Hermione lay on her bed, staring up at the ceiling and trying to make shapes and faces out of the different colours and patterns in the large stones. Anything was better than thinking about the realities that faced her. Too bad she couldn't avoid them forever.

She had been deciding how she was going to take care of the current situation, and she had come up with two choices. The first basically included the taste of a gun barrel in her mouth and the second would require her to suck it all up and face her most recent obstacle by somehow getting Lupin out of the situation. Hermione's preference was the first, but she was horribly afraid of pain and she didnt like guns, so the second became her choice purely by default.

Preparing herself, she patted out the wrinkles in her robes and walked down to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom. Nervously, she knocked on the door next to the classroom door, the one leading to Lupin's office. She hesitated slightly, catching her breath as she waited for a "come in," but there was no response and her heart suddenly felt lighter. Wanting to tell herself that he was still at dinner and this could easily be done another time, she stood still, knowing that it was best to get things over with as soon as possible- like ripping off a bandage. As her less courageous side had become dominant, she was about to turn on her heel and leave when she heard a voice.

"Hermione, what an unexpected guest," he said somewhat sarcastically, making Hermione's internal organs twist in worry. "Please, come in and have a seat."

She sat in the chair in front of his desk as he sat down in his and summoned a cup of tea. "Care for some?"

Hermione nervously declined the offer, "No, not right now... um, Professor Lupin, I wanted to come down here and make some things clear."

"Oh, really?" the shaggy-haired Professor asked.

"Firstly," Hermione began, "Snape hasn't had anything to do with any of this. I mean the whole Duplexplicis situation; he hasn't been involved at all, in fact, I've been getting it from an outside source." She looked down at her clasped hands in her lap. She was horrible at lying, and she knew it. There was no way Lupin would buy it, but she dared to look up at him to find the warewolf running his fingers through his hair as if carefully considering his next move in a chess game. He looked up at her, and she immediately looked down, avoiding eye contact. Lupin sighed heavily and rested his arms on the desk.

"Hermione, I'm just so," he looked at her in the eyes, "worried about you. You're such an intelligent girl, by far the brightest I have ever met."

She looked down at her hands, her thumb nervously caressing the other. This was nothing she hadn't heard before, but as of late, Snape's opinions concerning her had become her own. She was simply mediocre, not as clever as she thought she was, and on top of it all, she was weak.

"I know why you're here," he began. "I talked to Snape earlier. I told him I knew what was going on, and you being here confirms all of my suspicions. Let me guess, he got worried and sent you down here to sort things out?" He shook his head, "Bloody hell, Hermione, you have no idea what you've gotten yourself into."

"I'm perfectly capable of handling myself," she retorted.

"Are you?" He laughed half heartedly. "Then why did we find you half dead in your room?"

Hermione was speechless.

"Have you heard of the Reely family?" he asked.

"Yes," Hermione responded automatically, somewhat confused at what possible relevance there may be. "Arnes Reely was one of the most talented potion masters the wizarding world has ever seen. He died a few years ago, I believe."

"Right. Now have you heard of Carya Reely?"

Hermione shook her head no.

"Didn't think you would have," he began. "She was a student here, at about the same time I was. She was probably the most intelligent person I had ever met, not to mention the most intelligent female. I never thought I'd see another of her rank," he stopped and lowered his tone, "until I met you." As if he just realized what he had said, he quickly began speaking again. "She had learned a lot from her father, and needless to say, she was quite good at Potions. I knew her fairly well. She had to help me in Potions constantly; I was a real Neville when it came to Potions. Severus Snape, too, was extraordinary in Potions- no surprise there.

"He had some sort of fixation with her, though. Not just some crush, it edged more along the lines of sickening jealousy. They had been competing over who was better since they both walked in the front doors of Hogwarts, but she would always beat him. You could imagine how angry that made him. He would follow her around and things of that sort. For the most part, she would ignore him, but she agreed to meet him one night. According to what she told me a few weeks later, she met him on top of one of the towers, and he offered her something, a drug."

"Duplexplicis?" Hermione asked.

Lupin nodded. "She took it out of curiosity, not knowing that he had added Adixio to it to make her need it. Eventually, if she didn't have some every day, she would go through these horrible withdrawals. Sound familiar?"

Hermione nodded mutely.

He huffed slightly, as if the entire situation was almost too much for him to handle. "She went downhill so quickly it was sickening. She went from being a student with top marks to barely making it to class. Her potions studies failed, and she completely changed. She had no drive, she just sat in her quarters and did that stuff, that horrible stuff that she got from Snape. Of course, this pleased him. There was no more competition, and the scholarship Carya had gotten from Fott's College for The Gifted was taken away and given to Snape." He took a deep breath. "She eventually killed herself in the Ravenclaw common room over Christmas holidays."

Hermione sighed. "That's horrible."

Lupin looked away from her, towards the wall. "It's just, gods, I thought he changed, you know? Sirius never trusted him, and I suppose I shouldn't have either. He was just such a help to us on the front lines of the war with Voldemort, and after he came clean- well, I was just being dim and assumed he wasn't the same man who killed Carya, even if it was, indirectly."

Lupin got up from his seat and paced slowly for a few moments as he rubbed his fingers through his hair. Hermione's eyes followed him back and forth from one end of the office to the next until he took a place on one knee next to Hermione. She looked down, and for the first time, took a real look into his eyes. They were dark brown, and one had a small, barely visible green fleck on the top. They pleaded with her, asking her to take him seriously, to know that he cared a lot more than he probably should.

"Hermione," he began with his coarse voice lowered, "just promise me that you'll stay away from Duplexplicis, and even more importantly, Snape."

The young girl looked at him, unable to say yes as if it would be a terrible lie to tell. Her mind was already thinking about Duplexplicis and what the next wonderful hit would bring. Seeing her hesitation, he took her hands and held them in his. "Just promise me, Hermione. If he does anything, or if you need help, I'll be there. I'll take care of you."

Hermione nodded her head yes and stood up, afraid of the tingling sensation that ran through her body when his skin touched hers. There was a slight akward pause as he got up from his knee, his eyes still pleading with hers.

"It's getting late, Professor," she said.

"Please, Hermione, call me Remus."

"Okay," she agreed. "I need to go, uh, study as much as I can as NEWTs are coming up soon."

"Goodnight, Hermione."

"Goodnight," she hesitated, "Remus."