Shades of Grey

Trigger

At first, Lupin was shocked and horrified while Aurora told her story. He couldn’t even imagine something like that happening, yet he knew that it did. He’d heard that boy in his class talking about the girl’s body they’d found. It all began to make sense as she told him about the torture, the escape, witnessing Felicia’s death.

“I’m so sorry.” He said softly, lost for words. She had stopped crying by this point and had taken to fiddling with her hands and her robes nervously. He placed a careful hand over hers.

“You are so very brave.” He told her, looking right into her eyes. They had to catch that man before he came for Aurora, or before he did the same thing to another girl.

“I’m glad you confided this in me. I know it must have been very hard for you to relive that.” He said now, brushing a strand of hair out of her eyes and tucking it behind her ear.

“You’re safe at Hogwarts. We’ll find him.” The anger was boiling beneath his skin. What a monster!

“You won’t find him.” Aurora said slowly, finally speaking. She knew it was the truth. The man liked to play games. That was the reason he let her survive, and it was the reason he was coming for her now. She felt weary now, having shared so much. The longer she had kept it hidden within her, the easier it had been to keep it there. She leaned over and rested her head on his shoulder. He stroked her hair gently, thinking about what she had just told him.

“You should go to Dumbledore.” He urged her.

“I’m not bringing anyone else into this. He’s angry because he thinks I told someone. If I do go around telling everyone, it’ll only make it worse.” She insisted. There were other reasons that she wanted to keep it hidden, of course. She had some crazy image in her head of testifying at the ministry, of having to go into hiding and having to change her name. She didn’t want to lose her life. After all, she’d fought so hard for it. Not to mention that now, she had Lupin and she didn’t want to lose him either.

~

“So, tell me more about you. I feel like I know you well and yet not at all.” Lupin said later, sitting across from Aurora in his office that night. She seemed to have put the earlier events out of her mind, managing to smile at him rather than stare at the floor.

“What would you like to know? I’m from Loughton. I live there with my mum, my dad, and my older sisters, Mirielle and Lindsay. We don’t get on too well. It’s still a sore spot that I got sorted into Gryffindor. I’m sure you heard my dad during class.” She laughed. He merely smiled, listening attentively. He wanted to know everything about her.

“Well…what else? My favorite color is green. My birthday is the twenty-first…I’ll be eighteen. And I…” She started to say but he cut her off.

“The twenty-first? Aurora, that’s Monday! As in the day after tomorrow! Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” He asked quickly. He knew that maybe he was old-fashioned, but he felt like he needed to do something special for her. She merely shrugged, seemingly surprised by his worry.

“Birthdays have never been a big thing with me.” She said. To be honest, she had nearly forgotten how close it was with everything that had been going on. Was it really only a day away?

“Why not?” He couldn’t help but ask. In fact, he understood what she meant. He hadn’t really celebrated his birthday in years, it seemed. But this was different- she was so young.

“I don’t know.” She shrugged again. Her parents had never really celebrated them, either. She could vaguely remember small birthday parties as a child, but as soon as she had gotten her letter to Hogwarts, they had stopped because she was at school on that day. Sure, Liam still got her something small, but she had never made a big deal over it. In fact, everything seemed to go wrong on her birthdays and as a result, she dreaded them. The previous year, she’d overslept, been scolded for being late and had been the victim of a misfired jinx while two students fought each other in the corridors. She’d spent the rest of the day in the hospital wing with leeks sprouting from her ears.