A/N: Blagh-am I the worst or what? I'm still thinking about this, so thank you to everyone who has reviewed encouraging me not to stop this. I'm sorry this has taken forever.

Hermione guiltily gulped down a Hangover Potion, and pulled on her uniform to hurry down to class. She would not be able to make it to breakfast in time, but she thought she might be able to find a Hunger Elixir in her medicine cabinet that could stave her off until she had time to run to the kitchens during a break.

She had talked about sex with Charlie, she was sure of that. She had also apparently lost her mind, she was not sure of why that had happened, but she had been acting insane enough to be sure of that as well. She felt so out of control that she retreated to her room for the weekend, spending most of her time studying alone. The next week passed by uneventfully and quickly. Overall, things felt pretty normal. She could go to class, eat breakfast, talk with other students, much as she had for the past seven years. But occasionally, she would get a reminder of something that had happened with Remus, or an exchange she'd had with Charlie, and a hot fire would work its way down her body, into a place that begged for her release.

If she was in the privacy of her room, it was okay- she would hike up her skirt, somewhat ashamed but too bothered to really care- although, even in her private Head Girl room, still casting a few privacy charms around her room, just in case- but it was when she was in class or in the dining hall that she was at a loss of what to do.

She would be sitting, often alone as she read a book, and glancing up, she would find Professor Lupin staring at her, his jaw clenched tightly. Unbidden, her eyes couldn't help but travel south, imagining walking over and unzipping his trousers, on her knees in front of him, taking him into her mouth as the other students watched on.

In DADA class, Remus decided to assign a mid-semester, two-week-long project for the students to work on, so that they could find an area of interest, and he could tailor what he taught to what the students wanted to learn more about.

He decided to have open hours in his office for students to come in and discuss their project proposal, and Hermione being Hermione, she was the only student to show up, as the other students had put off the project for later.

"Professor? Is this a good time?" she asked tentatively. Her light brown hair was pulled up in a ponytail, revealing her long neck, and she wore a large, soft sweater over her uniform.

"Of course, Miss Granger, come in," Remus answered.

"I have a proposal for my project, and I wasn't sure if it fell within the limits of what you were expecting. Do you think I could run it by you?"

It felt foreign to be speaking with Remus in such formal tones, considering what she had experienced with him, but after her crazy start to the school year, she was hoping to be able to buckle down on her school work and recuperate a little. Maybe, she thought, speaking to him as if he were just a professor to her was exactly what she needed.

"I'm sure it will be just fine, but yes, we can go over it just in case."

"Do you remember the questions I was asking you earlier, about apparating to an unknown location? Well, I've been working on a project in that realm for a month or so now, and I was thinking of using the DADA project as an opportunity to add some polish to it. I want to work on a way to, well… 'encrypt', so to speak, an apparition casting, so as to prevent an ill-meaning follower from tagging-along. It stems from an experience I had with Harry and Ron- when trying to escape from the Ministry, we were followed as we apparated to Grimmauld Place, and the location was no longer protected from him by the Fidelus. If the apparition caster were able to ensure that only people that they meant to apparate were able to Side-Along with them, the spell would be much safer, do you not agree?"

Remus nodded, impressed, "If you could implement something to that effect in two weeks, that would be splendid."

"I only ask since you specifically stated that this was not meant to be a repeat of a past project, but rather a new exploration into something, and this is clearly intricately linked to a separate project that I have been working on."

"This is an obvious exception- you're working on something not only new and original, but also a very interesting subject. If it were anyone else, I would ask them to refine the scope of their project to ensure that it was feasible to complete in the next two weeks, but I won't insult you to imply that you don't have full awareness of the difficulty of your chosen task."

"Thank you, Professor." Hermione got up, reading herself to leave, but on impulse she turned around to face the handsome older professor. "I don't really know where we stand right now," she started, and Remus' face tensed, worried at the direction she was starting in, "but I am really getting close to the First Transformation casting with my Animagus preparations. I know it's a Friday, so I don't want to intrude on your plans?" She paused, but Remus slightly shook his head no, so she continued-"If you wouldn't mind meeting with me in the study for just an hour after classes are over today, it would be amazingly helpful. There seems to be a chapter missing from the book I'm using, and it's simply been impossible for me to decipher which ingredients I need to procure to complete the potion required. I managed to find something relevant in a tome that's been magically protected, and there are a few pages that I can't lift the charms from, so I can't figure out what they are saying."

Hermione realized that she had been speaking rapidly without taking any breaths for quite a bit, so she paused to gulp in some air as casually as she could. She really did want to finish working on her Animagus transformation, but the truth was, she also really wanted to interact more with Remus, even though she wouldn't even admit that to herself.

"Yes, of course," agreed Remus, before he even realized what he was agreeing to. It was becoming harder and harder to deny anything to the beautiful, young witch in front of him.

Hermione had the rest of the day off- the professors from most of her classes had given her free study time to work on personal project in their subjects, since the first round of tests were coming up soon, and they were reviewing previous years works- subject matter that Hermione had down pat. Occasionally, she felt as if coming back to school were a waste of her time, considering even though she was barely three weeks in and she was already spending a considerable amount of her time doing personal study, but the amount of private guidance each of the professors were willing to give her meant that coming back to Hogwarts was still a valuable experience. (Yes, she thought to herself wryly, the 'private' guidance from the professors has been great.) She decided to once again sneak off to Ginny's for some girl time-something they had lacked during her last visit. She dashed off an owl announcing her visit later, and settled down to work until Ginny got off work.

She flooed in to Ginny's apartment still wearing her Hogwarts uniform, where Ginny was waiting in comfy arm chair reading a book and sipping on a glass of red wine. By the time Hermione was fully emerged from the fireplace, Ginny was on her feet to give her a warm hug.

"You're not wearing that when we go out in Diagon Alley tonight, are you?" Ginny remarked, observing the Hogwarts uniform with disdain.

"Diagon Alley?" questioned Hermione.

"With the boys!" Ginny said. Upon Hermione's blank face, she realized that the brunette had no idea what she was talking about, "Harry didn't owl you, did he. That git! I reminded him three times. You're free, at least, aren't you?"

"I guess? I was going to-" she broke off, remembering why she had wanted to speak with Ginny in the first place. She didn't plan on going fully into detail, but being able to vent at least some of her woes to someone who wasn't Charlie would be great. "I was planning on meeting with Remus to go over some school work at eight, then studying after that. But I don't see why I couldn't come meet up with you lot instead of focusing on my studies. Where were you planning on meeting?"

"Harry and Ron are coming round here at half past nine, Charlie too, maybe. You ought to invite Remus to join us too! It's been a while since we've seen him around. I'm sure Harry would love the chance to catch up with him."

At Ginny's mention of how much Harry missed Remus, Hermione immediately lost all her nerve to talk to her redheaded friend about her Remus-troubles.

"Sure, Ginny, I'll mention it to him," she responded meekly.

"Hermione, do have a glass of wine with me! I've missed you buckets since you've gone back to school."

The pair sat around the dinner table for a couple hours, catching up and drinking together, before Ginny coyly brought up the idea of a makeover.

"We're going out in Diagon Alley tonight, and it's been forever since you've let me do you up. I won't be extreme, there's just a few outfits I've bought for you that I want you to try out."

"You bought me clothing!" Hermione exclaimed, shocked.

"Oh don't be like that, Mione! You know Harry and I have had too much money to know what to do with as of late. And I've been desperately bored without you around, I need some estrogen to keep me sane. Let me dress you up, just for tonight, please?"

"And what if I don't like the outfits you bought me?" Hermione tried. But at this point, she knew it was a lost cause-when Ginny made up her mind, that was it.

Ginny dragged her to the bedroom and did up her makeup before forcing her to put on a form-fitting red shirt and a pair of tight, curve-hugging leather trousers.

"Leather trousers! Are you really expecting me to-" Hermione started, but after one glare from Ginny she quieted. She glanced over at the clock and realized it was nearly time for her to meet up with Remus. "Ginny, I'm going to be late to meet up with Remus. I'll see you at half past nine?"

Ginny pushed a pair of heeled boots into her hands and held out a pot of floo powder. Hermione stepped into the green fire, ready to hurry towards the study.

A/N: Reviews are still the best. I'm going to try to get another chapter out really soon!