Black Hole

"Psycho Killer, Qu'est-ce que c'est"

February 1972

"Hello Remus."

The young boy looked up from the large, dusty book laid out in front of him. He sat in his usual spot in the library, the table closest to the window. He liked how it reminded him of his home and summer, reading near the light of the glowing sun.

"Hi Lyra-Jade." He smiled. She looked very, very pretty to him, even then, even when James and Peter assured him that girls were icky and weird. But she wasn't weird, or icky. She was Lyra-Jade. That day, she wore her long hair in two plaits like she so often did, with an emerald green ribbon banded around her head. She wore what she always wore; her green and silver tie neatly around her neck, her cream-colored silk blouse tucked perfectly into her pleated plaid skirt, and her chunky Mary Janes (which looked hilariously huge on the small girl).

She smiled back at him, her large eyes barely moving as she did so. She never smiled with her teeth, her plump lips always forming a thin upwards line whenever she did smile. Sirius had told him a few weeks before that Lyra-Jade used to have a large gap between her two front teeth (before her Mother took matter into her own hands, painfully growing then shaving down the girls' teeth a month before Hogwarts started), and was conditioned by their Mother to always smile with her mouth closed. Although they were fine now, normal, it was still a habit that she would most likely never break.

She rolled her eyes and sat down across from him. "For the one thousandth time, Reems, it's LJ." Her expression turned serious. "I have something to tell you."

Oh? He thought, his heart slightly racing. Him and Lyra-Jade had become friends that year quickly. He was friends with her before he was even good friends with her brother. They had met each other on the train, and on the first day of school, they got paired together in Charms. From there on, they were good friends, which Sirius found annoying and James and Peter found icky (But, as they had both separately confined in him, they each thought that Lyra-Jade was really pretty, you know, for an icky girl and all). At first, he found her quite rude and distant, and she found him odd and kind of stuck up. But, things changed, as they so often do. "You do?"

"Yes."

"'S it bad?"

"No. Well, it doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be shit." That year was the first time he ever heard a kid say an adult word, which were strictly forbidden in his house. But, she, even at eleven, cursed like an old Irishman. He had absolutely no clue where she picked it up.

"Well, what is it about?"

"You."

He gulped. "Me?"

"That's what I said, isn't it?"

"Well, what is it then? About me?"

She looked to her left, and then to her right, making sure that they were alone. She leaned in across the table, moving so that her palms were face down on each side of his book and her body was half on the table.

"I figured something out about you, a while ago. I had to think about it for a while before I told you I knew, so I could ponder it and everything. But, I've come to my conclusion now, and my conclusion is that I don't give a fuck what my family thinks and I want to help," She nodded to herself, "Yeah, I want to help you."

He just stared at her. The room suddenly grew too hot, his clothes too itchy, her face too close, his scars too red, too noticeable.

"Wh-what?" He whispered

"I know that you are a...have lycanthropy." She smiled then, again, and he wasn't sure why.

HIs heart raced. "Wh-what...no, I don't, I-"