Perfectly, Imperfect

Jazmin Thorne came from a prestigious pureblood family, of which each member had attended Hogwarts, all of them residing in Ravenclaw. So of course, when she was placed in Gryffindor upon her admittance to the school of Witchcraft and Wizardry, it was just another thing that her siblings held against her, and just another disappointing quality about her in the eyes of her parents.

At first it hadn't been too much of an issue, what with her excellent grades in the first few years of her schooling. But as time went on, the stresses of being a teenager, having a social life and falling hopelessly in love with your best friend all added up and she found herself struggling with the content being thrown at them by nearly every professor.

Her last examination results had been delivered to her house during the Christmas holidays meaning that her parents would see them before she did. She usually wasn't worried about this, but she had a feeling that she hadn't performed her best in the last exams she had taken because of two things, 1. The workload and amount required to be studied for the exam had been ridiculous and plenty of students were struggling and 2. Because they were all struggling they decided to have a study group a few times a week, and she spent most of that time staring dreamily at Remus Lupin from the corner of the common room when no one was looking.

So naturally, she was anxious about her results. But what she hadn't expected was for her family to be so disgusted by her performance. She had received two E's and the rest were A's.

She was disappointed in herself because she always received O's, and rarely any E's, but this was something else. She knew that she could buckle up and study harder and that had been her plan, but her family hadn't had the same idea. She had been ostracised for the rest of her holiday, leaving her to spend most of her time holed up in her room… and it was Christmas for God's sake, but no, having poor grades meant that you weren't allowed to join in the usual festivities. Their words were hard and they put her down not only because of her intelligence but her appearance too. They liked to call her Jaz, the spaz.

Jazmin didn't look like her siblings, she knew that but she never thought of herself as ugly until she had come down for Christmas dinner, and her mother turned up her nose at what she was wearing, insisting that she went to change since they were having guests over and that she couldn't appear dressed in such unsuitable clothing. This just put her self-esteem down further, but it had only gotten worse when her eldest sister made fun of her for being so short. Though she hadn't been graced with the tall stature of her blood relatives, she didn't have an issue with being short or the fact that she seemed to have a more round body type than her slim sisters. Not to mention that the thick pair of frames she had perched upon her nose were ugly in their eyes. She had grown to love her glasses, knowing it was going to be a part of her, she embraced it, but with their degrading comments it killed all the self-confidence she had taken so long to build. But there was nothing she could do but take the comments, each like a stinging hex being thrown at her, but her Gryffindor courage kept her going… for a little while at least, but by the end the torturous two week she was left with the urge to go manic.

She did her best to ignore it, but when she returned to Hogwarts, her older sister Erin took it upon herself to continue the disaster that her holiday had been, leaving her only safe space being the Gryffindor common room where her Ravenclaw sister wasn't able to get to her.

"Hey Jaz! You alright?" Lily asked, plopping down on the couch next to Jazmin who had a large book in her lap, reading intently with her glasses slowly slipping down the bridge of her nose. Lily smiled at her friend, finding that it was one of Jazmin's more adorable traits.

"Oh, hullo, Lily," Jazmin replied with a smile as she looked up, pushing her glasses back up. "Yeah, I'm fine, why do you ask?"

"You missed dinner is all," Lily said, brushing her red hair out of her face.

"Oh," Jazmin said, eyes glancing down at the time on her watch, not even realising how fast time had flown by. "I just wanted to get some more studying in. It's alright, I'm not even hungry," Jazmin said but her stomach growled at that exact moment giving away her lie.

"Are you sure?" Lily grinned, raising her brows.

"Maybe a little, but I'll be fine. I might sneak something from the kitchen's later," Jaz said, but then the thought of eating something at a late hour and perhaps gaining a few pounds put her off, the thought triggering the memory of her mother subtly telling her that she needed to lose some weight otherwise no suitable partner would find her attractive, or admirable at all. She cringed at the thought but then tried to push it to the back of her mind, not wanting to bring it up with Lily.

"So how were your holidays?" Lily asked.

"They were alright, and you?" Jazmin decided it was better to lie about her home life. She had discussed it with Lily years ago, but she felt like she was whining or complaining every time she brought it up and decided to just keep it to herself. She figured if she did, maybe it would go away, maybe it wouldn't seem as real.

"Utter shite," Lily groaned, just about to explain all of the ways Petunia, her older sister had found to annoy her throughout the break when suddenly a voice spoke from behind her, scaring her.

"It's because you were away from me, Lily flower," James Potter sang from above the two, causing the girls to shriek, not having expected him to pop out of nowhere.

"Oh, sod off, Potter!" Lily yelled, throwing a pillow from the couch directly at his face, causing his glasses to become skewed in his attempt to dodge the hit. "Bloody prat," Lily mumbled to herself.

Of course with James came along tumbling the rest of the merry crew, but as per usual, Jazmin only had eyes for Remus who gave her a warm smile before sitting down in a deep red armchair across from her and Lily.

"Hey Jazmin," Remus greeted politely, ignoring the conversation that Lily, James and Sirius were having in the background, that was more of a yelling contest, with Peter watching silently on the sidelines. "Didn't see you at dinner."

"Yeah," Jazmin sighed internally her heart warming at the thought of Remus noticing she was gone. But then she reminded herself that they were friends, and that was a normal thing that friends noticed. "I just wanted to get in a bit of reading for potions, this morning's class was a bit- er- confusing for me," She admitted shyly, readjusting her glasses one more time, finding the movement distracting from Remus's piercing green eyes on her.

"Oh, if you ever need help let me know. You can borrow my notes any time you want. The rest of them do, so you may as well use them if they help," Remus smiled.

"Thanks, Remus."

She wasn't sure what else to say and was saved when Lily finished yelling at James as she marched over back to Jazmin, grabbing the book out of her lap and then her wrist, pulling her towards the stairs.

"Uh, Lily, where are we going?" Jazmin asked.

"To our dorm, I can't stand to be in his presence any longer."

"But- but I was studying!" She protested.

"You can study upstairs," Lily countered, and Jazmin turned throwing a sad look at Remus, waving goodbye. He seemed to be enjoying the sight of Lily dragging her away and Jazmin turned to Lily with annoyed eyes.

"But I was comfortable there," Jaz complained.

"Oh come on, the only reason you wanted to stay down there was because Remus entered the room. Let's be real, I'm doing you a favour, at least this way you'll actually get some work done," Lily scoffed and Jaz let out an audible groan as they entered their room, dumping her stuff by her bed.

"You know me too well." Jaz pouted, belly flopping on her bed, her glasses bouncing off her face and off to the side somewhere but she didn't care. She was hungry and exhausted, and as soon as her head hit her pillow she was out like a light.

Weeks went on by and Jazmin was still struggling ridiculously with the homework assigned. There was too much of it, and the concepts were hard to grasp, leaving her studying day and night to get her head around it.

Jazmin had decided to take to the library to study at night, finding it was quieter than the bustling common room. She yawned, covering her mouth and then sighed when she glanced over at the clock realising how late it was getting. But her eyes weren't able to stay awake and she was about to drop off to sleep right then and there at the corner table when the sound of a chair pulling up woke her up. She looked up to see that it was her sister Erin and she refrained from groaning aloud.

"Still on that potions homework, sister?" Erin asked in a gentle tone, surprising her for once in her life. Usually Erin was sarcastic and cold and this was like seeing a different side of her.

"Uh, yeah," Jazmin said lamely. "I haven't been able to get my head around it."

"Don't fret. Slughorn always throws the hard stuff at you in the beginning of sixth year. It's all in preparation for your N.E. next year," Erin said. "Even I struggled, I mean, not as much as you, but it took me a while to find my bearings."

"So it's not just me? I'm not stupid?" Jazmin asked, suddenly finding some relief.

"No, you are stupid," Erin laughed at Jazmin's pout. "But it'll come to you eventually. It's hard work, but you seem determined to show our parents otherwise." Erin then pulled out a large heaping of parchment from her bag and dumped it on the table in front of Jazmin.

"What's that?"

"It's all my notes for potions from sixth year, plus a bit extra," Erin said. "You can have it."

"Why are you being so nice to me?" Jazmin asked. "You were nothing but foul to me during the holidays, you and everyone else."

"When we got back to Hogwarts I realised that the only reason I treated you like that was because I had gone through the same thing, but when I was suddenly accepted in their eyes I just joined them, I became the monster that I loathed," Erin said, her guilt eyes glancing away from her younger sister. "I felt guilty. I shouldn't have put you down, I should have helped you. We all know that you aren't as gifted intellectually as the rest of us, you actually have to work hard… but you have other qualities that are great. You're brave, loyal and kind. You're loyal to our family even when we treat you like crap, and I'm sorry that I was a part of that."

"Wow," Jazmin breathed out. "I honestly don't know what to say other than thank you. It means a lot."

"I'm glad. Also, before I forget, I have a little something extra." Erin dug her hand into her pockets, pulling out a small vial that contained a sea green coloured liquid, sliding it over to Jazmin.

"What is this?"

"It's a wide-eye potion. It's commonly used as an anti-dote for draught of living death, but essentially all the potion does is keep the user awake, preventing them from falling asleep. It'll help you get in that study time," Erin said.

"But, isn't that illegal to use at school? Or at least dangerous?"

"The side effects aren't that bad," Erin shrugged her shoulders, standing up from her seat. "Besides, how did you think that I got an edge over our sisters in O. ? There's a reason I was the only one of them to receive straight O's."

"Thanks," Jazmin said, taking the vial and stashing it in her pocket. She knew that she wanted to do this on her own and she wouldn't use the potion. But she figured it couldn't hurt to keep it as a last resort.

"Catch you later," Erin waved goodbye and was off.

"See you," Jazmin whispered to herself.

Jazmin tapped her foot nervously at breakfast that morning as she waited for an owl that would grace her with the result of her last potions exam, one that weighted nearly forty percent of her final grade for the year.

"I'm sure you'll do fine," Lily reassured her. All of them had received their results in class the previous day, but Jazmin had been sick and spent the last two nights in the care of Madame Pomfrey. What her friends didn't know was that she had been there because she had taken too much of the wide-eye potion that her sister had provided her, leaving her sick and feeling like a zombie. It was only when James had noticed it one late night that he had urged her to go to Madame Pomfrey, promising to keep this indiscretion a secret from their friends. The very fact that she had taken it made her feel guilty, but she was slowly getting over it.

"I hope so," Marlene threw in, taking in a bite of her toast. "She's been studying non-stop, if anyone deserves that O, it's you," Her friend said.

An owl came swooping by, and dropping the envelope directly into her lap. She picked up the envelope and just stared at it. The eyes of her friends were watching her anxiously as they waited for her to open it, but she did nothing.

"Jaz, you gonna open that?" Sirius asked from across the table, where he was sitting next to Marlene.

When Jazmin didn't reply, James spoke up next. "Hey, Jaz, you okay?"

"Yes," Jazmin finally replied looking up at them. "I'm going to open it now."

With care, her fingers tore open the top of the envelope, slowly pulling out the small card that had her results written on it, along with some feedback. They had to write an essay about the effects of powdered Bicorn horn in brewing a batch of polyjuice potion correctly. Evidently, her efforts to study hard for it had not been enough. In bold script, an A was written on the card, along with a comment that she hadn't been specific enough in why the Bicorn horn had to be powdered and not chopped or diced or anything of the sort. She stared blankly at the card, her heart racing in her chest. What was she supposed to do now? Her parents wouldn't be happy.

"So what did you get?" A voice spoke up, and then another telling them to shush. But it didn't matter because she couldn't hear them, the loud pounding of her blood through her veins blocked out all other noise. She stood up from her seat, and bolted out of the great hall, unsure of where she would be going, only knowing that she needed somewhere private to freak out.

She heard her friends yell her name, and then footsteps chasing after her. It was only when she got a few minutes away she heard someone yell her name again.

"Jazmin, wait up!" Remus called out, reaching his arm out to grab her wrist, pulling her to a stop. They were now in an empty part of the Castle, and far away from prying eyes.

Tears were trickling down her face, and she didn't want Remus to look at her. She used the hand that wasn't currently in his firm grip to wipe the tears from her cheeks but found it hard to do so with her glasses on.

"Jazmin," Remus said in a soft voice after catching his breath. "What's wrong?"

"I-I'm just so tired, Remus. I try so hard, but nothing ever works," Jazmin cried.

Remus turned her around so that she was facing him, his hands on her shoulders. His heart broke at the sight of her tears, her cheeks flushed from the run, and her current emotional state.

"I'm so fucking dumb," She took her glasses off and put them in her pocket, rubbing at her eyes. "I can't even understand this work, I study so much but nothing ever sticks. I'm so pathetic, do you know I even took a wide-eye potion to stay awake to study longer, and I-I took so much that I ended up in the hospital wing."

Remus felt his heart clench at the confession. He had wondered why she had been admitted to the hospital wing but all James had told him was that she had come down with a bad case of the flu, and no one was allowed to visit in case they became sick as well.

"Jaz, you are not dumb." Remus wiped way her tears with his thumb, his touch gentle on her soft cheek. "Exams are tough, they always are, but they are not a measurement of your self-worth," Remus reassured her. "You are brave, loyal, creative, beautiful and so many other things. You're the type of person to always offer to help your friends even if you're struggling yourself. You always think of others, and you have the kindest heart. A test doesn't measure all these things. It just measures your ability to understand a concept that probably won't even be relevant once we leave Hogwarts," Remus said, pulling her into a tight hug, rubbing soothing circles on her back as she cried into his chest.

Soon her crying had stopped, and her breathing was slowly returning to normal, and though Remus had said all of these lovely things, she still felt like she was pathetic. She pulled back from his embrace and tried to look down at her feet to avoid his warm gaze but he wasn't having any of it. His hand came to cup her cheek and tilt her face up til she was looking at him gazing into his soft eyes.

"Whatever mark you got, you're worth more than it."

"My family doesn't see it that way."

"Then they can go cry a river, because it doesn't matter. You're worth more than a mark on a piece of paper," Remus said. "Don't you forget it."

"I- Thank you, Remus. You're too kind."

"I'm only speaking the truth, Jaz. You're honestly amazing and you shouldn't let this one grade get you down. I'll help you study for the next one that's coming up, you can easily get your mark back up."

"As lovely as that sounds, I think I might ask Lily," Jaz said, warmth rising to her cheeks.

"Oh, that's fine," Remus began but she cut him off.

"N-Not because I don't like being around you, in fact, it's actually the opposite," Jazmin began to ramble, fiddling with her fingers nervously. "It's just that I can't focus all that much when you're around, you're too distracting."

"Sorry," Remus said, rubbing the back of his neck, feeling terrible for being just as much as a distraction as the rest of the marauders could be.

"No, don't apologise! It's not in a bad way, It's just- I fancy you," Jaz tried to reassure him but she only ended up blurting out her feelings for him, and when she realised she became as still as a statue.

"W-What?" Remus gaped. "I- did you just?"

"I am so sorry," Jazmin said, face palming. "I didn't mean to just throw that on you. I told you I'm dumb." She hid her face in her hands, feeling like an absolute dolt, but when Remus started laughing she felt a bit lighter. She peeked up at him between her fingers, but soon he removed her hands, holding them firmly in his own.

"It's fine, Jaz. I was just surprised is all… I wasn't sure… I didn't think that the girl I had fancied since fourth grade would ever return my feelings is all," Remus admitted, a pink rising to his own cheeks.

"You fancy me?" She asked disbelievingly.

"Yeah. I mean what's not to like," Remus said with a grin, feeling a bit more confident when he saw her blush. "Despite what you think, you are intelligent, you're funny and gorgeous and anyone would be lucky enough to call themselves yours."

She fumbled with her glasses putting them back on her face so she could see him properly. "Are you sure you have the right girl?"

"If I wasn't sure I wouldn't be here right now, would I?" Remus asked, taking a step closer towards her. She stared up at him with doe eyes, heart pounding away in her chest in anticipation as he leaned forward, and his lips inches from hers. "Can I kiss you?" His voice was soft and sincere and it was a wonder she didn't swoon right then and there. She took a second to gather herself before nodding slowly, whispering a reply.

"Yes."

Remus grinned and his eyes sparkled with wonder and then she was lost in a world of bliss. He leaned down, capturing her lips in a searing kiss, surprising her at the intensity of his passion. Her hands glided across and up his chest til they reached to connect around his neck, dragging him further down to her. His hands gripped her hips tighter in response, his mouth magically moving over hers in a needy kiss. Every movement, every touch, every brush of their lips against each other made her want him more, want him closer and closer. She had imagined kissing Remus too many times to count, but this was so much better than her dreams. This was electric and fiery and Jaz was sure if they continued at this pace that she would melt from the heat brewing between them. Remus pulled away first, and Jaz was missing his touch the second his lips left hers and it was evident in the way she moved after him, but Remus rested his forehead against hers instead, a breathy laugh escaping his lips. He held her close to his chest, his arms wound tightly around her, her fingers resting at the base of his neck, playing with some of his hair.

"Do you… do you want to go out with me sometime?" Remus asked shyly, heat rising to his cheeks in embarrassment. He had just snogged the living daylights out of Jaz but still he was nervous as he asked her out.

"I would love to," Jazmin replied, a genuine smile gracing her pink lips that were swollen from their kissing.

"It's a date," Remus said, his eyes twinkling with adoration as he looked at her, the intensity making her heart thump in her chest, and her insides twist with pleasure.

"Do you want to study later tonight? We can work on our homework together," Remus asked, hoping she'd say yes.

"I think I better study with Lily tonight," Jazmin said, biting her lip. "Now that I know what it's like to kiss you, I don't think I'll get any work done. My self-control is very low right now." And it was true, all she wanted to do was drag his face down to hers once more and kiss him until she couldn't breathe.

Remus beamed, and nudged his nose against hers, feeling her warm breath against his skin. "We can work on that," Remus said. "Practice makes perfect, right?" He didn't let her answer, instead he leaned down to kiss her one more time.

A / N – I am so glad you guys are enjoying the little one-shots. I seem to have endless ideas and it's becoming a bit of a problem considering I'm meant to be studying.

Also a massive shoutout to rebelforcauses, please go check out their acc they have some amazing Harry Potter works (one-shots and fics alike) mainly Remus x OC. It's so much fluff that it'll give you a toothache.

Til next time.

Heroherondale. x

DISCLAIMER: I do not own the characters/storyline used from the Harry Potter universe, they all belong to J.K. Rowling and I only own my OC and creative genius.