Chapter 9

"After all, there's no need
 to say anything
at first. An orange, peeled
and quartered, flares
like a tulip on a wedgewood plate
Anything can happen.
Outside the sun
has rolled up her rugs
and night strewn salt
across the sky. My heart
is humming a tune
I haven't heard in years!
Quiet's cool flesh—
let's sniff and eat it.
There are ways
to make of the moment
a topiary
so the pleasure's in
walking through."

- Rita Dove [Flirtation]

A hand shaking her shoulder nearly made Rose jump out of her seat as she snapped out of her dream and back into the waking world. Students sitting around her were giggling, and Rose's cheeks turned a bright red color. Lupin's own tired face looked down at her sympathetically. Neither of them had gotten much sleep the previous night with the search of the castle. Rose had meant to close her eyes for just a second when she'd arrived early for class and had apparently nodded off. Her eyes flickered over to Percy who was sitting in the front row, not doing much better than she was. His head was drooping gently against his chest, and Oliver Wood elbowed him hard in the side of his ribs causing Percy to start and snap back to sudden alertness.

"Sorry, Professor," Rose apologized with a tired smile. He quickly returned it, patting her shoulder and moving to the front of the room to begin his lecture.

"Why didn't either of you wake me up," Rose whispered accusingly to Mariko and Sam who sat on each side of her.

"We tried," Sam informed her casually. "You were dead to the world."

"You were snoring," Mari added, causing Rose's flushed cheeks to turn a more vibrant red.

"No, I wasn't."

"Only a little," Sam said unapologetically.

"At least you weren't drooling," Mari grinned, and Rose lifted her textbook and smacked Mari with it.

"Ladies, please." Professor Lupin's tired voice wafted back to them from the front of the class. Percy turned around in his chair to glare pompously at the three of them.

"Sorry, Professor," they chorused as he returned to his lecture. Sam flipped Percy off under her desk, and he harrumphed at her as he turned back around.

"Thus far, we have been focusing on the forces of motion in our attempts at wandless magic. Push, pull, up, down. All of you have had some level of success with one of these. As many of you have observed, pushing and pulling tend to be the easiest forms of wandless magic. Can anyone tell me why this is?" Remus lectured, and Percy Weasley's hand shot into the air.

"That is because pushing and pulling more easily focus our intention as we are directly acting upon the object." Percy explained quickly, and Rose rolled her eyes. That was a complicated way of saying, it's easier to want something to come to you or go away from you than it is to want something to go up and down. They had all experienced this.

"Correct, Percy. Remember that wandless magic depends primarily on three things, our intention, or how clearly we understand what we are trying to do; intensity, or how much we want the outcome we are trying to create; and intuition, or how well we can manifest both intensity and intention on a subconscious level. This is why we teach wandless magic at the N.E.W.T level rather than in first year classes," Lupin explained easily. "By this time, you have cast so many spells that they have become almost second nature to you. Learning nonverbals last year has also helped in this intuitive internalization of magic. While all of you have experienced wandless magic as children, that kind of wandless magic is uncontrolled and undirected. It is one thing for your magic to manifest in moments of stress and another to use magic for a specific purpose whenever you wish it."

Rose blinked tiredly and began to zone out as the lecture continued. It wasn't that Lupin's lecture wasn't interesting, it was just that she was so tired from staying up all night. She had managed to sleep maybe an hour or two before their morning Defense class. Rose could tell Lupin was also feeling the stress of the previous night. He looked paler than she had seen him since he'd first arrived at Hogwarts, his scars standing out starkly on his face. The circles under his eyes were so dark that they looked like bruises and the lines on his face seemed magnified. He looked easily ten years older than he was. Rose knew Lupin had health issues of some kind and hoped they weren't flaring up.

"Today we will be moving on to wandless conjuration. This is obviously much more advanced than simply moving a preexisting object around in physical space. The easiest of the four elements to conjure is fire, can anyone tell me why? Yes, Penelope?"

"Fire has less mass than water or earth because it is gaseous, but unlike air it is still visible and thus easier to conceptualize." Penelope Clearwater answered succinctly. Mari mimed a gagging motion at the proud look Percy threw to his girlfriend.

"Very good, Penelope." Lupin smiled at her. "For the purpose of this exercise, I would ask that you all attempt to conjure blue flames so that if there are any accidents no one gets hurt."

Lupin then demonstrated by conjuring a handful of blue flames that lit up his face in an unflattering way. The flickering light cast his eyes into deeper shadows and washed out his already pale skin. Rose looked down at her own hands. She had used this spell many times before but always with a wand. Blue flames were advantageous because they were water resistant and didn't burn at the touch. It was common to see students carrying them around in jars during the winter months to stay warm. Glancing around the classroom, Rose was amused at the silence and concentration on the faces of her classmates. Percy was focusing on his palm so hard that his face was slowly turning purple. Lupin moved quietly around the room offering advice to students. She distinctly heard him tell Percy to breathe, and he seemed to deflate like a popped balloon.

'Okay,' Rose thought, looking down at her wand hand. 'Let's start small.' Raising her index finger, Rose focused on the very tip of it. Breathing rhythmically, she tried to imagine what the spell felt like when she cast it, the way the magic seemed to rush through her veins. She tried to feel the warmth of the flames, to see their brightness, to hear the tiny crackling pops of the flames in her head. As she breathed out, Rose thought 'flama caeruleus.' To her surprise and delight a small blue flame flickered to life on her fingertip. Rose let it drop into her palm and found it was much easier to grow it into a handful of flames now that she'd successfully conjured it. The ring on her middle finger glinted in the blue light, and Rose's concentration immediately slipped, the flames winking out of existence.

"Wonderfully done, Rose." She heard Lupin's soft voice in her ear as he tried not to disturb the other concentrating students. Rose turned and grinned at him proudly, excited by his praise and her success. That had felt much easier to her than pushing the pencil around on her desk had been. But it made sense, conjuration was a form of transfiguration, whereas levitation and summoning were a subset of charms—she would find easiest the type of magic she most excelled at with a wand.

"Try it a few more times and then switch to your other hand." Rose groaned good naturedly at him and he grinned at her. This had been Lupin's classic response to any success they'd had with wandless magic and using their non-wand hand was significantly harder. Rose had taken to practicing casting basic and intermediate spells with her wand in her left hand to see if it would help. So far, no luck. As Lupin wandered away, Mari glared at her.

"How did you manage that so quickly?" Rose shrugged in response, returning to focusing on repeating the accomplishment. By the end of class and feeling significantly more frustrated, Rose still hadn't managed to conjure the flames again with either hand. She stuffed her books roughly back into her bag in annoyance.

"At least you were able to conjure them once," Sam said brightly, ever the optimist; she had managed a few blue sparks by the end of the class. Mariko still had a pinched look to her face that her friends had managing it so quickly. As the three headed towards the exit, Rose stopped when Professor Lupin called her back.

"I'll see you both later," Rose told them, turning back to Lupin who was sitting tiredly at his desk. Lupin chuckled at the annoyance that was still evident on her face.

"You'll get it again, Rose, you needn't worry."

"It's just frustrating that it came so easily the first time. Why can't I manage it again?"

"You're likely overthinking it, remember, intuition." Rose sighed moodily at this but nodded. She guessed she understood that. While magic had always come to her best in its scientific and logical forms like in alchemy and transfiguration, Rose understood how important intuition was for things like Quidditch. If she overthought what she was doing on the pitch, she tended to flounder. It was on days where everything seemed to sync up between her mind, body, and broom, that she was at her best as a chaser.

"Are you… feeling alright, sir?" Rose asked hesitantly, not wanting to offend Lupin. He just smiled his tired smile at her, running a hand through his graying hair.

"Nothing you need to worry about, my dear. I was wondering if you had another day earlier this week to help get some grading done. My illness… well let's just say it tends to get worse before it gets better, and I'd like to get some work done before it gets too bad. I don't want to inconvenience you too much though, I know Slytherin is set to play Gryffindor this weekend." It was true that Flint had scheduled them for extra practices this week in preparation for the match.

"I'm free now, sir, unless you have another class…? Are you sure you shouldn't be resting?"

"Don't worry about me, Rose, I've been handling this for a long time. I can have Wilpey bring us up some food if you're willing to stay."

"Of course, sir. Maybe some coffee too if you don't mind, I don't think tea is going to cut it today." Remus nodded with a smile and the two moved up to his office and began sifting through a stack of papers. It didn't escape her notice that some of them were very recently written.

'He must be serious about this getting worse then,' Rose thought to herself, otherwise they could have easily graded them later in the week. They both took a quick break when Wilpey arrived with their food and coffee. Lupin wrinkled his nose at the brown liquid, slowly adding sugar cube after sugar cube to the drink. Rose, who preferred her coffee black, stared at him in concern.

"How have you not had a heart attack, yet?" She asked in mock bemusement. Remus grinned at her, stirring the sugar into his drink.

"I don't know how you drink coffee like that," he said with a shudder.

"Because I'm an adult." She answered pointedly eliciting another grin from him.

"If that's what it means to be an adult then I'll pass." He smiled and they both drank their respective coffees, lapsing back into silence. While the coffee helped Rose perk back up slightly, it seemed to have no tangible effect on Lupin who soon fell sleep with his cheek propped on his hand, the other still clutching an essay. Rose observed him quietly for a while, sipping at a second cup of coffee. He looked so peaceful while he was sleeping, as if the worries he carried around with him during the day fell from his shoulders. Was he really someone she couldn't trust? Had Snape been exaggerating because he didn't like Lupin? The man looked so sweet and adorable sleeping there. The unnerving sensation of butterflies in her stomach made her quickly look away from him. She decided to continue grading and let him sleep.

When Rose was nearly done with the pile, Lupin's head slipped from his hand and he woke with a start, crinkling the essay he was holding. Looking around with wide eyes, Lupin saw that nearly an hour had passed, and he turned his gaze to Rose accusingly.

"You should have woken me."

"You needed the sleep," she told him with a shrug. Lupin began smoothing out the wrinkles he'd put into the essay he'd been grading; carefully flattening it on the desk. "Next time I fall asleep in class you can leave me alone, how's that?"

Lupin let out a bark of laughter, grinning at her. "I would have been happy to let you sleep if you were doing it quietly."

"No way," Rose moaned, holding her face in her hands. "I thought Sam and Mari were putting me on! Was I really snoring?"

"Very quietly," he told her, the grin never falling from his face. "It was cute actually."

Both of their faces went slightly pink at this statement, and they broke eye contact, each looking in the opposite direction. They were saved from further embarrassment by Lupin's door opening. Rose quickly returned her gaze to the essay in her lap as Snape walked in carrying a smoking goblet. She heard him pause as he saw her before walking all the way into the room.

"Hello, Severus," Lupin greeted amiably. Rose could practically feel the sneer on Snape's face.

"Lupin. Do you always have a Potter keeping you company?" Snape sneered. Rose looked up at him sharply. Snape never referred to her as Potter. She glanced to Remus for elaboration.

"Harry was in here with me yesterday when Severus came by," he explained, and Rose nodded. She must have just missed Snape when she came to his office yesterday. Rose was very grateful for this as she didn't think she could have handled the encounter. "You can set that here for me Severus."

Snape set the goblet down on the desk directly in front of Rose, nowhere near where Remus had gestured, before turning and walking out. Remus scowled at Snape's retreating back. Reaching over, he slid the goblet full of the smoking blue potion across the desk. Lifting it, he mimed a silent cheers to Rose and then gulped it back quickly, wincing and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Disgusting." He informed her.

"Looked like it," Rose agreed with a smile. Even with his nose wrinkled in disgust, he still looked adorable. "Why does Se—Professor Snape dislike you do much?"

Lupin considered her for a moment, running his hand through his hair before answering. "Severus and I were classmates at school. We ran in… different circles and didn't really get along."

Rose nodded slowly, imagining that there was quite a bit more to the story than he was telling her but not wanting to press too much. She knew from personal experience that Severus Snape could hold a grudge.