CHAPTER FIFTEEN
butterfly's repose — part two
" 𝖇𝖆𝖙𝖙𝖑𝖊 𝖘𝖈𝖆𝖗𝖘. "
𝐀𝐍𝐘𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐊𝐍𝐄𝐖 𝐇𝐄𝐑 𝐖𝐀𝐒 𝐀𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐎𝐅 𝐏𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐘 𝐏𝐎𝐌𝐅𝐑𝐄𝐘'𝐒 𝐅𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐍𝐄𝐒𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐀𝐋𝐖𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐁𝐄𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐋. It was why she became a nurse. It meant she was the one that had full dictation over who was admitted to her ward and what medicine they were to take. It also meant that when she happened to have two students with lycanthropy in one year group, she was the one that kept a close eye on both of them.
It was why she proposed the two of them both help out at the hospital wing. Originally, she only planned to ask Selene, as she was aware of the girl's keen eye for healing, alongside another couple of students with a knack for medicine. But then Remus Lupin came into the equation.
Poppy had planned to keep Selene and Remus away from each other as much as possible when they were under her control in the hospital wing but when Remus Lupin began tidying up after some of the patients leaving the ward during his transformation visits and being a general great helping hand, Poppy felt as though he too would be a valuable asset to the little team she was planning to assemble.
And everything seemed to fall into place from there. She had seen Remus and Selene engaged in friendly conversation on numerous occasions now and she was well aware that she had no control over who they befriended outside of the hospital wing. And then she realised that why on earth would either of them want their new-found friend to find out about the one thing they hated most about themselves?
Madam Pomfrey knew full well that when inside that hospital wing when it wasn't a full moon, Selene Vervain and Remus Lupin would distract their teenage minds away from their condition as much as possible. There was no chance either of them would suspect the other was a werewolf like themselves, and Madam Pomfrey could keep a close eye on both of them while they weren't sick, as well. It made odd sense to have Selene and Remus both help her out. It would make her life a lot easier and whenever the full moon came around, should anything go wrong, Selene and Remus would simply assume that the other was in the ward for assistance reasons. Not because they were both soon to be turning into werewolves.
It was perfect.
Remus felt he was quite successful at containing his grin when he watched Selene follow Madam Pomfrey inside the hospital wing. Poppy had told him he wasn't going to be the only one helping out and that had nerved him a little. Who knows who it could have been? Someone with an interest in healing, of course, but Remus had prayed that wouldn't have been some chatty younger year he had never met before.
He almost didn't believe his luck when he saw it was Selene that was now being debriefed by Madam Pomfrey about how their volunteering would work.
Once Selene was aware of where everything was and her schedule, Remus walked up to where she was starting work on restocking the bed sheets cupboard. He tried not to startle her, but Selene felt as though she could sense his presence even when he stood behind her.
When she turned around, she met his gaze and smiled sweetly, although her body language revealed her bashful nature.
"We need to stop running into each other," she said.
Remus cocked his head to the side, a teasing smirk playing at his lips. "Do we?"
On the Saturday of that week, Selene and Remus both agreed to spend the whole day helping Madam Pomfrey. It was their first full day, and definitely not their last as they weren't allowed to work too much during the week due to classes and the serious workload given to them because they were seventh years.
They both arrived early and fell straight into the routine they had already gotten used to: Selene on cleaning and Remus on preparing the beds for whoever was going to rock up to the hospital for the day.
The only downside to having Selene work alongside him in the hospital (besides the fact she was very distracting but Remus didn't think that was a bad thing) was that they hardly got to talk. Madam Pomfrey had instructed them to keep it to a minimum as the hospital wing "wasn't a place for socialising" and it got especially busy on a Saturday, what with the younger years being prone to getting a ball to the face from playing out on the grass.
And when they did talk it was either brief or mainly about the state of the hospital. How busy it had been, discussions on how much stock they had of whatnot, annoying patients, nice patients. It was hardly what Remus had wanted to gain from it (in terms of Selene being his co-worker, not in terms of how fulfilling the volunteering experience was).
By two o'clock that Saturday, the hospital was surprisingly quite empty and Remus had almost finished his tasks for the day a few hours ahead of schedule. He had hoped this would be his ticket to sharing a lunch break with Selene but those dreams were crushed when a small little blonde boy shuffled into the wing, clutching his arm in pain and Selene appeared to know the injured younger year.
"Dallas Murphy, is that you?" She said, her tone jocular and comfortable.
Dallas Murphy was Elsie's little brother, a timid Gryffindor that Selene had been tutoring since his first year. He was a sweet kid, ambitious but too shy to do anything about it. The kind of boy to try so hard and fall short. His whole family had been in Ravenclaw and there was something about being the odd one out, the one without perfect grades, that left Dallas with a sad smile and a light left to ignite. But with Selene's help, he had passed all of his classes for the last two years. Selene liked to think he was the little brother she never had.
The boy sheepishly sluggard over, slumping down onto the bed closest to her. Remus decided it was probably best to just leave them to it.
"What did you do this time?" She asked, placing a hand on her hip as the boy got himself comfortable laying on his back.
His hair was dishevelled, there was a cut above his lip, and one slicing through his eyebrow, and he held his bruised arm in a tight clutch, wincing as he shifted in his position.
"Fell off my broom," he mumbled, causing Selene to roll her eyes playfully and retrieve a series of bandages and rubbing alcohol from the nearby storage unit.
Once she returned to his bedside, Dallas' mopey expression had changed to one of excitement, as he changed the topic of conversation. "Did Elsie tell you I'm gonna try out for the Gryffindor team?" He exclaimed enthusiastically.
Selene began coating the alcohol on some cotton, before dabbing it carefully on the boy's bleeding wounds. "She must have forgotten."
"Well, I am." He put on a brave face as the alcohol seeped into his open cuts, despite visibly being in pain.
"Good for you, Dallas," she smiled. "I hope this falling off your broom isn't a regular thing then."
"Nah, my friend distracted me," he said, assuring her that his swollen arm and battle wounds were not his fault.
Selene's brows raised but she decided not to question the boy's claim. "Right."
"You know," Dallas said, talking as she wrapped his arm delicately in a bandage for support, "I think you should be where I am right now."
She couldn't help but crease her forehead. "What, trying out for the Quidditch team just to twist my arm and get a black eye?"
Dallas' eyes shot open, clearly distracted from his previous insinuation. "I have a black eye?" He asked frightened.
"Not yet you don't," she chuckled, examining the cuts lining his eyes, that appeared to mark an upcoming bruise.
"Battle scars," Dallas said cooly, seemingly now fine with the idea of having a dark circle soon outline his eyes. "It's for the cause," he shrugged the pain away, hoping Selene would be impressed. "Anyway, I meant, with all of your scars, which seem to have got worse by the way, you should be in hospital like me."
Selene felt her chest squeeze painfully. She turned her head away from Dallas' bright smile, to put away the left-over bandage role. Were they that obvious? And to a boy of thirteen? Granted, Dallas had spent a lot of time sitting close to Selene in the library but if he could tell how they had got worse since September, what did her other classmates think?
She was suddenly hyper-aware of Remus hovering by the next bed over, changing the sheets. She could feel his eyes on her and felt she had to speak casually to cover up how fast her heart was now beating. "Had an accident on the moving stairs," she told Dallas. "Now, if you don't mind, I'd rather not embarrass myself further."
"Ah, don't worry, I get it," Dallas laughed. "Haven't I been there before."
"I would have loved to have seen it," Selene chuckled along, glad her scars were now out of the line of suspicion. She then sealed his bandage up tight and rubbed the already messy hair on his head to scruff it up a little more. "Right, you're all done."
Dallas eyed how she held her arm out towards the door to indicate that he should leave, so he pulled a sulk and softened the creases by his eyes. "Can't I nap here to rest my arm?"
Sighing, and knowing that this wasn't going to be an argument she was going to win, Selene gave in almost instantly. "If you must," she said before pointing her finger at him. "But you have to be gone by the end of the day. I'm sure you should be spending your weekends doing homework."
"Only you spend your weekends doing homework, Selene," Dallas said, his chin raising a little higher in pride. "I have tryouts to prepare for."
Now on the other side of the hospital wing, Remus was rearranging the vials in the medicine cabinet, cautious not to lead Selene into thinking he was watching her when he was startled by the sound of springs aggressively squeaking from the bed closest to him.
When he closed the cabinet door and stood up, he was surprised to see James perched on the edge of the mattress in front of him.
"Why hello James," Remus said, his brows furrowing a little at James' perturbed expression and unannounced arrival.
Without greeting Remus, James folded his arms across his chest and gave a huff of annoyance. "Sirius is pissing me off."
Continuing on with the tasks Madam Pomfrey had set for him, Remus scoffed at James' unsurprising comment. "What did he do now?"
"Oh, nothing in particular," James said plainly. "I think it's because you're not there to break up the immaturity he and I produce."
This made sense to Remus. Sometimes, what with Peter doing anything they told them and the fact they were in their final year at Hogwarts, Remus fears that the three of them should never be left to their own devices. Ever.
"At least you're self-aware."
"Potter," Madam Pomfrey snapped the two of them out of their reverie as she walked by, "you know you can't stay here unless you're hurt."
"What about if I was emotionally hurt, Poppy?"
"It's Madam Pomfrey, to you mister."
"Remus calls you Poppy all the time!" James lifted his arms up in protest and they slammed back down on the bed.
The head nurse pondered this for a moment, then dismissed James with a shake of her head having come to the conclusion that Remus' condition makes him a frequent visitor of her company. "He's the exception."
James pouted and Selene watched from afar trying not to chuckle at the interaction. "Not fair."
Madam Pomfrey opted to ignore the boy's childish response and so returned to the patient at the far end of the hall. That's when Remus turned his attention back to James. "So why are you emotionally hurt?" He asked before pausing and rolling his eyes. "Wait, if it's about Lily, I don't want to hear it."
"You brought her up," James shrugged.
Remus didn't think he could handle James' lovesick complaints today, especially since he had a job to do and had assumed that taking Madam Pomfrey up on her offer to help out in the hospital wing would mean he would get some time away from his rowdy friends.
Feeling defeated unless he found something else to busy James with, Remus found himself gazing around the wing when his eyes landed on the boy Selene had been friendly with not that long ago.
The boy, Dallas, Remus recalls his name to be, didn't appear to be asleep but was picking at where Selene had dabbed his skin with some kind of liquid that left his face stinging.
Having found the perfect route out of entertaining James' lovelorn sadness, he called out to the boy on the bed a few feet away from the two of them. "Hey, Dallas, is it?"
The boy sat up a little, wincing as he did before addressing the stranger who had just used his name. "Who's asking?"
"This is my friend, James," Remus said, pointing to the brunette in front of him. James looked at Remus confused for a moment as he glanced between the two Gryffindors conversing. "He's on the Quidditch team, maybe he can give you a few pointers?"
Dallas broke out into a wide grin and James slapped his knees and got to his feet, an eager smile spreading across his face. "A mini James Potter, are we?" He asked, skipping over to the boy with the bandaged arm. "You're gonna be my little prodigy."
Remus found himself smiling at the two Quidditch fanatics now sitting crossed-legged opposite each other when Selene strolled up to his side and admired the new-found friends too.
Remus didn't look at her when he spoke but sensed her close to him. "I always find if I distract him with Quidditch, he'll leave me alone."
Selene gasped jokily. "Anybody would think you didn't want to talk to your best friend."
"I'm working," Remus said turning to face her, causing Selene to do the same. "I don't want to talk to anyone."
She then squinted her eyes into his, trying her best to suppress her smirk but ultimately letting it prevail. "You're talking to me?"
Remus shrugged cooly. He knew she'd say something like this and he was prepared to answer it. Selene and James were not the same person, therefore talking to both of them was not a similar situation. He knows who he'd prefer to talk to.
"You're the exception."
Selene was taken aback by the sudden eruption of a funny feeling in her stomach. There was a glint in his eyes she wasn't familiar with and it robbed her of the ability of finding the right words to reply with.
Lucky for her, Remus spoke before she could stumble on her words. "Wanna grab some lunch?"
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