O P H E L I A  L O V E G O O D

"Your bed is so much more comfortable than mine is," Ophelia informed Remus as she opened her Transfiguration textbook and unrolled her parchment paper.

"I had to get it replaced," he explained simply and she looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. He cleared his throat uncomfortably, "It's a long story."

She shook her head, "Yeah, I don't think I want to hear it."

The door to the room opened and Ophelia looked up to find Sirius standing there. He looked between Ophelia and Remus and frowned. He said nothing as he made his way to his own bed.

Ophelia turned to look at Remus and opened her mouth to say something but he merely shook his head.

The door to the room opened again and Ophelia glanced over to see that it was only James who had entered. She did a double take as she looked back to find all that he had on was a towel around his waist. Her eyes widened slightly and she registered that she had been staring when she saw the smirk on the boy's face.

She looked away quickly, turning the page in her textbook and focusing on her homework. "Would you get dressed?" Remus finally requested and Ophelia couldn't help but be grateful. It was distracting.

"Want me to drop the towel?" James mused and Ophelia pressed her face into her hands, fighting down any reaction.

"Yes, you stag," Sirius piped up from his bed.

"Go get changed," Remus ordered and James rolled his eyes. He glanced at the girl for a brief moment, a faint smile on his lips before he walked away.

"Your hair is awfully pink," Sirius observed from where he laid. Ophelia looked up and glared at the boy, her face no doubt matching her hair in color.

"Shut up," she muttered and he grinned in response. She grabbed a pillow from Remus's bed and chucked it at the boy, nailing him in the head.

"Hey!" Sirius exclaimed as he grabbed the pillow and tossed it back. She dodged it and Remus rolled his eyes.

"Would the both of you knock it off?" Remus requested with a huff.

Ophelia turned back over on her stomach as she continued her homework when the door opened again. She looked back and ignored the fact that he was somehow more attractive when his hair was wet and she turned back to focus on her work.

"I had an idea," James announced as he returned to the room. "We should go to Hogsmeade."

Ophelia looked back to find that he was now fully clothed, "It's not a Hogsmeade weekend."

"No, duh," Sirius spoke up from where he was. "That doesn't stop us from going."

"With everyone leaving for the holidays today it's really the perfect time to sneak out," James explained and Ophelia's eyes widened slightly.

"Sneak out?" she asked. "You want to leave without permission."

"You've included the wrong person in this, Prongs," Sirius announced. "Loony Lovegood is too much of a goodie two shoes to sneak out of the school."

Ophelia frowned at the nickname. She knew she wasn't friends with Sirius. In fact, the boy seemed to not like her at all but she didn't think he was one of the ones who called her that.

"Keep it up, Padfoot," James suggested. "Please."

"It's fine," Ophelia sat up on the bed. "I actually have to go. I told Reggie that I'd help him study." She got up off the bed and gathered her things. "I'll see you guys later."

J A M E S  P O T T E R

"Ophelia, wait-" James tried but she had already left the room. He turned to look at Sirius.

"Really, Sirius?" Remus asked with a huff as he too began to clean up his homework. "You just couldn't resist, could you?"

"Oh, come on," he tried, "It was just a joke."

"It was not just a joke," he countered, "You knew exactly what you were doing."

"Maybe you guys should just take a minute," James suggested. It seemed that, at least recently, whenever the two started to argue it would last for at minimum an hour. "No need to get angry with each other."

Remus scoffed before he placed his work on his night stand and made his way to leave. "Hang on," James said, stepping in front of the door. "Maybe this isn't how you guys should do this."

"Do what?" Remus inquired, an irritated expression on his face.

"Have you tried talking to each other?" James asked. Remus moved to leave again but James stopped him. "Really talk to each other. I don't know what exactly happened but you two can not keep going on like this."

"I've tried," Sirius pointed out and Remus's jaw clenched. James looked between his two friends warily. "He doesn't want to listen."

"That's not true," Remus argued. "It's you who won't listen."

"What exactly happened?" James asked, not entirely sure he wanted to know but also wanting to help in whatever way he could.

"He cheated on me," Sirius explained simply and James faltered at this. He couldn't imagine Remus ever doing anything like that.

"No, I didn't!" Remus shouted. "This is exactly what I've been talking about! You don't listen, you just hear what you want to hear."

Maybe getting them to talk wasn't as good of an idea as he had originally thought.

"I'm not an idiot!" Sirius shouted back. James looked between the two. Did he leave or stay? What if he left and one of them killed the other? Then, not only would one of them be dead, but he'd be an accomplice to the crime. "I know what I saw!"

"I never said you were an idiot," Remus pointed out. He crossed his arms over his chest, "And I have told you multiple times that nothing happened and you didn't believe me. You don't trust me and I can't do anything to fix that."

"How am I supposed to trust you when you've been running around with Lovegood for the past week!"

James shook his head, What did Ophelia have to do with this?

"Really?" he scoffed. Remus ran a hand over his face before he looked up at the boy again, "I can't do this with you anymore."

"Fine!" Sirius exclaimed.

"Now, wait a minute-" James tried but Remus interrupted him.

"Fine," he agreed. Getting them to talk was a really, really bad idea.

"So that's it then?" Sirius asked after a moment.

"I guess it is," Remus nodded. "I, um," he began, shaking his head and gesturing to the door. "I have to go."

After a very uncomfortable moment, Remus left the room leaving James and Sirius alone. James looked over at Sirius with a frown, "Pads, I-"

But before he could finish, Sirius launched himself at the boy. James wrapped his arms around him and did his best to console him. "Everything's going to be okay."

"No it won't."

O P H E L I A  L O V E G O O D

"Like I've said a thousand times," Reggie rolled his eyes before gesturing dramatically with his hands, "Wizard escort."

"Wizard escort with a solid education," she countered. "What if one of their turn-ons is hearing a list of ingredients of a certain potion? What are you going to do then?"

"Is this your way of telling me that's one of your turn-on's?" he asked warily. "Because there are some things I don't need to know."

"Focus on the work you moron," she suggested. "What are the ingredients of the Draught of Living Death?"

"I have no idea," he answered and she huffed. "But if living death was a person, he'd look like that."

Ophelia followed where he was gesturing to and saw that it was Remus. Only he really did look like if living death was a person. She frowned, he hadn't looked like that when she had left.

"Hey, Lupin!" Reggie shouted before Ophelia could stop him. Remus looked over and Reggie waved him over. He seemed to be contemplating something but ultimately decided to join them. "What happened?"

Ophelia wanted to bang her head on to the table. She knew Reggie could be dense sometimes but she thought he had enough common sense to not ask someone they barely know what made them upset.

"I take it I've asked the wrong question," Reggie concluded. "Allow me to try again," he requested, "What can we do to help?"

"Distract me," Remus requested as he plopped down in the chair across from them.

"Aren't you going to Hogsmeade with James, Sirius and Peter?" Ophelia asked and his face dropped. "Okay, um-"

"Let's go to Hogsmeade," Reggie suggested rather eagerly. "We can go to Hog's Head. No one will know who we are there."

"I don't know-" Remus began warily.

"Oh, come on," he tried. "I know you know how to get out. It's the perfect distraction from whatever it is bothering you."

"Alright, fine," he huffed. "But only this one time."

J A M E S  P O T T E R

"About what Sirius said, I'm sorry," James apologized. They had been on the schedule to patrol that night and he had been otherwise occupied with Sirius up until this point.

She raised an eyebrow, focusing her attention on the area around them rather than him. "You weren't the one that said it."

"I'm still sorry."

"You shouldn't apologize for him," she countered. "If he wants to apologize, I'm all ears. I don't want to hear about it from you."

His eyes narrowed slightly, "Are you mad at me?"

"No?" she replied and it came out more as a question. He stopped walking at this, contemplating what he possibly could have done since he last saw her only hours before.

"I've never been put in this position before," she explained. "My friend group has an unspoken you don't date anyone within the group to avoid situations like this. Except for Pandora and Xeno but that doesn't count. Am I even allowed to talk to you? Are there sides?"

"This is about Remus and Sirius?" he asked and she nodded. James couldn't help but grow slightly amused at this, "You do realize that we aren't the ones who broke up, right? You can still talk to me and I to you."

"But you've obviously sided with Sirius," she pointed out. "And no offense to him but he's never really been nice to me so I'm kind of inclined to side with Remus."

"I haven't taken anyone's side," he countered with a frown. She made a face at this, "Remus doesn't think I've sided with Sirius, does he?"

"He seems to think you did."

James groaned, "I'm not siding with anyone. I just want things to go back the way they were before."

"I don't see that happening," she frowned.

He let out a breath before gesturing ahead of them, "Let's just get through the rest of the castle."

O P H E L I A  L O V E G O O D

"This is an awful idea," Ophelia announced as Remus led through a tunnel in the castle that she hadn't even realized had existed. Apparently it led to the Shrieking Shack in Hogsmeade and would get them there undetected. Why Remus knew this information was beyond her.

"Relax," Reggie suggested as he slung his arm over the girl's shoulder. "And pull up the hood, your powers are going haywire from your nerves."

Ophelia grimaced as she saw that her hair was indeed flashing between the different colors of the rainbow. She pulled up the hood as Remus looked back.

He did a double take and raised his eyebrow, "Isn't that James's?"

She blushed at this and shook her head slightly, "He let me borrow it on one of our run's when I was cold."

"You're at the wearing his clothes stage?" Reggie inquired. "I've missed so much."

"We're just friends," she reminded him.

"Tell him that," he suggested. Ophelia stuck her tongue out at the boy before she slipped out from under his arm and ran up to catch up with Remus. "That's not exactly helping your case."

The walk to Hog's Head felt excruciatingly long. "If we get caught, we'll be in so much trouble."

"We won't get caught," Reggie announced as he opened the door to the pub and let the two in. "As long as you stop talking about it."

"Hmm," she replied and the three made their way to the bar and sat on the stools. They each ordered their respective drinks and waited in a comfortable silence.

"You're making me sound like a snob!" Ophelia exclaimed as Remus and Reggie laughed at a story the later had just told. The two were rather tipsy but Ophelia was sober. They had concluded that the safest way for them to make it through the night was if one of them didn't drink. Remus was a no go and Reggie and Ophelia argued about it for a while before Ophelia gave in.

"That's because you are," Reggie pointed out and she whacked him on the arm as the bartender refilled their drinks.

"Come with me," Reggie ordered suddenly, grabbing Remus by the arm and pulling him off the stool he sat on. "You," he pointed at Ophelia, "Distract."

"Distract?" she inquired but he was long gone. She turned to the entrance in confusion but froze upon seeing James, Peter and Sirius enter. James locked eyes with Ophelia and his eyes widened as well. He quickly grabbed the attention of his two friends and sent them off to find a table before making his way over to the bar.

"What are you doing here?" he asked the girl as discreetly as he could after ordering three drinks.

"I could ask you the same thing," she countered, stirring her drink with its straw. "Sirius didn't see me, did he?"

"No," he shook his head. He faltered for a moment, "Is Remus here?"

"Reggie took him around the back before he could find out Sirius was here," she explained. "As long as Sirius doesn't see me here, we're fine."

"Is he okay?"

"He's managing," she replied. "How did this even happen? Things didn't seem that bad when I left."

James shook his head slightly, "I think this was a long time coming. Now that I understand the issue."

"Which is?"

He sucked in a breath between his teeth as the bartender handed him his drinks. "Sirius didn't trust Remus. It's not that easy to fix." He picked up the drinks and gestured to her head with his elbow, a smirk on his face, "Nice hoodie, by the way." He started to walk away and she turned only slightly so she could look at him, "Where'd you get it?"

She turned to face the front, hiding the blush that crept its way up her neck. She was grateful for the hoodie otherwise her hair would give away exactly how she felt about the comment.