NOTHING GIRL || Remus Lupin

-Thirty One: The Luxury of Choice-

Helia gritted her teeth as Remus snorted.

"I'm serious." She forged on. "She's pretty and smart and just nervous enough about school to get you to feel sorry for her."

"And you gaged all of this from a how many minutes long conversation?" Remus said, sounding more wary than doubtful.

"Less than one." Helia provided, "For what it's worth I don't think she was faking."

"How could you tell?"

"Lin trusts her." Helia supplied easily. "If Lin trusts her, I trust her."

"And what does Lin think about me?" Remus asked nervously.

Helia stared at him for a moment before grinning, reaching up and poking him on the nose. Warmth fluttered through his cheeks. "Awww, Wolfy. But where's the fun in telling you when I could let you stew over it for hours?"

And then Helia strode off, completely forgetting the Defence Against the Dark Arts class that she had in five minutes.

........

Helia wasn't in Defence Against the Dark Arts, or Transfiguration. In fact, Helia had completely forgotten about classes. She had an idea. Helia was not a good person, and she would have never said that what she intended to do was pure, or good, but that had never stopped her before.

And she wasn't going to let it stop her now.

But for the moment, potions called, and her absence would only raise more questions. Teenage angst and romance would have to wait.

Helia had things to do.

The walk down the sixth floor corridor away from the Room of Requirement would have been relatively unremarkable, and certainly not the kind of thing to write stories about, had it not been for the giantishly tall boy dressed in Slytherin robes coming from the other direction. Martin Flint stopped in front of Helia, not willing- through some crazy old school myth about her- to physically lay a finger on Helia.

"I know what you did." He said, anger resonating through his voice.

Helia knew he wasn't talking about the prank. Deliberately slowly, she stepped around the boy and continued in her path, refusing to let herself shake or show any form of emotion.

"I know what you did!" He called, again, after her. "And I wont let you forget it!"

But Helia was gone.

I was less than a minute before a grey-eyed boy stepped out from behind a statue of a one-eyed witch, staring after the girl with a curious expression on his face.

....................................

"Marlene?"

"Hmmm."

"Marlene!"

"What?"

"We only needed thirty grams of dragonfly wings."

Marlene McKinnon felt like reality had slapped her in the face. She looked down to see the masses and masses of now-flightless insects on her chopping board, overflowing from the workspace and onto the desk. She grinned a Lilly.

"You can never have too many!" she declared dramatically, flicking her insanely frizzy fringe out of the way. Drama was what Marlene hid behind in moments of realism.

"Too many dead insect carcases? I think we might have to agree to disagree on that front." Lilly gave her a knowing smile.

"Better than live ones." Marlene shuddered.