Sleeping Beauty,
Chapter 6
"The Search
for Answers"
by
Foxfeather
See part
one for disclaimers
When
Hermione walked back to the castle, she thought about what Remus had said. She
couldn't imagine a life like his, shunned for what he was, hated and feared. She
admired his strength, she knew she would have given up a long time ago and
either run over to the dark side or ended her life. But Remus… he stood against
the dark side with all his power, he was kind and warm-hearted, had a helping
hand for everyone, even if he knew that they would turn their back on him if
they learned about his werewolfism. What he had said made it quite clear that
he didn't think very highly of himself. 'Why would you want to be near me?' he
had asked. Hermione stopped and looked up to the windows of his room. Yeah,
why? She had had a crush on him, and what she had said to him, that she liked
him a lot, was true, but, why?
She looked
around and spotted another rock nearby. She walked over to it and sat down,
drawing up her legs and resting her chin on her knees.
Strong,
though he looked fragile, attractive, though his clothes were shabby. But there
hadn't been butterflies tap-dancing in her stomach when she had Defence Against
the Dark Arts last week. When he was leaning close to her to show her how to
move her wand to make a star-trap blossom open its petals to reveal the
crystal-like dust it had gathered inside and that was used for a spell to get
rid of dust-bunnies. Hermione grinned when she recalled the class's reaction to
the task of chasing dust-bunnies, but when the first one of them had been
attacked and bitten by what had looked like a whole armada of the strange
creatures they had become a bit more cautious around dirty rooms and their
inhabitants.
What had
changed since then?
Of course,
what had happened between them had changed her sight of him a lot, but that
couldn't be everything. She ever had imagined that she would feel shy and
awkward after her first time, that it would be an embarrassing experience. She
hadn't told Remus that it had been her first sexual experience, it would only
add to his misery, but she thought he had noticed it when they… made love. But
she didn't feel shy around him, on the contrary, if there weren't all this
other problems she would try to seduce him again. And she had seen in his eyes
when he had kissed her in his office that he wouldn't push her away either.
Was this
falling in love? Being in love?
Hermione
glanced up to Lupin's windows again and for a moment she imagined seeing him
standing there, watching her. Her heart made a strange flip-flopping motion and
the butterflies started to tap-dance again, this time with horseshoes under
their feet. Hermione sighed and buried her face in her hands for some seconds.
Did he feel the same way?
She kicked
herself mentally to stop thinking about Remus and to go back to work and find
the culprit. Slowly she stood up, brushed of her robes and went back into the
castle to search for the hex that had brought her into this situation in the
books of the library.
Hours of
fruitless searching later Hermione was touched gently on the shoulder by a
uncharacteristically sympathetic looking Madam Pince. She picked up some of the
books and looked at the titles.
"'Love
Potions and how they work', 'Why don't you love me?' and 'Love Hexes and
Charms'. Believe me, girl, you will not be happy if you try those charms on
him, whoever it may be. Lovesickness is terrible but this will not solve it."
"I'm not…"
"Shhh. You
don't have to say anything. But let me tell you, missing dinner is not going to
solve it, either."
Hermione
looked at her watch. Indeed, she had sat here the whole afternoon, lost to her
surroundings and would have missed dinner if Madam Pince hadn't interrupted
her. As an answer her stomach gave a hungry rumble that made her think of a
wolf's growl. 'Oh no, not again', she thought with a mental sigh. 'I will start
seeing wolves wherever I go now, won't I?'
She gave
Madam Pince a smile and collected her books to place them back to the shelves.
"No, no,
I'll do that. You go down to dinner and give your secret love a brilliant
smile, will you do that?"
Hermione
smiled again, nodded and left. If Madam Pince knew!
In the
Great Hall Hermione was greeted by an enthusiastic hug from Ginny and a kiss on
both cheeks from Harry. Both were grinning broadly.
"Hermione!
Where have you been? Harry came to me and we talked! He never thought I had
feelings for him. We have talked for hours! Then we tried to find you to thank
you! Without your help we never would be sitting here like this!" Ginny was
nearly tumbling over her own tongue to get the good news out. Harry simply sat
there, grinning.
"We'll be
going on a date tomorrow evening, to the Three Broomsticks", he said.
"Oh,
great." Hermione let herself fall onto her chair and smiled at them. She tried
to look past the other students up to the teacher's table and found herself
looking straight into Professor Lupin's eyes. Apparently he had been watching
her. When he caught her glace his eyes widened and he quickly looked down onto
his plate. Turning around to the table, Hermione noticed Professor Dumbledore
watching them and blushed, thinking of the stolen kiss that morning. Looking up
to her friends she found herself being watched closely by Ron. He had a
no-nonsense-look set up on his face. Hermione knew that he would get her to
talk to him, even if he would have to sneak up into the girl's dormitory that
he normally avoided like the plague. She sighed and nodded at him. If she would
stay away from him any longer he would only suspect more had happened. She
mentally cursed whoever had cast that spell on her.
Tbc…