✧LUCKY NUMBER✧

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It was hard seeing Remus going through all of it on his own, but one night she had snuck out...Wanting to get a few snacks from the kitchens. A secret that Sirius had told her, one of the group' all-time favorite secret, that and they were too busy counting down the days to the first Hogsmeade trip to notice Remus' sudden turn of sickness.

Aurora talked herself in and out of telling her brother, but what good would that do? 

He would just ask to do the same, and god forbid if she messed up herself...But her brother as well? That was something she couldn't bet on herself.

With her younger brother finally in Hogwarts as well, it was ample time to spend with him. Course the Slytherin's didn't make it all that easy for Sirius and Regulus to come together on their own. Rabastan usually could be to blaming separating the lot of them, and the eldest Black heir did not like, one bit, that slimy Slytherin near his sister for potions.

"I don't understand it, both Evans and Rory! They think those bastard are all that." Sirius diverged for what felt like the eight hundredth time that day. Remus groaned as he was starting to get aggravated, his hormones had been all out of wack and this whining wasn't working for his day either.

Yet it had brightened the two boys spirits that she was with her Ravenclaw friends at the current moment, making it all the more promenade for her to be approached. The girls giggled as they left Aurora with the pack of boys on their way to a study session.

"Singled out by the flock again, well we can't have that. Come join the lion's den." Aurora giggled at the idea and rolled her eyes. "I doubt birds would befriend lions but whatever makes you feel better at night Jamesie." She spoke, running a hair through the shag of his head.

He hummed in delight which only had Sirius smack him upside the head. "Thats my sister mate." 

"Oh please, like I don't see girls gawking at the lot of you." She rolled her eyes and smiled up at her brother and tried to surpass what she said.

"Yeah? What have they been saying?" Aurora closed her mouth and motioned it like a zipper. 

"Just gawks and giggles. Or in Evan's case an arrogant toerag. My personal favorite." This caused a pout in her direction as that isn't what James had wanted at all, but it had Sirius puff his chest out higher.

"Is this the truth my darling sister?" She calmly inhaled before looking off to Remus. 

"Are we still on for tonight Rem?" Now that earned a stalk from Sirius to look to his mate. "On? On for what?"

Now Rory may have been young, but she had her fair share of love and relationship stuck in the mist of a heroic adventure novel. And here she was smiling to her big brother and showing her teeth.

"A very romantic dispute on Astronomy, Remmy wanted help with the stars and you know—" 

"Oh you've found the goldmine mate, this girl probably can draw the lot of it by heart." The arm hooked around her small frame as she was shoveled a kiss to the temple.

"It's not our bloody fault that all our gifts are star related, Sirius...The brightest one of them all." She stuck her tongue out. "You heard it here first!...And she's just peeved she's named after a constellation." 

"Nah, I'll take the Queen sitting on her throne than the dog star." The others were confused of the banter back and forth and placed it as sibling teasing. But the second she kissed Sirius cheek and continued down the hall with a skip in her step.

Remus was beaming at the idea of a countdown for their study session, and it was everything that he could've hoped. She was very good at teaching him all in which he had trouble with. Especially the star patterns, Ravenclaws were known for their intelligence. But this was something that the girl had been studying this all her life.

So it struck him odd that she was having trouble with the moon and it's phases. "No...The moon is...Well 'someone told me once, don't trust the moon it's always changing...'" It had caught Remus off guard, it sounded familiar but he tilted his head in question.

"Er...I forget the author but it was a VERY good read, my friend recommended it...It was defiantly a muggle story." That caught him off guard once again, he knew the fine line between half blood, pureblood and then pureblood supremacy. 
And the girl before him was a clear match for the kicker.

"And who recommended you a muggle book?" 

"Mia, but Madam Pince does too. She's figured out my preferences by now, which is a blessing. But it's only learning the evenvitable when I finish the entirety of the library." That caused him to laugh, clamping his mouth shut so they wouldn't get kicked out.

"So what's this book about, not trusting the moon. Sounds like my type of read." She perked her lips and she shook her head. "It's a girl book Rem, unless you fancy yourself some lovesick melody." He shrugged once again and she smiled, dwelling into the book.

It had been the perfect leeway into hinting that she knows, or at least that she is okay with the idea. So she started dwelling into her pictures, trying to make a picture to go with the story and he took a hold of it and stilled.

It had been a girl holding the head of a wolf who had been cursed by a witch, again a muggle story as that isn't always the case.

Rory blushed at the story, the muggles feared what haunted the town but the main character found the courage and realized that it was a man. Just a man.

Remus was silent the entire time, but his heart swelled and shattered and reattached so many times as she told the story and explained the pictures that she drew. It made him feel slightly better. Until he croacked out the question: "What did you think of him?" 

Aurora faked being confused and she smiled. "He was really brave, he overcame from being alone and trusting her and her family for help. I liked that, they helped each other...Why you don't think should've—" 

"He doesn't deserve their help."
 That had struck a nerve as her lip quivered. 

"You sound as stubborn as he was." She bit back, looking back down to look at the paper before her, pretending to get aggravated at the idea of the moon.

"T-they're evil...S-she was deranged for even going near him." 

"But he wasn't evil, he had something happen to him that took over his life because he let it. But when he let Clare in he saw that he was wrong." He was left without any response and she asked a question to return back to the paper at hand in hopes of resolving the issue.

Yet when she left the library, Remus went to Madam Pince and gave the discription of the book. Not minding the strange look she gave the young third year.

The boy had finished in a few days, as it was his book of choice to read in the infirmary. He pushed through the pain and the need for sleep until Madam Pomfrey had taken the book and ordered him to drink the potion. The third year of doing this was in need of being direct.

However knowing that Aurora would never think of him as being a monster was a given blessing on his mind and made him smile every time he remembered the certain detail.

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Rory had finally managed to get the moon to work with her this time, and pointing her wand to her heart and muttering the words did she pray silently to the goddess above that this would work, that all would not fail.

The silent tear had been worth it, especially when she had fallen to hands and knees gasping for a breath. The sound protection spell she had casted was enough to bury the hatchet, but the pain was unbearable. Would switching become nulled or was it always going to this bone aching agony?

The questions spewed threw her mind, and before long she had passed out due to the oversenses of pain. In reality her animal had connected to her soul and was binding the magic with hers.

Unknowingly her animal had been chosen as she laid on the cold floor of the Astronomy tower. Luckily she had awakened into the beginning of the first class, missing one was not abnormally so she rushed to the tower on the floor below, freshened up and managed to start getting to her second class of the day.

Of course her roommates posed questions and vocailized their concerns which she waved off saying she got distracted at the library. And what a shocking coincidence that they believed her.

However, the poor girl was tired, and shockingly enough. She was hungry, her animaguis form was shifting her body, as well as enacting with the hormones and it was driving her rather insane.

It was as thought she wanted to—no. Needed to shift into something more.

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On top of that, her eyes were acting strange. Random shifts from blurry to being able to see without the need of glasses. Her senses had been amplfied, so now she was just going to brew a potion in hopes of calming the senses when they grow too much.

Slughorn wouldn't mind, he had already offered her to join his slug club which she had regretted denying the previous year. He understood of course, being so young and already being gawked at for her mind.

She didn't like the idea of being a freak of the family, the biggest fear of course.

So the need of doing this for Remus bumped that to a next level.

Yet it was around this time that his roommates were starting to understand the ongoings of his 'sickly' departures. First, it had been Peter to question it, then Sirius agreed, but it was when James noticed the scratches and bruises that it truly hit Sirius.

He's had them as well, from his parents. That is what scared Sirius Black the most. 

Himself he could deal with, but his siblings? His mates? 
It ended there.

He voiced his concern to James one night and the boy was confused until he understood that is what happened at the Black Family Manner over the course of Holidays.

"You don't see Rory's face start to dwindle when we're expected to go home?" Sirius dwelled that one faithful night, but he never dove in further than that. Just cussed out his parents and damned them to the roaring fires of hell and beyond.

James had questions, but he knew it was pointless to ask Sirius and it would be a bombshell to put on Rory's shoulders to ask. So he offered to always be the shoulder to cry on if either of them needed it.

He caught Aurora crying in the hallways a few times, she begged him not to tell Sirius as it was more of a personal manner and she was just frustrated. James did, however, know that Aurora was having trouble eating, so he offered to go to the kitchens with her and that was that.

It happened a few times and neither side said anything more to Sirius about their trips, but that didn't mean James could let it stay a secret so he told Remus. And Remus was more or less torn between telling his best mate and keeping the secret.

So he chose the ladder.

That is...Until he caught Aurora off by the window just after dinner, he knew he didn't see her there but Sirius just assumed she was off at the library. Discussing how he'd talk to her tomorrow or threaten to tell her head of house.

Remus did not want to see Aurora threatened like that so he took a seat across from her, only then did he notice she ways crying. "Rory what's—" 

"I don't understand this blood assignment." She growled, throwing the book to the floor and attempt to gouge her eyes out with her hands.

Her hormones were through the roof durning her own change, as well as just getting royally fed up with the fact that she was unable to change just yet. This build up, this anger was all fuel for her to continue.

Yet she thought she could distract herself with an elective that Professor Flitwick asked of her, giving her the small book lieu of her schedule next year.

"Only you would start worrying about a class coming next year...A-alchemy?? Rory are you mad?" She clears the tears away from her eyes as she attempts to grab the book back. "Remmy I need the book back! I have a placement test in a few—" 

"Months?" She couldn't argue with that and so she pouted, going to her feet and trying to grab it from him. But he so easily just put his hand in the air and it was a struggle for her to get it back.

"Remus John Lupin you bloody twat give it back." She growled, it suddenly stilled him. Not because of his full name being shouted, but because of the actual growl that escaped Aurora's throat. It confused both him and his wolf as he was entirely unable to place what it sounded as.

"Ms.Black did you just call me a twat?" He teased, and she pouted again. 

"I called you a bloody twat...I bet Siri would be VERY unhappy that his best mate was withholding a book from me." She spoke, crossing her arms over one another and Remus just offered to put it behind his back now.

"Well then let's fix it then, you get it back if you come to the kitchens with me." She huffed as she knew what he was getting at. So she attempted again with her arms around his back and continuing to whine and shout at him.

"Rem come on!" She speaks, only until his arms wrap around her body and pull her close. 

"You need to eat something Rory, you missed dinner and Sirius said he'd tell your head of house if you keep missing them." When she pulled away she forced a nod but kept her aura together.

Remus had a small dealing but didn't mind eating a second helping of chocolate cake. Otherwise it would've been rude to see her to just eat alone.

"How long were you sitting there today Rory?" She had just taken a bite of mashed potatoes so she took her napkin and wiped the corners of her mouth. "About two hours." She whispered again and he sighed.

"Rory, you need to eat. If you don't how are you going to keep going and reading? You won't be able to focus if you're hungry." The young girl knew he was right but didn't want to admit it, so she eyed her best mate.

And werewolf.

"Been meaning to talk to you anyway, do you recall that book you told me about? 'Don't trust the moon'?" She smiled and nodded, mouth still filled with food, so it allowed him to continue.

"I guess I didn't understand how much Clay needed someone like Clare and her family...Someone normal to counter the—" 

"But it was never Clay's fault, he didn't know any better until they finally met. Even then he was hesitant because it wasn't something he was ever used to." She spoke, in complete knowledge that what she says is the difference between him and his wolf.

She didn't want to admit it either, but his smell was drastically different. Aligning with her theories, again and again, so she smiled up to him again. "Can...Can we keep this between you and me? I really don't need Siri yelling at me again." He nodded in the instant, that was the good thing that both James and Remus did this for her, and her smile drastically greeted him.

"Thank you, I owe you a butterbeer next Hogsmeade trip." He shook his head at the idea and she pretends to frown. 

"I'm sure Peter will love the drink then...But thank you for being my dinner partner for tonight...But I have a DADA exam to study for." His eyes popped up at the new information, usually they would get the text after the Ravenclaws so he started spewing questions the entire time before she arrived at her own tower.

"Thanks Rem...For making sure I ate tonight. Sometimes I need a good reminder." She spoke, and while he was babbling on words of friendship she had leaned up to his tall figure to kiss the bottom of his cheek before whispering the riddle password.

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Date Posted: 01-27-19

Time: 1:01

Words: 2919