CHAPTER 16 ━━━ WISHED OBLIGATIONS

IT'S STARTLING TO SEE NEW, YET FAMILIAR SURROUNDINGS. When Mila arose that early in the morning, not from her nightly urge for a smoke, or disrupted from nightmares, she was quite confused when her eye slightly squinted open. Across at the other bed what she viewed was a head of black hair, slightly deviated from the way Ruby's hair had looked.

  Over the night she had squished herself up to the edge of the mattress, where her cheek was pressed against her pillow, her arm hanging off the bed, and her right leg bent so close to the ledge it might've fallen off just like her other limb. Alarmed by the different view of what was a Gryffindor dorm, her fingers, almost touching the floor, jerked suddenly, tickling the palm that lay just below it.

  On the floor slept a crumpled Remus Lupin, sprawled out with a small knit blanket on top. So subtly through his slumber had his hand shifted and found its place beneath the overhanging one of Mila's, and with the new jolt of feeling shot up his arm he squinted his eyes open.

  Mila now sat up, wide awake while the huge comforters and mounds of pillows and sheets engulfed her. Her hair was a mess, matted and knotted in the back. Her chest ached as she still wore her bra from the day before, and the strap of the old tank top she'd been given from Maisie loosely fell over her shoulder. She flinched while she tried dragging her fingers through her locks, only pulling on her scalp and hurting herself.

  Remus, taking in a quick glance, was still utterly too tired as he let his eyes shut again, this time he stretched out his back which had been bent over all night, and settled back into a more comfortable position. Mila watched the boy move, softly smiling at his slightly downturned lips and grump of an expression while he tried to sleep.

  Being as careful and quiet as she could, she slipped out of the bed. Noticing the same clock from before, it was seven o'clock in the morning, quite early for what the events of last night entailed. She was very grateful for the hangovers and deep sleep that the rest of Remus' friends were in. Luckily last night she'd fallen asleep so heavily she hadn't even heard the group of boys barge into the room, and even when they had teased Remus after seeing Mila bundled up in his sheets, they were too drunk to remember it by this morning.

  By now, Mila assumed that she could slip back into her dorm, change out her sheets peacefully, and catch a few more hours of rest in the better comfort of her dorm. Though that wasn't to say that Remus' bed wasn't nice. She awkwardly tiptoed over Remus' limbs, finally and nimbly skipping quietly over to the door.

  "Leaving already?" he lazily mumbled, shifting back onto his back as he rubbed his forehead.

   "Go to sleep!" Mila hushed, turning as Remus picked himself up and leaned on his forearms.

  "Good, I get my bed back," He muttered and crawled into his bed, almost dying of the mixture of the usual smell of his bed added in with the smell of Mila's shampoo and perfume.

  As softly as she could, Mila scoffed, "I'm not the one that decided for you to sleep on the floor," she pointed out.

  She could almost feel Remus' eyes roll in his pillow as he grumbled into the fabric, " 'Least I'm not a selfish prick."

  "You're grumpy in the mornings aren't you?" she asked. Remus was absurdly grumpy in the mornings, especially if he'd had a few drinks the night before. Along with this, he absolutely hated when people pointed out his attitude in the early hours.

  "You can leave now," he spat and Mila couldn't help but giggle, bringing a smile to Remus' lips that she couldn't see. And just before he could notice Mila slipped out of the dorm and lazily skipped along to hers. She was still extremely embarrassed, for had she really woken up in Remus Lupin's bed in mismatched pajamas and a terrible case of bedhead? Yes, yes she had, and she didn't know how to feel about that one bit.

  Soon enough later, in the later hours of the morning, he felt a large body topple right over him, crushing his bones into the foam of his bed. "Oh, Moony!" James sang horizontally across him, "Best wake up princess!" he continued teasing.

  Remus simply grumbled, remaining as still as he could except for the intense squeezing of his eyes. To the relief of his lungs, James got up from on top of the boy huffing in defeat, not long before the pillow beneath Remus' head was snatched away in the bespectacled boy's grasp and whacking over the other side of Remus' face with it.

  "Can you piss off?" Remus hissed, snatching the pillow back and bringing it beside his face.

  "Someone's snarky."

  "It's his day, Prongs," Sirius lolled over from the bathroom, carefully shaving the odd patches of stubble that had started to grow on his jaw.

  James seethed both sarcastically and sympathetically while placing his hands on his hips and looking down at the floor. "Moons, are you a rough sleeper, or why is there a whole other set of bed sheets on the ground?" he asked, kicking the blanket, pillow, and small sheet into a ball before dropping it into the dirty laundry bin.

  Looking back over, very questionably, to his friend who clutched at his comforter and pillow like a madman, James couldn't stop himself from bullying Remus further. "Can you stop sniffing your pillow there, mate, and get up so we can get some food?" he rushed, taking the pillow again and sniffing it himself just for good measure.

  "Why's your pillow smell weird?" he scrunched his features, his glasses shifting up and back down his nose. Sirius couldn't help but peek over the frame of the washroom door, setting down his razor he held out his hand.

  "Give it here, James. Maybe we need to start requesting new pillows." Peter shrugged from across the room, making his way to the trio as they all very stupidly inspected a pillow. Sirius smelt the pillow, raising his brow and eyeing Remus as he groaned and sat on the edge of his bed. "Oi Moons, why's your pillow smell weird?"

  "Dunno," he mindlessly answered, walking to his drawer of clothes. He lazily grabbed an old t-shirt, frowning at his lack of jumpers since they'd all needed a wash, and picked his most worn-out, yet comfortable pair of jeans.

  "Y'know what this kind of smells like?" Sirius smirked, throwing the pillow at Peter as he threw it back onto Remus' bed.

  "What?" the other three boys all ask simultaneously, a common occurrence, but James and Peter were too interested to even laugh at their unison.

  Sirius started cackling loudly, turning around as he rinsed off the blade of his razor. "Remus, did you have a girl in here?" he barked out, wiping his chin with the towel that hung on the door. At this remark Remus sighed, curling his fingers in his hair as he tugged at his scalp.

  Peter sucked in his lips, a snort leaving his nose as he looked at Remus. Remus himself turned around, leaning against the dresser, staring straight at the wall with a deadpan. "Well did you?" Peter laughed, covering it with his fist.

  James' hands moved from his hips only to cross over each other, "Didn't you run off with Mila last night?" Remus' jaw clenched, moving behind the undone curtains of the canopy, which he'd done himself last night, and began changing. "N'the sheets on the floor—Oh Remmy don't tell me you made her sleep on the ground after you all—"

  "We didn't do anything!" Remus snapped, closing the button on his pants. "And I didn't make her sleep on the floor!" he continued, his defense muffled as he pulled his shirt over his chest.

  "Oh, so she was in here though? In your bed?" James grinned, "In your sheets, one would say."

  Silently Remus shoved passed into the bathroom rapidly and roughly attacking his teeth with his toothbrush while his friends spewed off remarks, bouncing off each other. Quickly Remus stormed out of the dorm before mumbling, "Grabbing breakfast." James was very fast on his feet to follow.

  "Yes, finally, let's grab some breakfast!" James cheered. As Remus stalked the halls James found it trouble to keep up with his friend's long legs, but his determination didn't stop him from striding at his side. "Y'know this is great progress f'you Moony. I think you're truly getting there!"

  "Do you know how we were researching hexes, James?" Remus said.

  "Oh you wouldn't hex me Remmy, we both know that."

  "Really? Because I think I'm going to start making great progress on that."

  Remus speeded down the stairs, to gone to care about the annoyance that was James Potter, almost clinging onto his arm like a koala. Blinking at the foot of the stairs his eyes opened in surprise as two familiar heads of hair trudged past him.

  "Ok but really, M', where'd you go last night?" Mila's friend begged beside her. The universe was taunting them.

  James clicked his tongue so ecstatically that you would've thought a large chipmunk infested the dormitory. "Morning there, Luna!" he called.

  "Fuckin' hate you, Prongs," Remus whispered under his breath to his friend, his anger soon disintegrated as both Maisie and Mila doubletake looking back. Maisie's eyes widened in confusion while Mila flushed.

  "Hi, Potter," she squeaked, concerned as Remus looked almost sickly.

  "Do you wanna catch breakfast with us?" James blatantly asked. Mila looked to her friend, Maisie simply shrugging with contempt.

  "Yeah—sure," Mila nodded. Her eyes kept flickering to James or the wall behind him, avoiding how they, almost magnetically, kept falling back to Remus. An odd dance of quick glances was shared between them, neither of them daring to be caught.

  If Mila was honest, she'd kept thinking about her decision of last night with the events of that morning, both creating an all too confusing mess in her head. It would be quite odd to tell your friend that you'd chosen to crash in a boy's dorm above crashing with them. And even if there was to be no teasing, there'd still be the nagging question of why? This swim of thinking is what made the walk to the Great Hall all too quiet, even with James's rants.

  In between the odd four, was of course Remus and Mila, a walking pair, that by now, had become almost natural. But whilst Remus kept stealing looks at the girl beside him, he'd noticed her stiff walk and the way her eyes were glued to look straightly in front of her.

  However, this behavior soon stopped as Mila interrupted the shared stale conversation between Maisie and Remus at the Gryffindor table. "Is something on your mind?" she asked him as he slowly knawed at a piece of bread, breaking his zoned-out stare from Maisie's argument on arithmancy.

  "Is something on your mind?" Remus reversed back.

  "You're just not eating much," she ignored his spew, "You need more than a few bites of toast."

  "I'm fine," he lied. Remus was extremely irritable, the mix of James's subtle teasing, Maisie's boring talk, and Mila's smush of distance and invasiveness wasn't to help with his problems of the day. His mood had completely changed from the mounds of hours earlier.

  Mila huffed, "You're always acting weird sometimes, you know that?" Remus flinched in his head, the more he was around her often, the more he'd spend time with her during his lycanthropy days. She'd seen his mood swings with no reasoning behind them. It scared him to know she'd noticed and picked up on the habit.

  "Today's just not a good day," he mumbled.

  "The day just started."

  "—And it's a bad one."

  A small frown showed on Mila's face. She ignored how Maisie awkwardly picked around at her plate and how James kept fiddling with the tips of his hair. "Remus if you need to talk about something I'm here, I can tell something's wrong," she stated, trying to catch up with Remus' running eyes.

  "Merlin, I said I'm alright, Mils!" Remus gulped down the last bit of bread, a chunk far too big that it left a stinging pain down his throat. A misplaced silence overcame the quad, to Mila's relief, Maisie's clearing of her throat broke it.

  "M', we've got to go, uhm—I, remember Ruby was waiting for me at the—she's waiting," Maisie skidded, it was clear it was simply an excuse to leave, with an open invitation for Mila to leave with. Graciously Mila nodded, rising from her seat at the table as she gathered the two plates of barren food, stacking them at the center.

  She clenched her lips between her teeth before straightening her sweater. "Right, we should go before she yells at us. Bye Remus," she tried saying coldly, yet her parting could only come out slightly stale. Her eyes grazed over his torso, too intimidated at the thought of meeting his eyes at this moment.

  Maisie finally took hold of Mila's arm, urging her to walk away, and she did. She followed her other friend out of the Great Hall looking back many times to where Remus now held his head back in his hands. Something was wrong, and even though he had no obligation to tell her, she still very much wished to know what.

  "Way to blow it, Moony," James remarked.

  "Oh will you just shut the fuck up, James?"

  "I think I'm going to miss you," Daphne said softly, "You too, Mila." Her blonde head of hair shifted beside Ida as the two girls looked at her expectantly.

  "What do you mean?" Ida giggled, all too extremely happy to be around the girl she was quite possibly in love with. Mila, her head still cloudy with worry and confusion from the day shifted her focus back to the two.

  Daphne moves her lips to scrunch at the side of her cheek, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. "When summer break happens. You know how I told you about my family's trip to their lodge every summer? I never see anyone, so I'll just miss you both," she shrugged as she twiddled with he flowery weeds in the grass.

  Mila tried her best to hold in a stifle as Ida's cheeks grew a soft magenta. "Well, well we'll miss you too, besides, summer isn't for another month."

  Daphne shook her head and smiled in contempt, "A month isn't a long time, Ida," She simmered in a quick second of silence, it was always clear to see when the cogs in Daphne's brain would turn. She released the squint of her eyes as she snapped her head back to Ida, "Actually, I was going to take Amy this year with us, but I took her last year. If you asked your parents you could come with me, Ida."

  Thankful for the small gust of wind that knocked Ida's hair into her face, her mouth had gone dry and her face two shades of a darker pink. "Yes!—sure that'd be really nice," she exclaimed almost immediately. With her legs folded into her torso, Mila pressed her face into her knee, looking away from the scene, which she felt she was interrupting, even if her presence was forgotten during this small exchange.

  Instead, with her back leaned up against her favorite tree, she looked out into where the black lake turned into the forbidden forest, where the sun set in between the two. This, and Daphne's goodbye of, "I'm going to head back before I get into trouble with you two for curfew," told Mila that she too should pack it up and go inside.

  But her eyes were still glued to where the last quarter of the sun could still be shown, and her eerily away she was of the grass tickling her palms and thighs, and how she hated the feeling of loose strands getting stuck to the chapstick on her lips. "I just don't understand what's going on with him," she whispered under her breath.

  "Who?" Ida asked, and Mila cringed at how her friend picked up on the mumble.

  Mila sighed frustratingly, "Remus," she answered. "He was so different this morning before I ate breakfast with him."

  Ida's eyebrows scrunched in question, "I thought you only saw him at breakfast?" Mila's eyes shut closed, shit.

  "No, I saw him before that..." Mila bit her lip, letting her teeth slide against it before it popped back into place, "If I tell you something, you've got to promise that we're only going to speak of this once." Ida expressed a small laugh through her nose in curiosity. "Yesterday I wasn't able to sleep in our dorm because Serenity was trying something in my bed—"

 "Ew," Ida said before staggering, "Wait you didn't sleep in the dorm either?"

 "Either?"

  Ida smiled mischievously to herself, "You go first, mine doesn't seem as important as whatever you're worrying on about."

  Mila paused, trying to remember what she was saying before she got intrigued on Ida's drop of information. "I... okay so, it doesn't matter whatever you're going to start thinking about, but I ended up crashing in Remus' dorm. I mean he was really nice yesterday—"

"I thought you never left the dorm at all last night?"

  Mila rolled her eyes, "Well someone left me alone to be bored," she lulled referring to Ida. "But he was really, I don't know. When I woke up this morning to leave he seemed fine, but once I saw him during breakfast he seemed really off. It's happened before too, some days he just seems really out of it."

  The wind finally calmed down, Ida taking it upon herself to move both Mila's and her hair out of their faces while she shifted through the multiple questions she had. "I don't know what to tell you," she voiced, "You care about him right? I think you two know each other enough that he can tell you if something's wrong. If you ever asked me about something M' I'd always tell you."

  She simply nodded in return, she didn't want to tell Ida how she didn't want to push him into saying something he didn't want to, or how her relationship with Remus was different than her relationship with her. So instead, the two girls got up as the last sliver of the sun went down and disappeared behind them while they stalked up to the castle with other groups of students as they all shoved their way back into their dorms.

  Mila stared at her shoes the whole walk up, her attentions only flitted up when her name was called just before she got to the Fat Lady's painting. A few meters away was all four of the marauders, in their arms was what seemed to be a large blanket, the end of it dragged on the floor as Remus separated from the other three, James pushing Remus forward in encouragement.

  It was almost like a silent rule was set in place when the three boys continued walking on and when Ida disappeared behind the entrance to the Gryffindor common room. Mila carefully studied Remus' face and body, he seemed much more tempered compared to earlier, but something told her that he was a nervous wreck currently. "I..." he gulped, shoving his hands into his pockets, "I didn't mean to snap at you this morning. I know you probably, it might've made you think," his words dragged on in a weird jumble, incoherent to anyone else, but Mila understood what he was trying to say.

  "It's okay, Remus," she accepted, "I know something's wrong, but I've told you before you don't have to tell me anything if you don't want to."

  "I want to, it's just, it's hard, and—" For a split second Remus thought about telling her, right then and there, but the words got stuck in his throat, probably from the other doubts, insecurities, and thoughts that he could unpack at a later time, so for now he'd lie it off again, "This morning they all got me annoyed, I just was in a bad mood, it wasn't anything against you or to hide I swear."

  He watched as her eyes glazed across him skeptically. "It's not that is it?" she asked, and the silence from him always answered. She nodded and smiled softly, "Tell me when you're ready, or never," she chuckled. Remus looked at her, ignoring the butterflies that always appeared in his stomach when he'd see her for the past few weeks, knowing that he'd probably never be ready but will always be wanting to tell her. "Just like you don't need to tell me why you are all leaving to go out at this time."

  Even if the frown that appeared on his lips was from knowing the answer to that statement, the smile stayed in his eyes. "One day I'll let you know," he said, finally tearing himself away to part with her before it was too late.

  Mila was quickly spooked as she crawled the portrait when Ida was standing right there waiting for her. It was a silent walk to the stairs up the dorms before Ida broke it, "So you slept in his dorm?" she asked.

 Mila gave the girl a glance to the side as she nodded, "Separately," she made clear to note.

  "And you went to go spend all last night with him like how I did with Daphne?" And another nod was given in return from Mila. "You know I slept in her dorm too?" she giggled, "Not separately." The two knew that this was huge for Ida, even if sadly that two girls sharing a bed together to anyone else could only be seen as either innocent or completely disgusting.

  "And you signed up to spend a month with her over the summer," Mila beamed for her friend, nudging Ida at her side.

  Ida bit back her smile, "Yeah," she sighed, it was unclear to distinguish if she was excited or petrified by this idea. But Ida left no time for Mila to figure this out as the question that had been threatening to leave her throat for months finally did. "Mila," she started.

  "Hm?"

  "Do you like Remus?"

  "Well yes, he's a great friend to me," Mila said, subverting the implications.

  "No Mila, do you fancy him?"

  And for once, Mila was the one with nothing to say. And for the rest of the night, Mila was silent. It seemed that the day could not give her a break from daunting thoughts to ponder on. It wasn't that the question made her sick to her stomach, more of something that made her shiver. Something that made her question everything since she'd gotten back from winter break. Finally, right before bed, she let six words be uttered from her breath, only for Ida to hear, and only for herself to admit.

  "I think I do... fancy him," she said before pulling her comforter over herself and staring at the framed painting that Remus had given her on her nightstand which was illuminated in the dark. Luckily, or unluckily, she had a deep inkling that she wouldn't be seeing Remus in class the next few days, and she wasn't sure if that should've put her at ease.

a/n: so yeah, this chapter is a bit different from what it was originally supposed to be, but one thing stayed. Guess what that was??? Mila's admission ofc!!! The queen of denial might be relieving herself of her position finally!!! Remus is just falling farther and farther, someone salute the soldier because he is now done with his training and heading into war! Yippee!!

ALSO, sorry this took four months to put out, WHOOPS! hope you're still here!

thanks for reading <3

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