Reverie opens her eyes in the empty dormitory. It's Christmas morning, but the sun has yet to rise. A sleepless night and tremulous thoughts about people she shouldn't be thinking about force her out of the bed and down the stairs to the warm, decorated common room. The tree stands in the corner, taunting her in the quiet, deafening solitude of the Gryffindor tower.
She almost doesn't notice the familiar wrapping paper at the foot of the tree, but she does and, picking it up, she recognizes her name written by her grandmother's familiar hand.
Sitting down on the couch, she tucks her legs underneath her as she reads the small note attached.
My dearest Reverie,
Happy Christmas, love! I miss and love you more than you know. I hope you are well and safe and happy and everything else that matters, and know that I'm always thinking of you. I know Christmas isn't much this year -- Margot didn't let me leave the home at all these past couple of weeks, her and her 'you need to get better' rubbish. But, don't you worry, you know how Margot can be overly cautious -- I've been feeling well.
If you get a chance tonight, look up at the sky -- the men on the radio say that there's supposed to be a meteor shower around Polaris on Christmas. I'm not sure if Margot will let me leave the room so late -- but I'm sure you'll get a much better view in Scotland anyway. Tell me how it is. I know your mother would've loved it.
Happy Christmas again. Don't try to forget everything. It's good to remember. I love you.
~ Your Gran.
She finishes reading, but her insides feel dry, and a wave of sorrow drowns her but she finds it impossible to cry. She carefully pulls away the wrapping paper to reveal a small box, and she already knows what it's going to be as she opens it. Her eyes burn as she pulls out her mother's locket, engraved with a small star in the center. Inside, she finds the two old pictures of her father and herself, at 11, around the time she'd received the Hogwarts letter in the mail. She hardly recognizes herself, but her father looks just as young as she remembers him. There's a knot in her throat as she clasps the locket around her neck, and before the dark room can suffocate her, she takes the note and walks out of the common room.
The Great Hall is empty. She's the only soul in the large room, but the candles shine brightly, as if eager for the sun to commend them for their hard work during its absence. She takes her usual seat near the middle of the Gryffindor table, and as she sits down, a row of food appears before her, and she's filled with gratitude at Hogwarts' magic. She drinks pumpkin juice as she waits for the sun to enter through the stained windows, and she pulls out her current read, North and South, and tries her hardest to immerse herself in it. But, she wishes there was some palpable cure to the exhausting loneliness, the solitude before morning.
She resigns herself to the words on the page, until just minutes later, the doors open. The sun still isn't up. She turns and sees Lupin, head down, hands in his pockets, deep in thought, walking towards the Head table.
As he cuts through the middle, she wonders if he expected an empty the Great Hall, why he's awake so early on Christmas day, why his hair is so disheveled and why she wishes she could run her hand through it and against the stubble adorning his cheeks, why she isn't able to pull her eyes away, why she always gives herself something to be embarrassed about when he inevitably sees her. She enters his peripheral, and he looks up only for his eyes to connect with her big and scared ones. He stalls slightly, but doesn't look away from Reverie. He walks closer to her slowly, he sees her eyes are red and slightly puffy, he notices the new locket adorning her chest, and he sees the sleeplessness. He sees everything. His eyes scan her fragile body almost worriedly, and under the intensity and judgment of his gaze she tears her eyes away and looks down at her food. She feels him stop for barely a second before he continues walking, and her chest tightens with the silence, and she knows she has no right to be angry, but it's Christmas and it can't possibly be that hard to wish someone a happy one, or to say hello, or to apologize, or to do anything but look at her like she's broken and—
She hears his footsteps slow and puts her book down. He stalls at the end of the long table, looking towards his seat at the Head table, but she watches as he walks, with his hands in his pockets, around to the other side of the Gryffindor table to take the seat in front of Reverie.
She watches as he sits down and looks at her, and she wishes his eyes were any other color, she wishes he was insufferable so she could tell him off, she almost wishes she hadn't kissed him. But, his eyes fall to her lips and then down to the food on the table, he grabs two pieces of toast and hands her one, and they eat across from one another in silence. Leaning close to her slightly on his forearms, he drinks in how she looks from so close, he loves how flustered she is, and he doesn't even think about the consequences, because, in this impossibly big room, they are alone, just inches away from one another, and they don't talk about last night, and the way they look at each other now doesn't feel complicated at all, and she'd be fine if it stayed like this forever.
But of course, it doesn't, and the moment is broken when Lupin looks down and leans back as Professor McGonagall walks in, and he makes an effort to pretend like he is smoothing out his clothes. Reverie looks down at her lap as Lupin gets up from his seat.
McGonagall walks past them and singingly says "Happy Christmas!", and Reverie looks up with slightly wide eyes as Lupin looks back towards her, as if only then remembering Christmas. The first ray of sun forces through the window and lands on Reverie's face, and Lupin's head tilts a little to the side, and she swears she could see the faintest of smiles creeping through. Her cheeks turn red.
"Happy Christmas," he answers McGonagall, without daring to turn away from Reverie.
Reverie can't think, and she's relieved from the unbearable confusion of what she's feeling when an owl–her owl—flies into the Great Hall and drops a letter onto her lap before flying away. Reverie jumps and looks away from Lupin. Lupin tucks his hands back into his pockets and walks out of the Great Hall as Reverie opens the envelope, but not before seeing the Ministry seal and the way she turns red and the tremor in her hands.
After a moment, Reverie rips the paper open without any care at all. Inside is a note on abnormally and annoyingly thick, rich paper. She narrows her eyes as she reads it.
Dear Miss Castill,
Thank you for your continued patience. Concerned citizens such as yourself are what motivate me to lobby for solutions in the future. Know that I am working tirelessly for my constituents and all their distresses.
Your Minister of Magic,
Cornelius Fudge.
A generic, pre-written note. More precisely, her third one. The exact same words, the same unnerving condescension and superiority. It's all too much. She takes her wand out and burns it in the air, and then walks out of the Great Hall.
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The night air in Scotland is frigid in December, but Reverie normally likes the way it numbs her bare skin. Her brain focuses on the cold, and she has some moments to forget about everything there is to remember. That's what Reverie is banking on when she goes down to the lake in her black, simple, silk Christmas party dress, the thin straps on her shoulders doing absolutely nothing to mask her from the unbearable temperature. She hasn't mustered enough courage to open the classroom door, much less join the party. She can't face Lupin when she realizes that he was right to warn her not to come, to think it would be dangerous to get too close, so she figured clearing her head and watching Polaris for her grandmother would work. But instead of forgetting to think, Reverie unwillingly sees, in her mind's eye, all of the moments when her body warmed and burned, and in what was supposed to be the numbing cold, her body thaws with memories of the time Lupin touched her, gave her his cigarette, enclosed her with his body, kissed her lips.
Tonight, the cold makes her think and think and think, about how bad she wants to get too close, to make mistake after mistake, to let down her parents, to make them feel like they have nothing to miss... But also about how bad she wants to feel warm once more, to feel seen, to be held, to kiss him again and again until there's no distance left between their bodies, not even an inch. Her skin is numb, and red, and she wishes he would find her in the cold and kiss her like he did that night and hurt her like he did yesterday and cause her pain that would eventually pass, because she feels like he would understand the undying numbness buried at the core of her soul that she can't burn away.
And she feels like she's dying when she enters the castle that she once knew to be warm, and she can't remember how long she stayed outside or if she even saw the meteor shower, and she knows she's touching the brass handle but she can't feel it, and she hears laughter in the room but her eyes are blurred and she's looking for only one person, and nobody sees her–they never do–but she sees him, and she sees that he'd just been laughing and his smile looks so warm, and the music is loud and it's crowded but she's still shivering and she's so pale, and she doesn't want him to stop smiling but he sees her and she breathes again, and there's a ringing in her ear but maybe that's just the violin, and she sees he's walking towards her and his mouth is moving but she's scared of herself when he's near, and he's speeding up but she feels herself going, and she wants to dance with him but she knows it's irrational, and the ringing is deafening, every sound is drowned out, and she's convinced she's dying.
He reaches her, he finally reaches her, but she feels her legs carrying her away, and she sees the worry in his every feature, looking at her as if she were the most fragile thing he'd ever seen, and she almost warms, but Merlin there are so many people here and it's so hard to make a mistake.
Her chest is heaving up and down, and the music is still loud, but her ears have stopped working, everything is muffled. Reverie looks at Lupin as the world crumbles around her, and Lupin looks at Reverie as she crumbles before him, and she doesn't know what is happening to her, and neither does Lupin, but she knows that one touch in this room and his life is over, and Reverie isn't selfish.
"I'm sorry. You were right, I shouldn't have come." She barely manages out. She doesn't know if she actually speaks. She's shaking. He feels cold radiating off of her. He wants to hold her. "I just– I just wanted to say, happy Christmas. I didn't ge– get to, before."
McGonagall is looking at them now, and the ringing intensifies as she turns around and leaves the room before she acts selfishly, impulsively. As she looks away from Lupin, everything blurs again, and she hardly makes it out of the classroom before she collapses against the wall by the doors. Her eyes shut and she can't even conjure up what Lupin's kiss once felt like, and maybe that's what happens at the end–you forget the only things worth remembering. But, she faintly hears the doors opening, and familiar hands pick her up, and she's being carried away and she doesn't even care where, and suddenly she knows it's Lupin because his shirt smells like chocolate and cigarettes, and she lets a tear escape and it burns a fiery trail down her cheek, and he holds her tightly against his chest, and the only parts of her body that still feel like hers are the parts he's touching, so she lets him take her as far away from the stars as possible, into the depths of the castle, into loneliness and warmth and life.
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A/N: Thank you so much for being so patient and reading! This chapter was a bit more tragic, but I am excited for what's next, and I hope you all are too. All of your comments and messages keep me writing, so thank you again:) Have a great holiday season, and stay tuned for the next chapter very soon!