....FEBRUARY THE FOURTEENTH. Depending on your current love life status, some might count it as one of the best days of the year and others might count it as among the worst. Regulus Black and Jackie Harmon were definitely members of the latter group.

Jackie hated Valentines Day because she said that it was just a day created by corporations so boys could overcompensate and make up for being an arse to their girlfriend all year.

Regulus didn't know why he hated Valentines Day but he tended to just agree with whatever idea Jackie had come up with.

Lily Evans on the other hand, was a hopeless romantic and was determined to make everyone around her aware of it. Like the day before Valentines for example when she could be seen chasing after Jackie Harmon outside the greenhouses in an attempt to convince her to help with decorating the Great Hall for the upcoming occasion.

"Jackie you're a prefect. You can't just decline your duties." Lily pleaded after cornering Jackie outside of her Herbology lesson.

"Yeah I'm a prefect, but that doesn't mean I'm willing to abandon all my values over it." Jackie argued back, trying to wrench her satchel out of Lily's iron grip so she could get to lunch.

"It's only helping me put up a few decorations for tomorrow! Don't be so contrary." Lily scolded, not willing to let her go until she agreed.

"Why exactly is it a necessity to make the Great Hall look like cupid vomited hearts and sparkles all over it? You only need look at the calendar to know what day it is." Jackie questioned, giving Lily her best skeptical look.

"How can you possibly be so pessimistic about Valentines Day? It's a celebration of all things good!" Lily contrasted, her eyes glossing over slightly at the thought of it.

Jackie looked at her dazed face in alarm and raised an eyebrow. "You're going barmy. Get Potter to help, I'm sure he'll be more than obliging."

Lily frowned at her in the way a mother might look when scolding a child. "I don't want to work with him. God Jackie, do you want me to go completely insane?"

"I think you already have." Jackie mumbled, staring at the raving redhead.

Lily gave her a disparaging look for that. "Do not make me boot you down to my second favorite Slytherin." She threatened.

"You wouldn't!" Jackie gasped, appalled.

"I would." Lily replied, resolutely.

"Fine." Jackie agreed finally and quite stubbornly. "But just so you're aware, this goes against everything I believe in."

"That makes the win so much more sweet." Lily told her, a proud grin on her face.

Before Jackie could even reply with something witty and sarcastic, Lily was gone, sauntering into the Great Hall now that she had found a suitable helper for tomorrow's festivities.

"I have got to learn how to say no." Jackie muttered to herself as she followed the redhead inside, with alot less pep in her step.

———————————

Upon the arrival of the anticipated day, the Great Hall did look truly spectacular. Jackie had a hard time dragging Lily away from the red and purple glitter but otherwise it didn't look as intensely lovey-dovey as other years. When Jackie entered the Hall that morning Lily shot her an excited thumbs up from her seat at the Gryffindor table. Merlin, that woman was easily amused.

Regulus slid onto the bench beside her, with the other girls sitting across from them at the table. Breakfast was soon interrupted by the arrival of the owls and of course, Valentines cards.

Jackie pushed her small stack of little red envelopes to the side, in favor of reading the Daily Prophet first. Splashed across the front page was today's newest headline:
'RISE OF THE DARK LORD? ATTACK ON MUGGLE VILLAGE IN DEVON.'

Jackie looked around to find the lack of shocked faces at today's front page, but everyone was too focused on what Valentines they had received to even really notice. In an odd way, she was glad of it. They deserved to act like teenagers for just a little while longer.

Elizabeth was currently shifting through a large stack of envelopes from her long list of admirers with an expression of boredom on her face. She definitely wasn't going to settle for some sappy bloke who sent her flimsy love declarations but was too scared to actually talk to her in person.

Benny had a slightly smaller stack of Valentines from her own list of female admirers. She was currently sorting them into two piles; one for the girls she had already snogged and one for the girls she now intended to snog as soon as possible.

Cordelia had one from each of the girls and a few anonymously addressed cards. The girls had all decided to chip in and send her a card each after the Delia's unfortunate run-in with Lucius Malfoy this year.

Regulus, as loyal as ever, had only one. It was from Jackie, of course and as much as she hated this stupid day, she was glad to see that she was the only girl who Regulus had encouraged enough to merit sending him a Valentine.

Jackie had four in total and opened each one methodically. The first was from Figgy surprisingly, who had written in her stunted script, encouraging Jackie to enjoy the day with the 'very handsome Mister Black.' Jackie let out a chuckle at the elf's words.

The next was a handmade sparkly greeting card from Lily and in beautiful cursive writing she had written:

'Dear Jackie,
A Valentine for my favorite misanthrope. Thank you for all your help yesterday, I owe you big time. Please try not to frown too much on the best day of the year.
Love, Lily.'

Jackie caught the girl's eye from across the room and laughed when the ginger threw a wink her way. The next envelope was one she definitely could have done without:

'Dearest Jackie,
Roses are red,
Violets are blue,
Please forgive me,
For insulting you.
- A very apologetic Sirius.'

It seemed it had only taken Sirius a full week to realize that his apology hadn't really been an apology at all. Jackie stared down at his sub-par poetry in distaste and then looked towards the Marauders end of the Gryffindor table. Sirius had an obscene amount of gifts and cards in front of him from his onslaught of fans, of course. When he caught Jackie looking at him, he sent her a remorseful pout to which she sent back a merciless frown.

The next was a simple white envelope, quiet and restrained and unlike all the other gaudy cards she had received. Upon tearing the seal she recognized Regulus signature scrawl immediately.

'Jackie,
"Which, ignoring the subject,
she corrected in red ink."
Regulus.'

It wasn't the quote exactly that made her eyebrows furrow. Because to someone else, this excerpt might have made no sense whatsoever. But it was only the last line of a quote that she had seen many times before. Jackie knew it very well, it was a piece of writing by Virginia Woolf and one that she faintly recognized. Her face morphed into a concentrated frown as she tried to recall where she had read it before and. upon remembering the full thing, her heart began to race:

"He thought her beautiful, believed her impeccably wise; dreamed of her, wrote poems to her, which, ignoring the subject, she corrected in red ink." - V.W.

She might be reading into it more than she should. She argued in her own head that he just knew how much she loved Woolf's writing and it really didn't need to be that deep. She convinced herself that he had just picked a piece of a random quote and wrote it there for her, not even knowing the rest of the excerpt. She tried to tell herself that it didn't hold such strong romantic connotations.

But she was a fool for trying to convince herself that Regulus Black ever did anything without intent.

Nevertheless, she leaned up to press a chaste kiss on his cheek and whispered a quiet 'thank you.' in his ear.

Jackie was pulled away from her sickeningly poetic thoughts by the frantic voice of Lily behind her.

"Jackie I need your help-" She began before being interrupted.

"Lily if there's a love heart out of the place, I'm not coming to fix it." Jackie dismissed, not thinking anything of Lily's panicked tone.

"No it's not that, it's Remus, please." Lily pleaded, pulling the girl from her seat.

Jackie raced behind Lily and out the double doors of the Great Hall hurriedly, wondering what could possibly cause such a state of panic.

"What's wrong with Remus?" Jackie asked in concern.

"You'll see." Was the only reply she got.

Lily led her along the corridor towards a hidden alcove just beyond the castle entrance. When Jackie rounded the corner she was met with the sight of Remus, magically tied and levitating just above the ground. Other than the fact that he was quite literally frozen on the spot, he seemed otherwise physically fine.

"Lily why have you kidnapped Remus?" Jackie asked, biting her lip in an attempt not to laugh.

Lily looked positively harried as she explained the events of the last ten minutes to the girl. "Well, Some stupid fourth year girl decided to send Remus chocolates enchanted with a love potion. The potion is supposed to make you confess your feelings to your true love and of course the silly bint thought she would be the object of his affections." She rambled quickly. "But Remus being Remus, he ate the chocolate without a second thought and then I had to get him out of there. He nearly gave me a concussion trying to get away." Lily confessed, her eyes wide and worried.

There was complete and utter silence for a few seconds before Jackie burst into a fit of hysterical laughter. Everytime she had calmed down a little bit, all it took was one look at Lily's frantic expression to set her off again.

"Are you quite finished?" Lily asked, standing with her hands on her hips after Jackie had finally stopped giggling.

"Yes. I think so atleast." Jackie hiccuped. "Why don't you let him down and we'll figure out what to do next?"

Lily cast the counter-charm and let Remus free of his magical chains.

Jackie was expecting a lot of things but she wasn't expecting Remus, lover of all things sensible, to charge at her like a madman in an attempt to escape back into the Great Hall.

It took the joint force of the two girls to wrestle the tall boy back into the alcove.

"Remus, will you sit down!" Jackie scolded, as he tried to unsteadily sneak past her.

Remus settled against the wall, with a dazed expression on his face that was beyond unsettling. "Have you seen how soft Sirius' hair looks? I love his hair so much." The boy muttered wistfully.

Jackie was so shocked in that moment that if Remus had tried to escape then, she probably wouldn't have even noticed. The person that Remus was thinking about while under a love potion was Sirius Black? And if he was how couldn't she have noticed?

But now that she had the solution, the pieces of the puzzle all came together. The way Remus was always stealing glances at the boy when he thought no one was looking. How Remus would look at Sirius first when he made a joke, in the hope that he could make him laugh. Why Remus had always seemed so stand-offish around her for no reason.

And she had never thought about these things too deeply but now that she really thought about it, she cursed herself for not seeing it sooner.

"Maybe you could convince him to get a haircut then, hm?" She answered simply, motioning for Lily to come help her with the boy.

"Oh no, I hope he never gets a haircut ever again." Remus told her, a bleary grin on his face.

"How about we go and see if Madam Pomfrey can help you out?" Lily asked Remus, both of them supporting the dazed boy.

"I need to see Sirius." The boy slurred quietly. "Tell him how b-beautiful his hair is." He mumbled, trying to stay alert through the cloudiness of the potion.

"Sirius is in the hospital wing." Jackie lied, in an effort to pacify him. "Let's go there and then you can tell him how beautiful his hair is." She reasoned.

The two girls managed to get Remus to the hospital wing without anyone hearing his determined declaration of just how badly he wanted to snog Sirius Black.

Madam Pomfrey was absolutely livid when she saw yet another student coming in after consuming love potions.

"This holiday is ridiculous. They should be expelled for making those awful potions." She muttered as she poured the counter-potion into Remus' mouth and waited for it to take effect.

Jackie could see the exact moment when Remus broke out of the potions effects and realized just what it had almost done to him. He sat down on the edge of the hospital bed and buried his hands in his hair in frustration. After a small moment of panic, his head shot up and he looked at Jackie with such intensity that it was unnerving.

"You can't tell anyone." He pleaded, looking at her in such a way that she could almost feel her heart hurt for him.

"Of course I won't." Jackie promised sincerely. "It's your secret to tell."

"Lily's the only one who knows." Remus told her, as Lily moved to sit down on the bed beside him. "Sirius can't find out how I feel. He's supposed to be my best friend, it would ruin everything."

Jackie moved to sit on his other side and gently wrap an arm around his broad shoulders. "You don't have to explain yourself to me Remus. But I'm always here if you need someone to talk to about it." She told him resolutely.

"Me too!" Lily piped up from where she had laid her head on his shoulder.

"I wish I'd had known how you felt for him. If I had I would have never-" She began before she was interrupted.

"Would never have what? From what I can see you've told Sirius to piss off more times than I can count and he still hasn't stopped chasing you. And it wouldn't have mattered even if you had done anything." Remus told her quietly. "Sirius won't ever reciprocate how I feel, I know that much. It's my burden to bear."

"He might reciprocate, if you told him." Lily mused quietly. "You can't rule yourself out completely."

"Yeah well Lils, as much as Sirius fancies any girl with a pulse point, I'm not a girl. So I think that does a fairly good job of successfully ruling me out." Remus lamented, looking up at her dejectedly.

"I'm sorry Remus." Jackie comforted, patting his back reassuringly. "Sirius doesn't know what he's missing."

"Yeah Rem, you're a catch." Lily told him brightly, in her optimistic way that instantly made a situation seem that little bit brighter.

"Thank you for not letting me embarrass myself in the Great Hall this morning." He told the two girls, allowing them to lean on him. He found it was comforting to finally have people that he could talk to. That he didn't have to bottle all this up anymore.

"Anytime." Lily mumbled.

The raucous sounds of the Marauders entering the hospital wing signaled that it was Jackie's cue to leave. After her revelation she was determined to stay clear of Sirius even more than before.

Before she could leave she leaned down to whisper in Remus' ear: "You are the bravest person I know. And I'm so proud of you." She told him genuinely. She didn't stay long enough to see how that sentence might affect him. But it affected him more than Jackie would ever realize.

And she meant it. She had only know Remus a short while, but even in that small amount of time, she had learned about so many things that he had to consistently struggle with.

Throughout everything: his lycanthropy, loving someone who could never know that he loved them, having to hide all these things from the people who meant the most to him, he had only ever been strong. It wasn't fair. He was only a boy. A boy shouldn't have to suffer so much and still be expected to hold himself together.

But it was true. Remus Lupin was so brave that it hurt.

———————————

"Now! In honor of today, can anyone tell me what's in this cauldron here?" Slughorn asked, surveying the class in front of him for an answer. It was a mixture of Slytherin and Ravenclaw fifth years and situated right at the very back corner on the right-hand side were Regulus and Jackie.

A Ravenclaws hand shot up determinedly in the air and when Slughorn called on her she answered resolutely.

"Amortentia, Sir."

There was a chorus of giggles and titters around the room along with a few annoyed groans.

"Correct Miss Clarke." Slughorn praised.

"You have until the end of this class to make a vial of Amortentia. Mind you this is only the initial brewing, the second stage is actually tethering the potion to a person and we will not be completing that part. Whoever produces the best potion will receive the night off from homework tonight. Turn to page twenty and begin." The professor announced.

Regulus turned to Jackie and gave her a quick grin. Ever since this morning's events, she had seemed quiet and thoughtful. Regulus hoped that this contemplative mood was just about whatever Lily had needed her for and not about his Valentines.

"Do you want to heat up the cauldron while I fetch the ingredients?" Regulus asked decisively.

Jackie nodded absentmindedly and began to light the flame underneath the cauldron.

Soon enough the potion was brewing nicely and Jackie was instructing Regulus how to add the Powdered Moonstone and grabbing the spoon out of his hand when she thought he wasn't stirring correctly.

The first sign of the effects of the potion was from Benny, sitting at the table right in front of them.

"Lizzie, how much bloody perfume did you put on this morning?" Benny hissed, rather loudly to the blonde beside her. Benny obviously hadn't read the notes about Amortentia before attempting to make it because if she had, she would never have admitted to Lizzies perfume being the scent that attracted her.

Elizabeth, obviously thinking she was just joking, waved the girl off with a laugh and a light shove. It was only Jackie who noticed the taller girl skim through the lesson notes and immediately go a ghostly white when she found  out the effects of the potion.

When Jackie and Regulus' potion began to form a mother-of-pearl sheen on the surface and the steam rose in spirals, they knew that the potion was almost ready.

Next it was Jackie's turn to smell the contents of the potion. It was altogether an odd combination of things, none of which she could tie any real significance to:

Hyacinths, black cherry sweets, the scent of the earth after it rains and the weirdest hint of dog.

She wasn't exactly sure what any of it meant but she did know it was a strangely comforting smell and it brought forward a distinct sense of home.

Jackie turned to Regulus to ask what he smelled and saw that he had flushed a light shade of pink. "What does it smell like for you?" She asked quietly, seeing his cheeks redden even more at the sound of her voice.

"I can't smell anything. Must have a cold coming on or something." He lied, composing his face back into its normal stony expression.

He was thankful that Jackie wasn't a Legilimens because if she could have looked in his head at that moment she would have found out that what he had just told her was a blatant lie. But he certainly wasn't going to confess the truth. Because he could smell a certain scent that both of them knew very well:

The smell of the Hogwarts library, broom polish and jasmine perfume.

( chapter 25! this is just more of a comfort chapter really but i wanted to add it in anyways. it's pretty much entirely inspired by events in the actual hp books & movies but i thought it was important for jackie to find out about remus' crush on sirius so she wouldn't turn into an obstacle. i hope you all enjoyed this newest update!! )