'and all we are is skin and bone, trained to get along'- treacherous
The Astronomy Tower had become one of Ophelia's favourite parts of the castle (second to Ravenclaw common room) and she always looked forward to their midnight astronomy classes. This lesson was the only time she could stargaze without being given a detention, and although many students would complain about being tired or bored, the midnight sky never failed to amaze her.
This particular evening, the second years were tasked with mapping the constellation of Orion, and his belt was clearly visible in the January sky. Ophelia studied the night air, taking note of the waning moon above. The full moon wasn't for another three weeks, she reassured herself.
For now, the sky was peaceful and calm, although the classroom was full of dull chatter. The girl smiled to herself as she finished her star chart, leaning against a pillar, eyes fixed on the stars above.
"Very nice work, Miss Weasley," Professor Sinstra smiled tightly at the girl, adjusting her olive robes, "perhaps we have a future astronomer amongst us."
"Thank you, Professor." Ophelia beamed. Professor Sinstra was a serious and strict teacher, but the girl admired her immensely, and the professor tended to have a soft spot for those who took her lessons seriously, and those who excelled. Of course, Ophelia fit into both categories, and her enthusiasm for the subject never went unnoticed.
Sinstra continued to sweep the room, leaving Ophelia to admire the night sky once more, tracing the outline of Orion with her eyes, taking in the sheer peace, letting her mind relax, forgetting about werewolves and boggarts and murderers for a while.
Of course, the midnight lessons couldn't go on forever, and much to everyone else's relief, Professor Sinstra dismissed them just before one.
Ophelia was packing away her things when she was approached by two Gryffindors- one of which was her sister.
"Hey Gin, I'll just be a minute," the Ravenclaw stuffed the rest of her parchment into her bag before looking up at the girl beside her, giving her a quick smile, "hi Jess."
Jess had been Ginny's roommate in first year, so Ophelia had spoken with her a few times when she visited the Gryffindor common room, and she'd been good friends with Ginny too. Since her sister had been staying in her room, she hadn't seen her as much apart from the few lessons they had together. She seemed nice enough, and was always smiling and laughing.
"Lee, can I talk with you a minute?" Ginny was still smiling, but Ophelia could see she was reluctant. She nodded.
"Well, I've been thinking," she sent a small glance to the blonde beside her, "after tonight I'm going to go back to my dormitory. I was fine alone over Christmas, and Jess knows what happened and-"
"She'll be safe with me, I promise." Jess cut in, sending a reassuring smile to the Ravenclaw.
"I just wanted to tell you now incase you thought I'd suddenly disappeared, but I'm okay now." Ginny watched as her sister chewed the inside of her cheek.
"I-" Ophelia wasn't sure what to say. She'd been so used to Ginny's company she'd forgotten why she was there in the first place. She was happy, of course, but her heart still sank. "Yeah, that's great." She attempted to smile brightly, picking up her bag. "I'm glad."
Ginny didn't need her anymore- that was a good thing wasn't it?
"I'll speak to McGonagall tomorrow to sort out taking my stuff back," Ginny took her sister's hand, waving with her other one as Jess left to join a few other Gryffindor girls, "fancy one last detour to the kitchens?" She grinned mischievously.
Ophelia couldn't help but mirror her sister's expression, grabbing Luna on their way out. The three had had a good few adventures to the kitchens in their time as roommates, and as they snuck down for a final time, the sinking feeling stopped for a while.
~~~
The cool January breeze was nipping at Ophelia's hands as she sat against the tree, staring out across the Black Lake. She'd never been one to skip lessons, but she still couldn't face Professor Lupin, not yet. She'd been lucky the last two days: Tuesday she volunteered to escort Elijah to the hospital wing after an unfortunate incident with a mandrake in Herbology, and Wednesdays she didn't have DADA. But this morning, the dread she felt as she headed to classroom 3C led her to Professor Flitwick's office instead, convincing him she felt terribly ill.
She felt awful lying to her head of house, but she knew facing Professor Lupin would be worse. So she ended up against the tree, flicking pebbles across the grassy floor, attempting to fight the early morning chill- it was times like these she wished Ginny had taught her the warming charm back at the Quidditch match.
Still, it was peaceful by the lake- most students were in lessons, and those who weren't were using their free periods to study, NEWTs were on their way, and she'd seen the toll the stress had taken on her oldest brothers before.
Ophelia admired the quiet, taking the time to go over her thoughts, seeing as she had so many. Of course, the peace didn't last too long as she heard footsteps approaching. She'd made sure the was hidden from plain sight behind the tree, but she couldn't help panicking, thinking a teacher had found her bunking off.
She was very relieved to see Harry storm past her, although the relief turned quickly into worry as she noticed the anger in his strides.
"You okay Harry?" The boy in question jumped, not expecting to see the redhead leaning against their tree.
He looked down at her, frowning, "Shouldn't you be in lesson?"
"I could ask you the same thing." Ophelia raised an eyebrow at him, causing a slight smile to creep across his face.
"You make a fair point," Harry sighed before sitting down beside the girl, "I didn't fancy hearing Trelawny tell me I'm doomed for eternity this early in the morning." Harry shrugged.
"I suppose that's a good excuse." Ophelia wanted to change the subject quickly, not wanting to explain to him that she wasn't in Defense Against the Dark Arts because their favourite professor was secretly a werewolf who now thought she was terrified of him because her boggart changed in front of him and after running away she'd been doing everything in her power to avoid him as she didn't want to face him incase it ended up being humiliating for the both of them and she couldn't tell any of her friends how she was feeling because she also knew that outing him could end his career. It was too complicated.
"Did you get your patronus in the end?" was the first thing Ophelia came up with, and judging by the look on Harry's face the answer was already no.
"I tried again after you left but it was the same as before," he sighed, running his hand through his hair, which was looking messier than usual, "how did you do it so well?"
Ophelia blushed slightly, seeing it as a compliment.
"Honestly, I don't know," she shrugged, twisting her ring around her finger, "it just sort of happened. It's like with the wordless magic thing, I didn't even know how to do it."
"Isn't that a bit scary?" She saw Harry turn to face her out of the corner of her eye.
"I guess so, yeah." She stayed staring into the distance. "Sorry for leaving, by the way, I-"
"Its okay, Professor Lupin told me."
He told him? But isn't it meant to be a secret?
"He did?" She tried not to sound too surprised, but it was difficult to hide.
"Yeah, I get it," he nudged her shoulder slightly with his, "boggarts are scary, and based on how you described it the first time, I would've run too. I still think about Riddle now."
So he didn't tell him the truth.
"Oh, yeah, that." Ophelia cleared her throat awkwardly, now messing with her robe sleeves.
They sat in silence for a while before Harry started speaking again.
"He knew Sirius Black."
Ophelia turned to face him.
"Professor Lupin. They were friends too," Harry's eyebrows knotted, "and they had another friend, Peter Pettigrew. He's dead too. Oh and Lupin's wife-"
"Juliet?"
"Yes, Juliet. She went to check on my parents just before they died. She tried to protect them, but Voldemort killed her too."
Ophelia swallowed at the dark wizard's name, her eyes stinging slightly with tears. Poor Professor Lupin. Harry fidgeted slightly, pulling something out of his robe.
"Sirius Black was the one who took this," he passed the photograph to her, "he was their friend. And he betrayed them all."
Harry's voice had cracked slightly, the hurt painted across his face. Ophelia simply lay her head on his shoulder, taking the photograph. It was the one Lupin had shown them before Hallowe'en, the seven friends smiling and laughing.
She turned the photograph over, where seven names were scribbled on the back:
Lily Evans, James Potter, Juliet Stone, Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, Marlene McKinnon, Mary McDonald December 29th 1979
"They were happy." Ophelia whispered. Harry leant his head on top of hers.
"They were."
~~~
Harry and Ophelia managed to skive successfully for the rest of the school day, only getting caught by Ron during third lesson as he attempted to ditch potions.
"Lee are you skiving?!"
"No, I'm in bloody Transfiguration. What do you think Ronald."
"Why aren't you in lesson? I could tell mum."
"I could say the same thing to you."
"Yeah but-"
"Imagine getting yet another howler."
"No don't-"
"RONALD WEASLEY! HOW DARE YOU-"
"Okay! Okay! Bloody hell, you sound just like her- ow! Okay! I'm sorry!"
Harry found her impression of Molly incredibly amusing, unlike Ron, who ended up running back to potions before she could hit him again.
Now, she was lying in her bed, staring aimlessly through the darkness in the direction of the ceiling. Ginny was back in her own dorm, safe and sound, probably snoring already. It was oddly quiet without it- even the muffliato charm couldn't completely hide the rumbling that came from that girls mouth. Ophelia chuckled quietly to herself, careful not to wake Luna.
"What's so funny?" Luna's dreamy voice cut through the darkness.
"Oh, sorry, did I wake you up?" Ophelia whispered at the sky.
"No, I was already awake, just thinking."
"Me too."
"So what made you laugh? I could do with some amusement myself." Luna had a habit of always sounding happy, and it brought a great deal of comfort to Lee.
"I miss Ginny's snoring." Ophelia giggled slightly to herself.
"She did that a lot didn't she," Luna was giggling too, their laughter echoing through the room, "sometimes I wandered if you'd smuggled a beast into our room."
This set them both off completely, and something about it being past midnight just made everything that little bit funnier. As it died down slightly, Luna whispered across the room.
"What's been bothering you recently? You're mind's always somewhere else," Ophelia swallowed, hoping it wasn't obvious in the dark, "I would know, I'm always elsewhere. But its eating at you, isn't it?"
It went silent for a moment. Ophelia didn't know if she should risk it.
"Luna, can I trust you?"
"Of course."
"I found something out, at Christmas, and I don't know what to do." She was sure her blonde friend could hear her thinking in the bed beside her.
"Is it about Professor Lupin?"
"I- yes. How did you-"
"You've been avoiding him since the term started."
She'd noticed? There was no doubt the professor in question would've caught on too. Ophelia sighed.
"You won't tell anyone, will you?"
"Not a soul." It almost sounded like the girl was singing.
"Professor Lupin is a werewolf."
Ophelia whispered quickly, as if someone else was listening to their conversation. She'd never said it out loud before. Luna was quiet for a moment, probably taking it in.
"I suppose it makes sense," Luna whispered, seemingly unphased, "his name is pretty much wolf wolf. Most unfortunate."
The redhead tried not to laugh as the blonde spoke. That is a bit unfortunate.
"Are you scared of him?" Ophelia stopped smiling.
"I-" she thought about it for a moment, "I don't know. In books, they make it seem like you should be scared of them. Everyone's scared of them. I'm just not sure how I'm meant to be scared of a werewolf who-"
"-who wears a cardigan, lends you boots and has an infinite supply of chocolate?"
Both girls laughed slightly.
"Exactly. I just-" Ophelia sighed again, "I feel like I'm supposed to be scared of him but I'm not. Professor Lupin's a good man. I just don't want him to think I am, but the more normal I try to be about it, the worse it gets. Besides, I don't think the fact my boggart turned into a werewolf helped."
"Maybe just talk to him."
Luna had given the most simple solution, yet it seemed so wise coming from her. Ophelia stifled a yawn.
"Maybe."
They both lay in the darkness for a few minutes, listening to the silence.
"Goodnight, Ophi." Luna whispered sleepily.
"Goodnight, Loony," Ophelia yawned, turning onto her side, "and thank you."
~~~
oof this was a long one, but i updated on a monday as promised! things should move quicker after the next chapter as there'll be a little time jump.
over 3000 reads and 100 votes? aaaaa its crazy
anyways thanks- mia <3