NOTHING GIRL || Remus Lupin

-Twenty Four: Change and It-

"Since... when?" Marlene still had a shocked expression on. Helia was pretty sure that she had swallowed her gum by accident.

"Christmas? I think? So, like, a month." Jade said, looking uncomfortable. She smiled in some attempt to gain back the atmosphere of before. "Is it really that big of a surprise?"

"No!" Marlene looked like she had been caught out. Her dark skin had flushed a pale pink. "I mean, of course not. It's just..."

"I know I haven't come out to my parents yet, but I dunno. Bella's really nice, and it seems like..." Jade paused in thought for a moment. "Like a good first step."

Lin frowned. Helia guessed that Lin, like herself, was not completely informed on Jade's reasons for entering into her new relationship, though she knew that neither of them would ask any questions until they had rid themselves of an audience.

Lilly coughed, drawing everyone's attention back to her. Helia observed the other girl. Helia had never spoken to her, as with most people in Hogwarts, but she liked to know things. And, as someone who likes to know things would know, Lilly Evans is an important person to observe. The Gryffindor seemed, whether inadvertently or on purpose, to naturally draw herself to the centre of people's attention. James Potter and Severus Snape were the obvious examples, falling like sheep into the conga line Evans didn't even seem to know stretched out behind her. But others flocked as well; teachers and students, house elves and even the headmaster. They all seemed overcome by her general sense of niceness. She was rather like Lin in that regard, Helia supposed, but while Lin was like a nervous trap of excitement, bouncing gleefully from one thing to another, Lilly was more quiet, more contained, happy to just be. Although, from what Helia heard, she wasn't someone you wanted on your bad side.

Lilly turned to James with a smile. The boy grinned at her attention. Helia didn't know when something had happened there, but Lilly was definitely looking at Potter differently nowadays. She made a mental note to ask Remus later. As if her thoughts of him had been transmitted by tiny radio waves, Helia felt Remus's eyes on her again.

For a second, she thought about looking up and meeting them with her own, but she was distracted by Jade.

"I guess you aren't coming to Hogsmead this time either?" her friend asked glumly, setting her pencil down as she abandoned all pretence of work.

Eyes were drawn to her from all over the table, but it was once again Remus's that she felt the pressure of the most, as if they were made from something entirely different. If Helia were to draw the teenagers around that table, she would have made the lines from their eyes to her own skin a deep red, and Remus's another colour, maybe blue or purple, like crackling electricity. Not the real kind, but the kind from comic books that goes zap!

"Maybe." she said tonelessly "Depends on how much work I get done."

"Well," Lilly said, watching Marlene deliberately "You can hang round with us, Jade?" it was more than a question than a statement.

Jade blinked, and then smiled. "Sure. Sounds awesome."

"Excuse me." The group turned as one at the sound of the unusually polite Scottish brogue. Mrs McGonagall was stood at the entrance to the library, observing the teenagers with that special kind of look that adults reserve especially for bad news. That look had been going around too much recently. They all knew what it meant. The three muggle borns at the table were Helia, Marlene and Lilly. Helia had never found any particular reason to speak to the other two, but for that moment they wer completely in sinc and holding their breath together. Glances flew between them, each wondering if their name would be called, silently praying that it wasn't them.