Sorry for the long(ish) wait! But most authors update, like, once a month, so I should be fine...right? Right?
Meh. Whatever. You can slaughter me in your reviews or whatever, but I wouldn't really mind because then you'd actually be reviewing...
So yeah. I didn't get to use the actual book and ended up using a fanfiction for reference instead (Listening by Morning Lilies, if you're curious), so sorry if I got anything wrong...
Tell me! Because then you'd be reviewing! And I love reviews!
I do not own Harry Potter in any way, shape, or form. All rights belong to J.K. Rowling
Moment: To Meet Again
The first time Remus hears Harry speak a real coherent sentence (gasp) it is while he is shamelessly eavesdropping on a group of three – Harry and his two friends Ron and Hermione – while pretending to be asleep.
At first he is just trying to get some rest after the full moon the day before, although it is likely impossible because students continue to slide open the door to peek inside before hastily slamming it closed, seeing him staring (glaring) irritably back.
If the students don't want to share a compartment with a teacher, they could at least try not to irritate me,he thinks, scowling slightly. Remus is dead tired, and although he is normally quite pleasant and mild-tempered, he is not in a very good mood today. His "inner wolf", as usual, is no help at all; instead, it rather significantly increases his bad mood.
He sighs and closes his eyes, feigning sleep in a wishful attempt to actually fall asleep and to also make it less awkward for students to come into the empty compartment and therefore stop slamming the dang door.
And that is how he ends up in the same compartment as Harry and his friends, and ends up not sleeping a wink.
As he listens to the three children talking, he learns that the girl (he does not know her name yet) is very intelligent, Ron (and Remus is slightly amused – Harry and Ron had been good playmates as babies as well) is an avid Chudley Cannons fan, and that Harry's voice sounds like an adolescent James's voice but with Lily's unique verbal quirks and inflections. (Remus is surprised and somewhat upset to find that he has almost entirely forgotten what his friends' voices sounded like until today.)
Harry also doesn't seem too alarmed at the fact that Sirius Black is after him.
A strangely detached part of Remus wonders just how well Harry will take it when he learns that Black is a traitor and betrayed his parents, leading to their death. The rest of him feels a flash of anger at that particular subject, but he pushes it away – he should be celebrating; he is finally reunited with his cub (even though aforementioned cub has no idea who Remus is, other than being the new DADA professor)!
But that slightly depressing train of thought is interrupted by the door sliding open and a round of insults traded between two warring parties, and thus leads to a new interesting and rather amusing piece of information – this generation of Slytherins is in no way more creative than the last. "Potty and the Weasel" – seriously?
The arrogant boy being a Malfoy explains everything, though, and he personally ends the verbal spat by making himself noticed, actually glad that he is a teacher even though the Marauders, ah…strongly disliked several (read: Filch) during their tenure at Hogwarts.
That particular feeling is quickly ridden of after the girl shushes Ron for making a threat to Malfoy, wary of Remus overhearing.
But Remus really wouldn't have minded Ron strangling the pompous git at all.
But for the large part of the ride to Hogwarts, Remus is content to just lean back and listen to their chatter.
And somewhere along the way, he really does fall asleep.
The first time he sees Harry, though, is an entirely different matter. It is during an encounter with a dementor on a train ride, and Harry is unconscious to boot. Remus is woken up by the many loud voices in the compartment, but doesn't catch a good look until after he lights a fire in the palm of his hand, looking at each student in turn until he nearly has a heart attack from seeing a mini-James unconscious and convulsing on the rather dirty floor – although when he looks closer, Remus notes that this boy is thinner and scrawnier, as if he has not been well taken care of, which is not unlikely. He knows what kind of people the Dursleys are.
But there are other students here, and Remus is a teacher, so he must (or at least attempt to) act strict and unbiased. Or however teachers are supposed to act. So he ignores his instincts screaming at him to make sure that Harry is all right.
And there is a dementor. He mustn't forget the dementor. That would not be good.
After he disposes of the dementor with a purposely incorporeal Patronus (he despises everything to do with wolves), he turns around to look at the students again. He reminds himself to act teacher-ly and searches in his briefcase for his emergency bar of chocolate (and quietly mourns his loss) before checking on Harry.
He seems to be very well taken care of by his friends (Ron and Hermione), who are shaking him back and forth by his shoulders. When that appears ineffective, Ron begins…er, quite gently slapping his face.
"Harry! Harry! Are you all right?"
Haunted green eyes (Lily's eyes – although they didn't usually show an emotion such as this) groggily open and Harry groans. "W-what?"
Hermione looks very relieved. Remus wholeheartedly feels the same.
"Are you all right?" Ron asks as they help Harry back onto his seat. He looks awful, too pale and clammy.
"Yeah," Harry says. "What happened? Where's that – that thing? Who screamed?"
"No one screamed," Ron says, frowning slightly.
"But I heard screaming –"
Remus decides to interrupt this conversation before they think Harry is insane and loudly snaps his precious chocolate bar (and feels like crying while doing so…but that would not make a very good first impression on the students, so he doesn't) into pieces. "Here," he says while evenly distributing his large bar of chocolate amongst them all (and silently mourning his loss). "Eat it. It'll help."
And if Harry's bar happens to be larger (much, much larger) than any of the others', well, Remus knows nothing.
So, yeah. A few jabs at Remus chocoholic-ism and very little actual dialogue...
Tell me what you think!