BLACK MOON ⍋ Remus Lupin

Chapter FiftyOne- Purist Practice.

"Arty!" Sonny shouted, waving at me from the ground of the pitch as I took a seat in the stands. I smiled and waved back, giggling lightly at him bouncing to get my attention.

Remus was right, it was foggy out and I probably wouldn't be able to see the practice that clearly once they get up off of the ground.

I attempted to push Remus from out of my mind, needing to stay focused and give that attention to Sonny, as he had invited me here as a symbol of opening part of his life to me. I needed to actually watch and not just pretend to pay attention.

As Sonny went off to collect the Quidditch balls with a Slytherin girl on the team, who looked intimidatingly strong; an unfamiliar boy started flying towards my direction.

At first I wasn't intimidated at all, not one of the Slytherins had given me a negative look when I had approached the stands and made my presence known.

He looked me up and down as he got closer. Holding one hand out to grab the rails to steady himself still, in order to position himself to talk to me, without getting off of his broom.

He wasn't the good kind of Slytherin; his wide smile with dead looking eyes gave that away as soon as he got close enough for me to observe without the fog clouding my vision.

"Disturbing sight seeing a pureblood in red." He sneered at my Gryffindor robes. His accent aggressively thick and common.

I shrugged at him, not awarding him much of a reaction. Learning that, while living with Bellatrix, it sometimes says more when you say nothing at all.

"I heard you lot like to keep things real pure. Is that why you must've begged to get into Gryffindor? To fuck your pretty boy cousin, Sirius? 'Supose Regulus is a little too young for ya!" He laughed.

I immediately felt uneasy in his presence, this wasn't just regular Slytherin V. Gryffindor rivalry.

"What?" I snapped at him. He smirked.

"Look at you, you're carrying yourself like a Slytherin. You're trying to hit it off with other slytherin's. Yet you're not one yourself?-" He spat at me, luckily not aiming very well.

"-Well, I guess it's convenient for another one of you to be a dirty Gryffindor! Sirius needed a family member to keep that tradition of purest bloodline still going pure, didn't he? You're a good match. Your sisters are too good for him."

I wrapped my robes closer around me, feeling exposed though I wasn't. The way his eyes scanned me was menacing and felt violating.

Hating the attention and the accusations he was coming up with, I didn't know how to respond. No words forming from my mouth out of confused fear.

"I bet you like it don't you? Thinking it's ok to feel that way about him because mummy and daddy said it was. So what if he's your cousin! You love the way he feels insi-" He was cut off by a sharp whistle across the pitch.

Tears stung my eyes at the lies and false confrontation. I felt disgusted with myself though none of his words held any truth. An itching, dirty feeling coating my skin as an overwhelming desire to scrub myself clean from his words came over me.

"Damien, what the hell are you doing?" Sonny snapped. The disgusting boy sent a smile in my direction before he flew off to the others, like he hadn't said the tiniest thing offensive.

Sonny tactically got off of his broom and climbed over the railing. Rushing over and sitting beside me, draping one arm over my shoulder tightly and rubbing at my arm.

"What did he say?" He asked, seeing how frozen with shock I was. My eyes let go of helpless tears, without me actually actively crying, he let them fall without mentioning them so that I didn't become hyper aware to clear them away.

"Do people think I...Sirius and- do people think my family- to keep bloodlines pure?" I stuttered out. Not wanting to repeat what the Damien guy had implied or having the right current stability to speak the accusation out loud. I couldn't make it feel more real than it already felt. Voicing it would only do that.

Sonny knew what I was getting at without me having to speak of the vile rumour. His body tensing as he slowly removed his arm from around my shoulder. Looking down at his hands and obviously assessing how he was going to approach the conversation, he inhaled sharply and collected his thoughts.

"Is it not true that Sirius' parents are cousins? It's quite common practice for elitist families to...well, stick in the family, right?" He approached the subject carefully by the tone of his voice.

I couldn't protest or defend myself...it was the truth. Sirius and Regulus' parents married and started a family as cousins. If I had been seen next to Sirius all this time at hogwarts, of course the people that fed upon outdated traditions and loved to speculate, were going to presume that we'd follow by their example. Especially Sirius, having parents that were related didn't bode well in his defence. Though second cousins, it wasn't normal in today's society.

We weren't like that though, Sirius and I.

Having no proof, other than my truth and word, that Sirius and I weren't even remotely in relations outside of sharing blood, I suddenly started feeling helpless and immensely frustrated.

Peoples assumptions, judgements, confrontations and ignorance had made me feel like a trigger had snapped inside of me.

Knowing I was subject of malicious rumours, just because of a family name that I wanted nothing to do with. The anger I had felt when I knew my name had been burnt off of the family tapestry was back and it was burning hotter than ever.

I wasn't who my family is or what they have done. I share blood and nothing more. In such a fragile body, blood is easily shed. So can my ties with any lessons or values I ever picked up from the name that has brought me nothing but negativity.

A sense of a fractured ego heightened as I desperately tried to think of any solid proof to debunk what people were whispering about in the Slytherin commonroom (and merlin knows, possibly the other houses).

"I'd never do that." I said strongly.

"Hey, I'm not judging! I don't believe you would but also who am I to question someone's family traditions? If that's normal to you...we all have our own version of normal, Arty. It might be weird to-" he awkwardly tried to reassure me on something I didn't need reassuring on, I cut him off harshly.

"Sirius is Gay." I blurted out feeling angry with the whole situation.

Sonny was being called out to the field, the rest becoming impatient with waiting. I stood up quickly as he gave me a sympathy look to leave.

"I hate Quidditch anyway, talk to you later." I said coldly. Finding my way out of the Quidditch stands and aimlessly walked through the school fields.

I wandered around, pacing from here and there. I could feel my face contorted in an ugly, angry rage. Luckily the grounds were almost deserted because of the thick fog that had formed over the chilly morning.

I took some deep breaths in, reassuring myself that I could have reacted much more negatively than I did, but that's when suddenly realisation hit me as I starting coming to my senses.

"Oh shit!" I said loudly to myself, really starting to cry this time with an overbearing amount of panic.

I had messed up bad. I had just told Sonny that Sirius was gay, when Sirius had trusted me and not given me permission to tell anyone.

Who was I to know if he was mentioning it to anyone else? It had been such a brave move to come out to his friends that he trusted. Let alone for Sonny to know, who he didn't have a bond with whatsoever.

Disappointment in myself made me fall to my knees in the middle of the field, holding my hands heavily against my face. The tight feeling returning to my chest, like from the last time I ended up in the school hospital with Reggie.

I should have skipped the Quidditch practice and taken up Remus' offer. How could I have been so stupid to expose myself to such a vulnerable situation and not prepare?

Sirius was going to hate me.