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Disclaimer: Do not own Harry Potter.
Chapter 10 - Sneaking
"God rest ye, merry Hippogriffs."
The suits of armor, polished for the holidays, were singing melodious Christmas carols as fat snowflakes flew though the air. The gray dreariness that had been creeping across the castle had been replaced by shimmering whiteness and flickering warmth from candles. The holidays were coming closer, and the smells of candy canes, eggnog, and anticipation were in the air.
I pressed my nose against the frosty window, causing it to fog up when my warm breath touched it. I traced the cracks of the stained-glass panels with my fingertip, wiping the condensation away. Pressing my wet finger against my cheek, I remember when I was trying to lick an icicle hanging of the roof of my house. I was six-years-old, and had climbed on top of the bench that was on my front porch to see if icicles really did taste like ice cream, like my older brother had told me. Of course, my tongue got stuck, and my parents could not hear my shouts. This was the first time I showed my magical ability – I melted the ice to free my tongue. Unfortunately, I melted all of the icicles, and trudged through the front door soaked with lukewarm water.
I let a little laugh escape from my lips remembering this. "What'chya laughing at, crazy?" an all-too familiar voice chided. I whipped around to pout at Lupin but instead found his chest just inches away from my face. My eyes darted around to look for anyone else in the hallway, but we were all alone. Lupin reached up and wiped away a drop of melted ice off of my cheek.
"Let's go out tonight," he breathed excitedly, his eyes shining like a five-year-old's on Christmas morning.
"Out? Out where?" I asked, puzzled.
"I don't know! Out! Hogsmeade, maybe! Blake, this is our last night…I wanna go out!" he exclaimed.
"Our last night?" I said. "I'll only be gone for two weeks. But if you really want to, I guess I can take the night off…"
"Oh, lighten up, Blake!" he laughed, and gave me a most uncharacteristic poke on the nose. "It's your last night before the holiday. You should want to take it off!"
"What is with you?" I asked, bemused by his curious behavior.
"Nothing!" he chortled. "I suppose I'm just…in the holiday mood."
"Well, alright then," I said, smiling. "Just say where and when."
"Meet me at that statue of that old humpbacked witch on the third floor at ten o'clock. I can't wait!" And with that, he took off down the corridor. Rather puzzled, I took to staring out the window again.
oOoOoOoOoOoO
For once in my life, I wasn't early. After returning to the dormitory, I had been laying on my bed, reading a book. Incredibly, I fell asleep, and by the time I awoke, it was already five past eight. Realizing the time, I rand down the winding stairs of Ravenclaw tower and took off down the corridor, heading towards the third floor. When I finally reached my destination, I skidded to a stop. Poor Lupin was sitting on the ground, staring at his knees. He looked up when he heard me, a broad grin appearing on his face.
"Ah, I'm so sorry I'm late! I was reading, and I fell asleep, and I –"
Lupin stood up, and embraced me. "It's alright," he said, "I'm just glad you showed up! Are you ready?"
"I wasn't aware that I was supposed to be prepared," I teased. "But yes, I am."
"Good, good, good!" he said quickly. He walked back over to the ugly statue, tapped it with his wand, and muttered, "dissendium." To my surprise, the statue swung open and revealed a narrow and short passageway.
"Wow," I murmured. "What is this?"
"When I was talking about the Marauders," he began, taking my hand and leading me into the tiny cave, "oh, watch your head. When I was taking about the Marauders, I failed to mention that we knew every secret passage, hidden secret, and hidey-hole in the castle. Or so we thought. Anyway, this one leads directly into Honeyduke's cellar, and was quite handy when we wanted to sneak out. We actually managed to, with a bit of tricky spell work, compile all of our knowledge into a map, called the Marauders' map. Who knows where it ended up?" He chuckled a bit, remembering his teenage years.
We walked down the surprisingly long passage in silence for the next couple of minutes in silence. He suddenly stopped, reaching the end, causing me to walk straight into his back. "Sorry," I said sheepishly. Lupin squeezed my hand, and then let go, tapping on the ceiling.
"If I remember," he said quietly, tapping on the dirt ceiling, "it should be right…about…here." He pushed what was apparently a trap door open, and lifted me up to crawl through. He followed closely, flecks of dust in his hair. Looking around, I saw a musty, dank basement void of much light. "Lumos," Lupin whispered, and a small glow was emitted from his wand.
"Won't anyone notice?" I asked nervously, glancing towards the stairs.
"Not if we're quiet," he grinned and led me up the steps and into the sweet-smelling Honeyduke's. The lights were off, and I could only see a few feet in front of me by the light of Lupin's wand. He put a silencing charm on the bells on the front door, and we walked out into the street. "Good thing it closes early," he said, glancing at me and smiling.
Hand in hand, we ambled down the empty cobblestone street. When we reached The Three Broomsticks, Lupin said, "Wait here," and he dashed in. He emerged a minute later, swinging two bottles of butterbeer. We had been walking and chatting for a while when Lupin faced me and smiled sheepishly. "Er, do you want to see the Shrieking Shack?"
I nodded and quietly said, "Yeah. I would love to." It's amazing. He wanted to show me somewhere so personal, a place filled with an uncountable amount of memories. The Shrieking Shack was where he spent the best and worst parts of his Hogwarts years, and it wanted to share with me. His paced quickened as we neared the fence separating the Shack from the rest of Hogsmeade. We stopped and peered over the fence. Lupin breathed in slowly, but his expression was so mixed that I couldn't tell what he was feeling.
"Let's go," he said, grabbing my hand. His eyes gleamed, and I could suddenly a bit of amber in his normally brown eyes.
"Wh-what?" I stuttered.
"C'mon, let's go inside," he insisted. He lifted me up, and I clumsily scrambled over the fence. Then, he scaled the fence with surprising agility. Lupin began running towards the Shack, and I raced to keep up with him. "Now, the main entrance is through the Whomping Willow," he said when he finally stopped, "but after James, Sirius, and Peter became Animagi, we made another entrance, only accessible to us – a doggy-door, if you will – that gave us easy access to Hogsmeade. It's right…here." He bent over and tapped the rotting wood with his wand, and a small opening appeared. "Ha," he chuckled, "I forgot how small this thing was. Well, come on in."
He bent down to crawl through the small opening. "Ugh," he grunted. "This was so much easier back then." I saw him disappear through the hole and stood hesitantly for a second. "Blake," he said. "What'chya waiting for?" I wiggled through the gap and blinked before my eyes could adjust to the darkness. Lupin had run over to ignite some lamps and a dim and dank room came into view. There was a thick layer of dust on every surface. The mahogany furniture was mangled and absolutely destroyed, with large chunks bitten out of most of the legs.
"It's a good thing that furniture doesn't have feelings," Lupin chuckled, seeing me eyeing the wooden shreds. He began to walk down the hallway and entered a room to the right. "C'mon over here!"
I followed him down the hall and entered that same room. In it was a huge four poster bed draped in red and gold cloth. "You're a true Gryffindor, huh?" I chided, smoothing out the fabric and blowing some of the dust off.
"Wha-mhhm, oh yeah," Lupin mumbled, seemingly distracted. He was standing by the worn dresser, gripping the sides with tense hands.
"Are you alright?" I asked anxiously. "I can go back to castle. I still have some things to pack, you know."
Lupin turned around sharply, and odd gleam in his eye. It wasn't the normal one – a mixture of mischief and wisdom. Instead, it was one that was almost…lustful? No, no, no, that's absolutely absurd.
"Blake," he whispered and came out me in a single bound. He grabbed me by the waist and drew me close, pressing his lips frantically against mine. The kiss wasn't one of the sweet and rather hesitant ones I was used to; this one was intense and needy. His lips were every where – my mouth, my cheeks, my neck. Oh! He just gave me, quite fittingly, a love bite on my ear.
His weight was pressing on my body, and suddenly, my back was on the four-poster bed. One hand stoked my thoroughly messed up hair. The other began to snake down my front…
"Professor," I gasped. "Wha-"
The sound of my voice snapped him back to reality. He wrenched his body away from me as if shocked by a violent electric current.
"Oh no," he heaved. "What am I doing? I shouldn't have brought you here. Not tonight."
A/N Oh. Oh hey. So, what? It's been a year or something? Sorry bout that. Well, I hope you enjoyed this chappy! And I'll actually try to write some more!
OH! And thank you for all of the people who offered to be my beta…but…it's been a while. If you're still interested, let me know. If you're newly interested, go to the previous chapter for all of the details.
One last thing. Last night, I met Alex Carpenter. Yes, the man who wrote the song that inspired this story. The lead singer of the Remus Lupins. It was *snort* magical. I even got a picture with him. My life is complete