Hopelessness didn’t announce itself. It just settled in, quiet and immovable, like damp in old stone.

She occupied Sirius’ bed as if it had always been hers. Books lay open around her in careful disarray, spines cracked, margins crowded with tight, vicious handwriting. She didn’t look comfortable; she looked correct, spine straight, legs folded with intention. Sirius’ pillows had been displaced without apology. The room had adjusted around her, not the other way round.

Remus watched from the desk chair, knuckles white around his quill. Sirius hovered too close to her side of the room, pacing like a caged thing, all nervous energy and poorly disguised awe.

She moved with ruthless efficiency. Wand flicks that conjured diagrams so clean they felt like accusations. Fingers tapping parchment in irritation when they lagged behind. A raised brow that conveyed entire dissertations worth of disappointment without a sound. It was unbearable.

Not because she was cruel—she wasn’t. Cruelty required intent. This was worse. This was indifference sharpened into precision. She didn’t care whether they felt small. She cared whether they understood.

And Merlin, she was brilliant.

Remus felt it like a physical thing when she paced, boots thudding against the floor, air shifting around her. His thoughts tripped over themselves. He had read these theories. He knew this material. But under her gaze, everything he knew felt provisional, subject to revision, possibly wrong.

Sirius fared no better. He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, jaw tight, eyes tracking her movements despite himself. He looked like someone watching a storm roll in—equal parts thrill and impending doom.

She never flirted. Never softened. Never lingered too close by accident. When she brushed past, it was because the space required it, not because she wanted anything from them. That was the real violence of it.

She made the room hot without acknowledging the temperature. At one point, she leaned over Remus’ notes, eyes scanning with ruthless speed. He went utterly still. Her presence was overwhelming—sharp mind, sharper focus, an intelligence that felt invasive, like it could see him more clearly than he saw himself.

She corrected without mercy.

Reorganised his thinking without touching the page. Straightened Sirius out with a look alone when his attention wandered.

Sex, clearly, did not interest her.

Desire was inefficient. A distraction. Something other people wasted time on. She joked about it sometimes—dry, surgical humour lobbed like a grenade—and then stepped back before anything could breathe.

They were left holding the fallout every time.

Remus collapsed onto the bed, staring at the ceiling. “I feel like I’ve just been intellectually mugged by you.”

Sirius didn’t laugh. He was still staring at her. “More like intellectually fucked.”