked James over Remus for that position.

''How's that possible?'' Peter asked, leaning towards the badge.

''I don't know,'' James answered not being able to tear his eyes away from the badge.

Lily finally got over her 'awe' moment and she looked over to James. She couldn't believe her eyes and it seemed like she couldn't decide on which reaction to use either. ''Head Boy and Quidditch Captain?'' A hidden question was what Lily wanted to come across as can you handle both?

''Since you'll be Head Girl I think there should be no problem,'' Jasmine answered her.

''This should be good, it's a perfect balance. James has our back and no one will believe that goody two shoes Lily would help us too. We'll get away with anything and you two will cover for us.'' Sirius said pointing between Lily and James.

James nodded agreeing with him but Lily shot him such a look that Sirius might as well dropped dead on the spot. James and Sirius went on by joking around and random planning for the future. Lily was clearly getting more and more annoyed by it and once she couldn't handle their ridiculous ideas she stood up and circled around the fire before plopping down next to Remus. She leaned over and her eyes settled on Jasmine's still sealed letter.

''What's the matter?'' she asked the brunette with concern in her voice. It made Remus look at his girlfriend as well only then noticing she hadn't touched her letter.

Jasmine let out a deep breath and looked at it before picking it up with shaky fingers. ''I don't want to know what's inside. What if I didn't pass the exams?'' She voiced her concerns.

''Of course you did.'' Remus nudged her softly and smiled trying to encourage her.

It didn't help, the frown on her face didn't disappear. The more Jasmine stared at the letter, the more the memory of her father's booming voice grew inside her. His yells were unbearable and his strict rules made horrible memories come back in her mind. She closed her eyes and sighed through her nose again. When she looked back up again her eyes travelled to Remus.

''Can you do it?'' She offered him the letter.

Remus nodded wordlessly and took a hold of the letter. Jasmine looked away from him when she heard it being ripped open. Lily and Remus were completely quiet for a while and Jasmine became even more anxious because of it. She started fiddling with her hands and couldn't decide if she even wanted to know.

''You're still a prefect.'' Lily said and offered the badge to Jasmine. The girl smiled lightly and took the badge but the horrible feelings didn't seem to cease.

''Will you look now or should I just tell you?'' asked Remus.

Jasmine let the silence seep in for a while. ''Just tell me.'' She muttered quickly.

''You passed all of them.'' A smile could be heard through Remus' words.

Jasmine widened her eyes as she stared at the fire. ''I did?'' Again she thought she heard it wrong. Repeating her OWL's the year before will forever be engraved in her mind. The crash of a broken glass, which her father threw at the wall at the news that she failed was still too clear. It also meant she had nothing left of the summer, she had to study or worry about studying and retake the exams to be able to go to the sixth year. Her father wanted her to have E's in everything when Jasmine barely passed certain subjects as it was.

Her curiousness got the better of her and she grabbed the parchment away from Remus to look for herself. A soft laugh escaped her when she realised she'll get into the next year with all of them just fine with passable marks and subjects for the NEWT exams. Another wave of uneasiness appeared in her stomach at the thought of the seventh year exams and the fact that older students had so much to complain about them. Loud laughter from across the bonfire shook her trance and she remembered that it was summer and not time for school thinking. When she folded the parchment to store it away she realised that she had a big smile on her face and when she looked to her left and both Remus and Lily were beaming at her.

''Thank you.'' That is all she could say at that moment.

''For what?'' asked Remus curiously.

''For helping me get through this. You did tutor me for most of the year.''

Remus only chuckled softly and brought his arm back around her in a side hug. Lily looked at them with a certain sparkle in her eyes before she turned her head away and most certainly, at least Jasmine saw it that way, she looked at a laughing James sitting not far off. Jasmine looked at their friend group and thought for a minute. James and Lily being Head Boy and Girl the next year, she and Remus prefects, all of them have NEWTs and will soon have to start thinking about their future after Hogwarts, which was another scary thing. And then she got the feeling of something not being right.

She looked at each of their smiling faces, they all looked so happy, but something didn't feel right inside Jasmine. When her smile disappeared the first one to notice was Lily and she tilted her head to meet her eyes. They shared a look, one of those best friend telepathic conversations and suddenly both knew what was missing. The group didn't feel complete without a certain half Spanish speaking Hufflepuff.

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