A.n Sorry for the long delay. Here's the next chapter. I hope you like the story concept. Oh, and Chapter 11 is nearly done on the other story I'm writing. I've got a new computer which is the main reason for the loooooooong delay.
Four
Remus J. Lupin, first year professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, swore quietly as he extracted himself from the nest of brambles where he had come to rest after his wild run through the Forbidden Forest the evening before. For several moments, all he could do was stand, bent at the waist, and let the fits of nausea that always accompanied the return to his human self wear off. They seemed to be worse than they had been in a long time. In fact, the last time he had experienced this level of nausea was before he began taking the Wolfsbane Potion shortly before joining the staff of Hogwarts.
Eventually, he was able to clear his head enough to conjure a very thin robe to hide his nakedness. It would have been very simple with his wand, but for some reason, he didn't seem to have it on him. Thus, the robe he was able to wandlessly conjure was very thin and even more shabby-looking than his usual robes, and the effort required for this act brought on another bout of nausea.
Indeed, so bad were his bouts of dizziness that it took him several moments to realize exactly why he felt so terrible.
He had not taken his Potion the night before.
This shocking realization quickly led to several more. Pettigrew still alive? Sirius Black really innocent? Severus Snape bursting in to the Shrieking Shack brandishing his wand in glee, so convinced he had finally achieved some self-glory for bringing in the criminal, Sirius Black! Snape being disarmed by the three students! And then, his change.
He swore loudly!
He knew that Pettigrew, weak and cowardly as he was, would be more than a match for the students. Black, he knew, would have been protecting them from he, Remus. Harry and Hermione were in a bad position behind Pettigrew and would be hesitant to use their wands on him in fear of hitting their friend. And Ron, though Remus would never admit it out loud, did not have the common sense to act without given some direct orders of what to do. It had not helped matters that the boy had been traipsing around on a broken leg, and the fact that he had been able to walk as well as he had done spoke volumes for his determination to see Pettigrew brought to justice and Sirius freed.
So Pettigrew, or Wormtail as Remus would forevermore think of him, would have been able to transform during all the confusion and escape. And without Wormtail, what proof could be presented to the Ministry or to Dumbledore himself that could exonerate Black?
And the dementors were at Hogwarts.
And so was Fudge.
Throwing aside his weariness with a great effort, Lupin broke in to a run, only vaguely aware of his position with regard to the school. He had managed to run most of the way through the Forbidden Forest on his rampage and knew that it would take him a good hour to reach the outskirts that fronted on Hogwarts.
He had forced his way along for nearly half the distance when a low "psst" caught his ear. Looking around and extending his keen werewolf senses failed to locate anyone else in the near vicinity.
"Professor Lupin," a hoarse voice called, and Lupin was amazed to realize the voice came from up above him. Jerking his head hastily in that direction, he felt his jaw drop nearly to his chest as he looked in to a familiar pair of bright green eyes.
"H-H-Harry?"
He knew it sounded foolish, but that seemed to be the only word that would force its way through his somewhat parched lips.
"Professor, come up here, please," the boy called out to him.
Numbly, hardly realizing what he was doing, the professor found himself moving to the tree and beginning to climb through the twisted branches of the great tree in which the boy had hidden himself. Questions flowed through his mind faster than he could organize them, but he knew he'd receive no answers until he reached the top of the tree. Finally, after numerous scratches and several cuts, his head broke through the last layer of branches and emerged in to hazy sunlight. Dawn was rapidly giving way to the stronger light of true morning.
It was then that he received his second shock.
Harry was not alone. Hermione Granger sat next to him, hugging her knees and looking like she would rather be any where else. The fact that the two were in the same clothes as the night before made Lupin very nervous. After all, if the two kids hadn't even taken time to change clothes and were hiding in a tree in the middle of one of the most dangerous forests in Europe, things must be very bad indeed.
Not knowing that he had anything to say, Lupin was surprised to hear himself asking a question.
"Sirius! Is he ---?"
He found he couldn't finish the sentence and merely made a kissing motion.
A slight smile spread over Harry's face and Hermione looked up with a slight lightening around her somewhat bloodshot eyes.
"No, Professor Lupin," she said softly. "And that is the reason, well part of the reason, why we are here and are now fugitives from the wizarding world."
It was a good thing that Harry had good reflexes from his time as a Seeker. Lupin was so shocked by the last statement that if Harry hadn't darted a hand out to clutch at his robes, the werewolf would have gone back down to the ground in a much more painful fashion.
Once Lupin had slightly recovered from his shock, Harry and Hermione, without prompting, began the tale. They told about following Sirius as he had gone after Wormtail once he, Lupin, was safely driven off in to the forest. They told about the narrow escape from the dementors and being saved by a magnificently glowing very powerful Patronus.
Lupin listened raptly as they told of waking in the hospital wing and hearing Snape and Fudge discuss the former's likelihood of gaining an Order of Merlin for his actions in capturing Black. That remark earned a slight chuckle from the professor.
They told how Sirius had been scheduled to receive the Dementor's Kiss once Macnair the executioner returned from fetching them. Remus was outraged to hear the casual way that Fudge dismissed the claims that Sirius had, indeed, been innocent of the crimes for which he was charged.
"He never even had a trial," Remus muttered softly. The other two looked at him in horror.
"Well, continue," he finally said after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.
Remus was aghast as Hermione related how they had used the Time-Turner to go back to be able to rescue Sirius and Buckbeak the hippogriff.
He offered up a much more genuine smile as Harry told that it had been he who summoned the Patronus that saved the helpless victims on the opposite shore of the lake.
"So you met Prongs, eh," he asked fondly, reaching over and mussing the boy's hair, an action that surprised him as much as Harry.
"Um, yeah," Harry said softly, a slight blush appearing on his cheeks.
Harry took over. He told of the rescue of Sirius, the horrible song of Peeves the poltergeist, and how Peeves had made them too late to re-enter the hospital ward. Lupin grimaced as he heard of the desperate actions taken by the two youngsters the night before, although he outright laughed at the description of Professor McGonagall trying to turn Harry's broom in to a banana. He was also pleased to hear that Harry had been able to spot the Invisibility Cloak and bring it along in their flight from Hogwarts.
"And so here we are," Harry finally finished.
"And we have no idea what to do next," Hermione said with her voice trembling slightly.
Remus sighed and shrugged his shoulders. He really had no idea what to tell them. He knew that Harry had plenty of money and assumed that he carried his Gringotts key with him. He also knew that the goblins were very trustworthy as far as secrecy was concerned and thought that the probability of getting the money from Harry's vault was probably pretty high. However, the real problem was knowing where to go where the Ministry of Magic couldn't find them. Unless ...
He straightened at last, the beginnings of the dangerous plan already crystallized in his mind. It would take an incredible amount of luck to pull it off, but after hearing of Harry and Hermiones' adventures of the night before, and knowing of the things Harry had done at Hogwarts during his previous years, the idea might just work.
"Harry, what I'm going to suggest to you is dangerous, but I think it is your best bet. Do you have your Gringotts key?"
The boy nodded, looking uncertainly back at his professor.
"Okay, this is going to be rough, but I think that you can manage it. In a few moments, we are going to Apparate in to London. Or rather, I am going to Apparate the two of you to London. It will have to be one at a time as I don't have the power to take you both with me at the same time."
He stopped there, looking puzzled for a moment, then slapped himself in the forehead with his clenched fist.
"Dammit," Lupin swore softly. "I don't have my wand. I need to fix it so that you can't be tracked."
"What do you mean, Professor," Hermione asked, and Lupin was filled with amazement that even in these frightening circumstances, Hermione Granger was still as eager as ever to learn.
"The Ministry keeps Tracking Charms on the wands of those students who are underage to monitor them so that they don't use magic at inappropriate times away from Hogwarts, during the summer, in other words. I need my wand so that I can take the Charms off your wands."
"But Professor," Hermione asked, the beautiful lilt in her voice becoming more obvious as she went in to Practicality Mode. "Can't you use my wand to disable the Charm on Harry's? And then use his to disable mine? And being so close to Hogwarts, would the Ministry be able to track the wand usage here?"
It was at times like these that the werewolf cursed his mental slowness after a night of transformations.
"I can try. However, as I don't have my own wand, I'm not sure how effective my wand work will be. As Mr. Ollivander no doubt told you both, you can never get as good a result with another witch or wizard's wand as with your own. And yes, Hermione, you are right about the Ministry's inability to track the use of wands this close to Hogwarts. By the way," he added as an after thought, "I assume Wormtail took mine?"
"Well, actually, I disarmed him," Harry admitted. "But I'm not sure where your wand went. You might recall there were a few things distracting me at the time."
"Brat," Remus muttered under his breath, smiling just the same.
He took Harry's wand first and, with only a slight bit of effort, managed to disarm the Tracking Charm on Hermione's wand. However, by the time Harry's wand was free of the Charm as well, a slight sweat was breaking out over the older man's body.
"There you go," he said softly, conjuring up a couple of glasses of pumpkin juice and some pieces of toast with the wand he still held.
Until then, Harry hadn't realized how hungry he was. His last meal had been supper the night before in the Great Hall, a time that seemed like a completely different life. Hermione, too, was tucking away several pieces of toast.
"Sorry," Lupin said. "I'm too tired to conjure up anything more complicated right now. Well, now that we are slightly less hungry, let's decide what you are going to do."
Harry and Hermione listened carefully as Remus outlined his plan. They took it calmly, so calmly in fact that the werewolf had to keep reminding himself that these were merely kids, young and scared kids no matter how brave the facade they constructed, and his admiration continued to grow as they simply nodded at his instructions, all the while casting incredulous looks at each other when they thought he wasn't looking.
'Harry is more and more like James each day' Remus thought to himself fondly. 'Except James never had to deal with half of the things Harry has'
When Remus had finished outlining his plan and Harry and Hermione had agreed, Remus finally made ready to leave.
It took them nearly twenty minutes to descend from the tree. Hermione, it appeared, was no more at home in the trees than she was on a broom. Eventually, however, they all stood sweaty and slightly winded on the ground. Remus borrowed Harry's wand again and conjured them each another glass of pumpkin juice which they gratefully downed while getting their breath back.
"I'm going to Apparate you now," Lupin finally said. "Hermione, you'll go first, and then I'll come back for Harry. We're going to end up in a little alley I know of about half a block from the Leaky Cauldron, and you can walk from there after I leave."
He wasted no time in putting his hand on Hermione's shoulder, and with a CRACK, they were gone. Harry stood stock still, feeling utterly alone and forgotten, for what seemed like hours, but was in actuality only about two minutes, before with another CRACK, Lupin had returned.
Harry decided as his feet slammed down on the pavement of a dark little street that Apparating wasn't so bad after all. It certainly was much better than using floo powder.
The alley was just that. It was about wide enough for two or three people to walk comfortably side by side, but so much trash littered the ground that half of the walkway was clogged too much to use.
"I didn't say this would be pretty," Lupin said as if reading his mind, wrinkling his nose as he spoke, his keen werewolf senses being assaulted by the various odors from the piles of garbage.
"You two take care of yourselves," the werewolf said fondly as he made ready to return to the forest and walk back to Hogwarts. "I'll do my best to keep in touch, although it will be tough at first with the Ministry doing everything in their power to track you down."
Noticing Hermione's shudder, he went on to add, "Don't worry too much, Hermione. I'm sure if the Ministry does find you two, the fact that Sirius Black put you two under the Imperius Curse and made you leave Hogwarts with him and go to London, where you were finally able to escape him will make you both heroes to the idiots in charge of the wizarding world."
Even Hermione laughed at this.
"The Imperius Curse," Harry asked in interest. He'd never heard of that one before. It sounded nasty.
"It is considered to be unforgivable in the wizarding community," Lupin said softly. "It forces the person who it is cast on to do whatever they are told to do by the person casting the curse. It takes a very strong will to be able to break free from it. Anyone caught using the curse is automatically given a one-way ticket to Azkaban."
Harry shuddered, deciding he'd just as well avoid the Imperius Curse, thank you very much.
"Now, I really must leave," Lupin said regretfully. "It will get suspicious if I am not back shortly. As it is, I have stayed too long already. I will contact you as soon as I can."
He stayed then only long enough to give each of the two a tight hug and whisper a final word of encouragement to each of them. Then, he moved away from them, preparing to Apparate back to the forest. However, he was doomed to suffer an embarrassment before he departed. He had not been watching his footing, and the result of his carelessness was that he landed in an undignified heap on a pile of old soggy newspapers. To add insult to injury, he was forced to listen and glare impotently as Harry and Hermione clutched at each other, both laughing merrily at his predicament.
After standing up and brushing himself off, all the while listening to the sniggering coming from the two kids, he gave them an evil glare and waved his hand, levitating some of the disgusting newspapers and hurling them at the two. They shrieked and scattered, barely missing the missiles. Then, before they could retaliate, Lupin grinned at them, gave them a final wave, and Disapparated.
Harry and Hermione looked at each other, laughter fading quickly, then their eyes moved to the spot where only a moment before, their favorite Defense Against the Dark Arts professor had stood. However, except for the obviously disturbed pile of garbage, he might never have been there at all.
They then turned to look at each other again. Nodding at about the same time and with no words being spoken, they both agreed that it was time for them to move on as well.
And so, they did.
TBC
Four
Remus J. Lupin, first year professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, swore quietly as he extracted himself from the nest of brambles where he had come to rest after his wild run through the Forbidden Forest the evening before. For several moments, all he could do was stand, bent at the waist, and let the fits of nausea that always accompanied the return to his human self wear off. They seemed to be worse than they had been in a long time. In fact, the last time he had experienced this level of nausea was before he began taking the Wolfsbane Potion shortly before joining the staff of Hogwarts.
Eventually, he was able to clear his head enough to conjure a very thin robe to hide his nakedness. It would have been very simple with his wand, but for some reason, he didn't seem to have it on him. Thus, the robe he was able to wandlessly conjure was very thin and even more shabby-looking than his usual robes, and the effort required for this act brought on another bout of nausea.
Indeed, so bad were his bouts of dizziness that it took him several moments to realize exactly why he felt so terrible.
He had not taken his Potion the night before.
This shocking realization quickly led to several more. Pettigrew still alive? Sirius Black really innocent? Severus Snape bursting in to the Shrieking Shack brandishing his wand in glee, so convinced he had finally achieved some self-glory for bringing in the criminal, Sirius Black! Snape being disarmed by the three students! And then, his change.
He swore loudly!
He knew that Pettigrew, weak and cowardly as he was, would be more than a match for the students. Black, he knew, would have been protecting them from he, Remus. Harry and Hermione were in a bad position behind Pettigrew and would be hesitant to use their wands on him in fear of hitting their friend. And Ron, though Remus would never admit it out loud, did not have the common sense to act without given some direct orders of what to do. It had not helped matters that the boy had been traipsing around on a broken leg, and the fact that he had been able to walk as well as he had done spoke volumes for his determination to see Pettigrew brought to justice and Sirius freed.
So Pettigrew, or Wormtail as Remus would forevermore think of him, would have been able to transform during all the confusion and escape. And without Wormtail, what proof could be presented to the Ministry or to Dumbledore himself that could exonerate Black?
And the dementors were at Hogwarts.
And so was Fudge.
Throwing aside his weariness with a great effort, Lupin broke in to a run, only vaguely aware of his position with regard to the school. He had managed to run most of the way through the Forbidden Forest on his rampage and knew that it would take him a good hour to reach the outskirts that fronted on Hogwarts.
He had forced his way along for nearly half the distance when a low "psst" caught his ear. Looking around and extending his keen werewolf senses failed to locate anyone else in the near vicinity.
"Professor Lupin," a hoarse voice called, and Lupin was amazed to realize the voice came from up above him. Jerking his head hastily in that direction, he felt his jaw drop nearly to his chest as he looked in to a familiar pair of bright green eyes.
"H-H-Harry?"
He knew it sounded foolish, but that seemed to be the only word that would force its way through his somewhat parched lips.
"Professor, come up here, please," the boy called out to him.
Numbly, hardly realizing what he was doing, the professor found himself moving to the tree and beginning to climb through the twisted branches of the great tree in which the boy had hidden himself. Questions flowed through his mind faster than he could organize them, but he knew he'd receive no answers until he reached the top of the tree. Finally, after numerous scratches and several cuts, his head broke through the last layer of branches and emerged in to hazy sunlight. Dawn was rapidly giving way to the stronger light of true morning.
It was then that he received his second shock.
Harry was not alone. Hermione Granger sat next to him, hugging her knees and looking like she would rather be any where else. The fact that the two were in the same clothes as the night before made Lupin very nervous. After all, if the two kids hadn't even taken time to change clothes and were hiding in a tree in the middle of one of the most dangerous forests in Europe, things must be very bad indeed.
Not knowing that he had anything to say, Lupin was surprised to hear himself asking a question.
"Sirius! Is he ---?"
He found he couldn't finish the sentence and merely made a kissing motion.
A slight smile spread over Harry's face and Hermione looked up with a slight lightening around her somewhat bloodshot eyes.
"No, Professor Lupin," she said softly. "And that is the reason, well part of the reason, why we are here and are now fugitives from the wizarding world."
It was a good thing that Harry had good reflexes from his time as a Seeker. Lupin was so shocked by the last statement that if Harry hadn't darted a hand out to clutch at his robes, the werewolf would have gone back down to the ground in a much more painful fashion.
Once Lupin had slightly recovered from his shock, Harry and Hermione, without prompting, began the tale. They told about following Sirius as he had gone after Wormtail once he, Lupin, was safely driven off in to the forest. They told about the narrow escape from the dementors and being saved by a magnificently glowing very powerful Patronus.
Lupin listened raptly as they told of waking in the hospital wing and hearing Snape and Fudge discuss the former's likelihood of gaining an Order of Merlin for his actions in capturing Black. That remark earned a slight chuckle from the professor.
They told how Sirius had been scheduled to receive the Dementor's Kiss once Macnair the executioner returned from fetching them. Remus was outraged to hear the casual way that Fudge dismissed the claims that Sirius had, indeed, been innocent of the crimes for which he was charged.
"He never even had a trial," Remus muttered softly. The other two looked at him in horror.
"Well, continue," he finally said after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.
Remus was aghast as Hermione related how they had used the Time-Turner to go back to be able to rescue Sirius and Buckbeak the hippogriff.
He offered up a much more genuine smile as Harry told that it had been he who summoned the Patronus that saved the helpless victims on the opposite shore of the lake.
"So you met Prongs, eh," he asked fondly, reaching over and mussing the boy's hair, an action that surprised him as much as Harry.
"Um, yeah," Harry said softly, a slight blush appearing on his cheeks.
Harry took over. He told of the rescue of Sirius, the horrible song of Peeves the poltergeist, and how Peeves had made them too late to re-enter the hospital ward. Lupin grimaced as he heard of the desperate actions taken by the two youngsters the night before, although he outright laughed at the description of Professor McGonagall trying to turn Harry's broom in to a banana. He was also pleased to hear that Harry had been able to spot the Invisibility Cloak and bring it along in their flight from Hogwarts.
"And so here we are," Harry finally finished.
"And we have no idea what to do next," Hermione said with her voice trembling slightly.
Remus sighed and shrugged his shoulders. He really had no idea what to tell them. He knew that Harry had plenty of money and assumed that he carried his Gringotts key with him. He also knew that the goblins were very trustworthy as far as secrecy was concerned and thought that the probability of getting the money from Harry's vault was probably pretty high. However, the real problem was knowing where to go where the Ministry of Magic couldn't find them. Unless ...
He straightened at last, the beginnings of the dangerous plan already crystallized in his mind. It would take an incredible amount of luck to pull it off, but after hearing of Harry and Hermiones' adventures of the night before, and knowing of the things Harry had done at Hogwarts during his previous years, the idea might just work.
"Harry, what I'm going to suggest to you is dangerous, but I think it is your best bet. Do you have your Gringotts key?"
The boy nodded, looking uncertainly back at his professor.
"Okay, this is going to be rough, but I think that you can manage it. In a few moments, we are going to Apparate in to London. Or rather, I am going to Apparate the two of you to London. It will have to be one at a time as I don't have the power to take you both with me at the same time."
He stopped there, looking puzzled for a moment, then slapped himself in the forehead with his clenched fist.
"Dammit," Lupin swore softly. "I don't have my wand. I need to fix it so that you can't be tracked."
"What do you mean, Professor," Hermione asked, and Lupin was filled with amazement that even in these frightening circumstances, Hermione Granger was still as eager as ever to learn.
"The Ministry keeps Tracking Charms on the wands of those students who are underage to monitor them so that they don't use magic at inappropriate times away from Hogwarts, during the summer, in other words. I need my wand so that I can take the Charms off your wands."
"But Professor," Hermione asked, the beautiful lilt in her voice becoming more obvious as she went in to Practicality Mode. "Can't you use my wand to disable the Charm on Harry's? And then use his to disable mine? And being so close to Hogwarts, would the Ministry be able to track the wand usage here?"
It was at times like these that the werewolf cursed his mental slowness after a night of transformations.
"I can try. However, as I don't have my own wand, I'm not sure how effective my wand work will be. As Mr. Ollivander no doubt told you both, you can never get as good a result with another witch or wizard's wand as with your own. And yes, Hermione, you are right about the Ministry's inability to track the use of wands this close to Hogwarts. By the way," he added as an after thought, "I assume Wormtail took mine?"
"Well, actually, I disarmed him," Harry admitted. "But I'm not sure where your wand went. You might recall there were a few things distracting me at the time."
"Brat," Remus muttered under his breath, smiling just the same.
He took Harry's wand first and, with only a slight bit of effort, managed to disarm the Tracking Charm on Hermione's wand. However, by the time Harry's wand was free of the Charm as well, a slight sweat was breaking out over the older man's body.
"There you go," he said softly, conjuring up a couple of glasses of pumpkin juice and some pieces of toast with the wand he still held.
Until then, Harry hadn't realized how hungry he was. His last meal had been supper the night before in the Great Hall, a time that seemed like a completely different life. Hermione, too, was tucking away several pieces of toast.
"Sorry," Lupin said. "I'm too tired to conjure up anything more complicated right now. Well, now that we are slightly less hungry, let's decide what you are going to do."
Harry and Hermione listened carefully as Remus outlined his plan. They took it calmly, so calmly in fact that the werewolf had to keep reminding himself that these were merely kids, young and scared kids no matter how brave the facade they constructed, and his admiration continued to grow as they simply nodded at his instructions, all the while casting incredulous looks at each other when they thought he wasn't looking.
'Harry is more and more like James each day' Remus thought to himself fondly. 'Except James never had to deal with half of the things Harry has'
When Remus had finished outlining his plan and Harry and Hermione had agreed, Remus finally made ready to leave.
It took them nearly twenty minutes to descend from the tree. Hermione, it appeared, was no more at home in the trees than she was on a broom. Eventually, however, they all stood sweaty and slightly winded on the ground. Remus borrowed Harry's wand again and conjured them each another glass of pumpkin juice which they gratefully downed while getting their breath back.
"I'm going to Apparate you now," Lupin finally said. "Hermione, you'll go first, and then I'll come back for Harry. We're going to end up in a little alley I know of about half a block from the Leaky Cauldron, and you can walk from there after I leave."
He wasted no time in putting his hand on Hermione's shoulder, and with a CRACK, they were gone. Harry stood stock still, feeling utterly alone and forgotten, for what seemed like hours, but was in actuality only about two minutes, before with another CRACK, Lupin had returned.
Harry decided as his feet slammed down on the pavement of a dark little street that Apparating wasn't so bad after all. It certainly was much better than using floo powder.
The alley was just that. It was about wide enough for two or three people to walk comfortably side by side, but so much trash littered the ground that half of the walkway was clogged too much to use.
"I didn't say this would be pretty," Lupin said as if reading his mind, wrinkling his nose as he spoke, his keen werewolf senses being assaulted by the various odors from the piles of garbage.
"You two take care of yourselves," the werewolf said fondly as he made ready to return to the forest and walk back to Hogwarts. "I'll do my best to keep in touch, although it will be tough at first with the Ministry doing everything in their power to track you down."
Noticing Hermione's shudder, he went on to add, "Don't worry too much, Hermione. I'm sure if the Ministry does find you two, the fact that Sirius Black put you two under the Imperius Curse and made you leave Hogwarts with him and go to London, where you were finally able to escape him will make you both heroes to the idiots in charge of the wizarding world."
Even Hermione laughed at this.
"The Imperius Curse," Harry asked in interest. He'd never heard of that one before. It sounded nasty.
"It is considered to be unforgivable in the wizarding community," Lupin said softly. "It forces the person who it is cast on to do whatever they are told to do by the person casting the curse. It takes a very strong will to be able to break free from it. Anyone caught using the curse is automatically given a one-way ticket to Azkaban."
Harry shuddered, deciding he'd just as well avoid the Imperius Curse, thank you very much.
"Now, I really must leave," Lupin said regretfully. "It will get suspicious if I am not back shortly. As it is, I have stayed too long already. I will contact you as soon as I can."
He stayed then only long enough to give each of the two a tight hug and whisper a final word of encouragement to each of them. Then, he moved away from them, preparing to Apparate back to the forest. However, he was doomed to suffer an embarrassment before he departed. He had not been watching his footing, and the result of his carelessness was that he landed in an undignified heap on a pile of old soggy newspapers. To add insult to injury, he was forced to listen and glare impotently as Harry and Hermione clutched at each other, both laughing merrily at his predicament.
After standing up and brushing himself off, all the while listening to the sniggering coming from the two kids, he gave them an evil glare and waved his hand, levitating some of the disgusting newspapers and hurling them at the two. They shrieked and scattered, barely missing the missiles. Then, before they could retaliate, Lupin grinned at them, gave them a final wave, and Disapparated.
Harry and Hermione looked at each other, laughter fading quickly, then their eyes moved to the spot where only a moment before, their favorite Defense Against the Dark Arts professor had stood. However, except for the obviously disturbed pile of garbage, he might never have been there at all.
They then turned to look at each other again. Nodding at about the same time and with no words being spoken, they both agreed that it was time for them to move on as well.
And so, they did.
TBC
