Remus had been teaching at Hogwarts for over two months now, and yet somehow his third-year student, Vincent Crabbe hadn't submitted a single piece of homework to be graded. Remus sat in the staffroom asking the other teachers about their experiences. Several teachers admitted that they had multiple students who never gave any homework – apparently the Weasley twins were shockers for their other teachers – but most teachers also commented that Vincent was also an issue, with Professor Vector admitting he didn't bother getting homework from a student like Crabbe who clearly was never going to amount to anything. Everyone except Minerva didn't get homework, although Remus was sure that Minerva could scare homework out of a troll.
Remus asked for the vampire essays he'd asked students to write and checked the submissions – again nothing from Vincent. At the end of the class, Remus dismissed all students except Vincent. Remus could see Vincent rushing to leave the room, but Remus was too quick. Without even picking up his wand, Remus flicked his hand and the door shut in front of Vincent and about 10 other students. Remus told them that he would open the door again when Vincent came to talk to him. Crabbe knew there was no way to get out of this, so he turned around and approached Professor Lupin.
"I noticed that you haven't submitted a single piece of homework, Mr Crabbe. Is there a reason for this?" asked Remus.
"No sir" started Crabbe, which caused Remus to give him a look, "…well, it's just that Professor, it's quite confusing. I don't get it"
"What is it that you don't get, Vincent?" asked Remus patiently. Crabbe gave a long pause while he was thinking. Eventually he just replied "everything."
"Ok then, how about you come here tonight after dinner, let's say 7, and I'll help you out with everything you find confusing about vampires. Please bring your books and some parchment."
"Uh, ok," replied Crabbe.
"Ok, I'll see you tonight then," replied Remus as he dismissed Crabbe. "Oh, and Vincent, if you don't come tonight, I'll be here waiting for you the next night, and the night after. I'm quite patient and without much to keep me busy these days…"
He hoped that Crabbe would understand that Remus wasn't going to give up on this idea.
That night, Vincent Crabbe did not attend his detention. Remus sighed; he would get him again the night after.
The next day, Remus found Crabbe at breakfast and asked to speak to him. When asked where he was, Crabbe simply replied that he forgot with a shrug. Remus responded that he would see him after dinner tonight in the DADA room at 7. Just before he left Crabbe to get his own breakfast, Remus turned to Vincent and told him "You don't want to know what will happen if you don't attend tonight."
Again, Crabbe did not attend his detention. Remus was furious. He had to think of something to make Crabbe attend the detention Monday night. He suddenly thought of a prank that Padfoot and Prongs played when they were at school. With some slight tweaking, it would serve as an excellent reminder to Vincent to attend his detention.
Remus sent Vincent a note via owl stating that he would see him Monday night at 7pm. If he didn't come, the note had been bewitched to follow him around from 7pm until he attended the detention.
On Monday night at 8:30, Crabbe finally came to the door with ten of the notes following him. Remus looked at him and gave a small chuckle. "Ah, Vincent, I forgot to warn you that every time you try to spell the note away, it would create another version to follow you as well. But, glad to see you here. Did you bring your things?" asked Remus.
Vincent shook his head. "I only came to get you to remove the note Professor."
"Ah, no problem, I have a book somewhere you can use now that you're here. I've been looking forward to this meeting. Now vampires…" said Remus, as he waved his wand and made the notes disappear.
Remus sat Crabbe down and gave him the textbook and opened it to the page about vampires. "Now Vincent, read the chapter and write me an essay on how to identify and protect yourself against vampires" Remus told Crabbe while conjuring some parchment and a quill.
Vincent sat there for an hour and only wrote 2 lines the whole time. Remus went over the see what he had done – very little for the time, and his spelling was atrocious thought Remus. "I wonder Vincent, if you could please read for me the first chapter of the paragraph" asked Remus.
Vincent looked at him and pulled the book closer. Vincent started to read but got many of the words mixed up or mis-read. He also needed prompting on some of the trickier words like bewitched and nefarious. Remus thought for a while. "Vincent, if I were to read this passage to you, would you find that easier?" He nodded. Remus sat there and read the chapter to him. He then asked Vincent to tell him how you identify a vampire. Crabbe responded with five out of seven ways to identify one. Remus then asked Vincent how to defend yourself against one. Again, Vincent was able to respond correctly. Remus looked at Vincent and said "Well, done. I'll accept that as your essay. You have a grade of E." Crabbe looked at him before saying "You're just saying that".
"No, no Mr Crabbe. I think you do know these things. From now on, I think instead of asking you to write essays, I will get you to tell me them, and I'll grade what you can tell me." Crabbe smiled. "I hope this means I'll get more homework from you" chided Remus. Crabbe smiled again before saying "I've never got an E before in class."
"Well, you deserve that. Now you'd better be heading back to your common room before curfew hits. Good night, Vincent," said Remus. He thought he could see Crabbe skipping out of class with joy.
That night, Remus didn't sleep, he went to the library to take out a few books on dyslexia. He also tried to find a book he had used as a student to find the spell to bewitch a letter to read out the contents to the Great Hall so the whole student body could hear their letter to Snivellus. He couldn't find it, so he decided to ask Madam Pince about it. She suggested that he look at the section about recording music using magic.
Madam Pince threw everyone out of the library, so Remus used the locomotor charm to levitate the stack of books back to his office. There, he looked over the description of dyslexia and felt like Vincent ticked all the boxes – and some of his other teachers had just written him off – he wondered if it was possible to get the Crabbe family to get their son formally tested and diagnosed. It would make things much easier for Vincent at school if there was a targeted approach to teaching him. However, Remus remembered the Crabbe family from the wizarding war. They were a family of death eaters and not particularly friendly ones. He would raise the issue with the school, but he would not be the one to contact the Crabbes directly.
Remus then turned his attention to the charm that would read a letter out to the whole of the Great Hall. Although this time, he needed to be able to charm a book somehow to read itself out at command to Vincent. He searched the books he had checked out of the library until the wee hours of the morning when he finally decided to call it a night.
He woke up in the morning and started looking through the books again, trying to find the spell. He still couldn't find the spell by dinnertime, so he decided to head back to the library after dinner to try some different books. He walked into the library only to get side-tracked when he saw Percy Weasley. Percy called him over and started to ask him several questions about their defence essay on Inferi. Remus finally managed to get away half an hour later and started to look through more books for that blasted spell, when suddenly Hermione Granger came to interrupt him to ask for some reading recommendations about werewolves. Of course Hermione would want to know which other books she could read about anything she heard about, but this made Remus a little nervous. He suggested that she try "Hairy snout, human heart" by an anonymous writer. That kept her happy and she left for some time while Remus kept looking. With about 15 minutes to go until third-year curfew, Hermione was back again "finished already, that was quick, even for you" joked Remus. Hermione smiled and responded "Professor, according to the catalogues, there's a book about werewolf hunting that is in the restricted section, could you please let me access it?"
"Werewolf hunting? Hermione, when on earth are you going to go werewolf hunting?" Remus replied.
"It would be so interesting to see how things used to be. Please please please professor" asked Hermione.
"Oh, alright then. I'll get it off the shelf and you can check it out with me there. I don't have any paper on me to write you a note at the moment" replied Remus. Why is he such a soft touch for Hermione? Probably because her bookworm tendencies remind him of himself when he was that age. He grabbed the book off the shelf in the restricted section and took it to Madam Pince. "Hermione Granger needs this book for her essay on werewolves" Remus told the librarian. Hermione just smiled at Madam Pince as the book was being checked out. Hermione turned and thanked Remus before leaving to meet her curfew. However, Remus wasn't any closer to finding the spell he wanted. He went back to see if he could find the spell anywhere. Not long before the library closed, Remus saw the Weasley twins who begged to know how he had made the spell on Crabbe's detention note follow him around and double whenever he tried to get rid of it. "Trade secret" replied Remus. Again, when the library closed, Remus checked out a stack of books and locomotored them back to his office where he read them until late at night.
The next day at breakfast Remus looked dreadful. Minerva commented that she didn't realise the full moon was coming so soon. Remus responded that it wasn't, he'd just been busy with a few things. After teaching classes that day, Remus returned to his office. He kept looking through the last few books before he heard a knock at his office door. "Come in" he said, as Minerva entered. "Tea?" Minerva asked conjuring two cups of tea from thin air. Minerva had come to see why Remus was so tired if it wasn't the full moon. Remus explained how he suspected Vincent Crabbe had dyslexia and he was trying to find a way to get his books to read to him so Vincent could find it easier to get information. Remus looked at Minerva and asked, "Do you remember that time in fourth year, James and Sirius sent Snape a letter from St Mungo's that read aloud to the whole Great Hall?"
"Ah yes, I remember Horace Slughorn telling me that Severus was horrified that the whole school thought he had syphilis. Although the premise was rather advanced for a fourth year, I must admit" replied Minerva.
"Yes, well I'm trying to find that spell again," replied Remus, "I think I can use that to start the idea of getting Crabbe's book to read to him."
"Ah, you mean the Lectores spell?" asked Minerva.
Remus was so happy he could kiss Minerva, "YES" he shouted, "that's the one" he grabbed the third-year textbook, opened it to vampires, tapped it with his wand and said "lectores" suddenly the book started reading aloud to him.
"But Remus, you are forgetting, that spell is quite advanced. I don't think a third year would be able to do it," Remus' face fell. Minerva was right. He would have to bewitch the book for Crabbe. And what about his Transfiguration textbook, or his potions book? He wanted a spell that Crabbe could use himself.
"You would be wise to get bewitch something so that when he points the object to the word, it reads it for him" suggested Minerva.
"I once saw a gadget in a muggle bookstore that I worked for, where you could hold a pen over the word and it reads the word out," said Remus excitedly, "we could use a quill." Remus rummaged around his draws for a spare quill that wasn't too expensive. Remus pulled out an old quill and set about charming it. He tried it on the book but there was no result. Minerva took the quill and added a bewitched it to work on command. Remus tried it on the book again, but it still wouldn't work. Minerva conjured a new cup of tea and took the quill back, trying a myriad of spells, but none of them made the quill read the words it was shown. Finally, they decided to ask the help of Albus Dumbledore, to see what he could do. That night over dinner Minerva explained the situation and the quill. Albus nodded while Minerva spoke then asked to see the quill. He tapped the quill with his wand to see the spells which had already been tried, then suggested that a small speaker needed to be added to the quill. Minerva quickly transfigured a small horn into a speaker and attached it to the quill using magic. She then pulled out a textbook and started pulling the quill over the letters to find it actually worked!
After class on Thursday, Remus kept Crabbe back again after class and gave him the quill, showing him how to use it. Crabbe was shocked. He didn't expect something like the quill to help him with his schoolwork. Remus also recommended that next time Crabbe goes to Hogsmeade, he buys himself a quotes quill as this will write down what he tells it to write down. Crabbe looks over the moon. He took the quill that Remus gave him, thanking him profusely and left the classroom.
The following week, Remus collected up the third-year essays about Redcaps. He was pleasantly surprised to see an essay from Vincent and looking through it, the essay wasn't bad at all. Another E for Crabbe. Remus considered sending an owl home to Mr and Mrs Crabbe about his improvement, but decided against it in case they complained about a half-blood teaching their son.