NOTHING GIRL || Remus Lupin

-Forty Six: Plot Device-

"Evans!" Helia doubted she had ever said anyone's name with more welcome in her entire life. The other girl looked slightly scared. "Please. I need Potter. Please get James."

"Why?" Lilly asked suspiciously.

"I can't-" Helia made a frustrated sound, "Remus is in trouble."

Lilly's eyes went wide. They were friends of a sort, Helia remembered. "What kind of trouble?"

"I don't know. That's why I need Potter. Or Black. Literally any one of them. Maybe not Pettigrew, because Lin says he's been acting weird recently." Helia was distantly aware that she was rambling, but she couldn't honestly say she cared.

Lilly nodded, and turned around to dart back into the Common Room.

"Tell him to bring the map!" Helia yelled after her.

The seconds of waiting were torture, so much worse than before. She could feel the knowledge that she just had to wait, that there was nothing she could do, slowly eating her alive. Finally, James Potter and Sirius Black tumbled, half dressed and blurry eyed out of the portrait hole.

"Where's Remus?" Helia demanded, "Did either of you go with him to the Shrieking Shack?"

"No." Sirius muttered, confused from both the sudden awakening and the sudden black haired girl who was yelling at him, "He wanted to go alone."

"Fuck." Helia fought the urge to punch a wall. She gestured sharply to James, "Give me the map."

Maybe it was the early time, or the directness with which Helia was talking to him, but James followed her orders without question. Helia scanned over the school grounds desperately, heartbeat throbbing in her throat. Every single part of her froze for a moment when she finally found his name, at the edge of the Forbidden Forest. The dot wasn't moving.

She swore violently, taking the map and tearing down the stairs as if hell itself was chasing her.

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

Sirius exchanged only a look with James before they both took off, following the Blacksmith girl through the corridors of Hogwarts. After a few floors, they were starting to lag behind. It was as if the school itself was lending itself to Helia, the staircases operating at twice their normal speed to get her exactly where she needed to go. It seemed the place held no such inclinations to help the two Marauders, leaving them struggling to make leaps between staircases to keep Helia in their sights.

She didn't even pause, paid no heed to their calls for her to slow down. She was running, a figure in the distance that the world barely seemed to touch. It was as if she existed somewhere in between, somewhere where it was just her and the invisible line on the ground in front of her feet, telling her where to go, finally putting her knowledge of the castle to use as she turned corners and ducked through shortcuts that even Sirius and James hadn't known about.

Sirius's breath came in glass shards, cutting his lungs by the time they made it to the edge of the forest. Helia had disappeared into it's green folds, though he could have sworn he had seen the pelt of a giant mammal out of the corner of his eye for a moment. The map was at the edge of the trees, lying on the ground. Sirius paused for a moment to catch his breath as James scanned his eyes over the Forbidden Forest.

James hit Sirius's shoulder, giving his friend warning before he dove into the cover of the trees. "This way."

The next ten minutes were occupied only by the joint pounding of his heart, his fear and his feet on dirt. Finally, they made it to a clearing where the copse of trees clustered around the small expanse of grass was particularly thick. What Sirius saw first was Helia, stood with her wand arm raised towards something that Sirius couldn't see.