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Chapter 4: Do you know?

“Remus?” Sirius asked, waving his hand in front of his friend’s face. It was Friday night and Remus had been acting odd all week, worrying his friends.
“Er I’m here!” Remus exclaimed, snapping out of his reverie, “Just thinking,”
“Thinking,” Sirius repeated bluntly, “Remus, you’ve been acting like this all week, what happened?” Remus contemplated telling his friend what he had heard on Monday, but decided to feign deafness and continued to stare at his blank sheet of parchment.
“Moony!” Sirius snapped. Remus looked at him with an apologetic expression.
“Sorry, I drifted off,” he muttered. Sirius looked at him unbelievingly.
“No you didn’t. you avoided my question,” he said angrily. James looked over at the two of them. Sirius had a short fuse and was known for letting his temper get out of hand and James was worried his rash nature would makes Remus recede even more into his shell, “Tell me what’s wrong.” Remus appeared to be about to make a snappy comeback when he was saved by Lina appearing through the portrait hole.
“Hello, dearies!” She said cheerily, placing both hands on their table and smiling at them, “How are we tonight?” Sirius scowled at her and turned to the window and glared out there too, “Ah, some one has lit Sirius’s fuse,” Lina said gravely, “I fear one of us may die tonight,” James and Peter laughed at her comment while Remus merely smiled and drifted out again and Sirius continued to try and focus his rage out the window.
“So Lina, what are you doing here?” James asked her. Lina grinned.
“Well my room is boring, the Ravenclaws kicked me out, the Hufflepuffs kept trying to get me to drink some weird potion, and Severus wasn’t in the Slytherin common room, so basically you guys were all that’s left.” She shrugged nonchalantly at the boy who was like her brother. James chuckled at her response and stood up, grabbed her arm, and led her to the opposite corner of the room.
“Are you taking me over here to discuss the Remus Sirius thing?” she asked. James looked taken aback. He himself had only just had that thought verified earlier that week. How long had this been going on? “Don’t worry, it was a guess. Plus on that drawing Sirius drew of my he had ‘RL+SB’ in a heart. I’m not as dumb as I look.” James smiled nervously at her, wondering if her words were true.
“Well what should we do? I mean, we know how Sirius feels, but Remus will only open up to you. But I want Sirius to be the one to tell him his feelings,” James went off on this tangent for a few more seconds before Lina put her left index finger to his mouth.
“He already knows,” she said bluntly. James looked as if he was going to ask follow up questions but Lina continued, “I think he overheard you and Sirius talking like I did. I was just behind Remus. You two were lucky we were the last ones out of the classroom. Sirius would be having a really hard time if more people found out.” James’s eyes widened in surprise. He knew they should have kept their voices down.
“Well what is Remus thinking?” James asked her.
“Why would I know? I’m good at reading body language, but not that good!” Lina said exasperated, “Let me talk to him about it.” She strolled over to Remus and tapped his shoulder. He looked up at his friend and smiled.
“What can I do for you, Lina?” he asked in a tired voice. Lina simply looked at him seriously.
“I need to talk to you, Remus,” his face fell and Sirius’s head whipped around to face them. He glowered menacingly at Lina who gave him a cheeky smile that, luckily, escaped Remus’s notice. He was more caught up with the fact that she didn’t address him as ‘Remmy.’
“Ok,” he stood up and followed Lina to the place where she and James had just been talking. She looked in his eyes for something before she sighed.
“Remus, I know you know about Sirius and mine feelings for you,” she began, hesitating at the look she received from Remus, “And I think that you should talk to me about how you are feeling about this. We’re all worried about how you’ve been acting and I would have confronted you about this sooner, but I got busy.” she finished and looked at Remus nervously. He couldn’t help but smile. Lina NEVER got nervous, not for anything or anyone.
“What do you want me to say, Lina? That I’m in love with you? Sirius?” He asked in a slightly irritated voice but regretted his words when he saw the hurt look on her face.
“No, Remus. I want you to really open up to me and actually be my friend for once,” she spat. He looked taken aback by her words. A glare darkened his face, but it wasn’t directed at her. He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the dormitory stairs.
“I’m not going to talk about it out here,” he said in response to her confused expression.
Sirius witnessed this and swore under his breath and made a move like he was going to stand up. James put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and pushed him down.
“I will kill that cow!” Sirius declared, his voice loud, even for him. James just shrugged.
“Not now, mate, not now. She’s on your side this time,” he said in response. Sirius had a look of confusion on his face. Lina was on his side? How strange.
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Remus turned a chair to face his bed and sat down in it, gesturing for her to sit on his bed.
“So you really want to know how I’m feeling about this?” Lina nodded, “All right. I’m feeling confused that two of my closest friends like me as more than a friend. I feel annoyed that everyone is expecting me to react to this so soon. I feel betrayed because no one told me. And I feel confused once again because I don’t know which of you I like! Or if I even like either of you!” he breathed heavily as he had just said all that quickly in one breath. Lina’s expression was unreadable, which worried the werewolf. She sighed and reached for his hand. Once she had it in her grasp she turned it over and stroked his palm with her fingertips for a moment.
“I think that’s all very relevant. I apologize if that is how we came off, as if we wanted you to react soon, we don’t. We want you to be comfortable, and you seemed anything but. I’m sorry for not telling you my feelings, but…” she paused looking away from Remus, “I was scared of how you’d react.” she smiled ruefully.
“You were scared of… me?” Remus asked in shock. Lina nodded.
“And I know how confusing this must be for you. I’m sorry, again.” She stood up and kissed his forehead before turning to leave. He stood to walk with her but realized that she was going to leave and he didn’t want to deal with his friends. The werewolf laid down on his bed and quickly fell into sleep.
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Lina returned to her room below her fathers as fast as she could. What she had seen in Remus’s future while secretly reading his palm was both elating and distressing. She felt confused by the path he was on.
“This will end badly for someone,” she muttered to herself and she lay in her bed, waiting for sleep.