Dreaming Of You
Author's Note: Something I wrote for the fictionalley version of this story I am now posting. I thought it might interest everyone while I work on part 12.
Chapter 5.5
~*~ flashback ~*~
God, I hate being sick. Erin debated throwing her box of tissues across the room, but decided against it. Her father was working on Saturday – again – and her mother was out shopping. She'd just have to pick it up herself the next time she sneezed. Which would probably be any –
"A-choo!"
– any second now. Good thing she hadn't thrown her tissues away. Erin blew her nose, wallowing quite grumpily in her misery. Colds were the worst sort of sick to be. You couldn't do anything but sit in bed because you were sneezing all the time, but you felt just well enough to get bored with sitting around all day. And your nose felt all red and swollen because your parents only bought the cheap tissues that scratched up your face before you were a quarter of the way through with the box. Or maybe that was just her.
Erin flopped back against her pillow, trying to think of ways to alleviate her boredom. There is no way I'm going to do homework, she decided. Biology and calculus were the last things she wanted to think about right then. The study of whatever was making her sick in the first place, and the study of things guaranteed to make her even sicker. Who the hell needed to know the Calvin cycle, anyway?
I could always read a book. She considered the idea. No, she'd read all her books already, and there was no one likely to go to the library for her. And fascinating as most of her books were, there just wasn't anything she –
No. Wait. Erin frowned. What about those books Hazel had lent her? Weren't they by Something Potter? No, that was the kid in the title. Something Potter and the Whatever.
Erin leaned over the side of her bed. She'd dropped them beside her nightstand, hadn't she? Yes, there they were. Harry Potter, that was it. And the Sorcerer's Stone. Except wasn't it really called the Philosopher's Stone? She thought she remembered Hazel saying something about that at their last family gathering. Something about how the book had been translated into American English from British English. Or maybe it was just the title. She hadn't really grasped most of it.
Well, after reading this, she'd at least know what it was Hazel liked to talk about so much. That was the only reason she'd read Tolkien.
Of course, Lord of the Rings was now one of her favorite series. So maybe these Potter books would be good, too.
~*~
Monday afternoon, Erin sighed and closed Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. She couldn't believe she'd finished all four books in just three days. It was a personal record. Especially considering the size of the last one. What was it, some sort of encyclopedia?
And it didn't even end yet. Erin scowled. It was just getting really interesting, too. And that cool teacher was going to come back.
The thought of Remus Lupin made her smile, almost embarrassedly. A blush warmed her cheeks. She could just see him, and hear him.
Erin shook her head sharply. Am I mooning over a fictional character? She reminded herself sternly that eighteen-year-old girls did not do things like that. She'd managed to get through her life so far without the "obligatory" crush on an actor or singer. She was not going to fall for a bunch of words written in an interesting way. An interesting, soft-spoken, handsome, kind way…
Oh, Lord, I'm turning into that girl in my art class. Erin grimaced. The girl in question, while a rather good artist, was considered to be slightly mad, and tended to draw pictures of a man – whom Erin now knew was Sirius Black – and insist he was her soul mate.
Well, she wasn't going to do anything crazy like that. Certainly not. She was entirely sane, thank you. She didn't go around drawing imaginary people and trying to make a temple of eternal love for the artwork. (Ms. Holland had dismantled it, saying that she needed that garden hose for the still life, and that sticks of incense weren't allowed on school campuses, no, not even if you took them off-campus to light them. Afterwards, someone in the class was always ready to volunteer to take that girl's work to the paper cutter for her.)
No, Erin was perfectly sane. Which was why, upon looking down, she realized that she'd started a letter in her private notebook with the words, Dear Remus.