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Breathe cluttered against her beaten chest, as she looked at the scene fold in front of her. It was catatonic almost, the whole ordeal. Remus Lupin not being the one she had expected to walk through the dingy door, was not whom she considered to be the recruit.
Her breath cluttered yet again, all the while poking her conscious to extract any sort of reaction but it didn't bother to cooperate. And that's how she found herself statued to the ground, shock being the only word scribbled on her stoic features.
As if it were a clear-cut sign, a dreary fate, Nova Black's eyes were the first thing that Remus Lupin caught in the abyss of redheads and teens. And just like that, he seemed to be in the same trance as the woman, shock being scribbled on him like a toddler's masterpiece. And unlike the brunette his eyes subtly deteriorated yearningly, speaking a lot of things. A lot of things which she didn't deserve to hear, not from him at least. Not from the cowardice man who left her without a proper goodbye, a cowardice man who whimpered away without facing the brutal situation, and the cowardice man who left her with a note.
Nonetheless, before these unspoken words could even reach her, the witch snapped her eyes away from him and towards the pink head that the duo had forgotten about in their haze and most importantly his hand which was still latched onto her waist.
Nova didn't understand, how seeing this made her heart and stomach feel. It burned with a fuel she was unknown of, chemicals trickling through her body like a stream of lake, bringing this uncomfortable feeling in her guts.
And the realization hit Remus like a train, as his crinkled fingers numbed at its spot, and almost instinctively his brows furrowed sadly, a jolt of panic rushing his being, 'no, no, no' is what his eyes spoke aloud, and his head vigorously nodded sideways as if telling her it was not how it looked like, it was far from how it looked like. But the witch seemed to have turned her head altogether at something Sirius was asking.
"You alright pup?" Sirius questioned worriedly, very well knowing that it was only a few full moons back that the atrocious incident took place, and that too from the man who now stood a few steps away from them.
When the brunette returned a soft hum of reassurance, (a lie anyone could read off of), Sirius bit his bottom lip as a pit formed in his gut 'Maybe this was a mistake' he pondered silently. Before he could express his regretful thoughts, another voice chimed in.
"Is that Professor Lupin?" Harry stated the obvious, oblivious to the expressions the adults by him bore. "He looks..."
Harry arched his eyes, trying to find the right word, and ended up concluding, "...different"
He did look different, Nova contemplated. Remus' hair looked quite ruffled and unkempt than usual. His eyes which once radiated warmth and comfort had blemished into a tint of rheumy-ness, tiredness being its main factor, and the prominent purple-black eyebags beneath just worsened his appearance and worsened her worry. Stubs of faint beard and mustache trickled his scarred face, and whenever he offered a smile to his ex-students who now frolicked around him, it appeared to look like a saddened one.
