Harry Potter x Reader Oneshots - All Generations

Remus Lupin x James's Sister

James plucks the bucket off the table in front of her, sticking his hands right in to examine it's contents. He scrunches the paper she and Remus had been coloring as he pulls it out and despite the fact that it'll never be perfect from the color outside the lines she feels a deep anger when he shows no remorse for destroying it. 

"Still coloring Etta? I haven't seen you color since we were little."

She takes it from his hands and carefully sets it on the table, frantically trying to smooth it out. Her fingers linger over the green color that smudges under her fingers, spreading further outside of it's designated lines. 

"You still can't color in the lines!" He laughs.

She's getting increasingly frustrated and can't focus on his words, she can only think about the last happy moment she had with Remus and despite it being just a few minutes ago it's feeling more and more fleeting. He's been so distant recently, and she knows he'll be giving up on her soon. She desperately wants James to stop, before she starts crying, before she has to explain to him why hot tears are staining her cheeks. Before she anxiously confesses everything to him. She can only think of the short excuse at the front of her brain. There isn't time to come up with anything else. She says, "Remus made me do it."

"You two having more of those coloring sessions?" He laughs again, as though it's something he's laughed about many times before despite the implications just at the edge of his fingertips. She feels her face go cold and realizes she doesn't want him to reach out and, even if just for a moment, touch the secret she's been hiding for so long. 

"More?" It's all she can stutter out, but it's enough to get him laughing even harder. Maybe it's the pale color of her cheeks, or the shaking she's hiding in clenched fists.

"He hates those, y'now?" He ignores her completely. "But you gotta do what you gotta do to keep your girlfriend happy." 

He watches her expectantly and she can only give another one worded question. "Girlfriend?" Then her fists unclench and she's on the floor, with James under her as she tackles him and holds him to the ground. "You git!"

He laughed even more, increasing her anger just as much. "Get off me! I can't breathe."

"I'm not that fat, you're just really weak," She retorted, joining his laughter for just long enough that he shoved her off him. 

Her laughter died as she propped herself against the couch, picking up the markers that had fallen from the bucket when she tackled James. "You didn't know that I knew?" He said seriously. 

"No!" She said as though it were the most obvious thing, because it had been for a very long time to her. "Remus always said that he hadn't told you yet. He didn't want me to do it either, thought a little brotherly friendship would work better than a whiny little sister."

"It did work better, when he told me over a year ago."

Henrietta's mouth gaped. An entire year. A year of hiding, of whispers and quiet glances and unwanted advances from others who thought she was single. She doesn't know what to say, but she doesn't have to, James talks instead.

"He just uses that as an excuse sometimes when-" He stops short for a second, searching his now panicked brain for the rest of the sentence as his sister stared at him, confused. "When he's tired. Forbidden love gives an extra kick to the romance sometimes, don't it?"

He's talking like he talks to Sirius, not like he's talking to his baby sister. She gains a slight smirk on her face, one that James has seen too often in his child on both her face and his in the mirror. "I know about that too. Moony's 'little problem'. Not the best choice of nickname by the way."

It's his turn to be confused and slightly angry. "Moony?" He screams up to the stairs and Henrietta jumps to tackle him again and cover his mouth. She keeps him pinned to the ground, trying to ignore his tongue licking her palm as she looks up at the stairs to wait and see if Remus is going to come running down the stairs. He doesn't, and after putting her empty hand's finger to her mouth she lets James go. She wipes her hand on his robes, leaving a gleaming trail of saliva that he doesn't seem to mind. She suddenly thinks about what other disgusting substances could have once been on his robes, but tosses the ugly thought away quickly. 

"He doesn't know that I know. Why else would he use excuses to avoid me, you oaf?" She shakes her head and stares down at her hand. "It's his secret to tell." She sighs and slides against the couch, slouching deeply. "Which is exactly what I thought about us dating."

James picks her up by the arm, setting her up straight in her seat and draping an arm over her shoulders lovingly. "He's still figuring everything out."

"So am I," She interrupts angrily. "But I'm not controlling what everyone does an doesn't know like some Communist Dictator."

"What's Communist?" James asked but waves her off before she can explain. "That doesn't matter, he really likes you, loves you even, and doesn't want to give you too much at once."

"He must not know me very well, cause I took the news really well and I had no one there to help me through it."

"Let's just go talk to him and we'll set everything straight," He lifts her off the couch carefully, but forceful enough to keep her from resisting. He's oddly calm and she can see the emotion swirling beneath his eyes. Anger, confusion, frustration, and a deep seated need to make a joke of it all so everyone can get away unscathed. 

"No," She says, pulling away. He reaches to grab her again but it's useless because she's always been the stronger of the two. "It's my turn to control what information he knows."

"You can't just run away because you're scared of things." It's like he can read minds. "That's what got us into this mess in the first place."

"But that was Remus that got us into this mess in the first place, and I know more than he does, in the simplest sense."

"Simple seems to be the only way your brain works," James huffed and charged just fast enough to catch Henrietta off guard and throw her over his shoulder. 

"Hey!" She yelled out defiantly, both at his comment and the rather unwanted way he's carrying her up the stairs. Her head swings back and forth and she hits the sides of the staircase multiple times with various body parts. 

A set of footsteps comes down the steps, stopping in front of James with only what she can imagine a very confused and slightly scared look on his face. "She look my markers," He says simply. The footsteps resume, heading down the steps and away from a helpless Henrietta. The boy turns around looks her in the eye. It's the older boy from earlier, holding a pencil bag against his chest and glaring at her with an evil irony. 

When James sets her down in his dormitory on Remus's bed, she can only cross her arms and avoid looking Remus in the eyes. "Can you at least get my coloring for me?" She asks James, who promptly leaves the room, hopefully to get her markers and paper. Sirius and Peter follow shortly after, sensing the heavy awkwardness in the room. 

"Do you want to color?" She asks hopefully, looking Remus sheepishly in the eyes. 

He laughs just slightly. "Sure, it always makes me feel better."

"James said you hate coloring."

Remus looks at the door with a hateful look that must be meant for James, somewhere beyond the wood slab and golden lock. "He's not wrong," Remus mutters with a grin and it's Henrietta's turn to laugh. She tells herself she will tell him eventually, but she can't help but be content with the moment they are in.