A/N: I have NOT dropped off the face of the planet! I AM still here! Not that anyone cares if I update anything or not…
Orlando: That's NOT true, update everything, dammit!
James: Don't YELL at her, nancy-boy!
Orlando: I've waited too long for updates, I'm going mad!
James: It's not HER fault…
A/N: So anyway! I've been overloaded with stress. My friend died, my other friend tried to shoot herself, and my boyfriend has cancer. At the moment he's in the hospital after the surgery to remove the tumor. And homework…so yeah…I'll try and update everything this week.
James: Man, I'm glad Cody's not here.
Orlando: Me too, I was bloody tired of him taking of his shirt to make her drool…OW *gets hit by me*
Me: Shut it, Orlando…I know where you…er…sleep.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, etc. They belong to J.K. Rowling. I DO own the collection of books…
A/N: No more babbling…
~*~*~*~
Two class, tons of homework, and several jokes about Lupin later, Mae stood outside the DADA classroom, her books in the crook of her arm. She sighed miserably and followed the last person into the room.
Going to sit in the back, as usual, she was stopped by a voice.
"Actually, Miss McCrea, I'd rather you sit up here, towards the front."
Growling to herself under her breath, Mae turned around to face the small, clattered, desk in the front. A man with shabby robes, prematurely-gray hair, and light blue eyes was indicating a desk close to his own. She walked towards it, not making a sound.
"Careful, Mae! He might bite you," Draco said from somewhere in the back.
She could hear the smirk in his voice, and ignored him. She didn't, however, miss the pained look on Lupin's face. Instantly she felt a little sorry for him, but pushed it away. She had a detention with him on Friday.
Sitting at the desk indicated by Lupin, she slumped in the chair and crossed her arms. Defense Against the Dark Arts, usually her favourite class, was suddenly going to be depressing.
Lupin sighed, his eyes constantly on Mae, and walked to the middle of the room. "We're going to be learning about something we've already covered before. You learnt it with Professor Snape back in the third year, but I think you need to recover it."
Draco smirked and said, loudly mind, "Oi! He's going to teach us about himself!" The Slytherins started to laugh [A/N: I forgot who has DADA with the Gryffindors, so I'm just gonna say it's the Hufflepuffs, ok? Good. Don't flame me about it] as the Hufflepuffs looked at them oddly.
Draco looked up at Lupin, who, Mae noticed, was extremely pale. "Are you going to make us watch you change, so that you can bite us?" The Slytherins roared with laughter.
Lupin seemed to force himself to calm down. Mae turned towards the back and shouted, her temper over-riding her sense of silent secrecy, "DRACO, FOR ONCE, JUST SHUT UP AND ACTUALLY LET A TEACHER, OTHER THAN SNAPE, TEACH. EVEN IF LUPIN WERE TO MAKE US WATCH HIM TRANSFORM, IT WOULDN'T BE COMPLETELY DANGEROUS. DIDN'T YOU REALIZE THAT SNAPE PROBABLY MAKES HIM THE WOLFBANE POTION WHICH RENDERS HIM BASICALLY HARMLESS AS LONG AS HE TAKES IT WHEN HE'S SUPPOSED TO? OBVIOUSLY YOU NEED TO LEARN MORE ABOUT WEREWOLVES, DRACO, SINCE YOUR IGNORANCE IS JUST SO BLOODY PLAIN!"
A long silence followed her outburst. The Slytherins were staring at her in shock, while Draco looked confused and slightly upset that she yelled at him. It was supposed to be funny, why hadn't she laughed? He vowed to find out the reason, if it killed him.
Lupin was staring at Mae in shock too. For all that he'd understood, Severus had put her up to the moral thing, maybe he hadn't. After all, why would she insult him, then defend him, against her own house, no less. He sighed, confused, and made a note to go back and look at the moral.
"As you can see, Miss McCrea knows a lot about werewolves as it is," Lupin said, as if nothing happened. "Now, would you all open your books to page 145, we have to skip around a bit."
Finding his tongue, and not about to let a girl yell at him, even if it was an old best friend, Draco said loudly, "I wonder how Mae knows. It's not like she's a werewolf herself, is it?"
Mae felt as if her heart had frozen, along with all her insides. She slumped farther down in her chair and pretended to study the woodwork.
She didn't notice the strange look Lupin was giving her, or the suspicious look Pansy was shooting at her.
Lupin glanced at Draco, "Ten points from Slytherin for that unnecessary comment."
The other Slytherins glanced at the professor in shocked horror. No one dared to take points from them, other than McGonagall. Before anyone else could make a sound, Lupin pointed his wand at the board, and chalk started to write notes on it. Glancing back at the class, he noticed the only one copying the notes was Mae. He sighed.
"Copy them down! Now!" he said, sounding uncannily like Snape.
Instantly, everyone, including Draco, started to scramble for quills, ink, and parchment.
Going to sit at his desk, Lupin put his index finger and thumb on each of his eyes, and started to massage as if he had a headache. Why me? he thought to himself. Glancing around, his eyes landed on the girl in front of his desk. This year is going to be interesting…
Mae glanced up to find Lupin staring at her. Her eyes widened slightly, and she hurriedly dropped her head back to her notes. This is going to be a really long year…she thought.
-
After class, everyone quickly packed their things and left. Mae was the first one out. She didn't want to be stuck around Draco, who would definitely ask her questions. She mentally kicked herself for blowing up in class at him. God I'm such an idiot! She sighed.
~*~*~
Draco hurriedly stuffed his things into his bag, and followed after Mae. He needed to talk to her, badly. He wanted to know what was wrong with her, that she'd acted like a total cow to him lately.
~*~*~
Pansy quickly placed her stuff in her bag, and followed after Draco. She wanted to ask him if they were going to do anything the first week of the Hogsmeade trip.
~*~*~
Lupin waited for everyone to leave, and then walked to the Charms room. Going over to the table with the moral on it, he studied the werewolf.
Instantly, upon closer look, he knew it wasn't himself. He didn't have those markings at all. Also, if he wasn't mistaken, the wolf was female, not male. He frowned slightly, something odd was going on, and he wanted to know what it was. Just like in the Marauder days. Only this time, James and Sirius are dead, and Peter's a traitor, he thought. A pain look instantly appeared on his face at the thought of Sirius. He'd been the last friend to loose. Peter had been the first, then James, then Lily, not Sirius. He was the only one left.
Life would be so much better if I had died instead of them. There would be one less werewolf to worry about, he thought, sighing again.
Turning away from the table, he left the Charms room, heading past his own office. He had a certain Headmaster to speak to.
~*~*~
Mae practically ran to the Slytherin Common Room. She doubted Draco would come there so soon after class, he'd probably go outside with his girlfriend and snog her to death.
Not that it could be much fun snogging a pug-faced bitch, she thought with a smirk. Feeling a lot more like herself again, she leaned back into the leather chair she'd sat on, and sighed happily. Closing her eyes, she started to fall asleep.
Suddenly she felt a presence hovering over her, and opened her eyes to find a very annoyed looking Draco staring down at her.
Oh great, she thought with a sigh. "What do you want, Draco?"
He seemed to snap from his thoughts and glared. "I want to know what was with that…bloody show…in DADA!"
Tilting her head slightly to the side, she put on a air of innocence, "What show?"
"The one in DADA!"
"What about it?"
"What was with it?!"
"What was with what?" she asked, fighting hard to keep a straight face.
Draco sat down next to her and glared. "Defense Against the Dark Arts!"
"What about it?"
"What was with it!?"
"What was with what, exactly?" she asked, feigning a suspicious look.
"The bloody show in Defense Against the Dark Arts!" he shouted at her, frustrated.
"What about it?"
"Why'd you do it?!" he asked, trying not to joke something.
"Why'd I do what?" she asked innocently, a small smile making her lips twitch a little.
Draco saw it and whined, "Mae, don't do this to me!"
"Don't do what to you?"
"Mae!" he growled, glaring at her.
She smiled. "Sorry, ok, what was the original question?"
"I want to know why you put on that bloody show in Defense Against the Dark Arts. The one where you defended Lupin!" he said, grinding his teeth.
"Now Draco, it's not nice to grind your teeth. It gets on some people's nerves," she said, ignoring his questions.
"Maeve Isolde McCrea!" he shouted, standing up abruptly to turn and face her. "Stop messing with my head and changing the f—bloody subject!"
"Watch your language, Draco. There are others here than just yourself. Some people don't appreciate that kind of language," she said calmly, curling up into a small ball, as if ready to go to sleep.
"Mmmgh!" he growled with disgust and stormed away.
"You know, that sound affect makes it seem as if you've got a girl under you…"
"SHUT UP, MAE!" he shouted again and then he was gone.
Mae snickered to herself, and closed her eyes again. There was time for a small nap before dinner.
~*~*~
Draco stormed away from the Common Room. Mae could be such a bitch at times, it was annoying! He made a note to stay pissed at her for as long as possible. He would even flirt with Pansy, if he had to, to make her pissed at him too.
As if she heard his thoughts, Pansy appeared in front of him, smiling. He forced himself not to flinch at the way it made her face scrunch up.
"Hey, Pansy," he said, forcing a small smile.
She just grinned at him, "Hey, Draco."
"Where you lookin' for someone?" he asked, glancing around.
"Um, yeah! I was looking for you," she said, still smiling.
He raised an eyebrow, smirking a little, "Where you really…?"
She blushed at his smirk, thinking it meant more than it did. "Yeah…"
"Any particular reason?" he asked, the conversation already beginning to bore him. Mae didn't allow conversations to get boring, she'd always say something interesting. Stop thinking about her! You're pissed at her, remember?! he shouted at himself.
Pansy smirked, thinking she had him. "Yeah, I was wonderin' if we are gonna do anything on the first trip to Hogsmeade."
Bloody hell! I'm not going to screw her! Then he realized she meant something else. "Oh um…when is it?"
"Five weeks."
Girls! They plan so bloody far ahead! He shrugged. "We'll see. We've got a while to think about it and plan."
She smiled. "Yeah, ok."
He started walking away from her. He wanted to be alone so he could make up plans to piss Mae off.
"Hey, where you going??" she called after him.
"The Library! Homework!" he said back, loud enough for her to hear him.
She grimaced. There was no way she'd take one step into the Library. The place was…disgusting. Shrugging to herself, she headed for the grounds. Her group of friends were probably by the lake, flirting with other guys.
~*~*~*~
A/N: Hah! It's LONG! I wasn't planning on that, actually, but hey, it works for me. Well, I hope someone's happy. I'm gonna update Whole Again next, I think. I dunno yet. I hate writer's block.
James: Review!
Orlando (still rubbing his head from where I hit it): yeah, please review? PLEASE! *puppy eyes*
James: Good God…
Me: Also, if you're Christian, keep Cody in your prayers. Please? Thanks…