NOTHING GIRL || Remus Lupin

-Thirty Six: Armageddon-

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"Mr. Lupin? Come in."

Remus pushed open the door to Dumbledore's office with a little too much force, and it slammed against the wall. He paused, adrenaline still rushing through his veins.

"Helia." he said, and then stopped, unsure what to say. He hadn't actually planned anything, and being suddenly put on the spot had lead him to say the first thing on his mind. Remus took a deep breath while the Headmaster waited patiently. "Is Helia trying to kill me?"

Professor Dumbledore gave him a wistful kind of look. "Ah, young love."

Remus went red, a blush fighting across his cheeks. He wasn't sure how to respond. His mouth opened and closed.

"It can be quite difficult to tell what Miss Blacksmith is thinking." Dumbledore said, "I'm sure you've noticed that she can be very unpredictable."

"Is... is that a yes?" Remus felt his stomach sink.

"I don't know." the teacher said honestly. " If I've learned one thing in my years of teaching, it's that you can never be completely certain when it comes to your student, although I believe that Miss Blacksmith has some very... intense emotions."

"So she didn't come here a few weeks ago and tell you that she wanted to kill me?" Remus said carefully.

"Ah," as Professor Dumbledore spoke, understanding dawned on his wrinkled face, "I see you've been talking to young Mr. Potter. How so many misunderstandings can occur in the life of a teenager, I shall never know."

"It's not true then?" Remus didn't think his heart had ever beat so fast.

The Professor simply shrugged. "Who can say? I'm sure she would rather you believed that to the truth."

"You aren't giving me an answer." Remus stated.

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled. "You always have been a very observant boy."

Remus wondered if the Headmaster had always been so incredibly infuriating. He walked out of the office numbly, deciding what he was going to do before it the door had even swung shut behind him.

He pounded up the stairs to the seventh floor. The Room of Requirement seemed to seep from the stone. His footsteps slowed as he neared the door, reluctant to acknowledge the fact that the sinking in his stomach was already telling him: Helia was already gone. It was his last, desperate hope that she might be in there, berating the room for it's dry, and often embarrassing, sense of humour.

He hadn't told Sirius or James about the Room of Requirement. He didn't know why.

Remus could feel the stillness that came from a distinct lack of human presence from the second his shoes sunk into the dark carpet, but he checked the rooms anyway. Gryffindor, as usual, was locked. Hufflepuff arranged itself into a 3D, virtual map of a small village in Yorkshire somewhere. Ravenclaw, as it turned out, was a small office space, featuring a desk and a swivel chair (because of course she had a swivel chair) as well as a continuation of the bookshelves from the main room. Like Slytherin, this space was overflowing with scribbled notes, crumpled up on desks and abandoned on floors. There was a notebook on every surface, most of them flipped open to a random page that was also full of rushed scrawl. A copy of the Tales of Beedle the Bard was open on a small coffee table. Helia wasn't in there.

He checked the Slytherin room last, out of fear of seeing his name again and having to confront the possibility of Helia Blacksmith attempting to murder him. The breath was stolen from his lungs when the door swung open. There was a burn mark in the centre of the table, in fact, the whole thing was covered in ash, parchments gone. The whiteboards were wiped clean. There were no names; the board markers were snapped in half on the floor. Remus imagined that this was what it would look like if a natural disaster struck a science lab. A blue eyed, black haired natural disaster.