Chapter 10 –

"He said my dad could be a real prat, but he was really an okay guy," said Harry, "He told me lots of stories about how they sometimes got caught by Filch while pranking and about running around the grounds on full moon nights."

"I'm glad you two have worked things out," said Hermione, "I was a bit worried that Remus would just be uncomfortable."

"Nah- I don't look that much like Dad anyway," Harry replied. When Hermione gave him a funny look, he backtracked. "Okay, well, I do look like him, but I've got a lot of Mum too."

Hermione only shook her head and continued dusting the bookshelves in her room. She smiled at the way Harry sat comfortably talking about his parents with his feet up and hand running through his hair. She had never seen him so relaxed when speaking about them.

"Remus told me some great stories. He keeps remembering other funning times and running in to find Sirius and me so we can all have a laugh. I think it's been good for Sirius. He seems younger somehow."

"He's not the only one it's been good for," Hermione said with a smirk as she dusted off her old copy of Hogwarts: A History.

"What do you mean?" Harry asked.

She seemed to come to herself and then said, "I just mean Remus. He seems to be feeling much better too. His spirits are higher."

"Yeah, he's getting used to things around here," agreed Harry.

"I think it's about time he's started studying," she continued.

"Who's studying what?" asked Sirius from the doorway. Remus accompanied him.

"I was just saying, now that things have had a week to settle down and everyone's comfortable, it might be time for Remus to start studying. We did promise Minerva that he was staying here on the condition that he'd learn what he's supposed to get in lessons." She turned in time to see his shoulders slump a bit, but his smile remained.

"I knew someone would remember at some point," he said.

It was settled that Hermione, as the top scoring and most motivated tutor among them, would start giving Remus the lessons he ought to be learning in school the next morning.

He sighed as he pulled on a shirt and trousers in preparation for the day. While he had always enjoyed studying, the thought of taking on several subjects when not at school brought him back down to earth a bit. After the initial shock of finding himself in a different time among what seemed like strangers, he had found his friends still there in a strange way. He had come to find time with Harry and the older Sirius as a strange parallel to his time at school with the marauders. Harry was an interesting mix of Lily and James all wrapped up into one and Sirius seemed to become his old self again when they got to talking about their adventures together. The only one missing was Peter, but he had stopped mentioning him when he saw a shadow pass over the faces of their friends at his name. He didn't ask, but he remembered that many had died in the war, so he didn't press. Knowing that two of his best friends had died was enough.

Still, spending time with the two men had been like a summer holiday with his best mates, but now Hermione – an unparalleled presence in his own time – had brought him back to reality. It was time to learn. He finished tucking in his shirt and buckled a belt Harry had lent him.

He walked the flight of stairs up to the library where he was set to meet Hermione. He glanced at the door opposite, where he knew the man in the coma lay. His shoulders shuddered a bit, but he looked away and blew out his breath, preparing himself to enter the room in front of him to begin their study.

'Well, teaching on her part,' he thought, when suddenly an image of Hermione in Professor McGonagall's robes with her severely tight bun and silver-rimmed glasses popped into his head. As he opened the library door, this image was instantly replaced by the one in front of him: Hermione stood at the long table, her hair tumbling out of a loose bun. Her muggle clothing clung to her body in a way robes just weren't made to.

Remus suddenly appreciated their informal setting as he observed her unnoticed. She wasn't one of those super pretty girls, as Lily was. Nor was she as high maintenance as Narcissa Black, Sirius' cousin, either, he guessed. She had a pragmatic approach to things, which lent her a strong confidence. The thing that impressed him the most was the great care that she took in what she did. He saw neatly stacked piles of paper on the table in front of her, her preparation for the day's work evident. You could tell she was passionate and really felt and though about what she said and did. The word for her was lovely.

"Are you just going to stand in the door all day or are you going to join me?" she asked knowingly, despite the fact that her back was still turned. He was glad she faced the table as his face flushed pink.

"So what are we learning today, Professor Granger?" he asked as he sat down in one of the chairs.

"Well, I wrote to Professor McGonagall and she agreed with my idea of evaluating where you stand so that we don't repeat what you've already learned."

"Wonderful. My first day and you're already giving me examinations," he said, now looking accusingly at the large stacks of paper she had laid out.

"Oh, I think I've already gotten a good look at you," she deadpanned.

He abruptly looked up at her. Was she flirting with him? Her face gave no hints as she continued to shuffle papers.

"We just need a starting point," she continued, "I flooed Minerva last night and she owled me some brief evaluations." She sat a large stack of paper down in front of him. "Take your time. I'll be in and out."

"Hermione, if I take my time, I won't be finished until October. I'll at least have to break for transformations," he said, trying to bring some levity to the situation as he stared at the very heavy looking stack of paper.

"You'll be fine. They give you quite a bit of space to write and I just want you to write enough that I know you have the concepts down. I don't need N.E.W.T. level answers at this point," she said encouragingly.

"Well, good, because I haven't taken my N.E.W.T.s yet."

"Fine, O.W.L.s then. You know what I meant."

He settled in to taking his tests and she hustled and bustled in and out, gathering materials. After an hour of exhaustive questions, he looked up to find her writing lesson plans.

"How can you plan if you needed me to do this," he gestured at the papers, "to know what to plan?"

She looked up with a small smile. "Well, there is some N.E.W.T. material that I can plan on you not knowing. Then evaluation is just to trim up the edge and let me know how far you are and how in depth to start."

"Are you saying you know what I'm behind in?" Remus challenged.

"No, not really. Just new material that you won't have learned yet," she said.

"You know I did study ahead all summer," he added.

"I figured you would have and I'm planning accordingly," she said unconcernedly.

A glint of competitiveness that she had never seen in the older Remus flashed in his eyes. 'It must be James and Sirius' influence,' she thought.

"I'll do better than you think," he boasted.

"Perhaps," she replied.

"Let's make a bet of it then, if you're so confident," he said with a smirk.

"What's the forfeit then?" she said after a moment's hesitation.

"A day. An entire day of whatever the winner wants. No study," he said.

"If 'no study' is what the winner wants," she returned. It was a challenge and his confident and playful tone sent a chill down her spine, but she was not one to back down.

"Deal," Remus said.

Hermione smiled at the determination with which he flipped back to the first page and began to flesh out his answers. She turned back to her planning, thinking 'He'll be sorry by dinner.'

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