Author's Note: Thanks for coming back for Chapter Two! I hope you enjoy it. I wanted to make a couple of notes.

First, please forgive me for neglecting to note this at the very beginning of the story: Trans women are women. I do not in any way support J.K. Rowling's hateful, myopic, and transphobic views.

Second, I wanted to include an ableism warning that this chapter includes offensive language towards persons with disabilities. As we know from reading the last chapter, the MC of this fic has a disability, and this story will frequently show the prejudices and stereotypes that she lives with. I hope this isn't too upsetting to anyone, but if it is, I'm sending hugs and hoping you have safe people in your life. 3

Chapter Two: Professor Lupin

Mairead followed a wave of students into the Great Hall for lunch the next day. She had only had two classes so far, and already she was feeling overwhelmed by all the homework she had been assigned. As she approached the Hufflepuff table, though, she saw someone who instantly put her troubles out of her mind.

"Cedric!" she shrieked as she began running towards the Fifth Year boy.

Cedric Diggory looked up and his face split into a huge grin. He jumped to his feet and strode over to embrace her.

Mairead threw her arms around Cedric's neck and squealed as he lifted her up and swung her back and forth.

"How are you?" he asked exuberantly when they broke apart. "How was your summer?"

"It was good!" she replied, ignoring the dirty looks she was getting from more than a few girls who had enviously watched their reunion. "How was yours? I looked for you at breakfast this morning and couldn't find you."

"My first class wasn't until 10, so I had a bit of a lie-in," he explained. "My summer was good. Sorry I didn't write more. I was at that Quidditch camp I was telling you about, and the hours were brutal."

Mairead waved a hand dismissively at his apology. "No worries. How was it?"

"It was really good. Oliver Wood was there, too, and so was this girl from Ravenclaw, Cho Chang?" Cedric's mouth twitched, like he was trying not to smile. "We got to know each other pretty well. And -" Cedric lowered his voice to be discreet, but this time there was no hiding his smile. "Listen - I've been made Captain of the Quidditch team."

Mairead's mouth dropped open. "Really?! That's amazing! Congratulations!" She shot forward and hugged him again. "Oh, my God, I can't believe it!"

Cedric laughed. "Thanks; me neither!"

Mairead remembered herself. "I mean, it's not amazing at all," she said hastily. "It's exactly what I expected. I can absolutely believe it and I am not surprised in the least," she said loyally.

Cedric grinned. "Well, you can be as underwhelmed as you please, but I was rather stunned, myself."

"Maybe I'll actually be inspired to learn the rules this year," Mairead teased as they sat down next to each other at the table.

"So how have your first classes been?" Cedric asked.

"Ugh, don't remind me!" she exclaimed dramatically, and began banging her head against the table.

"That good, huh?" he asked.

"I'm going to die!" she moaned turning her forehead and looking up at him. "I'm going to drown in ink. I'm going to be smothered by parchment. I'm going to - ooh, is that pot pie?"

She sat up and eagerly held out her hands, waggling her fingers while Cedric passed her the dish.

"I, for one, had a lovely morning," Cedric said while Mairead began piling food onto her plate.

"Well, of course you did; you slept in!"

He nodded. "And then I had Charms," he went on, "and Professor Flitwick gave me a load of points for doing the optional reading over the summer and being able to answer his questions, so we're already off to a great start."

"Oh, I see," Mairead accused jokingly. "You don't have time to send off a quick note to your best friend in the entire world, but you have time for optional schoolwork? Sheesh, what are you, a prefect or something?"

"No, but that reminds me: do you have any idea what the hell this bizarre 'P' stands for on my robes?" he said mock seriously and then craned in his seat to look at the four massive hourglasses set into the wall of the Great Hall.

"That's odd," he said, frowning. "I would've thought ours would have been a bit fuller."

"Yeah, about that," said Mairead sheepishly. "I may have gotten busted in Transfiguration for passing notes."

While Cedric had been sleeping in, Mairead's first class of the day had been Double Transfiguration, one of the subjects she struggled with the most. Her friend, Sarah Quimby, from Slytherin, had passed her a note, and Professor McGonagall had caught Mairead with the folded up bit of parchment and promptly docked ten points from Hufflepuff.

Cedric became indignant when Mairead shared this news. "But that's not fair!" he exclaimed. "She should've taken points from Slytherin. Sarah was the one passing notes."

Mairead shrugged. "Yeah, I guess I sort of felt the same way."

"So Sarah just sat there and let you take the heat?"

"Pretty much."

Cedric scowled. "I've never understood why you're friends with her."

"She's really nice!" Mairead insisted. "I like her."

"Clearly not that nice, or she would've been honest," Cedric retorted. "How can you be friends with someone who would just throw you in front of the manticore like that?"

Mairead shrugged again. "I don't really mind."

And she didn't mind, at least not much. That was just the way Sarah was. She was fun and interesting to talk to and she had befriended Mairead in her first year when everyone else had treated her like she was untouchable, so she really didn't have any right to complain. Besides, Mairead felt Sarah could be quite sweet when she was in the right mood, but she could hardly be expected to take a hit when there was someone else on whom she could conveniently lay the blame. It was just the way things were in their friendship, and Mairead felt that as long as she knew that was how things were, then it wasn't like she was being taken advantage of.

Mairead decided a change of subject was needed. "Hey, how come Ravenclaw has so many points already?"

Cedric shrugged. "Dunno. No note-passing saboteurs, I suppose?"

Mairead rolled her eyes at him and looked over at the Ravenclaw table. She saw Ansel eating and chatting with the boy next to him: a certain boy with pale, flawless skin, dark brown hair with just the right amount of curl that fell perfectly into his hazel eyes, and a smile that (in Mairead's entirely objective opinion) could stop a clock.

"I'm going to go ask Ansel if he knows where all those points came from," she said to Cedric without taking her eyes off the boy next to Ansel.

Cedric smirked. "Yeah, okay. Say 'hi' to Roger Davies for me and try not to drool in his lap."

Mairead made a rude hand gesture at Cedric before standing up. She tugged her robes straight and ran her fingers through her hair to fluff it, but only succeeded in getting her hand stuck in the curls at the nape of her neck. She paused in her tracks and spent a few moments wrenching at her hair with her other hand to free her trapped fingers, then started to walk around her table and towards the Ravenclaw table. Before she could get very far though, she heard a voice behind her.

"Hey, Mairead!"

She turned to look and saw Patrick Daily, a Seventh Year Gryffindor waving at her. She smiled and waved back, not wanting to stop but feeling obligated to.

"Hey, Patrick, how are you?" she asked, smiling. Patrick rose and walked over to her.

"All right, you?"

"I'm grand, thank you," she responded. "How was your summer?"

"Did ya cut yer hair?" he said, ignoring her question and nodding at her now frizzy hair.

"Um, yeah, I think. At the beginning of the summer, why?" she asked, perplexed.

Patrick shrugged. "It looks nice, so."

"Oh," she said. "Thanks. Erm..." feeling pressured, she searched for something to compliment him on. "Did... you get new glasses?"

He beamed at her. "Like 'em, do you?"

"Yeah, they're so cool," she said, although she honestly couldn't discern what made them any different from his last frames. It had been a lucky guess on her part. "So I've got to go ask someone a question, but I'll see you around, yeah?"

Patrick took a step closer to her. "Yeah, absolutely. We should hang out sometime. Catch up."

"Yeah, absolutely," she said, parroting him. "'Bye."

With an awkward little wave, Mairead turned and continued towards the Ravenclaw table. Ansel looked up when she arrived, and she resolutely did not look over at Roger.

"Hey," she greeted Ansel, "Cedric and I were wondering why Ravenclaw has so many points already. D'you know?" She lost the internal battle with herself and did a lightning fast glance over at Roger to see if he happened to be looking at her. He was not. Which was totally fine.

Ansel smiled a tad smugly. "Lupin - you know, the new teacher? - gave me thirty points in class this morning for casting that Patronus last night. Said they were retroactive points since the term hadn't started yet."

"Oh, cool. That's really cool," she said distractedly, glancing over at Roger again, then back at Ansel. "Good on you."

"Thanks," Ansel said, "Thanks for coming all the way over here for the sole purpose of congratulating me," he added slyly.

"O-oh, you know me," Mairead said with a nervous laugh. "Always looking out for you."

Ansel tilted his head to the side slightly. "Will there be anything else?" he asked wickedly, batting his eyelashes innocently.

Mairead swallowed. "Nope," she said, popping the 'p.' "Er, 'bye."

Ansel twiddled his fingers at her. "Toodle-oo."

Mairead scowled at him. She stood there uncertainly for a fraction of a second, then said, "Oh, h-hey, Roger," in a would-be offhand voice. Roger glanced up at her.

"Oh, hi, Margaret," he said before returning his attention to his lunch.

Mairead pursed her lips. "'Kay," she whispered to herself. She turned to go, refusing to look at Ansel. She wasn't sure which would be worse to see on his face: mirth or pity.

...

Mairead was dreading her last class of the afternoon. She had a long history of misery associated with Defense Against the Dark Arts, starting right at the beginning in her first year when she discovered, alongside her classmates (who already had decided, based on her last name, that she was Not To Be Trusted), that she could not perform a single spell assigned to her by the Professor. And amazingly, things had only managed to go downhill from there.

Each year seemed to be worse than the previous, with little variance in her teachers' approaches to "helping" her. The better years (second and fourth) had involved the teacher either speaking loudly and slowly to her as if she were deaf, or belittling her, calling her lazy and stupid, and giving her horrid grades despite her best efforts. The other four professors had tried various methods of "curing" her, resulting in public humiliation in front of her peers at best, and various injuries, ranging from mild to stays in the hospital wing, at worst.

Last year, she had been regularly dragged to the front of the class by Professor Lockhart, who forced her to describe to her peers what it felt like not to be able to perform a particular spell (which, more often than not, Lockhart himself could also not perform) while he frequently interrupted her to tell the class what he would have done to cure her "magical retardation" had he just met her sooner and before her magic "set."

The only reason she hadn't dropped the class years ago was because Professor Dumbledore personally asked her to continue to audit it.

Despite her well-earned hatred of the subject, Mairead arrived early for the class - not wanting to be late and draw attention to herself right out of the gate - and the previous class hadn't let out yet. She sat down next to the door and waited, her back against the rough stone wall. She could hear Professor Lupin's voice muffled through the door. He must have said something funny, because the class laughed. Gradually the rest of her classmates began to congregate outside the classroom as well.

Mairead could feel her heart rate accelerating, and she could taste a bitter, acidic taste in her mouth as small bursts of adrenaline pumped through her abdomen. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself.

After a few minutes the bell rang, and Mairead rose to her feet as a group of what looked to be Second Year Ravenclaws exited the classroom. Mairead spotted Amanda amongst the group and waved, but Amanda was engrossed in conversation with a friend and didn't notice.

Mairead filed into the room along with her classmates and chose a seat at the very back of the classroom. She dropped her bag on top of her desk and rummaged through it to find her textbook. Setting it on her desk, she looked up and accidentally caught the eye of Professor Lupin.

"Oh," he said quietly, then louder to address the whole room: "You won't be needing your textbooks today. You can put them away."

Mairead ducked her head to avoid his eye and did as he said. Once everyone had taken their seats and finished fidgeting, Professor Lupin smiled at the group.

"Good afternoon," he said pleasantly. "Today won't be too exciting, I'm afraid. I'd like to get to know you all and do something of a review."

He began pacing slightly back and forth, hands clasped behind his back.

"As I'm sure you're all sick of hearing by now," he said with a smile, "this is an N.E.W.T. year for you, and owing to the... unfortunate turnover rate in this teaching position, my understanding is that there may be some gaps in your knowledge."

Mairead thought this was a pretty diplomatic way of saying that the entire subject was a complete cluster.

Professor Lupin went on. "Now, I personally dislike very much the idea of teaching to the test, but I feel that it is my responsibility to those in your year to do my utmost to ensure that you walk into your Defense N.E.W.T. feeling confident and prepared, and so that is what my focus will be this year. How does that sound to you all?"

A boy raised his hand. Lupin nodded at him. "Yes, Simon?"

"That sounds great and all, sir," Simon began, "but I just don't see how it can be done. The teacher last year was completely useless. We learned nothing."

"Yeah," piped up another boy, "We would have to learn two years in one."

"I just don't see how it can be done," Simon repeated.

Professor Lupin nodded. "I'm sorry you had that experience," he said, and although he did look sorry, he didn't look at all surprised. He's probably had a long day of this, thought Mairead. "I did expect that we would have quite a bit of revision to cover," he went on, "and I have some thoughts on how we can tackle things."

He went over to his desk and picked up a piece of parchment. "I have here a list of the subjects that are likely to come up in your Defense Against the Dark Arts N.E.W.T. exam. I would like to spend some time this class going through this list with all of you. I'll call out a topic, and what I would like to hear from you is whether you are familiar with the topic and how confident you feel in your knowledge. I will base our studies on where your weak spots are. In that way, we can customize our curriculum to focus on the areas where you need the most help."

"So..." the girl next to Mairead spoke up, "we'll essentially be designing the curriculum ourselves, based on what this specific class needs to pass the N.E.W.T.?"

Lupin smiled. "Exactly, Statia." He addressed the class at large. "How does that sound to you all?"

The students looked around at each other and began nodding and smiling. Mairead herself thought the idea was pretty solid. She thought this individualized style of teaching was so intriguing that she was almost disappointed she wouldn't be able to take advantage of it herself.

Professor Lupin was speaking again. "Excellent," he said. "Now, before we get started I have a request to make of you. When I go down this list, I sincerely ask that you be honest with me regarding your weak spots, even if I mention a subject that you may have covered years ago. I am here to support you, not to judge you. And I can't do that without assessing where you're starting from. Additionally," he went on, "if I do not mention a topic that you would like to tackle, please call it out to me. Ready?"

The class nodded. Professor Lupin began going down the list. It was fairly brutal. The class had been taught so patchily over the previous six years that someone raised their hand and requested to cover nearly every subject he mentioned, even topics going back to their fourth year.

Mairead sat back and observed Lupin as he spoke. True to his word, he didn't so much as flinch while going down the list. Mairead tilted her head to the side. It was difficult to tell how old he was. In this light she could see that he had some grey in his light brown hair, and he had dark shadows under his eyes. He was terribly thin and pale, but he moved with a youthful energy despite his sickly appearance. He couldn't be older than his early forties, Mairead decided. From the back of the classroom she couldn't tell what color his eyes were, but they shone with intelligence and compassion, and he was quick to smile and praise the class. He looks kind, she thought to herself.

Professor Lupin finished going down the list and smiled around at the fallen faces of his students. "Don't be discouraged," he said firmly. "It may sound overwhelming now, but you don't have to learn this all by tomorrow. We've got a year to work on this list and I think you'll be surprised how much we can accomplish by the time June comes around." He glanced at the clock. "That being said, we do have some time left this afternoon, and I think we should make the most of it. I'd like to use the rest of our time today to begin discussing a topic that is virtually guaranteed to come up on your exams."

He placed the list on his desk and took a breath. "Right then: can anyone tell me what an Unforgivable Curse is?"

An awkward silence fell. Then, one of the students who had spoken up earlier raised his hand. "Yes, Benedict?" Lupin said.

"A curse that's..." he trailed off uncertainly. "Unforgivable?" he finished lamely.

Several students giggled, and Lupin smiled. "Indeed. So we must ask ourselves: what might be the result of casting an Unforgivable Curse?"

Another silence. Mairead felt kind of bad for Professor Lupin. She caught the eye of Statia and whispered out of the corner of her mouth, "Life sentence in Azkaban."

Statia raised her hand, glancing sideways at Mairead. "Yes, Statia?" Lupin prompted.

"Um, d'you get sent to Azkaban if you cast one?" she asked uncertainly.

Professor Lupin nodded. "That's exactly right," he confirmed. "The Department of Magical Law Enforcement considers the casting of an Unforgivable Curse, even once, to be reprehensible enough to earn the caster a life sentence in Azkaban. Now, does anyone happen to know how many curses fall into the Unforgivable category?"

Statia glanced hopefully at Mairead, who looked up at Lupin to make sure he wasn't watching, and then held up three fingers for Statia to see.

"Three, sir?" Statia offered.

"Right again. Well done, Statia!" Lupin praised.

Statia blushed but looked guilty, then glanced quizzically at Mairead. She gave Mairead a why are you doing this? look, and Mairead shrugged. She most definitely did not want to draw attention to herself in this class, but she hated the thought of Professor Lupin waiting in awkward silence. Personally, she felt he was off to a strong start, and didn't want either him or her classmates to lose heart.

Professor Lupin continued to lecture about the Unforgivable Curses, and regularly posed questions to the class, who were responding enthusiastically to his warm and engaging teaching style.

"We only have a few minutes left," Lupin was saying, "so let's finish out with our list of three Unforgivable Curses, and then we will delve into each of them in detail next time. Does anyone want to take a stab at naming an Unforgivable Curse?"

By now a couple of the students surrounding Mairead had caught on that she had passed answers along to Statia, and were glancing over at her for help. Mairead leaned forward slightly and whispered to Henry Gold, the boy one row up and one seat over from her. "The Imperius Curse."

"What?" he whispered back.

Mairead leaned further forward. "The Imperius Curse," she repeated in a whisper.

The boy furrowed his brow. "The Impervious Curse?" he asked aloud. Mairead closed her eyes and sighed.

Unfortunately this back and forth had drawn the attention of their teacher, who cocked his head to one side. "Close, Henry," he said, and then pointed to Mairead. "Can you guess what it's called, Mairead?"

Mairead barely had time to notice that Lupin had pronounced her name correctly on the first try when Simon spoke up and made her feel like all of the wind had been knocked out of her. "She probably knows all about them," he said in an accusatory tone, arms folded across his chest.

"Good thing she couldn't cast one to save her life," Henry added acidly.

Okay, never helping you again, knobhead, Mairead thought savagely. Mairead caught eyes with Henry and stared at him expressionlessly for a moment until Henry blinked and looked away. Mairead shifted her gaze to Lupin and said coolly, "The three Unforgivable Curses are the Imperius Curse, the Cruciatus Curse, and the Killing Curse. The Imperius Curse forces the victim to do the bidding of the caster. The Cruciatus Curse inflicts unbearable pain on the victim. And the Killing Curse... well, perhaps even Professor Lockhart could've put together what that one does."

An appreciative laugh went up around the class, but it did little to ease Mairead's hurt feelings. She felt like crying. She wanted to curl up into a ball and block their faces out. Better yet, she wanted to walk into the Forbidden Forest and set up house in a cave in there somewhere and never see another person for as long as she lived.

Professor Lupin was looking at her thoughtfully. "Yes, that's exactly right," he said softly. He gave her a small smile, but Mairead could tell that it was forced. Great, now he hates me, too, she thought. Why did I ever let Dumbledore convince me to keep going to this horrible class?

After a second or two Lupin looked away from Mairead and addressed the class as a whole. "Well, I think we'll leave it there for today," he said, "but well done to all of you. Let's see, five points to everyone who answered my questions, ten to Statia for answering two..." here he paused briefly and let his eyes flicker over Mairead, and she suddenly got the impression that for some reason he was allowing both Statia and Mairead to save face. "And, let's see, fifteen points, I think, to Mairead, for the clearest, most succinct summary of the Unforgivable Curses I have heard in quite some time."

Mairead looked up, startled. She couldn't remember having ever earned any points in Defense class. Professor Lupin caught her eye and smiled warmly at her. She was so shocked that she forgot how to work her face and by the time she had figured out how smiling worked Lupin had looked away.

"For homework, could you all kindly read the three chapters on Unforgivable Curses in your textbook? Please write down your questions and bring them with you to class next time. That will be all, thanks."

There was a great scuffle as the class rose and began to collect their bags. Henry turned to look coldly at Mairead. "Couldn't you have written it down or something?" he asked bitterly.

"Oh, sure, here you go," she said, ripping off a piece of parchment paper. She wrote fuck you, Gold, and thrust it at him. She then shoved her things into her bag and strode towards the door.

Lupin looked up as she approached the front of the class. "Could I have a word, please, Mairead?" he asked.

Mairead shot a nervous glance back at Gold, who was looking at the bit of parchment, a furious expression on his face. "Erm, yeah, sure," she said, sidling as close to the teacher as she could without seeming weird.

It worked though: when Henry noticed that she was with Lupin, he scowled and stalked past her and out of the classroom. Lupin waited until the room was empty before turning to her.

"I wanted to talk briefly with you about your auditing my class, Mairead," he said. Mairead's stomach dropped. Here we go, she thought bitterly. Lupin leaned against his desk and frowned thoughtfully for a moment before continuing.

"I just want to be sure that you get as much out of this class as you possibly can," he said. "Are there any accommodations I can make to help you feel more comfortable participating? I don't want you to feel as though you can't speak up, for example." Clearly, he had worked out that Mairead was passing answers to those sitting near her.

Mairead gaped at him. None of the previous teachers had ever shown her this kind of consideration. She stared for a few moments before remembering that he had asked her a question. "I..." she started, but had no idea how to go on. "Erm," she tried again.

"I didn't mean to put you on the spot," Lupin said quickly. "Why don't you give it some thought and let me know how I can support your learning?"

Mairead blinked rapidly at him, brows furrowed and mouth hanging open slightly. The corner of Lupin's mouth twitched as he watched her. Talk, you idiot! her brain finally shouted at her. She shook her head slightly and then said, "Right. Yeah. Okay. Will do."

Lupin considered her for a few moments. "I was impressed today, Mairead," he said. "You've clearly paid attention in this class."

Guilt twisted Mairead's stomach. She hadn't meant to mislead him. The only reason she knew about the curses was because of how often she had seen them used in her childhood. Really, she had an unfair advantage over the other students.

Before she could stop herself she blurted out, "No, that's not it. I just know about the curses because -" she broke off, catching herself at the last minute. She wasn't about to give Lupin even more rope to hang her with, on the off-chance that he had not put two and two together regarding her last name. "I only know about them," she said instead. "I don't know anything else."

Lupin tilted his head to one side slightly, and Mairead suddenly felt certain that he knew exactly who she was. "Regardless," he said delicately, "I want you to succeed. You deserve to succeed."

To Mairead's horror, she found her eyes prickling and her throat growing tight. Time for a quick exit. She shot an uncertain glance at the door. Lupin didn't miss it. "Thank you for your time," he said. "Have a good evening."

"Okay." Mairead nodded and walked hastily for the exit. Remembering herself just as she reached the door, she whirled around and said, "Thank you, Professor Lupin. You, too. Should also have a good evening. To you, that is. I mean..." she broke off and shook her head. Why was she like this?

Professor Lupin's face broke into a broad smile. "Thanks, Mairead. I will."

Mairead turned and slipped out of the room before she could further humiliate herself. God, he's got to think I'm such an idiot! She berated herself as she walked down the corridor. Why do I have to be such a prat in front of him?

The stress of the full day leaned hard on Mairead as she walked towards her dorm to drop off her things before dinner. Without consciously making the decision, Mairead abruptly changed directions. She followed her feet out into the Entrance Hall, through the large wooden doors leading out of the castle, and down the sweeping expanse of lawn. She didn't stop until she was by the lake. The lake was deserted, everyone else probably being at dinner. She dropped her bag on the ground and curled up in the shade of a willow tree. Curling her legs up, Mairead buried her face in her knees. She took a few deep breaths, attempting to soothe herself, but soon let go and let herself cry silently into her knees.

When I graduate I'm moving to a deserted island and never coming back, she thought miserably to herself. If I graduate, the hateful part of her brain added.

She leaned her head back and let the gentle breeze soothe her. It cooled the tear tracks on her face and reminded her of how Sister Mary Margaret would gently stroke her hair away from her face when she would cry at St. Hedwig's. Remembering Sister Mary Margaret, she focused her thoughts on the sound of her breath heaving in and out. She observed how the bark of the tree felt against her back and head. She noticed how the grass gently tickled her legs. Gradually her breathing slowed, and eventually she felt calm again. She enjoyed the sounds of the birds and insects, and smiled when she heard a soft plop from the lake; perhaps a frog had just jumped in. She could even feel her appetite beginning to grow.

After a long while she heaved herself to her feet, resolved to walk back inside with her head held high and her dignity intact. As she walked back towards the castle, she told herself she had to think of three positive things that had happened that day. Seeing Cedric had been wonderful. And he had been made Captain of the Quidditch team! Okay, those could only count as one positive thing. Professor Lupin was really nice, she thought to herself. He had praised her and been kind to her. And he had awarded her fifteen points! That counted as a positive thing. And when she had been right in front of him, she had been able to discern his eye color.

Grey eyes definitely count as a positive thing, she decided.

Author's Note: I hope you enjoyed this chapter!

Song for Chapter 2: "Who You Are," by Jessie J (Mairead)