Pairing: Onesided Remus Lupin/Harry
Timeline: Prisoner of Azkaban
Warnings: soloF
"Chocolate, Harry?"
It was empty in the first-floor girls' lavatory, except for the familiar gurgles of Moaning Myrtle doing rounds through the plumbing. When Harry first arrived, Myrtle had subjected her to a brief inquisition. "What are you doing here so late? Shall I notify a professor about naught Gryffindors loitering in the toilets?"
"It's none of your bloody business," Harry said, shutting the stall with a prudent snick.
She pressed her back against the wall, the stone chilling the back of her neck. Her glasses slid down the bridge of her nose as her head bowed forward. Very carefully she dipped a hand in the front of her skirt, and slid it past her knickers.
Her head still swam thick and stupid with memorized images and scents and sounds, like the way the incense in Trelawney's tower made her feel. Dopey and unfocused, as if everything were a blur and she was wrapped up in it.
It was surprisingly easier to lose herself there in the drafty, cold stall than up in the dormitories where Lavender and Parvati's giggling and Hermione's endlessly scratching quill had the maddening effect of draining her of desire; fear of discovery, as well, she supposed. Here she only had to contend with Myrtle's wails and odd, ritualistic weaving in and out of the toilets. And if Myrtle discovered her, well, she'd just learned a handy hex for that.
She was thinking of the train and the scene with the Dementors (not at length) and the way food tasted better when it was given in... concern, she decided. The fantasy-chocolate melted on her tongue along with a keening noise that would surely attract the attention of Mrs. Norris, perhaps if she were in the immediate vicinity.
Harry washed her hand quickly and mopped the sweat off her face. Her hair was very heavy and damp at her nape. She ignored Myrtle's hair-tearing as she pulled the invisibility cloak over herself, heart beating rapidly as Filch's moldy shoes stole down the corridor ahead. It wasn't until she drew the bed curtain back and Lavender's snores reached a plateau of a certain volume did she quite calm down.
Maybe it was because he was the first adult to ever make her feel comfortable, took a personal interest in her. Besides Hagrid and Dumbledore, she supposed. But this was... different. She didn't feel her stomach clench so tightly when Hagrid offered her rock cakes and a bucket of tea; her face didn't feel so hot and her body so paralyzed with uncertainty when Dumbedore offered her a lemon drop.
She only felt so idiotic and childish when Professor Lupin gave that ever-so-slight smile during a lesson and felt like her heart was going to beat outside her chest, as if in a cartoon.
Now she knew what Hermione meant about Lockhart last year, self-absorbed git as he was.
But Professor Lupin was different.
A grindylow glowered at the class from its tank, its webbed hands scratching at the glass. Professor Lupin stood next to it, talking.
Harry wasn't listening.
Rather the was rubbing her thighs together under the desk, a new sport she'd invented (or heard about, actually) one day not too long ago in this very classroom. After doing it a couple times without any visible consequences, she'd sort of accidentally made a habit of it; each time she heard his voice or focused on one little detail of his face, everything became white noise and her mind went from learning about grindlows to coming in the most minialistic way possible.
They weren't very powerful, anyway, her little deaths; just a spasm that twisted through her ankles and made her grip her quill tighter than usual. But imperceptible if you very well weren't bleeding looking for it.
Sometimes she did it the whole lesson through. Three, four times. She found it disconcertingly easy to slip out of focus and daydream about his kisses, his smell, beind offered a piece of chocolate on a dark train with no one else in sight.
When she hovered over the text of her book, the letters huge and blurry, her mouth hanging open slightly, a rap on her desk brough her back to stark attention, her spine righting itself like a rod.
Lupin's face materialized in to view. Her cheeks stung with heat. "Don't fall asleep on me now, Harry. Grindylows can't be that boring."
"N-no, sir."
If Hermione thought something was amiss, she didn't say - rather unlike her, Harry thought, though it wasn't like she wanted to be interrupted from her hobby... mostly. At least not by Hermione. Her drawn face greeted Harry's at breakfast.
"I'm fine" was their moody response to each other's innocent question of how are you.
Harry was kind of glad there Hermione had problems of her own to distract her - she was the only one who bothered to pay any attention.
Ron, she thought idly as he tried to jam a piece of toast into his mouth at once. Ron was not an issue.
After a rather sad attempt at finishing her mind-numbingly long Potions essay, she left it abandoned in the common room for more fruitful pursuits. Those involving invisibility cloaks and beautiful, holistic relief from this maddening bubble inside her that felt like it was going to burst at any given moment.
She got to the toilets and managed to bypass Myrtle, who had taken to flushing the toilets all at once, as if trying to drive Harry or her thoughts away.
She set to work. It was almost mechanical now, the way she slid her knickers down and rubbed it in slow, leisurely rounds. (She learned quickly that rushing it led to her being sore, and thus being more obvious. Something something, Slytherin subtlety.)
She was almost there when – wonder of wonders – Myrtle burst through the stall's toilet, causing toilet water to explode all over Harry and the cloak hanging on the stall's hook. Myrtle had a nasty grin on her spotty, plasmic face.
"Ickle Potter getting her jollies off in the girls' lavatory, hmm? I suppose it shouldn't be surprising," she sighed.
"Sod off, Myrtle," Harry hissed. It was hard to perform it front of ghosts. She twisted a strand of wet hair, and glared down as Myrtle floated toward the ceiling.
"There's a professor out there," she said almost dreamily, "supposing you need any help."
"I don't... So why don't you just piss off..."
Myrtle began moaning loudly as ever, as if someone were wrenching a sword through her gut (if she had one). "There's a horrible man in the girls' lavatory! I think it might be Sirius Black!" she cried.
Harry's blood went cold.
"Myrtle... stop... " she pleaded.
Myrtle kept on.
She jerked up her knickers and righted her skirt, and threw the cloak over herself. It was about the moment she pushed the stall open that she heard footsteps from the corridor gaining volume. She first saw the point of a wand, and following soon after, was the head and shoulders of Remus Lupin. Harry's heart thundered raucously against her ribs. When he was fully within the toilets, and investigating the stalls, she made to slip out, Myrtle wailing and glaring down at her all the while. It was also just her luck that the cloak would snag over the light switch, pulling it off and exposing her sopping form to Lupin.
They stared at each other.
He blinked a few times. "Harry?"
"Ah – I was just going for a midnight stroll," she said lamely.
His eyebrows rose to an impressive altitude.
Harry began having revenge fantasies about Moaning Myrtle all the way back to the common room – she wasn't sure how one exacted revenge against a ghost, but surely she could find out. But at the same time... she'd been escorted back to Gryffindor tower by him.
He smelled delightful, like old flannel and a hint of bourbon, and something bitter she couldn't place was on his breath. Had he been drinking? She didn't think so, but.
He hadn't taken any points but had lectured for a moment. Her mind wandered, going dim and animalistic in the low way he spoke. She said something like "yes, sir" before mumbling something to the Fat Lady, who was playing cards with a sixteenth century potions master.
That night she climbed into her four-poster and heaved a great sigh. The others were well and deep asleep. And behind these curtains, well, it wouldn't hurt to try.
His large, warm hand on her shoulder...
His patchy old robes that smelled so good...
The cowlick at his temple...
The way the corner of his mouth twitched...
Harry exhaled sharply, her knees drawing out, and let out a small cry of relief. Burning with shame at her noise, she buried her face in her pillow, but smiled as she realized there hadn't been a break any neither Parvati nor Lavender or even Hermione's snores. Her last thought before sleep was No more Myrtle... No more Myrtle!