Disclaimed.

Been a while I know. Please review to let me know if anyone is still reading this.

Every time Bella saw Harry Potter there was always somebody with him. She knew it was precautionary and just for the best, but she believed the entire scenario to be a little useless. If Black was smart enough to have found his way into the castle he wasn't thick enough to go after Potter in broad daylight or in a crowded corridor. She refused to comment on it to Remus or anyone else, fearing that she may come off as tactless or insensitive. Funny thing was, she never used to care.

Bella had barely seen Remus recently in any case. He was always claiming to be correcting homework or preparing for class. But they were clearly excuses just used to avoid her. She tried not to mind though it made her a little sad to lose her first proper friend in a long time.

She got along well with Madam Pomfrey and the other teacher's but she still felt very much like an outsider. Bella felt that she fit better with the solitary werewolf. Something she never would have expected.

Without Remus, Bella started spending more time in the infirmary and with her own thoughts. They (her thoughts) hadn't been plaguing her recently like they used to.

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Bella wiped her hands on her apron as she finished her final examination of Fred Weasley's head.

Bella had asked to treat Fred without an audience of George, so she'd told him rather sternly to leave. George had other plans, he sat on the other side of the curtain offering his twin advice should Bella prove to be a heinous murderer. When she'd pulled the curtain aside he instantly struck an absurd pose with his arms in the air and claimed out of the corner of his mouth to be an innocent statue. Bella, to end the already escalating and ridiculous situation, told him he could stay. The two of them told her gleefully that they'd need a note for Professor Snape, then attempted to convince her that Snape's favorite pet name was Snappy. She did not address the note to Prof Snappy, much to the twin's dismay.

"Much better. Now, I don't suppose you'll tell me what happened to give yourself a third nostril?"

"Well…" Fred begins. He has a cheeky sort of grin on his face and he looked a little too eager to divulge the information.

"Never mind." Bella said, sensing a long and confusing response, which would only irritate her.

"Are you coming to the Quiditch match?" George asked as he got up to leave.

"Are the beaters any good?" Bella joked dryly.

She had recently figured she might as well try to be friendly with the students.

"They are bloody amazing," said Fred seriously.

"Like Gods divine," George continued in the same tone.

"Your mind will be blow by their perfection," finished Fred.

"I dunno. They sound boring," Bella said absentmindedly as she rolled her eyes at them

Both boys feigned pain and insult as they walked away. As she watched them go it occurred to her that neither had ever been alone. They shared a womb, the same face, the same interests and ideas. They probably did everything together. She asked the two if that were so.

Surprised they turned around. "Yeah," Fred said.

"Well nto evreyting," George amended with a little the flourish. "We go to the loo separately, and when it comes to women-" he began to say. She cut him off.

"I was just wondering what it was like to have a twin."

"It's pretty great. But I do have a small confession," Fred said mildly. "We occasionally go to the loo together. But only when intoxicated or to avoid certain persons."

"Go to Potions!"

She smiled to herself as they left the wing. They were bright and full of life as were their futures. She wasn't envious though. She was used to people being better off than her. It just made her more likely to desire spending her time with someone who was a little more weathered. Someone like Remus.

She set out to visit him during her lunch break, deciding that the absence of his company was no longer tolerable.

Bella opened the door to his office without knocking and found him sitting behind his desk. She closed the door behind her and examined any changes that had taken place in the last few weeks. The only difference was a lone hinkypunk who sat in a cage in the corner.

"Oh, I see I've been replaced," she said forlornly, regarding the creature.

"It's for the third years," he told her. "No one could replace you."

He put his quill down in the ink pot and leaned back in his chair. He was giving her his full attention. She sat down, glad to take advantage of it.

"Well, you've been avoiding me. What else is a girl to think?"

"I haven't. I've been busy. I don't have a tendency to socialize around my… change," he said quietly.

"Why not?"

He said nothing for a moment, as if considering his answer. "It's my mood and my health. They both go a little all over the place, I'm sorry to say."

"Is that it?" she asked, sensing there was more.

"I also tend to get a little melancholy," he continued. "I had friends to help me with it before, when I was young, and now they're gone."

"Gone?" Bella asked.

"Two are dead, and the other a traitor, who… well, I don't know what to think of him. Some days I wish he were dead. On some of those days I wish I could be the one to kill him. Others I just miss the friend who could always make me laugh and wish he would do it again," he stopped for a moment to examine his own fingers. "I wonder why he did it. Why he betrayed them, how he could hurt us all in this way. Not just Lily and James who he as good as murdered and Peter who he killed himself, but me personally. Why didn't he just kill me and let it be done. He killed everyone else I had in the world. It would have been kinder to just to cut my throat."

He stopped suddenly as he felt his throat clench. Bella leaned forward and put her had on his.

He cleared his throat. "But mostly I really want to know I could have missed it. What he was really like. His true intentions, and how far he was willing to go," he paused one last time. "I guess, every full moon, like clockwork, I think about it a little more. Such thoughts hardly put one in a cheerful mood."

She squeezed his hand.

"No one," Bella stopped uncertain what the phrasing etiquette was for the question that followed. "Supports you during your change?"

"I haven't really got anyone."

"You've got me," she said. Then Bella considered that this may be a presumptuous thing to say after such a short acquaintance and also, that she didn't care.

"Do I?" Remus asked, raising an eyebrow. He felt pleasantly surprised to hear her say that.

"I guess so."

"Thank you," he said. "That means a lot."

The two sat in the office, silently for quite some time, shirking their responsibilities. Just to hold each others hand and marvel at the fact, that despite everything, they weren't alone.