A/N ~ Hey how is everybody. I am feeling exceptionally neurotic today because I get to write fun stuff. Lectures, speeches, crying, all of that good stuff. And I went shopping and got new shoes. Shoes are good. They are right up there with chocolate and oxygen. And books and fanfic of course. Well, I guess I should just start writing. Hehehe. Enjoy!
Disclaimer ~ I own none of the characters, In the words of Lady Sachiko Barton, I do wish that I owned a picture of Remus in nothing but his boxers. Lucky Minerva. Oh well, I must live vicariously through my characters. Hehehe. Sorry I am just totally off the wall today. The characters belong to JKR. Don't sue! I have no money. If you sue I will stick you with the debts that I owe to my parents and sister.
Chapter 13
Harry and Hermione looked at each other. "Are you sure that that's Professor Lupin's room?" Harry whispered. Minerva walked down the hall and disappeared into another room. Harry pulled out the Marauder's Map and looked at it. Sure enough, the room that she had come from was Lupin's and the room she disappeared into was her own.
"That's not possible." Hermione said incredulously. "Professor Lupin and Professor McGonagall. Together? They're teachers."
"Well," Harry said.
"Maybe she just had to ask him something. He helped your dad, Sirius and Wormtail with the Animagi spell. Maybe she wanted to ask about my theory." Hermione cut him off, searching for an excuse.
"Maybe she is dating Remus." Harry said gently. "And maybe we should just ask Remus about it. He'll be honest with us, and then we don't have to deal in maybes."
"No we can't ask Remus why Minerva was in his room, it's their business, not ours." Hermione said.
They walked up to Remus's door. "Remus," Hermione called, knocking.
They heard a voice from inside, "Minerva, is that you?" Remus Lupin opened the door. "Hello," he said puzzled, "Is anybody there?"
"Oh yeah," a disembodied voice said, "I forgot." Suddenly Harry and Hermione appeared in front of Lupin's door as Harry slipped the invisibility cloak off of them.
"I don't really want to see either of you right now." Remus said, starting to close the door.
"No, wait," Hermione said, putting her hand in the path of the door. "We're sorry that we disappointed you. We just wanted to tell you that."
"We really didn't want you mad at us." Harry added. Remus continued to close the door. Hermione yanked her hand out of the way. "Well fine, if you're going to act like that, don't accept our apology. Besides, how can you talk, what with McGonagall coming out of your room like that." Harry yelled into the door
"Minerva simply needed to borrow a book." Remus said, yanking the door open again. "Not that it's any of your damn business."
"Oh, is that what you call it." Harry said viciously, walking away. Hermione broke away from Harry and ran down the hallway crying. Harry turned around and looked at Remus. "See what you did now." He said accusingly. "Now she's going to be furious at both of us." Harry and Remus watched Hermione run to Minerva's room and knock on the door. The door opened and Hermione walked inside. Minerva's head stuck out and she sent a furious glare down at Harry and Remus.
"Damn it." Remus muttered. Then he turned around and walked back into his room. Harry pounded on his door again.
"Remus, I need to talk to you. You are not going to slam to the door on me. Remus opened the door and Harry walked in. Now we're going to come back to them later, right now we're going to go talk with Hermione and Minerva.
Hermione sat with her head in her hands, crying on Minerva's couch. She didn't notice her lavender and silver surrounding. It looked remarkably like Hermione's room. Although Minerva collected cat figurines instead of penguins. Minerva sat down next to Hermione after closing the door and put her arms around her. Hermione looked up into the usually steel gray, but now verging on deep violet, eyes of her favorite teacher. (a/n ~ Ok, I so stole that from David Eddings). Minerva looked at Hermione for a second before standing up, brushing the wrinkles out of her robes, and going into the kitchen.
"Would you like some tea." She said, sounding like her normal business like self. "Or perhaps some hot chocolate?"
"Hot chocolate would be lovely." Hermione said, choking back tears. Minerva busied herself about the stove, warming up the milk for the hot chocolate. She got a plate of cookies out of the cupboard. She waited for Hermione to regain her composure before speaking again.
"May I inquire as to why you fled from Harry and Professor Lupin in such a fashion several minutes ago." She said quietly.
"Professor Lupin spoke, or more accurately, yelled at Harry and I yesterday for what happened the night of the Yule Ball. He was furious, said things about how we could do that to him, Dumbledore, the school, the memory of Harry's parents. He said that we could have ruined our entire future. He said that he couldn't believe that he had been instrumental in our getting together, and that he never would have done it if he had known that we were going to behave like two horny teenagers instead of intelligent rational young adults. Oh, thank you." Hermione said as Minerva handed her her hot chocolate and a cookie. "And we felt really awful about it, I mean after Ron, Dumbledore, and then Lupin, and Snape, and then later that night Sirius. Pretty much so far you're the only teacher who isn't furious at Harry and me." She paused to take a sip of her hot chocolate. "Wow, this is really good. Did you make it yourself."
Minerva looked smug. "Yes," she said, "it's a recipe I came up with myself. It has to do with adding the right amount of mint."
"Anyway," Hermione continued, "We came down here tonight to apologize to Remus. We saw you come out of his room, and then we went up and knocked on the door. He saw that it was us and refused to talked to us and tried to close the door. I said that we had come to apologize for letting him down, but he said he didn't want to hear it. Harry then threw the fact that he had seen you coming out of Remus's room in his face and they were just arguing. I feel just awful. Our friends are mad at us, Sirius and Lupin are furious, and Snape is worse than ever. Harry's been bearing the brunt of it, but he doesn't know about what people have been saying about me. I just brush it off, because I know that what they say isn't true, but Harry can't stand that the only people left from his past, and his parent's past are enraged at him. I guess it's kind of silly now, but I feel so awful about that happening to Harry. He doesn't deserve that. If anyone is to blame, it should be me. I could have stopped it, but I didn't and now…" She looked miserably into her mug. Minerva sat her own mug down on the table and looked at Hermione.
"Well, I'd like to say that I don't exactly approve of what you and Harry did, but you didn't break any rules, and you were both consenting adults, so it is your business and yours alone. You were reasonably responsible in that act, so again, it is only an issue between the two of you. Number two, I know that you are dying to ask this, so yes, Remus and I are dating, and that is between him and I alone as well. Number three, I believe that I may know why Remus is so mad at the two of you. In his seventh year, my first year as a teacher here at Hogwarts (Ok, I know that I said in my review that she was younger than Remus, so I lied. She started teaching their 7th year when she was 21. Now that that's all cleared up, on to the story) there was an incident with Lily Evens and James Potter. They were found in a rather compromising situation in the gardens. They were very similar to Harry and yourself. Both Head girl and boy, James was the seeker on the Gryffindor Quidditch team. They also ended up finding out the others feelings from Remus Lupin, their close friend and confidant. I believe that Remus is afraid that you will end up the same way Lily and James did, dead at the hands of Lord Voldemort. This is unknown to the students, but Dumbledore has told the staff, Voldemort might not be dead. Remus is afraid that Harry will find out and eventually be killed by him, just as Lily and James were." Minerva picked up her mug again and took a sip of hot chocolate. "Now I believe that you should go back to your dormitory and get some sleep. " Minerva stood up with Hermione as she walked to the door.
"Thank you very much Professor." Hermione said.
"Don't mention it," Minerva said, "You know that you can always come talk to me if you have a problem. Goodnight dear."
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Lupin's room
Harry walked into the room furious. "How could you do that to her?" Harry shouted. "What could have possibly made you so mad, that you would take out your anger on her. You basically just called her a little tramp. Do you know what that lecture did to her? Her worst fears have come true. The professors that she respects have ceased respecting her. She's as smart as you. And you know it. Don't you think that she may have possibly made a conscious decision that night? She knows the consequences of her actions, she's willing to put up with that from other students, and from Snape. We expected it. But when you, you who helped us get together, helped us to realize our true feelings, when you turned your back on her that hurt. You are supposed to be her friend, my friend too. You and Sirius. You told him didn't you." Harry continued to rage. "Two of the three people I respect most in the world are furious at me, and disappointed. Well sorry to burst your bubble, but you and Sirius weren't exactly angels at school. I would never throw your pasts in your faces, and I had hoped that you wouldn't interfere with mine. This is my life, and hers. We love each other, and nothing that anyone can say will dissuade me of that. And then, you dare to lecture us, even after we see your girlfriend exiting your room. Y'know what, I don't want to speak to you anymore. You had no right to start lecturing us, you're not my father, or Hermione's, and you have no ground to stand on in this area. We came here to apologize for disappointing you, we never wanted to do that, but you throw that back in our faces and try to lecture again. You hypocrite." And with that, Harry exited the room slamming the door in Lupin's face.
Remus stood in the middle of the room, just staring at the spot where Harry had been standing. Was he right? He thought, am I a hypocrite? I just wanted to protect him, he doesn't know how closely he resembles his father. When the dark lord rises again Harry and Hermione will fight, just like James and Lily. Everything about them is just like James and Lily. I just don't want them to get hurt, or worse, end like Prongs and Lil. Maybe I did come on too harsh. I shouldn't have been so judgmental. He's right, we were no angels in school, why should we expect him to be. At least he's with the girl he loves. But why, why do I have to relive this. Remus collapsed weeping with frustration and pent up sorrow.
A/N ~ I know, I know, not one of my best chapters. It started ok, but I kinda lost it half way through, but I couldn't just stop, and none of my friends are home to bounce ideas off of. Oh well. No flames please. Oh, and there is a sequel coming as soon as I can draw this to a graceful finish. The sequel will have lots of fluff and.
Wait for it…
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A Plot! ::Gasp, Faint,:: The horror. Oh well, I've used some foreshadowing so some of you should be able to guess a bit of what is yet to come. Wahahaha!
Okay and now on to the Thanks section!
Thank you to ~
Zippo ~ Yes, the werewolf and the head of Gryffindor house. Who woulda thought? Hehehe!
Sarah ~ hehehe, I'm glad you liked them, they were fun to write. And what do you think Minerva was doing in Remus's room.
Brokenflower ~ Making out? Who said anything about making out. Ok, forget what I said about the gutter and allow your mind to wander freely on the subject of McGonagall coming out of Remus's room.
Spookygirl ~ Good for you. The gutter was where my mind was headed when I wrote it. I think Val helped with that one. And of course H/H rules!
Griff ~ She was coming out of Lupin's room, and allow your mind to happily travel to the gutter. And there is a side to her that very few people notice. She's just a good Deputy Headmistress, it's her job to be the disciplinarian. She's very good at her job. Still, she has a different personality when she kicks her shoes off and lets her hair down for the night. Still, can't you just see Remus talking to James and Sirius in Transfigurations 7th year. "Hey would you get a look at the new teacher." ::nudge nudge:: Hey they're only like 4 or 5 years apart. It he was 17 in his 7th year and she was 22 when she started teaching. Hehehe.
Apple ~ It's always nice to have new readers join the pack. I'm glad that you enjoyed it. And thank you for the applause!