SECURE | REMUS LUPIN

28 ; hogsmeade pt. 2

They continued to walk slowly in silence, Remus staring at the various shops as Katie waved to several people that passed by. Most responded back with small waves, each smiling back. Remus noticed a group of girls that looked at her in disdain and hoped for Katie's sake that she hadn't seen.

She didn't seem to notice because after she finished waving, she shot him a lopsided grin, looking up at him and cocking a brow. He looked down at her, mimicking her expression. "You've never been straightforward with any crushes so I don't have much material to use on you anyway," Katie said, touching on the topic they were speaking about earlier.

Remus hummed, turning his head and resting his gaze forward. "Is that so?" His tone was an attempt at mild disinterest, but his pitch was terribly off and much too high.

Katie stuffed her hands into her coat pockets, swaying back and forth as she walked. "Though I'm sure there's been a few here and there over the years." She tried not to sound too bothered by that notion, but in saying it out loud, Katie was suddenly aware of how much she hated to thought of Remus having a crush. It simply didn't feel right.

She thought back to the look he always wore whenever he looked at her, a look that plagued her constantly in the past week. Maybe he did have feelings for her, but she still wasn't sure whether he was aware of it or not, and Katie wasn't seeking to make a fool of herself in case he hadn't.

She wasn't sure when he'd started to look at her with that look in his eyes, but she knew Remus well enough to know that romantic feelings were something he had a hard time grasping, and it was very much plausible that he might still not know his feelings for her.

If he has feelings for you, a voice in her head nagged.

Katie shook the thought out of her head. If Remus wasn't sure about his feelings then that was understandable. She sure as hell still hadn't completely figured it out either, much too afraid about how putting a label on her feelings could change their dynamic.

"There have been some, but I mainly just thought they were nice to look at. Nobody's ever really captured my attention before," he responded eventually.

An unsaid notion wedged itself between them — the notion that there was someone who had captured his attention, someone who'd captured his attention long ago. But while both of them were quite aware, both were unsure whether the other party was aware of it as well.

Katie just nodded her head, afraid of what could happen if she continued the conversation. They again walked in silence until Honeyduke's came into their line of sight.

Walking into the sweet shop, a smile lit up Katie's face as the familiar smell wafted into her senses. Sweet, gooey, and so sugary she could almost taste each sweet on her tongue. It never got old to her, the scents — they provided her with a sense of comfort. Brushing her fingers along different colored wrappers, she wondered if perhaps she really did have a knack for anything sweet.

It wasn't like she had a shortness of sweets growing up. Her father was an excellent cook, his desserts exceeding the bar far past any other desserts she'd ever tasted. It didn't help at all that her father baked so often that there was rarely a shortness of sugary desserts in the Hart household.

Turning her head to look at Remus, she noticed the silent thoughts milling in his eyes. After they left the Three Broomsticks it'd taken a few more visits to other shops until he could look her way again, but Katie decided not to interrogate him about Rosmerta. She knew when Remus made his mind up to keep something secret that he would stubbornly keep it from her. She only hoped that she could get him to tell her this secret without having to wait six years and a near-death experience.