his hair, his smoke, his dreams
And now he's so devoid of color
he don't know what it means

_____

everything is black and white,

but when you touch your soulmate,

you begin to see all the colors.

~

Remus Lupin's pov

I was sick of the various shades of greys. They were bland and sickening. It was unsettling, living in a world of black in white, feeling like the missing colors were like a missing limb. As if you know you should have something, but you can't think of what it is.

Those who have met their match have tried to explain colors to the ones who are missing something as simple and breathless as color. Red... I remembered someone telling me it was similar to the feeling of heat off a flame. And yellow— beautiful yellow—  was the feeling of happiness.

However, with each color I learned about, the more I felt limbless, as if I was reaching for something that wasn't there. A friend who had recently built a life with color tried showing me each one, but all I saw was different shades of grey.

A classmate named Maria stood in front of the Gryffindor fireplace and told her sappy soulmate story to anyone who'd listen. And she laughed with delight as she said that pink was the most magnificent and vibrant color she'd ever encountered.

Maybe she told her story to give us hope that someday we'll end us shaking hands with some stranger and color will suddenly flood into our life-- except for most of us it just made us even more hopeless.

~

Brian nodded his head towards me, "Remus probably knows."

"I didn't ask him, Mr. Walter. I asked you," Professor McGonagall responded, clearly losing her patience.

Of course Brian thought that I knew the answer. It was my reputation. Everyone had one. Claire was quiet, Mason was popular, Kaitlyn was approachable, and so on. I was smart... and Brian was Mr. I-Don't-Actually-Care-About-You-Or-Your-Class. Of course most people knew their classmates by the houses, but while that mattered, your reputation was equally important.

Brian shrugged, "I don't know."

Professor McGonagall turned to me and sighed. "Mr. Lupin, can you tell me what the incantation is of the Vanishing Spell?"

"Evanesco," I answered.

"Very good." She turned back towards Brian who was talking loudly to his table partner. "I shall assign you extra homework so that hopefully you'll remember it next time."

Sirius poked me in the shoulder. "I know I'm annoying, but he's just rude."

I nodded in agreement with both statements.

Suddenly, the classroom door swung open, startling everyone. All the students, including me, turned their head to see who was late to class. Professor McGonagall's head snapped up to see who had interrupted her class.

I watched as Ms. Quiet-and-Unnoticed— or rather Y/N— shuffled up to Professor McGonagall, handed her a note, and sat down.

I knew her relatively well. Sometimes I'd see her in the library. I also knew that people thought she was a bit strange, because she was always so jumpy all the time. But most of all, I knew that I had an embarrassingly huge crush on her.

She turned my way, and I quickly shifted my glance back to the front of the class. I felt my ears start  to heat up as I knew she'd caught me staring.

~

Sirius poked me in the shoulder. "We should totally do that."

"Do what?"

"L/N just walks in at the near end of class, hands Minnie a pass, and gets out of detention!"

I rolled my eyes.

"Those things have to have a signature from another professor," I told him.

"Can't someone just forge it?" James poked his head in the conversation.

"No, you can't ju—"

"Remus?" I turned to face Y/N. "Uh, could you fill me in on what happened the beginning of class? Just so I don't miss anything. You know with testing coming up."

"Yeah, of course."

I parted from the rest of the Marauders, and Y/N and I fell into step with each other.

"We just went over these charms, and we did a bunch of review on the basics of transfiguration," I said as I opened up the textbook to the pages we read over in class.

She peered over to see what pages I was talking about. In muggle pen she wrote the page numbers down on her arm.

Y/N smiled kindly. "Thanks, Remus."

"No problem," I responded.

By just talking to her, I could already feel my face starting to flush pink. I couldn't stop staring at the loose strands of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes. Before I could stop myself, I reached up to correct it.

She flinched away and stumbled backwards awkwardly, blinking hard. "I—uh— thanks, Remus."

My cheeks were no doubt bright red from embarrassment. I just nodded and watched as she scurried down the hall, quickly disappearing into the crowds of students.

James, Sirius, and Peter popped out from behind the corner, unquestionably having seen the awkward exchange.

"See," James said, staring at where she'd been standing. "Weird."

I sighed. "She just doesn't like people touching her," I muttered, then thought about it. "Something probably happened."

 "What she probably didn't know was that her shirt clashed with her skirt. I bet she doesn't even know she's wearing red and pink."

I glared at the back of James' head. I'd thought those shades of steel and graphite went together just fine.

~

She didn't talk to me for weeks. Not necessarily avoiding (it wasn't as if we had many opportunities to run into each other), but rather she made a less of an effort to find me between classes. And eventually, I started to too.

I thought I'd blown my whole chance at ever getting her to like me. Great, Remus. You pushed her boundaries and scared her off. That was until I was taking a walk around the castle grounds.

It had been a stressful few weeks. I knew that I should be studying, but I'd already spent every single minute of my free time looking through books. This afternoon, I'd stared at a page in the textbook for fifteen minutes and still processed 0% of the whole page. My brain was officially fried.

The sound of soft sniffling broke my reverie. Curiously, I walked towards the noise and was surprised when I found Y/N under a large tree, hugging her knees to her chest.

Suddenly, I felt awkward, as if I wasn't supposed to be there. My heart twisted at the sound of her broken sobs. Her breaths were shaky and uncontrolled, as if she was trying to get herself to calm down, but she just couldn't.

I quietly knelt down and sat down next to her. I was about to wrap my arms around her and bring her close to me to comfort her, but I stayed painfully still.

"What's wrong?" I asked, then immediately regretted it. "I—I mean you don't have to talk or tell me if you don't want to."

She stayed silent for a few moments more, too focused on steadying her voice. "What do you think of this whole soulmate thing? Stupid, right? Absolute baloney?"

I mean I didn't quite hate the concept. I thought the idea that your soulmate was out there looking for you too was nice. What I didn't like was waiting.

I deflected the question with a question. "What do you think about it?"

"Absolute bull. It sucks."

"Is that what you're upset about?"

She hugged herself tighter. "I thought this whole soulmate thing was flawless, you know? You meet 'the one', you touch them, and boom, you've got yourself all the colors in the world."

"I guess, yeah."

"It's all just crap," she muttered.

Under all her anger, I could sense something sadder to her story she was hiding.

"People think I'm weird," she said. "Because I don't like physical contact. I mean it's true, but it's not just that..." She sighed, changing her direction of topics. "I've seen people who 'accidentally' run into everyone they meet in hopes that they'll get the gift of color. I don't want that. I've seen color."

My heart dropped at the fact that she already had a soulmate, which meant she couldn't be mine.

"It's just that he didn't see color," her whole body started shaking. "He was my soulmate, but I wasn't his. What kind of screw up do I have to be to mess up the whole system of the universe?"

"You aren't a screw up. You're kind, and you're beautiful. It was the universe's mistake, not yours."

Y/N began to steady, but I could tell she didn't believe me. I knew that spewing out more compliments, no matter how much I meant them, would make each word begin to sound pretend.

I retraced my steps, thinking out loud. "That's why you don't like physical contact. You don't want to get hurt again."

She nodded mutely. "I want to be sure that they're going to see the colors too. But I'm also scared that I might touch someone, and then I end up being the one not to see the colors. I wouldn't want to put someone through that heartbreak. But I don't know. Maybe I'm just overthinking."

The conversation ceased for a good while. The sun had become obnoxiously bright, so I lightly closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the trunk of the tree. Together, we sat under the tree a safe distance apart.

I heard her yawn and shift. I felt myself tense in surprise as she laid the weight of her head on my shoulder.

My eyes snapped open when I heard her inhale sharply. She looked at me with shy and hopeful eyes. I could nearly see her walls start to raise higher, bracing for an ambush. "D—do you see it too?"

I blinked as colors started melting into each branch and each leaf. The sky was washed with the most serene hue. I glanced back at Y/N, her expression melting, wondering if this was another repeat.

What caught my eye was her lips. Maria had been right; pink was the most magnificent color ever.

I nodded and smiled at her, trying to memorize her E/C eyes.

"I do." Her eyelashes were darkened with tears of relief. "I see it, too."

~

but... so... hogwarts mystery. thoughts on penny, rowan, merula, bill, ben?

do not spoil anything.

anyways, i'd just like to know why it takes like five energy things to smile or whatever. and why it takes sO lOnG tO rEcHaRgE

life hack: you can get energy around the castle by tapping on things like paintings, house elves, books, sticks, and such :)