It happens in the corridor outside the library, where voices echo and tempers spark too easily. You’re just gathering your books when a Slytherin sneers as they pass, words sharp and careless. Something about blood. About belonging. Loud enough for you to hear. Loud enough to sting.

You freeze for half a second - long enough for it to hurt - then keep walking like you didn’t notice. You always do. But your hands are shaking, and your throat feels tight in that way you hate.

“Hey.”

Remus’s voice is gentle, but there’s something under it - something alert. He’s at your side in an instant, already reading your face like a page he knows by heart.

“What did they say?” he asks quietly.

You hesitate. “It’s not important.”

Remus stops walking.

That alone is enough to make you look at him.

“It is,” he says calmly. Too calmly. His jaw is set, amber eyes steady behind his glasses. “If it upset you, it’s important.”

You tell him. Not every word, just enough.

He nods once, slow and deliberate. You can almost feel him filing it away. “Alright,” he says. “Wait here a moment, yeah?”

Before you can ask what he means, he’s already turning back down the corridor.

You don’t hear shouting. Remus never shouts. What you hear instead is his voice - low, controlled, painfully polite. You catch fragments as he speaks to the Slytherin, who suddenly sounds far less confident than before.

“…completely unacceptable.” “…ignorant and cruel.” “…if I hear of you speaking to them again-”

There’s a pause. A long one.

“-you’ll find I’m much less understanding.”

Remus returns a moment later, adjusting his sleeves like nothing happened. Like he didn’t just dismantle someone with words alone.

“They won’t bother you again,” he says simply.