- Chapter Sixty-Five -
"Can I have a hug?"

Remus Lupin had a rough night.

It had been a rough week too, the loss of a loved one was something that never came easy. He had been in mourning, his father too and he lost track of what day it had been. All week he had felt himself becoming sick but he supposed it was just grief getting the best of him, it was when he was rooting around for parchment to write letters to his friends about what happened that he saw the moon chart on his wall and became stressed that the night he dreaded every month was just the next day. He rushed to his father immediately who was asleep on the sofa with a blanket pulled over him, Remus didn't disrupt him and instead decided on telling him the next morning.

"Well, damn it Remus, why didn't you just stay at school?" He had grumbled; his nose and eyes were red as he sniffled loudly and grabbed a mug to pour his tea into.

"Mum was sick." Remus replied quietly, fiddling with his hands as he stood a couple of feet behind his father. "It wasn't a big deal and all my friends were going home for the holidays so I didn't want to ask them to stay just for this."

"What about that girl?" Lyall muttered, picking up his tea and then walking across the kitchen to sit at the counter. He slid onto one of the stools and placed his mug down before staring at his son. "Whatser name."

"Elladora?" Remus asked lowly, hesitantly sliding into a stool beside his dad. "Dad, I told you that she had to go home. I like to think if she had a choice she would have stayed with me but I wanted-"

"Of course she would've." The older man grumbled. "She's your girlfriend, isn't she? Spend your days sucking face."

"What?" He asked, flushing red and standing up off of his stool quickly with his eyebrows furrowed. His palms became slightly sweaty and he gulped, brushing them against his pants. "No, no, we're not...she's not my- she's just a friend."

Lyall only grunted and stood from the stool, grabbing the mug and walking into the front room instead of staying in the kitchen with his son and Remus watched him go with a quiet sigh.

The normally loving atmosphere of the house had turned sour, the air had become suffocating and the relationship between father and son had slowly crumbled all in the span of a week. Remus set out to the normal forest beside his house when the time came for his transformation, yet without Elladora's potion, it was a hard night and all his pent up grief and exhaustion came out in the form of his inner beast.

But instead of waking up in a pile of leaves, sticks and dirt with bleeding scratches all over his body, he awoke on a soft mattress. His other senses came awake before his eyes opened or before his brain could process what was going on, but his nose picked up a familiar smell that was very different to his own house or the woods. The smell of a person.

His eyes managed to force themselves open and the first thing he saw was black curtains all around him. Still tired, yet alert, he tried to sit up but felt a sharp sting in his chest and looked down to see some bandages on his torso with a faint splodge of blood that had came through. He took it slow and eventually managed to slump down with his back leaning on something and he finally saw that he was lying in a bed that definitely wasn't his.

It was a double bed when he only had a single, there was a black duvet when his was white, there were black curtains pulled around the bed like the ones at Hogwarts but they looked fancier than the ones at school. He could see the faint shine of morning light behind the curtains and furrowed his eyebrows before scooting closer to one side of the bed.

With extra effort and a small groan, he took the duvet off of himself and placed his feet on the floor, pleasantly surprised to feel bandages on them too when he was expecting his cuts to feel odd against the hard floor. The floor was also odd since his bedroom had carpet. Looking down at the floor and his feet, he furrowed his eyebrows and didn't think to cover himself up before he pulled open the curtains and saw a black bedside table.

Ahead of him was a door, black like the other things and he slowly began to walk towards it, putting a hand on to the doorknob and ready to poke his head out to call for whoever's house he was in but before he could open it, a whispered shout rang out across the room.

"No!"

It was quiet, but he didn't have time to turn around before his arm was grabbed and dragged far away from the door, across the room he was in. The colours were the same as the rest of it and he finally saw the window where the daylight was coming from. But what distracted him from everything else, was the very familiar voice that had called out to him.

"Elladora?" He couldn't believe his eyes at the sight in front of him, she was there. She was right there. All week he had been wanting one of his friends to distract him from his grief but he couldn't bring himself to write a letter, yet here she was. Stood in front of him with a black sweatshirt and shorts on, her sleeves pulled over her hands as she stared at him back.

"Hi." She whispered with a smile and a small glint in her eyes, like she was about to cry from seeing him in front of her at last.

"Oh my god." He laughed and her eyes suddenly went wide and she darted over to him, her hand slapping against his mouth hurriedly as he stumbled back slightly. She looked to the door in horror and strained her ears in case anyone was going to come past, her parents hadn't left yet and all hell would break loose if they saw the current situation.

"Sh." She ordered quickly, Remus nodding his head hurriedly as she listened carefully. He joined her, raising his eyebrows and wondering what she could be looking for.

Footsteps.

"Shit." She swore quickly and hurriedly looked around the room, taking her hand away from his mouth as she did so. Her eyes were wide with alarm and her hands were fidgeting but she stopped when she saw her wardrobe. "Get in there."

"What?" He whispered, shaking his head incredulously at her.

Elladora started towards him grabbing him by his shoulders and pulling him towards her wardrobe quickly as the clicks of heels above them were heard descending a staircase. As she dragged him, he became aware of how he looked and he stopped immediately, making her stop too and look at him wide-eyed but he turned to her and placed his hands down in front of what hadn't been covered up.

"I'm naked!" He seethed quietly with a large blush on his face, for some reason he had not realised it but then he had and was too embarrassed that she had seen him like this.

"I've seen it before." She retorted and pushed him closer to the wardrobe, opening the door as he furrowed his eyebrows at her and stuttered hopelessly but she closed the door on him before he could say anything and when she heard the click of another door behind her, she turned with a shock to see her mother stood at the door.

She was wearing her normal attire and a travelling cloak around her shoulders too, the Black family were stood behind her and they all filtered into the room; Elladora absentmindedly edged closer to the wardrobe where Remus was hiding. She heard a small wince inside and covered it up with a cough.

"Come here." Her mother ordered and she slowly moved away from the wardrobe over to where the rest of them were. "As Dobby may have told you last night, your father and I are going away for a week for business. The Black family are also leaving but Regulus will be a regular visitor. Now, downstairs in the drawing room, there is a piece of parchment that tells you what day and what time you will be expecting people. It'll only be you in the house so take care of it."

Elladora nodded along with every word, hoping that she wasn't going to say anything about Death Eater meetings or Voldemort whilst Remus, who would surely hate her if he found out, was hiding in her wardrobe.

"Now, say your goodbyes."

Orion stepped forward first, grasping her hand firmly and shaking it with his own small smile. Elladora gave a nod and bowed her head before Walburga stepped forward and did the same but pulled her in to place a small kiss on her cheek before stepping back, Regulus was next. He had a small dread in his eyes about leaving but grasped her hand nonetheless and kissed it like he did when he first entered the house.

"Fantastic." Cassiopeia nodded stiffly. "Your father is waiting downstairs for me, so we'll all be going now. Be good."

With one last bit of eye contact made between Elladora and Regulus, the four of them left her room and as the door closed, she breathed out a sigh and approached the wardrobe again. She opened the door slowly with a finger to her lips and Remus, who had seemingly grabbed anything to cover himself with since he was holding a corset in front of his...stuff, stepped out quietly.

A loud thudding noise of the main doors closing made Elladora smile to herself, everything had worked out and she had one of her best friends here with her too.

"I'll get you some clothes." She said, unable to keep the small lilt of happiness from her voice as she ran out of the room and into the one Regulus had been occupying. When they had been looking at the room, they had found old clothes of Sebastian's in the bottom drawer so she grabbed them, just some boy's underwear, a t-shirt, a jumper and some sweatpants. She grabbed some socks too and ran back to her own room.

"There." She held them out to him and he attempted  to take them with one hand and an awkward smile whilst also holding the corset and Elladora laughed slightly, putting them on the bed slightly. "I'll turn around."

It took a couple of minutes before he muttered an 'okay' and she turned to see him fully dressed in front of her.

They stood awkwardly for a couple of seconds, a large smile coming onto Elladora's face first before she launched forwards with a laugh and wrapped her arms around him, careful as she could because of his scars but also as affectionate as possible because she had missed him so much.

"I can't believe you're here!" She laughed and he could only force a smile with the memory of mourning inside his head. Elladora must've noticed that as she pulled back and moved her hands from clutching him tight to cupping his cheeks as she made him look at her. "What's wrong?"

He may not have red eyes or a red nose but she could always tell when one of the boys were feeling bad and apart from that night on the Astronomy Tower, she had never seen Remus look that sad and dejected.

"My mum died."

Hope. Elladora actually didn't know what to say, her lips only parted in shocked surprise as he closed his eyes and gulped slightly. She knew Hope was ill or at least weak from what she had seen at Christmas, but she wasn't expecting this. Tears began to well up in her own eyes as Remus began to cry to himself, his head still cupped in her hands as he began talking.

"I knew her illness got worse again," He cried. "And-and that's why I went home but that first night, I thought she was going to be okay but I woke up in the morning and she - she had died and my dad was a mess and he wouldn't look at me but I didn't even get to say goodbye to her and- can I have a hug?"

Elladora didn't hesitate to pull him back into one, going onto her tiptoes so she could reach more of him and cradle the back of his head as it lolled onto her shoulder and he sobbed into it, his hands that were resting on her back clutching the material of her sweatshirt tightly. A tear slipped down her cheek and she sniffled slightly but mostly kept quiet as Remus cried to her.

"That-that was the last thing she said to me-" He hiccupped slightly, his words somewhat incoherent but Elladora could make them out. "She said- 'can I have a hug?' and I gave her  one before I went to bed but then- then she..." His crying overcame his words as he sobbed and Elladora's hand gently massaged the back of his head, running through his brown hair carefully.

"Shh, it's okay. You're here with me, it's okay,"

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A/N: it's literally only been two days since the last update but I was so excited to write this one. ARE YOU GUYS READY FOR A WHOLE BUNCH OF MOONRA CONTENT?
because i am.