It was a few weeks later. The sun was still out, but it was getting dimmer and provided less warmth each day. Anastasia was waiting until the day where she wouldn't feel it's warmth any longer and was instead enveloped in a constant winter chill. She was not looking forward to it.
Professor Sprout walked along the sides of the tables in Greenhouse Two, giving corrections every once in a while. The early morning sun shone through the glass panels and onto the students standing at the center table, the cascading vines shielding the rest of the students from its glare. Once she finished her rounds, Sprout tended to a small plant at the head of the greenhouse. She cut off a few snips of leaves and swept them into a knit brown bag.
She scanned the room. This class was one of her worst behaved. Slytherin and Gryffindor. The arguments had only gotten worse since talk of him began. But for the moment, it was relatively quiet as the students were focused on diagnosing their specimens.
"Is anyone finished yet?" Sprout called aloud. She received no answer, but she began to walk towards a certain student anyway.
"Anastasia, how are you faring?"
"I'm finished. My Bubotuber has root rot so I repotted it and cut off the excess roots." Ana moved her potted Bubotuber so Sprout could see the small pile of roots on the table. "I'm just in the middle of cleaning up."
The professor gave her a validating hum and nod. "Don't you worry about it. Instead, I need you to bring this to Madam Pomfrey. If you don't dawdle, you'll be fine on time."
Anastasia left her bag in the care of Regulus, who shoved it underneath the table at his feet as he relentlessly tried to stuff his mandrake into a too-small pot. She internally winced at the thought of her pristinely folded charms essay being crumpled and caked in dirt.
She smiled at a few teachers that she walked past on her way. She was raised to be polite, so polite she would be. Once she reached the Hospital Wing, Ana slowly opened the door. The last thing she wanted to do was interrupt something.
Sh let herself in, closing the door behind her. "Madam Pomfrey?"
The nurse emerged from her office. Her apron and skirts were suspiciously bloody, and she looked rather rattled, but still kept a smile on her face.
"Is everything alright?" Ana asked. She kept switching her glance between the woman's eyes and her blood-stained apron, which was typically bleach white and creased to perfection.
Pomfrey waved her off. "The student will be okay. He's very accident-prone. Now how can I help you?"
That sounded a little far fetched to her, but Ana didn't question it further. "Professor Sprout asked me to bring this to you."
Pomfrey took the bag from her and pulled a leaf that Ana recognized as Dittany from it into her palm. "Ah, just what I needed. Thank you, darling. You can head back to class now."
Ana smiled and turned to leave, but she caught a glimpse of someone in a bed. He had scratches all over his face, most of them looking rather old. He was so pale that his skin was almost blue, and his eyes were sunken into his face. He looked so much like a corpse that she couldn't help but look just for a moment. The only lively thing about him was his golden brown hair that was matted into messy curls.
He was reading a book with a pale blue cover. One one of his long legs was propped up so the book could rest on his knee. Ana pretended not to notice that the boy didn't have a shirt on, the giant bandage on his shoulder preventing him from wearing one. There were even more scratches on his chest than on his face, which was saying a lot.
The boy turned in her direction, and her eyes widened when she saw who he was. Remus Lupin. Sirius' friend. He was eating a piece of chocolate, but froze mid-bite when he caught her staring at him. He blinked and furrowed his brows, not a challenge, but a question.
The two had only had a few interactions- the first and most memorable being on the Hogwarts Express Ana's first year, when Sirius was absolutely certain that the twins would be sorted into Gryffindor. Beyond that, any dialogue had been polite and rather meaningless. She had maybe spoken to him twice the year previous and both times were regarding Sirius' whereabouts.
"Miss Black," 'Madam Pomfrey repeated, a slight smile on her face, "go to class. The periods are about to change."
Anastasia nodded and hurried out the door, her face turning red. She was deep inside of her own thoughts the entire way back to Greenhouse Two. Why was Lupin beat up so bad? And why did he seem so nonchalant about it? She knew that if she had been the one who got hurt like that, she wouldn't be reading and eating chocolate! Well, maybe she would, but she definitely would not look so at peace.
She wondered if she should tell Regulus. However, the boy was a tad self-centered, and usually only cared about things if they pertained to himself or his family. A beat-up Remus Lupin sitting by himself in the Hospital Wing didn't fit into that criteria. That he would only investigate out of pure boredom and nosiness.
She walked back into the greenhouse just as the other students were packing up. She noticed that someone had wiped down her area at the table, which had been sprinkled with soil, roots, and dead leaves when she left.
She thanked Regulus, assuming it was him. "Goyle did it, not me," he said, wiping the soil off his hands with a gray rag. He looked exhausted from his ordeal with the mandrake. Ana hoped that he had came to his senses and grabbed a larger pot.
"Goyle?" Anastasia whispered, eyes wide in shock. "I've never even spoken to him before."
Regulus shrugged and handed her her bag. "He asked me to put in a good word for him. His father probably spoke to him."
"About what?" Ana asked, confusion lining her face. She followed her brother out the doors of the greenhouse, walking fast to keep up with his brisk pace.
"Don't be stupid, Annie." Here he paused and looked around to see if Goyle was anywhere around them. "He has to be betrothed sometime."
Anastasia caught on to what he was saying. It was common among pureblood families to arrange marriages for their children while they were still at Hogwarts. Some were betrothed since they were infants. Being from a rich and powerful family, Ana knew that many boys would try to court her and exploit her wealth.
"You really think that? Maybe he just wanted to do something nice...." Regulus gave her a look. "...for a change," Ana added.
Justus Goyle was quite a character. He was known for being an extreme blood purist, and he would constantly berate any muggleborns he came across. He went beyond the usual name-calling and teasing from some of his housemates. He hexed the muggleborns and would threaten to obliviate them. This had resulted in him having quite a bad reputation, among all the houses. The Slytherins who held the same beliefs as him didn't like how he always managed to get caught.
That being said, Anastasia would not be happy if she were to become betrothed to him. If she were to be honest, his looks played a major part in this decision. To her, Goyle looked like if a hippogriff and a porlock had a baby. And not a cute one.
"He better not try to court you," Regulus muttered. This surprised Ana. Regulus had never really been much of a protective type- that was Sirius. But then again, the summer had changed her brother into someone she no longer recognized.
"Why do you care?" she asked curiously.
They turned a corner to walk down a staircase. "He's always talking to Bulstrode about what he wants to do to girls. Most of it is quite disgusting and maybe illegal."
She cringed. Whatever little respect she had left for Goyle was now gone. "Most of it?"
He shrugged. "Or all of it. I've tried to tune it out."
They reached the common room and Ana recited the password. The twins had very similar schedules, the only difference being that Anastasia took care of magical creatures while her brother took arithmancy.
They had a free period right before lunch on Mondays and Tuesdays together, and today was a Monday.
"Did you finish the history of magic essay? I can't seem to get the conclusion right."
It was no secret that Regulus was the smarter Black twin. Anastasia wasn't stupid by any means, she just took a little longer to understand things. She was better at the things that didn't require a perfect memory. In her youth, Bellatrix had teased her, saying something along the lines of 'the inbreeding had to catch up sometime.'
Herbology and care of magical creatures were probably her two favorite subjects. Ana was good at the caring aspect and was more emotionally intelligent than either of her brothers. She always knew if a plant needed more water or sun, or how to calm an upset creature.
Regulus handed her his essay. "I finished, but I don't think it's that good. Let me see yours." He sat down at a table and practically threw his bag onto the chair next to him.
She handed it to him, and he quickly skimmed over it. "Just say something about how it affected the relationships between goblins and wizards and you'll be fine. Good intro."
Ana leaned over onto the table and scribbled down whatever words came to her mind.
"Okay, is this better? I added the thing about the war the treaty caused a few years later."
She slid her paper back over to Regulus and sat down in the chair across from him. He quickly read it before nodding, a slight smirk on his lips.
"Yeah. I think you wrote an extra two inches, though."
She groaned under her breath.
___________________________________________
Remus was a terrible liar if you knew him well enough. Just terrible. And someone like Sirius, who he had known for five years now and considered to be his best friend, would be able to detect one of his lies in an instant.
So when he, James, and Peter bounded into the hospital wing at the end of classes, Remus didn't want to tell him how his day had gone.
It wasn't boring by any means. Lily had visited Remus during lunch, and she brought chocolate with her. But the real highlight of his day had been earlier that morning, in second period to be exact.
He had been reading a book that Alice Fortescue had lent him. It was by an muggle author by the name of Jane Austen. Remus had heard of her before, but he never had the pocket money to buy one of her books.
That Monday morning was quiet; he was the only person in. Quidditch hadn't started up yet, and no one was getting into fights this early in the year. Madam Pomfrey insisted that Remus opened the curtains surrounding the bed, saying that he needed some light. He had to admit that reading in mid-morning sun was a lot easier than reading in the dim light his lumos provided.
His reading had been interrupted by voices, but Remus didn't look up. Students entered the hospital wing all the time, just to grab a bandage; get a potion, or even just to quickly chat with a friend in between classes. Usually they didn't even notice him. He had a habit of blending in wherever he went, unless he was with James or Sirius, of course.
The student that day was dropping off some sort of plant from Sprout. This wasn't uncommon either. Sprout and Slughorn would always send students to drop off stuff for Pomfrey, neither having the time nor energy to do it themselves.
What made Remus look up was the silence. The girl and Pomfrey had stopped talking, but he didn't hear the girl's footsteps or the door creaking open.
He unwrapped one of the chocolate frogs that Lily had brought him earlier, crumbling the tin wrapper in his fist. He raised his head, and found the girl looking straight at him. He froze.
Remus immediately recognized her. She was his best mate's sister. The girl looked like Sirius with her ivory skin and shiny dark hair. He couldn't quite remember her name. Was it Anna? Annette? He knew it started with an A.
Either way, she was probably one of the prettiest girls he had ever seen, and he was laying in a hospital bed looking like something a dragon spit up.
"Miss Black, go to class." Madam Pomfrey scurried the girl out the door. The nurse gave Remus a look, her eyebrows raised and a small smile on her face. He turned as red as a beet.
Remus finished his chocolate frog. His book laid forgotten on the bedsheets face down. Elizabeth Bennett laughed at him from the front cover.
He lightly touched the bandage on his shoulder, and he realized that the girl had seen a lot of his scars. Most of the really bad ones were on his back, but there were still large ones on his chest, particularly the disgusting one on his stomach.
He gulped. What if she told other Slytherins what she saw? Sirius never talked bad about her, only Regulus. Would she tell Regulus? Remus knew how creepily close twins were. Fabian and Gideon were a perfect example.
He didn't really show people his (really bad) scars unless he was close to them. Of course his roommates knew- they saw them every day while they got dressed. Other than that, Lily Evans and Frank Longbottom, and now Sirius' sister.
Remus nervously unwrapped another chocolate frog and played with the foil in his hands. Should he tell Sirius? He decided against it. Remus didn't know how to word it without seeming accusatory or like he was in love with the girl. Yes, she was pretty, but he had learnt the hard way that looks weren't everything.
The girl's name popped into his head on his fourth chocolate frog. He was right, it did start with an a.
Anastasia.