The morning dew had frozen halfway to the petals, glistening faintly in the brittle sunlight. The sky stretched wide and pale, washed clean after a long night of frost. Beneath the narrow stone bridge, the Black Lake reflected that fragile clarity, a perfect mirror for anyone willing to peer deep enough to lose themselves. The surface looked deceptively calm, but like most things in Hogwarts, stillness often meant secrets waiting to stir.
Remus sat on the edge of the bridge, his coat buttoned up high against the chill, a small leather-bound diary balanced on his knee. He was supposed to be writing, or at least pretending to, but his mind kept wandering. The full moon was a week away, and though it happened every month, he still felt the same creeping unease in his chest, like the quiet before a storm that refused to end. His hands trembled slightly as he turned the page. Every entry he wrote before a full moon felt like a confession to himself, a fragile reassurance that he was still human, still him, even if only for a little longer.
He read over his old affirmations, the ink slightly smudged from the previous month's rain. He wasn't sure he believed that anymore, but he kept reading anyway, desperate for the illusion of control.
A scuff of boots broke his trance. He looked up, squinting against the sunlight, and spotted a pair of muddy boots coming toward him. The sight clicked in his memory, those were the same boots that had stomped across the Great Hall floor a few days ago, the same boots that belonged to the girl who had spit on his marmalade for reasons still unclear to him. Ren.
She was walking alongside Lily Evans, the two of them deep in conversation. That alone was enough to catch his attention. Lily was known for her kindness, her calm composure, and her absolute intolerance for nonsense, so seeing her chatting with Ren of all people felt unreal.
Remus found himself smiling slightly. He hadn't realized Ren could even talk beyond muttering half words and make more than one expression. It was strangely endearing, in the way wild things can sometimes be, the rare glimpse of liveliness where one expects none.
The two girls leaned against the stone rail of the bridge, their voices fading into indistinct laughter. Lily's auburn hair glowed faintly in the light before she eventually waved goodbye and headed back toward the castle. Ren stayed behind, her posture stiff as always, eyes fixed on the lake below. She hadn't noticed him — or maybe she had, and simply didn't care.
Remus hesitated before returning to his diary. His quill hovered above the page as he scribbled down a single line: "Things may not be the same as they appear to be."
He was startled when he looked up again and caught her watching him. Their eyes met briefly, and he offered a small, polite smile, the kind he'd practiced for years to hide awkwardness. She gave no reaction at all, just turned back to the lake as if the water had said something far more interesting.
"I heard you hit Peter," he said finally, voice light and conversational. Anything to break the uncomfortable silence stretching between them.
Ren turned her head so fast he half expected it to spin all the way around. "Yes, I did. So what?" she shot back, her tone sharp as broken glass.
Remus blinked, not at the aggression, he'd seen worse from Sirius on a bad day but at the fact she had owned up to it so bluntly. Most people at least tried to deny things before biting back. She didn't even bother. At this point he was just making shit up to glorify her toxic traits.
"Well," he began slowly, unsure if he was walking into verbal quicksand, "that's... honest."
"He kept bumping into me," she interrupted before he could add anything else, her voice tight with irritation. "He needed to learn his lesson."
There was something almost amusing about how serious she looked saying it, as if knocking Peter Pettigrew on his rear had been a matter of moral principle. Remus noticed, for the time again, the faint scar along her right cheek, not the faint kind earned from clumsy falls or Quidditch accidents, but deeper ones, deliberate. His eyes lingered on them a little too long, and for one ridiculous second, his mind leapt to the impossible thought: Was she one too? Another werewolf, another cursed creature hiding in plain sight? The idea was absurd.
He tore his gaze away before she could notice, clearing his throat. "I see," he said gently, because what else was there to say?
Ren shifted slightly, her expression softening just enough to reveal curiosity beneath the scowl. "How did you get those scars?" she asked suddenly.
Remus froze for half a heartbeat. People rarely asked that so directly. Usually they whispered about it behind his back, inventing stories far more creative than the truth. But she just asked, plain and simple. No sympathy, no hesitation.
He smiled, small and careful, like someone offering a truce. "I'll tell you," he said, "if you tell me how you got yours."
Her lips twitched upward, just slightly, showing the faintest smirk, gone before it could fully form. "Fair enough," she said, eyes glinting in amusement.
The silence that followed wasn't uncomfortable anymore. The lake rippled faintly beneath them, catching the sunlight in shards of silver. A soft breeze carried the scent of snow and parchment, and for a strange, fleeting moment, the world felt still.
Remus went back to pretending to write in his diary, though his thoughts were far from the page. Ren leaned against the railing, tracing a finger absentmindedly along the frosted stone.