CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
"lolchant forest"
"So, who was that pretty girl you two boys were talking to?" Euphemia Potter asked her sons, a warm smile on her wide face.
They were sitting down in Potter Manor's kitchen, all four of them around the wooden table. Sirius had already consumed four brownies, and James was on his third. No matter how amazing Hogwarts food was, something about Mrs. Potter's brownies was just different.
James laughed slightly, and Sirius grinned.
"Oh, that's Hollis," James explained, setting down his plate on the warm counter with a slight clink.
"James, no one wants to see the food in your mouth," Fleamont scolded his son, although there was a slight smile on his wrinkled skin.
"Sorry, dad," James apologized, finishing chewing before he started his next sentence. "She sat in our compartment on the way to school, and since then she's been," he faltered, not knowing how to describe Hollis any further.
Sirius picked up from here.
"She's really good at pranks and really cool in general, so, naturally, her being friends with Mar and Lily, we've absorbed her into our group a bit," Sirius explained, wiping a few chocolatey crumbs away from the corner of his mouth with his sleeve.
He very gracefully avoided that the whole reason they had bonded was that their friend was a werewolf and they were becoming illegal Animagi.
"More than a bit," James added as his mother grabbed a cloth out of a white painted wooden drawer. "People started calling her 'the snake Marauder' because of how much we all hang around each other. And surprisingly, I don't mind. She's helped us- she's been- she's- she's great. We didn't know what we were missing before."
Mrs. Potter shook her head at Sirius's manners and handed him the dishtowel with little pansies embroidered on it to wipe his mouth.
It was hard to believe the household he was raised in sometimes with the way he acted at the table. Then again, Euphemia supposed that it was a relief from the way he had been brought up, a way to remind himself that he was safe now.
"Sorry, Mia."
"Why don't you invite her over with Remus on the twenty seventh, then?" she offered, taking the towel from Sirius after he had started to change its color.
James and Sirius both went silent. For a moment, the only thing that could be heard in the kitchen was the soft scrub of metal against a brush as Fleamont washed the dishes.
"It's a bit complicated, mum," James started, moving his hands as he hopped down from the counter. "Hollis's family is a bit controlling, she isn't really supposed to be friends with any Gryffindors. I don't blame her, though. Those Slytherins her parents wanted her to hang around with are.."
He thought of the bruises on her leg, the way she had gone silent and scared for weeks.
"They're just foul."
Euphemia's brows, the exact same shape as James's, furrowed.
"What's her full name, dear?" she asked, a tone of concern falling over her previously jovial voice.
Sirius answered this time.
"Hollis Rosier."
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"Missed you too, mum," said Remus in a muffled voice as Hope Lupin smothered him in a hug as soon as they walked into the quaint, warm atmosphere of Lupin Cottage.
Remus and his parents lived by Lolchant Forest, having moved there after he was bitten by Fenrir Greyback as a child to make his transformations easier. James lived across the thinnest stretch of the huge forest from him, a few hours' walk.
Unlike the Rosiers or Potters, the Lupin family was poor. Lyall and Hope always made sure that Remus had his school books and food, but Lyall's work at the ministry was paying less and less. Ever since the Imperius curse had started to penetrate the wizarding government, fewer people could be trusted. As a result, Mr. Lupin's salary had decreased even as her work took more and more of a toll.
But they made it, all together in their little cottage by the woods. That's all that mattered to them, even after Lyall's previous views on werewolves that had gotten his son bitten in the first place. They were family, and nothing was going to change that.
"So," Lyall started as he poured himself a cup of tea in a mug with pine trees painted on the sides that Remus had made as a toddler. His dark auburn hair was the exact color of his son's, while Hope had given Remus his bright green eyes. "Anything interesting happen at Hogwarts?"
Remus wasn't sure how to reply.
A Slytherin girl found out I was a werewolf.
You know the Rosiers? They have a daughter in my year.
I'm terrified for her, dad.
No, nothing interesting happened so far this year. Besides the usual with James, Peter, and Sirius.
She's teaching the others how to become Animagi, which she somehow knows how to do.
We became friends with a Rosier girl, and she's helped us all so much.
She taught me how to heal my cuts better.
O.W.L. prep is getting stressful.
It's been enjoyable, unremarkable.
I want to run to Rosier Manor and save Hollis.
"Just the normal things, you know?" Remus said quickly, cutting off his own frantic thoughts. "Kettleburn still has zero control over his students," he smiled, remembering the day they learned about bowtruckles.
Lyall shook his head, smiling at an old memory.
"I went to school with him, did you know that?"
Hope laughed at the memory of the story, easing into a new conversation. The Lupin family talked for hours about happy times and mischief all three of them had gotten into over the years, catching up over cocoa that had sparked Remus's love chocolate and rivalled Euphemia's brownies a few miles away.
But through all of the marshmallows and laughter, a tiny inkling of fear and worry was impossible to get rid of in the back of Remus's mind.
Rightfully so.
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+
Somehow, it was always cold at Rosier Manor. Even in the summer heat, when the woods right next to the marble was blossoming with flowers, the warmth would stop at the huge, black wooden doors like there was an invisible line stopping it, a line that nothing good would want to cross.
Hollis had been not been looked directly in the eyes or touched by her parents since the train station when she had to apparate because on the outside, it was essential that they look like a perfect family.
And if Vindia or Mulstone acknowledged her even that much, their temper would break and that appearance would shatter in a second.
She had been sent up to her room, while her parents had been talking to Evan for what felt like hours. The metal clock on her mantle only showed Hollis how short of time had passed. She sat on her bed, hands tucked under her thighs. The cushy black duvet was sinking slightly with her weight, allowing her bare feet to touch the black marbled floor. It was like ice.
Her huge room seemed to swallow her whole, like an oriental black and white monster with silver teeth.
She wandered over to her ceiling high window. There were dark grey velvet drapes blocking the glass. She wrapped a slightly shaking hand around the fabric. With a heavy tug and slight grunt, the weighty velvet billowed down onto the window seat. A puff of dust sprang up from the folds of the drapes, eliciting a cough from her throat. It was also evidence that her parents instructed their house elf, Monty, not to clean her room while she was away.
Wasted effort, she thought, dragging a finger against the baseboards and collecting the grey powder.
She walked over to her trunk, unlatching it and finding the healing herbs and potions she had stolen the night of the first full moon with Remus, sighing as she pulled the jars from under her neat pile of sweaters.
Her feet tracked over to the window seat, her teeth gritting as she lifted the ledge and revealed the hidden compartment underneath. She placed the new items among the already present bandages and food, sighing deeply. All she could do was hope it would be enough. Her chin tilted back upwards after righting the cushion so that the compartment was invisible again.
She looked out of the enormous glass panes.
Dark pine woods stretched on for miles and miles, with no end in sight. The Rosiers lived on the east side of the Lolchant forest, far away from any "pestering muggles," as Evan put it. Like a small child, she boosted herself on the high window seat and huddled in a corner. Her back was against wallpaper with their family animal, a dragon. Intelligent and cruel. Despite her fear, she fell asleep, one hand pressed against the glass with limp exhaustion.
The sound of her silver doorknob turning with a slight squeak woke her with a start. She hadn't always been a light sleeper, but years of practice made it how whenever there was a slight noise, she would rise like a clap of thunder had sounded only a hair away from her ear.
And she was glad she did, because both her parents were standing in the doorframe with fury etched all over their pointed faces.
can i get a rip for hollis
and can we literally kill evans
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