Disclaimer: As much as I wish for it. I don't own it.

Professor Chocolate

Ginny Weasley, eager for lunch, having over slept and missed breakfast, made her way down the corridor. Her quickened pace made it harder to sidestep the little first years that littered the stairwells, as it was their free period. Okay, so maybe she wasn't old enough to call them little, being only a year older than them. But a year must count for something right?

Ginny tried to bustle her way through the sea of short figures but only managed to trip and tumble the rest of the way down the stairs. Between tripping and falling she had successfully knocked herself out of perfect consciousness.

At the same time Remus Lupin was sitting in his classroom, grading one incoherent paper after another. However, the silence that normally occupied his free periods was interrupted by the shrieking of a girl and a pounding coming from outside his classroom door. Then the sound dispersed but the collective gasp that he had been expecting never came.

Remus jumped to his feet and pocketed his wand, hoping that he wouldn't have to use it. He crossed the classroom and burst through the door to find a girl failing to get up from her current position on the floor. She was, obviously, alive but looked hurt and couldn't seem to lift herself off the ground.

Remus made his way to the girl and kneeled down beside her before pulling her up.

"Are you alright?" He asked as he helped the girl wobble her way into the classroom, his arm basically holding all of her weight, minimal as it was.

"Just wonderful," She replied sarcastically and rolled her eyes. When she realized that she was talking to a teacher, nevertheless, one that was practically supporting her weight she inwardly cursed herself and gave him a weak smile.

Remus, however, chuckled mildly. He expected many more sarcastic remarks than he was currently receiving from students. Plus it wasn't as though he was uncommon in the realms of sarcasm; he was a marauder after all.

"Well… here you are," He said as he let her fall into a chair. "Do you care to elaborate as to how you sustained your current injuries?"

"No," She answered quickly, it seemed she could never control what she was saying. Remus looked up at the redhead; he hadn't expected her to say that. But she blushed and offered another weak smile. "Yes." She finally concluded.

"I was just walking, okay speed-walking, to lunch because I was starving. Like, really starving because I didn't catch breakfast today and then I fell over a first year." She hunched her shoulders in that I-don't-know way.

"You tripped over a first year?" Remus asked, his eyebrows high. He recalled how incredibly easy that was to do and his good friend in his years at Hogwarts, James, had often tripped over them as well. Ginny shrugged again and bit the corner of her lip. That, as most knew, she only did when she was extremely embarrassed.

"Well, yeah, they're super short…and..," She mumbled off and Remus laughed to himself, then looked down at her wrist, which looked to be swelling. He grabbed his wand from his back pocket and shifted it in his fingers so that he could hold it correctly.

He touched her wrist and she cringed. He drew back a little, sheepishly, but them regained his initiative and returned his hand to the place it had formerly resided. She held back tears and he tried to heal it as fast as he could.

"Episkey," Remus chanted, but the spell has only little effect if left on for a short time, the power of the spell would only be fully recognized upon keeping it active and letting it gain full energy. They sat like this for a while and Ginny tried to hold back sobs as the pain enhanced, only to die down, then come back stronger.

By the time Remus was sure the wound was healed Ginny was reduced to tears and was trying her hardest to resist the wracking of sobs. Remus pulled his wand back and pocketed it. Ginny smiled sadly and sunk down deeper into the chair.

"I'm sorry," Remus said.

"It's okay, Professor. It was my fault I fell anyway," Ginny replied.

"Are you sure it's not the first years fault?" Remus asked, a slight smile on his face.

"Not completely, actually," She had and laughed between hiccups. Remus then jumped off the desk he had been occupying and hurried to his real desk, where he opened the top drawer and produced a brown paper package. He tore the paper of and cracked the bar it contained in half. Of course he had chocolate, he was infamous for it amongst the second years.

He strode over to Ginny and handed her a piece "Cheers," He said hopefully and they "clinked" their chocolate and Ginny took a small bite off the corner. She had heard girls in her year talking about how they would die if Professor Lupin ever gave them chocolate. She chuckled at the irony. Of all the girls that the heartthrob Professor could give chocolate to it was the one that didn't really like him like that. She couldn't wait to tell the girl in her dorm.

Remus, however, was totally oblivious to the crushed girls and perceived their eagerness in class as a drive to learn, not to impress him. He was actually surprised that the students hadn't perceived him as stodgy old Professor Lupin and was happy to fill the "cool" Professor quota as he was about the first "cool" Professor that Hogwarts had, by his knowledge, ever employed.

Remus happily tucked into his own chocolate and slowly but surely the pain in Ginny's wrist numbed and she was able to move it again. She finished her chocolate and thanked the Professor profusely. Then left his classroom and sped off to the dorms. Maybe if she told what had happened to her roommates they might accept her.

The next day Remus was, once again, grading papers. They where better than the previous day's but the silence was, once again, interrupted by a slow thumping noise. Remus leapt from his desk and fingered for his wand in his back pocket. He burst through the hallway and out into the corridor to find Marie Halloway, one of the best and most eager girls in her class, on the floor of the corridor. Remus happily supplied this girl with the same treatment he had given Ginny but after the third day of these mysterious falls Remus began to wonder if this was some kind of hoax.

A/N I wrote in some of my own horrible habits (i.e. biting my lip when embarrassed, falling, sustaining injuries). I also dedicate this to the "first years" at my school, who get shorter year after year. I thank them for helping this idea blossom in my head. And my best friend Kaitlin for watering that blossom and feeding it with some of the yummy fertilizer, called love and motivation. Okay? Reviews?