Guests ~ A Harry Potter Fanfiction
In which Professor Lupin observes a different side of two of his best students.
This takes place in 2020, when Rose and Scorpius are in their fifth year. Lupin teaches Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts.
It is unfortunate, Remus reflects, that he remembers shockingly little of his own Hogwarts days. Of course, the painful and unpleasant experiences of transforming without Wolfsbane will forever be ingrained in his memory, but the minutiae that would come in handy at times like these have long since faded from his mind. It would be useful, for example, to remember what firm or inspirational words his professors would say following the return from the winter holidays in order to subdue their excitable students. For, faced with his first class of the new term, Remus finds himself once again at a loss.
They are rowdy and loud as they enter the room, and Remus knows immediately that this will not be an easy class to control. They have all returned from either a blissfully relaxing period of rest at Hogwarts or a rambunctious Christmas with their own families, much like Remus himself. They will, of course, be at least slightly bitter at their required return to their increasingly difficult classes. He dreads this class every year, and this year, his lack of foresight may have cemented his doom, for the guest he has invited to speak today will most likely arouse even more noise.
The class takes their seats as Remus observes them stoically, his blank visage broken only when Albus Potter greets him with a wide grin. Like years past, the Lupins shared their Christmas with the Weasleys and the Potters, occasions that inevitably include merciless practical jokes played mostly on Remus, who is both their teacher and a former Marauder and thus the perfect outlet for their most far-fetched pranks. This year's joke, which involved the strategic charming of the most dim-witted of garden gnomes and a hidden Canary Cream, was among the best on record, a fact that Remus readily admitted to the young Potters and Weasleys. Today, Albus beams with pride at simply the sight of Remus, although Remus knows that once the class begins Albus will be among his most docile students.
He is most concerned about the Malfoy boy, who marches into the room followed by a crowd of guffawing boys. Bright, quick-witted, and highly opinionated, Scorpius Malfoy caught Remus' attention almost immediately, when he defied all expectations and was sorted into Ravenclaw. Although he secretly likes the boy, Remus finds himself scolding him almost daily for obnoxious behavior, as he tends to become overexcited and express his opinions loudly and without invitation. He hopes Scorpius will choose today to behave well. He does not want to appear as though he has no control over his classroom in front of his guest today.
Remus rises from his desk once every student is seated. "Welcome back," he says, smiling, for even though they are rowdy, he is sincerely glad to see them. "I trust everyone has had a relaxing break?" This is met with murmurs of assent from the class, and a triumphant grin from Albus Potter. Remus looks around to find another, less enthusiastic perpetrator of the Christmas prank and finds no one. Where is Rose Weasley?
"Good, then. Today, we will deviate slightly from our topic of late, of that's all right with all of you." The interest level piques almost tangibly. Remus smiles, still scanning the room for Rose, whom he expected to see seated at her usual spot directly in front of his desk.
"As I am sure you all know, you will be receiving career consultations from your Head of House very soon. I feel it is unwise to send you into these consultations without providing you with at least one example of a successful wizard in a career. Today, we will have a guest."
The room is visibly curious. Who will Professor Lupin bring?
"This woman is a very accomplished Auror who fought against Voldemort in the most recent war." At this, Scorpius Malfoy starts visibly, shushing his chattering companion. Remus wonders if he might find the lecture offensive, given the previous Malfoy's interaction with Magical Law Enforcement. "I trust you will all give her the utmost respect. She will arrive shortly. In the meantime, I will ask you to draft a list of questions you might want to ask our guest about her career and her education."
As his class busied themselves with parchment and quills, Remus locates Rose seated, quite uncharacteristically, in the back. She is slouched in her chair with a sullen, fragile look on her face, as though she will dissolve into tears at any minute. Although she has a parchment and quill on her desk in front of her, she shows no engagement in the assignment. Instead her gaze is fixed on a point some feet in front of her. Following her eyes, Remus can come to only one conclusion: her eyes are centered on the back of Scorpius Malfoy's pale head.
As Remus comes to this conclusion, he hears a knock on the classroom door. "That must be her. Everyone be on your best behavior." He opens the door, and his beaming, pink-haired wife enters the room.
Albus grins and Rose nods slightly, but the rest of the class is infinitely confused. Who is this hip, pink-haired Auror?
"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce Mrs. Nymphadora Tonks-Lupin. She's here to talk about her job as an Auror." After a moment's hesitation, he can't resist adding to the stunned class, "Yes, she is also my wife."
Tonks smiles widely and heads to the blackboard. "Don't call me Nymphadora, Remus," she intones as she proudly writes "Mrs. Lupin" on the board in an almost illegible scrawl.
Remus smiles back. "Please give Mrs. Lupin you fullest attention," He tells his class, and then settles back to observe the wonder that is his wife.
"Wotcher."
Only Albus replies in kind. The rest of the class is either silent, including Rose, or else responds with muted "hellos". The apparent disinterest does not appear to faze Tonks in the least.
"Yeah, so, like Professor Lupin said, I'm an Auror. Who knows what that means?" Albus and a few others raise their hands, including, to Remus' shock, Scorpius Malfoy. "Yeah?" Tonks calls on Malfoy, knowing, Remus is sure, exactly who he is.
"You hunt Dark Wizards, and when you catch them, you arrest them," he replies eagerly, and Remus realizes with a start that Scorpius is not interested in Tonks' presentation because of his family's history with the Auror Department. Scorpius Malfoy clearly and desperately wants to be an Auror.
"Right; good. That's about it. Except that's the funny thing about being an Auror. What is a Dark Wizard, exactly?"
Tonks continues, but Remus' attention is drawn to Rose Weasley. As Scorpius talks, her eyes rise slightly and her entire manner shifts. Where she was just morose and obviously distracted, she is now focused and somber. Remus wonders if perhaps it is not the things being said but the person saying them that has Rose agitated.
Apparently, Tonks notices Rose's apathy as well. "Rose, what do you think? What makes a person a Dark Wizard?"
However discouraged Rose may be at the moment, she can never resist an opportunity to outshine her classmates, and Tonks knows this. True to her word, Rose does not disappoint. "If a person exhibits a tendency to want to use magic to hurt people, not to help them or be productive, then that makes them a Dark Wizard," she recites. Remus notes that her heart does not appear to be in the monologue.
"OK," says Tonks. "But what if it's not intentional? Professor Lupin has a tendency to want to bite and kill other wizards once a month. Does that make him a Dark Wizard?"
Rose blushes bright red underneath her freckles. She, of course, has known of Remus' lycanthropy since infancy, but the rest of her class has taken some time to grow accustomed to the fact that their favorite teacher is a werewolf. For the Weasleys, it is considered blatantly rude to draw any attention to the fact. Rose is appropriately abashed. Tonks, of course, ignores the fact.
"Well…I…don't know."
Tonks opens the question to the rest of the class, and Scorpius Malfoy jumps on it immediately. "Maybe a Dark Wizard is someone who is unforgiving. Like, they want to hurt people. They think it's like a game or something."
"Raise your hand, Mr. Malfoy," intones Remus, but Tonks regards Malfoy with approval. Rose gazes at him with an inscrutable expression on her face.
"No, Remus, that's good," says Tonks. "So, how does that apply to being an Auror?"
This time, Scorpius raises his hand pointedly, but Tonks, in an effort to be fair, ignores him. His classmates, however, fail miserably to answer the question satisfactorily, and Tonks is forced to turn to Malfoy's plaintive hand in the air.
"You have to know when you're catching a real evil Dark Wizard who should be locked up for life, and when you're looking at a bloke who's just going through some tough times, or is hanging out with the wrong people, or something."
"And how do you tell?"
"Erm…"
Tonks smiles widely at Scorpius. Rose smiles faintly as well. Remus, however, grins inwardly. No doubt, Rose is pleased with her nemesis' failure to answer a question. He remembers vividly the rivalry between her father and Scorpius', and, much further in the past, a rivalry between James Potter and Severus Snape. It is Remus' private belief that competition is very good for students.
"Let's play a game," Tonks proposes. "Let's say; I'll give you a situation, and you give me a sentence. You play the Auror. Sound good?" Scorpius sits up straighter in his seat.
"Lord Voldemort."
The class calls out "Life in Azkaban!" and even "Death!" Scorpius nods quietly. His pale cheeks are tinged pink slightly.
"How about an apothecary who sells bad potions to people on purpose?"
As Tonks' game continues, Scorpius and Rose both become increasingly vocal. Scorpius advocates a stronger punishment in nearly every scenario. Remus wonders if he is determined to prove himself against the reputation of his family. Contrarily, Rose is wavering and spineless, first debating one side and then questioning herself, proposing another side hesitantly. This is odd, Remus thinks, because Rose Weasley, of all people, is generally passionate and opinionated. There must be something wrong, Remus tells himself. Rose Weasley does not act like this without a reason.
"What about this one?" begins Tonks. "What about a Death Eater who has done terrible things in the past, who you've been looking for years, and who's now in hiding with a wife and kids playing the real family man. Is he still evil? Should he still be locked up? What about the family-should they be punished for not telling the authorities who this man was, even though they knew all along?"
Rose's hand is in the air first, although Remus notices that it is shaking visibly. "Rose?"
"Well, shouldn't he be punished? I mean he did all these horrible things, right? And he hasn't paid for any of them. He needs a consequence, doesn't he? And the family too—they had a responsibility, didn't they? The wife knew who he was, and she still married him, even though she shouldn't have. People shouldn't fall in love with people they know are evil," she finishes. She is nervous throughout all of this: speaking quietly and without conviction.
Suddenly, Tonks inhales sharply, her mouth forming a comical "o". Covering her mysterious epiphany quickly, she says seriously, "People can't help who they fall in love with, Rose."
"But what if they have kids? How do you know he won't raise them like Dark Wizards? How do you know they won't be evil too?"
Scorpius does not move, but suddenly his presence fills the silent room as though he expanded tenfold. His voice is powerful, quiet, and deadly. "How do you know they will?"
As Remus looks at Rose looking at Scorpius, something about her expression strikes him as familiar. Something about her desperation, her defiance, her despondency rings true to him, and all at once Remus knows where he has seen it before. For months Tonks wore it, accompanied with lank brown hair. For months he gazed at it regretfully, knowing it was he who had caused it. It was the expression she wore when she was trying to convince herself that she was not in love with him.
And suddenly everything, from the constant fierce competition between them to Rose's awful mood of late to Tonks' recent epiphany, made sense to Remus. Rose Weasley was in love with Scorpius Malfoy.
"Rose, the thing about being an Auror and about love and about life that you have to understand is that no one is ever just bad. People do horrible things because they were never loved or they were acting out of love for a family or they just needed a way to be noticed. And every single one of these people has some quality that people love or respect. Every single one of the good people has a quality that people despise. You really never know when these qualities weigh each other out. Sometimes it's obvious. Lord Voldemort was an obvious case. But the reformed Death Eater and his wife and kids; who knows? It comes down to you, and what you believe makes a good person. What makes a person worthy of your pity, your respect, and your love? The best advice I can give you—any of you—is that you have to trust your instincts. If you've always been a good judge of character, then why would this case be any different? Why would you suddenly be wrong? I'm not saying you won't be wrong; you will. But you have to be willing to believe in yourself that what you believe is true. You have to realize that you choose the people you like and pity and love. And if you don't follow up on your decisions, you'll never be happy."
The obnoxious sound of the bell cut through the class, interrupting the mesmerizing atmosphere of the class. Tonks shouted over the hubbub of the class, "Consider being an Auror!" Remus watched as Rose gathered her things, her face hidden by her thick bush of hair. He watched as Scorpius approached his wife and wrung her hand, saying, "I'm really interested in joining the Auror Department." And he watched as Scorpius bade goodbye to Tonks and hurried out of the room, shouting, "Oi, Weasley!" on his way. He watched Rose turn around to wait for him, smiling the biggest, most elated smile he had ever seen on her face.
Smiling, he turned to Tonks once the room was finally empty. "That was very astute."
Tonks shrugged. "Poor girl. She's so hung up on the Malfoy boy, but she's probably terrified of what her parents would think. I know what it's like to be that in love."
"Is that so, Nymphadora?" He replies, pulling her to him.
Tonks smiles warmly, rolls her eyes good-naturedly, and pulls out of his grip.
"Don't call me Nymphadora."