Seven (R.L)

25

CHAPTER 15 (part 2/3)
THE GIRLS
(+remus i guess)

Their best time was 12 minutes and 32 seconds. And the game only ended after McGonagall caught Anastasia's hand in Remus's hair, pushing him further underneath the desk. They spent a night in detention dusting the potion bottles for inappropriate play during class. Which all their friends took all too wrong when they heard the reason for their punishment.

This week the full moon happened two nights before. And it was not a calm one, though none really were. There had been a severe thunderstorm causing warnings for tornadoes. Dumbledore had forbid Remus from going to the unstable shrieking shack. He decided a fit place would be one of the dungeon cells of Hogwarts.

Obviously without his friends, who had kept their identities as animagus secret to all but Remus, it had proved particularly cruel to his body. Now sporting a muggle cast over his left arm, and a gash clear across his chest leaving him unable to move from the Hogwarts infirmary. Wounds inflicted from a werewolf never healed quite right with magic, so Madam Pomfrey had decided to take the muggle way when it came to his newly mutilated arm. Luckily, his face had left the night unscaved which Remus felt a little too happy about.

Remus and Anastasia's thing this week came just before the full moon when Hope sent Remus a parcel full of newspapers. With a putty Anastasia had made, they spent half of their classes sifting through the paper, picking out the printed photos, small entries, and comics they liked. Using the putty to transfer the ink graphics into their notebooks.

The boys had spent Remus's first night in the hospital wing with him and visited in these two days regularly, but having spent years of months with Remus after the full moon, they didn't feel an obligation to spend all their time in the draft hospital wing of Hogwarts.

The girls, however, having grown a strong affection towards Remus in the new year, had demanded James, Sirius and Peter to tell them where the Welsh boy was when he had missed his classes for a second day. Peter snitched.

Now at five in the evening, when most classes had ended besides the midnight astronomy lessons, the girls sat around the boy in his white cot. Alice was closest to Remus' left side, working on her defense homework. Marlene sat next to her, painting her short nails a dark green. Lily sat next to Remus' right with Mary sat sideways, her legs dangling in Lily's lap and a sketch book perched on her thighs.

Anastasia was draped over the end of the bed, her stomach laying across his calves and newspaper clippings covering the majority surface of Remus. She had his notebook meant for divination in front of her that proved to be useless, as there were little notes to take on the subject. So Remus repurposed it after Anastasia had demanded she make a scrapbook of his favorite newspaper graphics, in reaction to the boy's injured state.

Lily was mindlessly stroking Mary's legs, not occupied by activities like the others. She let out a surprised gasp when she looked at Remus's white cast. "Remus, why has nobody signed your cast?"

Everyone looked confused except for the other muggle born, Mary. Casts weren't common within wizarding culture. "It's a muggle thing. Whenever someone gets a cast, they have their friends draw on it, like writing their names or something."

Mary had already thrown her legs off of Lily pulling out her thick marker, and moving to scoot her chair closer to Remus' injured right arm. "I want to."

Lily quickly pushes Mary to fall back into her seat, taking the marker out of her hand. "No! I brought it up. I'll go first."

Mary was a particularly outspoken witch. She chose not to take criticism from anyone she didn't see fit to, and to most it seemed the only person who could order, criticize, lead her was Lily.

Lily moved her seat forward, so she was in front of Remus' arm looking up at him realizing Remus' had yet to agree to the graffiti on his arm. "Unless, of course, you want a... white cast." She drew out her words not bothering to show her judgment if Remus declined.

Remus looked down at his white cast he thought looked nice and then back up at the girls, who all looked eager for their turn to draw on it. "No, you can."

So Lily got to writing on the uppermost part of the cast near his elbow. Taking her time, where Anastasia turned her body to face Remus, her arms now on either side of Remus' calves. "Which one do you like better?"

Anastasia was holding up two different comic strips. Both ones Remus had stated looked nice, though in reality he knew little none about either. One had a logo. He could recognize the words Starwars, a movie that had come out recently only with the confides of Hogwarts he had yet to see the film. The second comic was of a dirpy character named Ziggy finding a dog named Fuzz.

The name Ziggy, though, for obvious reasons Remus had a bias to. Remus could argue the David Bowie album changed him more than any book did. "Um.. the left-one" Ziggy.

Anastasia pulled a shocked look, but threw the Star Wars, drawing into his lap. "Wrong choice, Lupin."

Remus defeated, looked down, let out a barely audible huff, and probably would have crossed his arms if it wasn't for the redhead, at his 'wrong choice'. Alice giggled at Remus' obvious value that he holds to the blonde's opinion.

"What's taking you so long, Lils? Writing him a poem or something?" Marlene jokes, getting antsy blowing on her wet fingernails.

Anastasia leaned over Remus' thighs to get a better look at Lily's work. "Actually looks like she is."

"I am not. Remus will like it," Lily said, putting down the marker.

"I have love in me, the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe. If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other."

Date Posted: June 17th, 2023