Part one of the double update today, yay! Actually, I think that's all I have to say...
Disclaimer: Nothing is owned!
Chapter Nine: Liquid Luck
Young teacher the subject, of schoolgirl fantasy. She wants him so badly, knows what she wants to be. Inside her there's longing, this girl's an open page. Book marking, she's so close now, this girl is half his age
-Don't Stand So Close To Me by: The Police
"We need to talk." The words spilled from her lips the moment that she entered his office, not even bothering to knock on the door. The look on Remus's face was utter shock and for a moment, Callista felt bad at the accusatory tone of her voice…that was until she remembered that his senses were much keener than hers and chances were he smelled her coming a mile away.
"Actually, I need to grade these papers and you need to leave. It's a Sunday morning; shouldn't you be out on the grounds with your friends?" His tone was so light that she forced herself to grind down on her teeth in attempt to keep herself from getting frustrated with him.
"I spent all day yesterday with my friends, Hermione mostly and to be quite frank I think you owe her an apology just as much as you owe me one. She didn't deserve to watch me cry like that again, and she definitely didn't deserve the piece of crap reason I had to give her." Callista snapped and slapped her hands down onto his desk, blue eyes burning into his brown ones.
"I don't owe you anything Callista." He replied, brushing her off and going back to the papers he was grading, which, with an irritated groan, she pulled away from him and into her arms.
"Yes you do." She said and after a moment of staring up at her, he sighed and looked back down. "You're my friend, please; please don't do this to me." She whispered, setting his papers back down.
"Then please don't call me your friend. That's how we got into this mess anyhow. I let my emotions get the best of me and I did some really stupid things." He muttered and her face went hot.
"S-stupid things?" She asked, eyes widening. No, not again…
"What else would you call it?"
"I—" But she couldn't find the words. "How could you? How could you lead me on, knowing what had happened to me if you only knew it could end like this?" She asked, finding that she was still somehow managing to keep eye contact with him. When he didn't speak up right away and the tears started to build up again, she spun around on her heel before feeling something warm wrap around her wrist and spin her back around.
"I'm sorry. But…Merlin, Cal I have no idea what to say to you! My actions were completely out of line, I shouldn't have acted like that, you're a student and because of that, you keep making me forget that I'm a teacher, I have responsibilities, I have a standard to set and I can't do that when I'm infatuated with a student!" He said and after she paused a moment, she arched an eyebrow.
"Is that seriously what this is all about?" She asked. "You're worried that we're going to get caught? Because we're not. My parents didn't even know about what went on in my third year, I think the only person that does is Hermione and I'm not going to tell her anything about us because I'm fairly certain she'd attempt to cut me if she knew."
"It's not just that!" He said and slowly let go of her wrist, turning away from her to stare at the wall behind him.
"Then what is it? You've told me everything else, why can't you tell me this?"
"It's because of what I am." After a moment, the blonde burst out laughing, throwing her head back and all, which caused Remus to turn around, arching an eyebrow at her. "This is not a laughing matter, Callista." But the blonde shook her head, smiling a little at him.
"Actually, it is. I've told you before that I don't care, I don't care if you're a werewolf. Blimey, you could be a vampire and because it's you, I'd probably beg you to suck my blood so that you didn't need to strain yourself and hunt down any victims." She said and he paled even more, sitting back down in his chair. Watching his actions, she sat down in the chair across from his desk, which she had assumed was only there because of her.
"Do you know who Dolores Umbridge is?" He asked and she paled. He didn't need to say anymore.
"The restrictions…" She breathed and he nodded.
"I want to be with you Callista; I'm selfish in that way. If I wasn't, I'd be a stronger man and I wouldn't have lead you on, I would've pushed you away the moment I noticed that I was attracted to you. But because I'm selfish, I indulged in your presence; I even let you kiss me. Hell, I even kissed you back. But being with you would be illegal on so many levels that I would probably end up damaging you even more in the process. If anyone ever found out, even on accident, I'd be locked up in Azkaban and you…well you'd be in a lot of trouble with the law too, not to mention the problems you'd have with all of your classmates. I've seen the way that Draco Malfoy harasses you now, the last thing you need is for him to know about our relationship. And what would your parents say?" Remus asked, resting his elbows on the desk, and putting his head between his hands. The softness in his voice made Callista pale and stare down at her ballet flats but then back up to him, putting a hand on his forearm, however he pulled away the moment they made contact. "Don't think this is easy for me, because it isn't. You've made me feel better than I've felt in my entire life, but you'll move on with your life. You're still young, you're beautiful, you're smart and you're probably the most compassionate, understanding person I've ever met. You'll find somebody else. I have faith in that." He said and with that, he moved back to his papers, letting her know that she was dismissed.
Callista knew that she looked pale, knew that she was shaking and knew that she was probably not able to comprehend what was going on around her but she also knew that Remus was not to blame for this. He had several very valid points and if he ended up in Azkaban because of her, she knew that her emotional state would be a lot worse. Pushing her hair out of her eyes, she watched, numbly as her legs moved of their own accord. She wasn't actually sure where they were leading her to, not until she saw herself standing in front of the Fat Lady's portrait. She felt her lips move, heard a voice which sounded dead—even to her— state the password and it actually took her a minute to realize it was hers. Her trek through the common room and into her dormitory was very much like the one through the rest of the school and until Hermione's voice sounded off, she didn't even realize that she was standing in front of the mirror, staring at herself.
"Callista, what is going on with you?" She moved slowly, like she was walking through water and Hermione seemed to notice because she made a move towards her, but the blonde simply stepped back.
"Nothing, I'm fine." She muttered and Hermione's expression hardened.
"You're not doing this again, Callista, I don't know what or who is making you go back to the way you were a few years ago, but you can't do this again. You're stronger than this. You can't fall apart again, not when you were just getting yourself put back together! And you most definitely cannot do this to me! Do you think it's easy for me to watch you cry, to look at my best friend and think that she looks more like a zombie than a person? Because it's not!" She snapped and Callista shook her head, raking her shaky, pale hands through her hair.
"I'm seriously fine Hermione. Nothing's wrong. It's not like I'm with anyone anyway, so there's nothing to worry about. Just um…go back to what you were doing…I'm tired though, I think I'm going to go to sleep…" She muttered, or rather the dead voice spoke up again.
"Calli, you've been awake for two hours, three tops! You can't be tired, all you've done the past couple of days is sleep and cry, don't think I'm stupid and don't know what's going on, it's insulting. You're thinking about him again aren't you?" She asked and Callista shook her head, clumsily pulling off the sweater dress. She used to love the thing, but now, it simply felt itchy and uncomfortable. The tights she wore also felt uncomfortable and they felt tight too, as though she was a size sixteen attempting to squeeze into a size two. Rolling them off and pulling on an old, ratty T-shirt that fell to her knees, she stared at her bed and then back up to her friend, trying to look convincing.
"Honestly, Hermione, nothing's wrong. I'm just wearing myself out, trying to pass Charms. It's nothing to worry about. I just want to get some sleep." She muttered and with that, she slid into her unmade bed, pulling the crimson comforter over her head and hiding. The waves of pain that had only lapped at her before now reared high up and washed over her head, pulling her further under the covers. She did not resurface…
***
"You're failing Charms, Callista." Harry said, turning to the blonde whilst the golden quartet sat in the common room, as they had done for the past three weeks. After Callista had managed to pull herself out from under the safety of the comforter, she was cold, but no more so than she had been before she met Remus. She'd also been skipping her Defense Against The Dark Arts classes, always feeling intensely sick when she knew that she had to take the class. If she was able to lie to herself at all, she could've simply said that things were just as though Remus Lupin had never entered her life at all. But because she was such an awful liar, she merely hid from the pain, hid from herself and hid from the fact that was eating away at her mind. The fact that she was dying once again without Remus in her life and she probably would be until one of two almost impossible things happened. The first was a fantasy that she was suppressing like crazy, but was still there. The impossible notion that Remus would run to her and beg for her apology, that he would tell her that he was being stupid and that expecting her to fight off what they had going between them was impossible and that he wanted to be with her and that he'd never break her again. The second was that somehow, some way, over time, she'd move on. That she'd find someone new, someone better, someone that she could be with without having to worry about how society felt about them.
She wasn't sure which of those two things she found to be more ridiculous.
"Yeah…" Callista nodded, curling up into a very tight ball on the cushy, red armchair, turning away from Hermione, who was glaring at her. She wasn't sure if the brunette was upset about her grades or if she could still sense the grief that her blonde friend was surpassing.
"Why isn't Lupin tutoring you in it anymore?" Hermione asked quietly, being that she was one of the few people—Ron and Harry were also included in that group— who knew that Lupin had been the one tutoring her. "You seemed to be doing a little better in the class when he was tutoring you…"
"No I wasn't." Callista muttered, shaking her head. "I was for a little, but then we just weren't making progress anymore." She said, grinding her teeth a little bit. No one other than her and Remus would've seen an alternative meaning in those words and the would be secret shared between them caused a wave of pain to wash over her again. "That's why he's not tutoring me anymore…" She trailed off and the other three nodded, not seeming to be any the wiser about her situation.
"I still you say that you should drop the class, Hermione said that it was really stressing you out." Ron spoke up and Callista paled, turning to Hermione and then back to Ron, preparing herself to speak when a thought passed through her head. Why not drop it? Her life felt so…blank, so empty, so meaningless. It wasn't going anywhere, so what reason was there for her to attempt to do well in a class that she hated so much?
But there was her father. Her daddy, who loved her and wanted her to be happy and never asked anything of her, who wanted her to grow and come into her own and flourish like a rose in full bloom. He'd only ever even suggested wanting anything from her and that was for her to succeed in the subject that he'd aced and loved in his days at Hogwarts. There was meaning there, the sense of it wasn't as great as it would've been a while ago, but it was there so she grasped onto it tightly.
"I can't. I just…I just need to try harder…" She said and the other three seemed to smile nervously at her, as though that was a truly pitiful thing to say.
"Callista, you've tried your ass off in that bloody class every single day since first year. What you need is luck and a lot of it." Ron said and for the first time in nearly a month, something inside of Callista popped, sparked and came to life. It was so simple, so stupidly obvious, how had she not thought of it before? Her blue eyes went wide and the other members of the quartet all arched their eyebrows at her, but her lips merely widened into a smile and she shook her head.
"I just got a huge burst of inspiration, and now I think it might just kill me if I don't study, you know?" She asked, biting on her lips as she stood and Hermione made a movement to stand up with her, probably to follow after her. "I don't need any help, really, I don't." She insisted and after a moment, the brunette nodded and allowed Callista to go off to their dormitory alone.
Shaking her head at how stupid she'd been, Callista rummaged through the top drawer in her bedside table, digging under the absurd amounts of candy—and she tried desperately to ignore what the chocolate bars made her think of— and several silly trinkets, she found what she was looking for. The bottle was tiny and half empty but it was essential, this was how she would pass. Felix Felicis. She'd concocted a bit for herself last year. It was probably one of the only potions she'd ever struggled to make, but it was completely worth it. This would make her giddy, this would make her happy and most importantly, this would get her to pass the Charms test that she knew was scheduled for tomorrow. Slipping it into her messenger bag, she grinned from ear to ear for the first time in what seemed like forever.
This was it.
