CHAPTER EIGHTY-FIVE
song of the chapter - "i want to" by rosenfeld
"him"
Hollis slipped out of the door after the meeting so quickly that she just seemed like a black and pine-green blur of thick fabric to the few people that saw her exit. Jogging down the torchlit corridors, her footsteps didn't make a sound even during this time of night when the hallways were almost completely deserted. She was making a beeline to the Slytherin common room as quickly as she could, leaving the Map with Remus in a rush. Regulus had told Hollis that he would wait for her in the common room until whenever their meeting was over, and she didn't want to keep him awake any longer than he already was.
She had promised him earlier that day that she would give him every detail about Dumbledore's reaction, and whether their headmaster had agreed to their bold plan against the Death Eaters, their parents, or not.
"Salazar," she muttered, gripping the serpent carved silver handle as the door allowed entry with the password.
Sure enough, when Hollis stepped into the emerald tinted, underground room, Regulus was waiting on the couch for her in sweatpants and a Slytherin sweatshirt. Looking up from his book, A Hundred and One Ways to Track a Person Using Magic: The Guide, at her presence, Regulus felt a small bolt of anxiety shoot through him at whatever news, good or bad, Hollis would bring with her as she settled down in the corner of the black leather couch across from him.
"Well?" he asked, setting down the dark yellow cloth-covered book on the dark oak coffee table engraved with patterns of snakes slithering across the stone on its wooden legs and sides next to him.
Taking a glance around the empty common room just to double check that no prying eyes or ears were here with them, Hollis nodded firmly at Regulus. The Slytherin felt relief course through him that it had gone well with Dumbledore, some color returning to his face that was previously mildly paler than usual with nerves.
"What exactly happened, then?" Regulus prompted, resting his forearms on his thighs to give Hollis his full attention.
Taking a deep breath in and blowing it out slowly to gather her thoughts, Hollis looked right at Regulus, returning his awareness.
"At first he seemed like really, really shocked that I had the Dark Mark," she told him, and the dark-haired boy smirked slightly.
"Only Hollis Rosier could make the ever so calm Dumbledore shocked," Regulus smiled, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his sweatpants pocket.
Cupping his hands around a flickering copper flame he had just nonverbally pulled away from the fire, Regulus lit the tip of the cigarette with a practiced grace that would have made any other girl besides Hollis swoon.
But Rosier barely noticed; she was thinking about Remus.
After exposing her Dark Mark to Dumbledore, no matter how fake, all Hollis could think about was that image of her nightmare that had flashed on the back of her eyelids of Remus looking so, so angry about her. Not just Death Eaters in general, her.
Hollis didn't know what she would do if she lost Remus to a lack of trust and no faith remaining. Even if she didn't always show it as much as the auburn-haired boy did, she had never cared so much for a person in her life in only a year and a couple of months.
"Hollis?" Regulus prompted, nodding at her to go on after a long pause.
"Yea, sorry," Hollis muttered, snatching a cigarette out of Regulus's pack. "Anyways, he seemed a bit confused at first, but then he seemed to come to terms with the whole 'one of my seemingly nice students' is a Death Eater thing after a few minutes. Then, I basically gave the whole 'I literally want to kill my family speel' and I might have gotten a little too intense, but Dumbledore seemed to understand. And then we started with the plan."
Hollis copied Regulus's movements of summoning a small amount of flame from the common room fire to light her cigarette. Blowing out a long stream of grey, twisting smoke, Hollis continued to her rapt friend.
"I was kinda hard to not mention you, it felt like I was stealing half the credit that belongs to you. I couldn't have done this on my own, but Dumbledore seemed a little too busy absorbing all it to notice that. Plus, until this year, no one ever really saw us together at school, you know? Just a ball and Rosier Manor thing. So he didn't seem suspicious, just worried."
"Worried?" Regulus asked, running a hand through his wavy, dark hair.
"Yea, worried about the safety of the whole thing. Which is, of course, just complete-"
"Bullshit," Regulus finished and Hollis nodded at him while smashing the smoldered cigarette end against a glass ashtray.
"If I'm going to get hurt, I've already developed a pretty high pain tolerance," she said, her lips twisting sourly. Regulus's eyes lingered on them for a few moments before pulling his gaze back up to her eyes. She hadn't noticed. "And if I'm already in this deep, might as well just screw it all over as long as there's a chance of hurting those monsters."
Despite her reassuring, he detected a hint of regret and apprehension in Hollis's face that she was trying to keep neutral and calm.
"What is it?" he asked, scooting a little closer to Hollis from across the couch. "I know that look, Hol."
To his surprise, her eyes began to water slightly, only for a second before she concealed it. But Regulus had noticed. He knew something was wrong.
She took a shaking breath in.
"It's Remus."
Regulus leaned back against the leather stiffly.
"I'm so terrified that something is going to happen and he's going to see the mark. You haven't seen the way he talks about Death Eaters, Reg. It's- it's terrifying- I can't even think of a better word."
Swallowing deeply, Regulus twirled his cigarette between his fingers before taking in a long draw. Something about the way Hollis got when she was talking about Remus bothered him.
"It's just with such pure hatred, and I'm so, so scared that one day that hatred would be about me," Hollis told Regulus, her eyes watering. "I just love him, and-"
Black's neck snapped towards her the second those raw words slipped from her mouth, his stomach sinking and hands freezing.
She hadn't meant to say it, no previous intention in her mind. The sentence had just come naturally, meant to roll off her tongue.
Oh God. I love him, thought Hollis, covering her lips slightly with her fingertips. I love him.
.｡*ﾟ+.*.｡ ﾟ+..｡*ﾟ+
The Marauders sat in their corner of the library with a spread of herbology notes, textbooks, and scrolls laid out the rich mahogany in front of them that they had been using to complete their two lengths of parchment long essay on the cross-section of a snargaluff pod, the most difficult assignment Sprout had assigned all year.
Both James and Hollis had patches of navy ink on their knuckles from writing for so long, along with stiff fingers that felt like they could fall off if either of them dragged a sharp, metallic quill nub across the thick and creamy parchment one more time. Peter hadn't gotten as lucky as his two friends, a splotch of ink had seeped into his rosy cheek when he had wiped off his hand onto his face subconsciously.
Slamming down his quill dramatically, Sirius leaned back in his chair triumphantly.
"I finished," he declared, a grin on his face at winning the competition he had just made up in his head.
"I finished ten minutes ago, Pads, now I'm just drawing," Hollis teased, holding up her paper with sketches of snakes and lions on it to prove her point. "You thought."
"Fuck you, Hol," Sirius grumbled, half faking and half being genuinely annoyed. "It's not my fault that you write at the bloody speed of light."
Jokingly, Hollis grabbed Sirius's scrawled essay.
"You spelled snargaluff with two e's," Hollis giggled, and Sirius's eyes widened in alarm.
"That's not how you spell it?" he whispered in exaggerated horror.
Biting her inner cheek to keep from laughing more, Hollis shook her head at the pale boy.
"Most certainly not," Remus jutted in, finishing his essay at the exact same time as James and Peter. "Not sure how you managed to mess that one up so badly."
Narrowing his eyes at Hollis and Remus, Sirius stuck out his tongue, the habit building.
"Spelling is not one of my numerous strengths, just saying," Sirius pointed out, blowing on the still wet dark blue ink so that it wouldn't smear when he put it in his bag to turn in the next morning. "I think I'm a bit more clever at things like, you know, hexing people."
"What a kind pastime," scolded Hollis, not approving of how frequently Sirius and James hexed people in the hallways for the simple reason that they could and wanted to show that off.
Of course, Hollis wasn't completely innocent of pulling out her wand on her fellow students either, but at least when she hexed or jinxed someone they actually deserved it and wasn't just because she was bored.
"Not to be rude, but I'm not entirely sure how we didn't hex you before our fifth year," James said as he fanned his drying ink with a hand.
Hollis rubbed her eyes with both hands. Potter's bluntness could be exasperating sometimes.
"How am I not supposed to take offense to that, Prongs," Hollis muttered, giving James an overly dramatic glare as she slammed her glass inkpot on the table for effect. "I don't know how I didn't curse that huge head of yours to shrink."
Both of their theatrical expressions went away as Sirius snorted at Hollis's insult.
"Why are all the ladies always making fun of your head size, huh?" Sirius asked with a grin.
James stood up quickly in his chair, making it scoot backward against the oak wood floors with a screech. "That's exactly what I've been asking myself for years."
"I think it's more of an ego thing than a physical one," Remus side widely, his dark green eyes catching the reflection of the dim, warm, lamplight illuminating the library at this time of night after dinner.
Rolling his hazel eyes, James sat back down in his chair defeatedly.
"I'm not that arrogant."
Hollis, Remus, Peter, and Sirius all exchanged a dubious glance before bursting out in laughter.
"What?" James exclaimed, standing back up once again. "Stop laughing, I'm serious!"
"No, I'm Sirius."
That was just about enough for James to melodramatically walk away from their table and sharply turn the bookshelf corner, shouting "I'm done with all of you!" behind him.
After a few seconds, Sirius and Peter went running after their friend to see if he was going to do anything stupid and if he was, most likely join him instead of stopping it. Just Hollis and Remus were left sitting across from each other at the table.
She still hadn't said anything to him about what had slipped out when she was talking to Regulus, the feeling still felt too raw to expose.
"Hopefully they don't land themselves in a detention," Hollis grinned, getting up out of her chair to gather all her things into her bag. "Because rumor has it that Filch will have to buy another cabinet for us soon if we keep filling this one up."
Remus began to roll up his essay, ink now dry, and slipped it into his bag.
"Would another detention really be the worst thing?" he asked, setting his bag down on the table.
"What do you mean?" Hollis questioned, still not looking up at Remus as she made sure she had all of her loose-leaf notes in her black leather bag.
Butterflies swarmed frantically in her stomach as he walked over to her.
"I think you know," he replied quietly.
Her back was against the wall before she could gather what was happening.
"Yea, I think I do."
Remus firmly pressed one hand against the small of her back while the other was against her collarbone, pinning her even further against the wall. She tightly gripped his tie, pulling just as hard as he was pushing.
Sometimes, he still couldn't believe he got to do this. After spending so many nights the previous year helpless to stop himself from imagining and even longer stealing as many glances as he could, none of it seemed real. Yeah, he liked her so much because she was so clever, so kind.
But god, he thought, only hearing their breathing and the crackling of the glowing lights behind them. She's also just so damn hot.
Hollis sharply inhaled as one of Remus's hands moved away from her back and was now strongly pressed against her thigh, bare as her uniform pushed up.
Tangling her fingers in his messy auburn hair, she braced herself against the wall to keep her knees from turning to water as Remus's hand on her thigh began to move. Tentatively at first, his grip slowly slid up her leg, making the folds of Hollis's already not very long skirt go higher up her thigh. Not a single bit of pressure was removed as Remus tightly held on to the back of her thigh and pulled her harder against him.
Hollis could feel his smile against her lips as she bit down on his lower one, pulling it into her mouth to keep from making too much noise in the library as his hands pushed up higher and higher.
Remus didn't mind.
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