Authors Note: This takes place after one of Remus' transformations. Anything with Aurelia bathing/waiting on him does. Enjoy this steamy tidbit!

"I would ask more about you but I think I've already seen everything," Aurelia teased squeezing the sea sponge free of its soapy contents over Lupin's bruised shoulders.

Remus managed a weak, tired smile behind his furrowed brow and he winced in pain.

"Sorry," Aurelia murmured.

"I can help myself, Miss Warrington-"

Aurelia put a firm hand on his naked chest to stop him.

"It's not a matter of pride, Remus. I know you can survive. But let someone take care of you. Just rest. I promise to ensure you won't drown," she winked at him and Remus hesitantly closed his eyes.

"Dumbledore sent for me for this specific reason. I can worry about you so you don't have to. Just rest and teach. Leave what's left to me."

"I can't help but feel that I am putting you at an inconvenience," he protested.

"You are my sole purpose for being here," Aurelia admitted as she lifted one of Remus' scratched arms to carefully wash it. "I cannot help but feel…thankful to you. For bringing me here."

Remus opened his eyes in surprise and turned his head to look at her, he rested his cheek against the cool metal of the tub as he spoke.

"It's certainly a first that someone would thank me for my…condition," he weakly murmured.

Aurelia smiled slightly at the backhanded way that he referred to his lycanthropy and dabbed a line of bright red scratches on his shoulder that oozed the smallest droplets of blood, her other hand traced the raw skin around it and Remus watched her carefully. No one had ever looked at him the way she looked at him. Not as she bathed him, or spoke to him, or walked with him. It was unnerving to Remus. Yet he couldn't place exactly what expression she wore on her face when she did look at him.

"The few days that I have spent here have been…something out of a very pleasant dream. The kind where you wake up so suddenly you can't remember them. You only know that you were happy and that was all that mattered. I feel more accepted here than I have in all my life. I can do what I like, when I like. I'm not starving or scared. I haven't been trampled on or treated unequally."

"You have been before?"

"Mhmm," Aurelia nodded not looking at Remus "More often than most I believe."

"Why?" asked Remus not hiding his tired surprise.

"I don't know. Perhaps because I am only a plain governess, a poor orphan, a strange woman," Aurelia said slowly.

Remus sighed and turned his head to stare away from Aurelia and look at the rain that plopped quietly on the window of the room. It was lighted by dozens of candles on ancient standing candelabras and the tub was old enough to have claws for feet, but only so it could fill itself and walk to the desired bathing destination.

"What is it?" Aurelia asked sensing a sudden darkness around Remus, "What are you thinking?"

Remus did not answer her immediately but he did not keep her waiting for long.

"I thought that perhaps people who were without…a condition like mine, or something that made them dangerous…were the only ones who were poorly treated as I have been. I wish that it were true."

"If I wasn't trampled on I never would have made it here at Hogwarts, and I never would have been happy. And you would be in greater pain because you could not reach the scratches on your back."

Remus laughed but regretted it immediately when his healing ribs protested with violent pain.

"How did Dumbledore find you?" Remus asked when he had regained his breath. Aurelia looked at him with an incredibly innocent expression.

"I advertised."

Remus chuckled again wary this time of his beaten body.

"Close your eyes and take a breath."

Aurelia scooped up steaming water in a small bowl and poured it over Remus' head several times before she covered her hands in bright honey colored soap and began scratching Lupin's head.

"Ow," Remus complained slightly against his headache.

Aurelia laughed.

"It's hardly my fault; you carried half of the forest in with you! Did you go rolling in mud?"

"I can't recall," Lupin answered honestly and with a somewhat slurred voice. Her fingers were massaging away the pain of his headache and he felt very tired. He leaned into her fingers willing her to work his whole head so he could fall asleep.

"Just let your head rest in my hands," she whispered softly noticing how quiet he had become. His head rested comfortably in her hands and she kneaded the soap into his scalp and through his soft fine tresses. She noticed the flecks of grey that peppered his mousy hair and wondered if they would eventually go away. Letting his head fall back more she rinsed out the soup with water using the bowl again. The tub was still steaming, if she took him out now he would be startled with the cold. So she gazed at him, not wanting to disturb his small peace. The candlelight illuminated his face which was rather soft in his sleep. He didn't seem gray and old but rather young and rested. The lines on his face relaxed and though the scars were present they were less prominent like they were when he was awake. Aurelia admitted to herself that he was even more handsome when he was asleep and it had nothing to do with the fact that he was naked.

'He worries too much' Aurelia thought as she lightly traced a scar with a timid finger that went across his left cheek. Aurelia felt sad for Remus and fervently prayed to whoever listened that Remus John Lupin would have the life he deserved, a life of rest and happiness. A life he could dream about and wake up to.