Of course I'd like to thank you for your reviews :)

I hope you all have gone to the bathroom because this is a long chapter, though ironically it took the least time to write. Hmmm.

Anyway this chapter might not be R but at least PG-13 for some language and sexuality.

Chapter 11

Ariana sat in her room two days later waiting on Remus to arrive. Last night had been full moon so hadn't got to see him. Funny how it feels like an eternity, she mused.

In the time she'd had to herself though, she had reached a conclusion. Somewhere along the way she'd fallen head over heels in love with Remus Lupin and when he walked through that door, she was going to tell him all about her.

Maybe it was the fact that he had issues also and he didn't seem as unattainable as he had before but now she was bursting to tell him. She had trusted him from the get go and now as she thought back on it, she didn't really remember why she was hiding her past from him.

She paced nervously back and forth, surprised that she wasn't wearing a path in the carpet. Where is he, she wondered impatiently.

All the 'what if' scenarios running through her mind. Surely if I can accept the fact that he's a werewolf he can accept me for who I am...or was, I should say, she coached herself.

What felt like hours later, though it was only about thirty minutes, came a knock on the door. Ariana practically to the door and jerked it open.

"Hi." She said.

"Hi yourself." He replied, grinning suavely and hiding his hands behind his back.

"What have you got?" Ariana asked as she bent over and tried to peak.

"Nosy little thing aren't you?" He teased.

She ignored him and began trying to pull his hands out where she could see them.

He humored her for a moment before suddenly twisting her gently so her back was pressed fully against his front. He leaned down and nipped her left earlobe gently before tucking a flower there.

Ariana caught sight of herself in the mirror and saw it was a red hibiscus. Her heart filled with emotion she'd never felt.

"Where did you get that?" She asked.

"Disapparated to an island." He explained.

"For me? How sweet. Thank you!"

"I missed you." He said simply.

He leaned down and caught her lips in a hot kiss. This kiss was different than any of their previous ones. Hungrier. He turned her around in his arms and kicked the door closed with his foot. Walking her backwards until she was wedged against the wall and his hard body.

His tongue thrust into her mouth as her hands wound around his neck. His own hands crawled up her rib cage slowly to cup one of her full breasts. She arched into his palm and broke the kiss to let out a moan when his fingers brushed her peaked nipple.

Ariana then started her own exploration of his chest. Running her hands under his sweater to feel his warm muscled skin. But when she felt him beginning to tug her shirt off she snapped back to reality.

"Remus don't." She said as she pulled back and batted his hands away gently, hurt and confusion showing in his grey eyes.

"We need to talk." She explained. "I'm ready to tell you about me."

"Ok. Great." He replied at once, though he was a little put off by her timing.

"Let's sit down so we'll at least be comfortable." She said as she sat cross legged on the bed and waited for him to do the same before she started. He sat and grabbed her hand as he waited patiently for her to begin.

"I actually had a perfect life up until the summer I turned eleven. Great parents, great friends, great house, even a great school. Then everything turned upside down on me. I learned that my parents had been lying to me for ten years and I was furious at them. My mother was non magical, muggle as you called it, but my father was a wizard." She paused as she took a breath and Remus squeezed her hand empathetically.

"And it seemed I was also. But I was angry that they hadn't told me earlier. They told me they wanted me to have a normal muggle kid life until I was to go off to wizarding school. I got my acceptance letter to Hogwarts the following week and then I forgave them. The concept of being a witch had settled in and replaced by excitement. And to a point I understood their reasoning. I had to tell my friends I was moving, so I lost my great friends and my great school. About fifteen days before I was to begin my first year my mum suddenly died of ovarian cancer." She paused to bite her lip so she could keep the tears back that were threatening to fall.

"A week after she died and a week before I was to leave for Hogwarts, my dad was killed in a freak accident in the woods. He was on his way pick me up and take me Diagon Alley to get my school things." She said as the tears slid down her cheeks freely now. But she pressed on. "There I was no friends, no parents and soon no home."

"I was sent to live with my mothers relatives and when I informed them of my school plans they locked me in the basement and forbid me to go. They had never really liked my dad, or me for that matter, and this new development definitely didn't fit their everything-is-roses crock of shit existence. One night when I was in the basement I heard a man's voice trying to convince my aunt and uncle to let me attend Hogwarts, I just recently found out that it was Albus Dumbledore that night." She paused again to gauge Remus' reaction. He was hanging on to every word she said but didn't appear to be thinking any less of her. This is easier than I thought it would be, she thought before continuing.

"Anyway, they kept me locked in the basement until I was eighteen and too old for Hogwarts." She felt him grasp her hand more tightly, presumably in anger.

"Then they forced me to go out and get a job to support them. Said they would tell the world about wizards. I didn't know anything about magic folk at the time but I figured exposing them couldn't be good. So I allowed myself to be exploited, I paid for everything and waited on them hand and foot. Until I turned twenty-seven that is. Then I'd had enough. I left and I won't go back." She finished.

Remus looked at her incredulously and stroked her cheek tenderly. "How did you get away?" He asked.

"I locked them in the basement." She answered and laughed humorlessly.

"Where did you get all the money?" He questioned.

"Turns out they were hoarding most of what they took from me in their closet. So I took it back. Fools didn't even use banks." She said.

"So they're still locked in the basement?"

"No. I could never do to anyone what they did to me....no matter how much they deserved it. I called in an anonymous tip to the police from muggle London."

"Aren't you worried they'll tell people about the wizarding world?" Remus inquired.

"Dumbledore performed a memory charm on them. They don't remember me. I actually prefer it that way. So I'm a witch that knows very little about magic. That's what I'm doing with Dumbledore when you see me at the castle." She said with a slight smile.

"Wow. Just wow. I'm speechless." He said as he drew her into his arms and held her close.

"I actually feel relieved to get that out." She stated as she snuggled into his chest.

"Thank you for trusting me with it." He said, using her previous words at his own confession. "You're amazing Ariana." He went on as he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

She looked positively exhausted as she closed her eyes and sighed. He tried to untangle himself but she just tightened her grip around his waist and pressed closer into the crook of his body.

"Stay. I don't want you to go." She said sleepily.

He smiled and lay down beside her. He sat thinking uneasily and listening to her even breathing as she slept until he too fell into a deep slumber, dreaming of the first time in a month of that full moon night long ago that had seemed to constantly plague him with guilt.

Whhhew!