SECURE — CHAPTER 28
[ An unsaid notion wedged itself between them — the notion that there was someone who had captured his attention, someone who'd captured his attention long ago. ]
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"I've got to go to Honeyduke's to pick up a few sweets to send to mum," Katie said as she walked alongside Remus and James.
James nodded absentmindedly, scouring the shop signs of Hogsmeade, his lips pursed in mild concentration. Katie turned her head to see him visibly perk up once his eyes landed on a dress shop not far from where they were standing. "Yeah, alright. We can split up here. I think I've found my present as well."
Katie followed his gaze. The luscious, bold fabrics that hung inside the shop window looked to be out of her mother's style range, who opted for darker pieces, but she didn't doubt James' stylistic choices. He could be well versed in the art of fashion when he needed, as surprising as that was.
"Sirius and I are going to Zonko's then. I've been waiting to check out their latest stock," said Peter, taking a few steps backward in the direction of the joke shop with Sirius following after him. James just nodded, listing a few items he asked them to purchase for him.
The remaining eyes fell on Lily, who fidgeted slightly under their gazes. She sighed lightly, avoiding eye contact with Katie and James especially. "I'm gonna go with James," she reluctantly muttered, so quiet that they almost didn't hear. Katie and Remus shared a look at the way James seemed to be bursting with badly contained joy at the fact that Lily had called him by his first name.
A wide smile graced James' face, to which Lily was quick to add, "I got a letter this morning from mum saying that we're celebrating Petunia's birthday with her new beau this year. Apparently I need to dress formally."
Katie's eyes dawned in realization. "Vernon?" She pulled a face. "Just don't end up murdering the git alright?"
Lily shook her head, smiling fondly. "Will do, Kate." She waved goodbye before walking ahead of James in the direction of the dress shop.
"Don't have too much fun!" Katie yelled after her retreating back, which earned her a glare. She grinned triumphantly.
"You're a terrible tease. Quite the nuisance," Remus said to her as they fell in step beside each other.
"Would you like me to tease you then too?"
Remus stole a furtive glance at her. "No, no. Definitely not," he said airily.
They continued to walk slowly in silence, Remus staring at the various shops as Katie waved to several people that passed by. Most responded back with small waves, each smiling back. Remus noticed a group of girls that looked at her in disdain and hoped for Katie's sake that she hadn't seen.
She didn't seem to notice because after she finished waving, she shot him a lopsided grin, looking up at him and cocking a brow. He looked down at her, mimicking her expression. "You've never been straightforward with any crushes so I don't have much material to use on you anyway," Katie said, touching on the topic they were speaking about earlier.
Remus hummed, turning his head and resting his gaze forward. "Is that so?" His tone was an attempt at mild disinterest, but his pitch was terribly off and much too high.
Katie stuffed her hands into her coat pockets, swaying back and forth as she walked. "Though I'm sure there's been a few here and there over the years." She tried not to sound too bothered by that notion, but in saying it out loud, Katie was suddenly aware of how much she hated to thought of Remus having a crush. It simply didn't feel right.
She thought back to the look he always wore whenever he looked at her, a look that plagued her constantly in the past week. Maybe he did have feelings for her, but she still wasn't sure whether he was aware of it or not, and Katie wasn't seeking to make a fool of herself in case he hadn't.
She wasn't sure when he'd started to look at her with that look in his eyes, but she knew Remus well enough to know that romantic feelings were something he had a hard time grasping, and it was very much plausible that he might still not know his feelings for her.
If he has feelings for you, a voice in her head nagged.
Katie shook the thought out of her head. If Remus wasn't sure about his feelings then that was understandable. She sure as hell still hadn't completely figured it out either, much too afraid about how putting a label on her feelings could change their dynamic.
"There have been some, but I mainly just thought they were nice to look at. Nobody's ever really captured my attention before," he responded eventually.
An unsaid notion wedged itself between them — the notion that there was someone who had captured his attention, someone who'd captured his attention long ago. But while both of them were quite aware, both were unsure whether the other party was aware of it as well.
Katie just nodded her head, afraid of what could happen if she continued the conversation. They again walked in silence until Honeyduke's came into their line of sight.
Walking into the sweet shop, a smile lit up Katie's face as the familiar smell wafted into her senses. Sweet, gooey, and so sugary she could almost taste each sweet on her tongue. It never got old to her, the scents — they provided her with a sense of comfort. Brushing her fingers along different colored wrappers, she wondered if perhaps she really did have a knack for anything sweet.
It wasn't like she had a shortness of sweets growing up. Her father was an excellent cook, his desserts exceeding the bar far past any other desserts she'd ever tasted. It didn't help at all that her father baked so often that there was rarely a shortness of sugary desserts in the Hart household.
Turning her head to look at Remus, she noticed the silent thoughts milling in his eyes. After they left the Three Broomsticks it'd taken a few more visits to other shops until he could look her way again, but Katie decided not to interrogate him about Rosmerta. She knew when Remus made his mind up to keep something secret that he would stubbornly keep it from her. She only hoped that she could get him to tell her this secret without having to wait six years and a near-death experience.
She took another glance at his face, memorizing the way his lips puckered delicately when he was in thought. He was distracted, she knew. Though she didn't particularly know the specific reason why—there were too many possibilities as to what was plaguing his thoughts.
Katie smiled cheekily at him. "Galleon for your thoughts?"
His momentary daze snapped, his thoughts appearing to move once again with current time. He offered her a weak smile, though she could see that whatever he had been thinking about hadn't completely left him quite yet.
"That's an awful lot for something worth very little, Kate."
His pace grew slower now, more sluggish, as he turned away from her, fiddling with the loose string on his sweater. In all honesty, he didn't completely know why he was so distracted.
Katie was watching him with careful eyes. Remus knew that look. She was trying to figure him out, like a puzzle she was always missing a piece of.
"Not to me they aren't," she finally said. There was still that block of tension that had situated itself between them every time they'd been alone since that day in his dorm, but neither of them commented on it.
A tiny smile grew slightly on his face. He didn't say a word, the bashful look on his face being enough for a coy smile to play on her lips. She turned away from him, continuing down the aisle for her hunt of whatever sweet she was searching for.
Katie bent down to pluck a wrapped chocolate from one of the shelves, inspecting the wrapper. "You should be resting, you know," she said quietly, trying not to sound like she was nagging. She looked up at him, her hair falling slightly onto her face.
Remus placed his hands into his trouser pockets, his eyes glazing over lightly in thoughtfulness as he stared at a nearby wall. "I know. I just couldn't spend today in bed." He grabbed a few of the chocolates from Katie's outstretched hand. "Felt like I needed to be here today." His gaze landed back down to Katie just as she scooped the last of the chocolates into her arm.
A soft, breathy grunt escaped her lips as she straightened up to look at him fleetingly before heading towards the counter at the front of the store. "And you're feeling okay? Sirius told me that some days are worse than others."
"They are. But yesterday was one of the better days. I didn't wake up exhausted at least," Remus mumbled under his breath so only Katie could hear.
Katie finished paying for her purchases without saying another word. There was something odd that always hung between them whenever Remus' lycanthropy was the topic of conversation. Katie's jaw was just a smidge too ticked and Remus' words were just a little too careful.
Though things between them were significantly better than they were a month ago, Katie was a little more on edge the past few days. The fact that the reason that she was on edge because of secrets from her mother's past did nothing to alleviate the wounds that came with Remus' omission of his secret for all those years.
They continued to walk towards the exit a few paces before Katie spoke again. "I was thinking. I want to be of some help." During the span of weeks back in late October in which Remus refused to speak to her, she had quite a bit of time to think about what she could do to help him, if only to distract herself from the thoughts that tried to convince her that the reason Remus hadn't told her was that he simply didn't find that she could be useful.
Remus paused midstep, white flecks of snow dotting his sandy hair. The look in his eyes was both panicked and stern. "Kate, I'm not letting you-"
"Not like that," Katie shook her head. "You've got James, Sirius, and Peter for that. I was thinking of ways that I could make sure that every transformation was what you would call a 'better' day."
The idea had come to her during a night in which she was plagued with images of frothing sharp teeth and eyes that were both familiar and unfamiliar. She hadn't told anyone about those dreams, much too ashamed that she could even feel any kind of fear because of Remus, no matter how miniscule. It was the guilt that led her to come up with her current plan.
Remus blinked at her, his light brown eyelashes more visible against the paler complexion of his face. His jaw was ticked in the way that meant that he was reluctantly thinking an idea over.
"How?"
"James' dad, he's a real skilled potion maker. So am I, and so is Lily. I bet that with all of our combined minds that we could create a potion that'll put you to sleep through your transformations." Katie tried to keep her face passive, so that Remus wouldn't be influenced by her own emotions. She wanted him to say yes, but she wanted to see him say yes and truly mean it.
As she finished her sentence however, an unpleasant feeling settled itself into her stomach. It was a feeling akin to the same feeling of dread that situated in her stomach when that parchment from Tolbert's office had fallen to the ground.
Remus' voice brought her back to reality, momentarily quelling the unpleasant feeling. "Kate, that's-" His brows furrowed as his gaze moved wildly to the ground, then to the buildings around them, then back to her. "That'd be difficult to do. Even with all of that potions knowledge, anything even remotely helpful hasn't been invented yet for any werewolf. And they've had centuries."
Katie took a step closer to him, leaving footprints indented into the white snow at her feet. She tried to ignore the way her head throbbed with each step. It was probably a side effect of sleep deprivation. "I know. I've talked to Lily about it. She knows it too. But we have to try."
Remus dropped his gaze, the longer strands of his hair falling over his eyes. There was something about the snow that graced his head and shoulders that made him look so young, so vulnerable. Katie was immediately reminded of that small boy she first met on the train.
That boy who was so starved of approval that he was simply overjoyed when an 11-year-old James Potter called his scars cool. That boy who didn't believe that their friendship might ever make it as far as it did. That boy that at the very essence of his being just wanted to be accepted and loved for everything that he was. Whatever previous irritation she'd felt from the wounds this topic held in her heart was momentarily gone.
"What about Mr. Potter? He doesn't know that I'm a ..," he looked to Katie to know that she understood. She nodded. "He doesn't know. How are you going to explain that you want to create a potion that helps werewolves?"
Katie knew that he was close to agreeing. She sent him a small smile, hoping that he wouldn't pick up on the slight grimace that was trying to force itself on her face from the pain in her head. "All I've got to do is use my special, what'd you call it? Charm?" The corners of her mouth turned upwards teasingly. A feeling of satisfaction and a little bit of something else that she'd never been able to place had burrowed within her stomach when he reluctantly gave a smile back. "Besides, I could convince him that it would be a good marketing profit. If we could actually pull this off, then we could sell it to werewolves in need. Or I'll pay for the expenses and just give them away free of charge."
She hadn't even finished her sentence before she was encased in a hug, her face becoming buried in Remus' chest. The smell of perfectly simmered caramel and bitter dark chocolate filled her senses, a scent that had become so pleasant to smell that she felt that she could stay here forever, slowly becoming addicted to every aspect of his scent.
Once she realized that she would eventually run out of air if she kept her nose pressed to his chest the way she had it, she turned her head to the side and let her arms clutch tighter around his abdomen, the feel of his coat soft underneath her fingertips. For a moment, the tautness in her fingers and the pounding that roared in her head had quelled ever so slightly. "You're not crying are you?"
Remus' check pressed itself against her hair. "No, of course not," he said, but there was a slight sniffle to his words.
Katie pulled away from the hug, but didn't detangle herself from Remus, her hands still placed gently on his forearms. "So is that a yes?"
Remus' furrowed eyebrows made a comeback, his gaze once more filled with guilt. "I don't know. The idea that I wouldn't have to endure the transformations .. it's ... it seems impossible," he whispered, white wisps of his breath fanning lightly against her face. He bit down on the inside of his lip, shaking his head the tiniest smidge.
"I.. I appreciate it Kate, I really do. And if you're able to pull this off then of course it's worth a try. And that would be great. It'd be spectacular, amazing even! But .. but I don't want you to devote so much time into a potion that might not even work. It'll take years, and you've got your studies to account for. Besides, potion ingredients come so expensive these days and I wouldn't want-"
Before he could go ramble any further, Katie cupped his mouth with her hand, feeling his breath die down as he realized what she was doing. She grinned up at him. "Don't overthink so much, Remus. I want to do this for you. Everything else we'll figure out along the way." When Remus didn't look convinced, Katie pulled her hand slowly from his mouth, putting up a finger to silence him when he went to argue.
"Be selfish for once. It doesn't make you a bad person to want the pain to go away," she urged.
Remus inhales his eyes steadily focused on her face, watching her again with that same look. "Okay."
"Okay?"
Remus shook his head lightly. "Yes, Kate. Besides you've already made up your mind, and I know when I've lost."
Katie smiled at him and went to loop her arms around his neck in a hug, but found that her balance had drastically gone off-center.
Remus caught her before she hit the snow-laden walkway. "Kate? Kate, hey. What's going on? Are you alright?"
His words were warbled and muffled, as if she was underwater. The ache in her head had come back 10 times as strong, and she doubled over in pain when a spasm went through her stomach.
Everything around her seemed to tense. Her head throbbed so painfully she thought it would crack open. The tremor in her hands was so violent that she felt the plunge of dread before she could comprehend it. A sharp jab to her stomach and suddenly the floor went out beneath her. She attempted to hold onto Remus' shoulders for steadiness but the strength in her fingers seemed to drain, and any grip she had came undone.
Vaguely she could feel her grip from reality fading, the last thing she heard being the muffled sound of Remus' voice desperately yelling her name. Her vision went back, and suddenly Remus' face was replaced with a much different sight.
A death eater.
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AUTHOR'S NOTE; sometimes i'll see comments on my earlier chapters and cry because my writing was so bad back then but i don't wanna rewrite it because then i'll just be stuck in this loop of constantly rewriting and never get anything done :/// also haha!!! i think the next chapter's pretty neat but it's also really confusing so yeah stay tuned