Diana led him into an alleyway and entered a store Remus had never noticed before. A bell rang to announce their entrance the moment they opened the door.

     Walking inside, they were welcomed by the warmth of the fireplace in the store and a light music which was playing from the Wizarding Wireless Network radio which was on the shop's counter.

Remus looked around, seeing that other than the two of them, only a group of third year girls were in the store. Hundreds of various socks were hung on the wall in neat rows, in different sizes, patterns, and textures.

"Look at this one," Remus said with a chuckle, pointing at one of the socks that magically changed color every few seconds.

"Yeah." Diana grinned. "But there are a few useful ones, too. Like, this one is waterproof. Or this one here warms up your feet in cold days but keeps them cold in really hot days; I've got two of it in different colors."

"And which one of these would you recommend for me?" Remus raised a brow at her playfully, placing his hands in his pockets.

"Hmm... let me see..." Diana looked around the store thoughtfully, eyeing every sock carefully before finally picking one. "Aha! Perfect!"

"Let me see," said Remus, taking the pair of socks from her to observe them more closely, only to laugh when he saw that it had chocolate bar patterns knitted on it. "You make me look like a chocoholic."

"Well, that's because you are! You even smell like chocolates all the time!" Diana blurted out before she could stop herself.

     She tried to take control of the situation by saying jokingly, "Your middle name might as well be chocolate."

He chuckled. "Remus Chocolate Lupin?"

"Or Mr. Chocolate Lupin."

They both laughed. After choosing a pair of socks for her own and buying it, the two of them left the store, walking down the main street.

"Oh, look!" Diana suddenly said, pointing at a crooked building in the distance. "The Shrieking Shack."

Remus's face fell and he stopped walking, although this went unnoticed by Diana who had walked closer toward the wooden fence, watching the house from afar.

Trying not to show the sadness on his face, Remus walked over to her and stood beside her.

"The villagers have been hearing screams coming from there for years. Did you know?" Diana informed with fascination. "They say it's haunted."

"Yeah, I've heard the rumors..." Remus whispered, looking away from her and avoiding her eyes.

     "I've been trying to convince Layla since third year to come with me and see if we can find a way inside. But I've heard all the entrances of it are somehow blocked by magic."

When Remus didn't reply, she turned her head to glance at him. Seeing the look of despair on his face, Diana frowned. "You okay?"

"Yeah. Why shouldn't I be?"

Diana sighed. "I know what you're thinking about."

Remus blinked a few times, meeting her eyes worriedly. "What — what do you mean?"

"I know you're probably thinking about what had happened at Diagon Alley over the last summer," Diana said quietly, gazing back at the crooked house again.

"Right... yeah..." Remus whispered, shaking his head to snap out of his thoughts.

"You know, when we were betting on the test, I thought you would ask me to tell you what had happened at Diagon Alley, if you won."

"I did think of asking you that at first, actually. But I just figured you wouldn't tell me either way, or just make up a fake story so I would let it."

"You're right. I might have..."

"Might have?" Remus repeated, smiling lightly. "So is there a chance that you would actually tell me one day?"

"I don't know." She let out another sigh. "It's... it's crazy."

He grinned, giving a shrug of his shoulders. "I don't mind crazy."

Diana chuckled, and yet she still didn't meet his eyes, her gaze fixed on the horizon where the cloudy sky touched the snow-covered ground. "You promise you won't laugh?"

"Of course." He nodded solemnly.

"Well..." Diana started after a long pause, trying to find the right words to say. "That day, I was at Diagon Alley to buy my books for the new year at Hogwarts. I was about to leave the store that I bumped into you, and all my books fell down. When you picked one up and tried to hand it to me... I..."

She wasn't sure if she could continue, knowing how weird it would sound. But she said it anyway.

"When you tried to give me the book, our hands touched and... and I felt something," she said, gulping. "It was only for a second, but... it felt horrifying. For a moment, everything went dark. Cold. Lonely. Even painful. It was so real."

"I see..." Remus whispered after long seconds of silence. "And that's why you held my hand in the library that night. You wanted to see if you would happen again."

     Diana only nodded in response.

Remus suddenly felt like a fool, because at the time, caught in the moment, he had thought that she'd actually wanted to hold his hand. He shook his head from the embarrassing thought, trying to focus on the matter at hand.

"But why?" he asked, searching for a reason. "Why would you feel something like that? Had it ever happened before?"

"Only one other time," she replied. "I was in the Divination class that I felt it again. But this time it lasted longer, and instead of feeling the pain in my bones, I only felt it here." She ran her hand over her left shoulder.

"Have you talked to someone about it? To ask what it could mean?"

"Only my friend Layla. But she didn't take it too seriously. Although, I did speak with Professor Tenebris about it. He's the Divination professor. I thought that maybe what I had felt was some sort of a vision. But my conversation with him was... very weird."

"How come?"

"He kept saying all these creepy and confusing things. Like how it's a blessing and not a curse. That I have a gift. That my eyes can finally see now..." Diana shuddered at the memory. "Does this make any sense to you?"

"Not really," he muttered, pondering the matter. "Have you tried looking for an answer in Divination books?"

"Yeah, but there wasn't anything useful in them."

"Maybe you were searching the wrong section in the library for a book. Look in the restricted section. The books there are way more useful."

     Diana gave him a teasing look. "And how would you know?"

     "You don't wanna know." He chuckled.

"But how on earth do you expect me to barge in the restriction section and steal the books without being seen?"

Remus only smiled. "Leave that to me."

***

Even though Remus didn't give Diana a direct answer about how he was planning on stealing a few books from the forbidden area in the library, she decided to trust him and not question it any further.

For the rest of the day, the two of them went to the Three Broomsticks for some butterbeer, or visited different shops across the village, walking and talking for hours.

As the sun began to set, they finally made their way back to the castle, exhausted after the long yet fun day.

"It's okay, I can take it from here," said Diana as they reached the entrance hall, where they had to part.

"It's okay. I don't have any other thing to do," Remus said reassuringly, insisting on accompanying her down to the dungeons and toward the Slytherin common room.

"Well..." Diana stopped walking as they reached the stone wall which was the entrance to their common room. "Thanks for the crappiest date ever."

"You're welcome." Remus chuckled, though it then faded into a little smile. "Anyway, I know how much you hate flowers, so..."

With that, he took his backpack from over his shoulder and opened its zip, taking a small and smooshed flower bouquet out of it, before handing to Diana.

She laughed, saying jokingly, "You know I'm going to throw these away the moment I go up to my dorm, right?"

He nodded, grinning. "Yes, yes, I know. But it was the cheesy gesture that counts."

"Right." Diana chuckled. "Now go away. I don't want you to hear the password."

He smirked. "Why not?"

"Because I don't want you and those three friends of yours to get in our common room and prank the whole Slytherins again!"

"What!?" Remus gasped mockingly. "When have we ever done that?"

"Oh? So you're saying that those pixies just happened to attack our common room out of nowhere and for no reason at all?"

"Maybe. I have no idea." He shrugged obliviously. "No one knows to this day who the mysterious pranksters were."

Diana gave him a look.

"Okay... I'm gonna tell you a secret... come closer." Remus leaned in closer toward her, before whispering in a dramatic secretive tone, "It was us."

Diana gasped sarcastically. "No way!"

Remus laughed, throwing his bag over his shoulder again. "Well... it was a fun day. See you on Monday at Ancient Runes?"

Diana nodded. "See you later."

Sending her a small wave, Remus then walked up the corridor, finally disappearing from sight.

Once he was gone, Diana said the password and walked into the common room and up into her dorm. Layla and the other girls still hadn't arrived from Hogsmeade yet, and Diana found herself all alone.

She walked toward the rubbish-bin inside the room to throw away the flowers, but she came to a stop, looking down at the little bouquet with a smile dangling from her lips.

At last thinking against it, she carried the flowers toward her bed, placing them neatly down on her nightstand.

Remus had failed. This certainly hadn't become the worst day of Diana's life. But he was right about one thing:

    She was never going to forget this day.