Understanding
It was sunny. Hannah was in front of a house that she did not recognize, but Professor Lupin was there. It was late afternoon, the sun was shining through the trees, and the temperature was perfect. He did not even greet her, he just smiled, and she returned it. They sat down on a plaid picnic blanket. They were rather close, and Hannah found her heart was not pounding as it usually was when she was close to him. He touched her softly, and ran his fingers through her hair. He then kissed her so tenderly that it might have not happened at all…
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"Hannah, wake up." Padma was saying.
"…huh?" she asked.
"It's time to go to classes!" Padma replied, tossing a pillow in Hannah's face. "We're going to be late."
"Oh no." Hannah whispered. She jumped up, threw on her clothes, and did her hair as quickly as she could. It looked messy, but she didn't care. Five minutes. She had five minutes to get to Defense Against the Dark Arts.
"Why the hell didn't anyone wake me up for breakfast?" she demanded angrily, running along the stairs with Padma and a few other girls from Ravenclaw.
"Sounded like you were having a good dream. Moaning and all that." Padma stated, smirking. It seemed like in your sixth year all you thought about was sex. "Who was in it? Or you, I should say."
"Nobody." Hannah snapped, offended and annoyed. "It was quite innocent, thank you very much."
"Didn't sound that way." Rose McGowan interjected, giggling.
"Well it was, so shut up. And you should have woken me anyways. Please do so in the future." She snapped, though secretly she would rather go hungry. But responsibility to take care of herself came first.
She was in something like love with Professor Lupin. She knew it was wrong, but she couldn't help it. She knew he liked her somewhat better than all the other Ravenclaws, though she didn't know why. Hannah felt a bond between them that she couldn't really explain, but it was special and she treasured it. Though she knew he would never be interested in her that way, she always made an effort to look clever, classy, clean, and courteous in front of him.
They burst through the class just in time. Lupin looked over at them along with the rest of the class. They froze.
"Ladies, aren't you pushing the envelope a bit?" he asked, gesturing to the clock.
"Yes, we're sorry." Padma whispered. Lupin just looked at them.
"Very well. No points off this time, but do try to be earlier in the future." He said. They took their seats and waited for him to speak again. Hannah felt as though she had never been more embarrassed in her life.
The whole class she could barely concentrate, and she tried to force herself into it. She just kept worrying, does he think I'm lazy? Has he lost any respect for me? Does he think badly of me now? No, he couldn't, this is the first time I've nearly been late ever. One mistake doesn't make you a bad person. But still, what if he does think those things about me?
"Class dismissed." He finally said, and Hannah rushed to the library, not even glancing at Lupin. The urges were irrepressible. She walked casually in, not wanting to draw attention to herself.
She remembered how she used to date Fred Weasley, and all the things he had shown her that he had supposedly never shown anyone else. One of those things was a secret room in the library, and she often went there. She didn't think anyone else knew, and was glad of that.
She went to the back right corner, past the restricted section and nestled deep in the books about fire omens. There was a painting of the famous Seer Cassandra Trelawney, who was looking lazily into her crystal ball, as if she really didn't want to see anything.
"Sang D'Unicorn." Hannah muttered. The painting sighed strangely and swung open to let her through.
She crawled into a dusty stone room lit by three torches. It was small, but comfortable (or at least to her) and was accompanied by two private bookshelves, one black leather chair, and a mirror with a brass frame around it. She dropped her bag as the painting closed behind her, collapsed on the floor, and cried. She cried because Fred was gone, and she had loved him, she cried because she hated her friends, and she cried because she was just terribly angry and nervous and for that she couldn't find a reason.
Suddenly, she heard the painting shifting again. Hannah froze entirely. How could anyone else know about this room? Maybe it was a mistake. Even so, she crouched behind one of the stone columns that one of three torches rested on.
She heard the sigh of a man, and it sounded familiar, but she couldn't risk looking. She heard a shuffling noise, what she presumed to be the removal of a book from its bookcase, then the sigh of leather buckling, and she knew he had sat down to read.
Hannah sat perfectly still. What to do, what to do? She couldn't run, he would see her for sure. She couldn't stay behind the column, who knew how long he would be here? And it irked her that he even knew about the room in the first place, especially after Fred had promised that it was entirely secret. Thinking of Fred made her sniff a little.
The sound of turning pages stopped. All was silent in the little room except for the flicker of flames above her head, and her eyes widened. Stupid, she thought. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
"Who's there?" A voice inquired.
Her heart leapt.
It was Lupin.
Hannah heard approaching footsteps and squeezed her eyes shut. In a matter of seconds, the footsteps stopped, and she felt his presence in front of her. She opened her eyes and looked up at him guiltily. To her surprise, he was smiling.
"Er…hello, Professor Lupin." She waved to him. He waved back, still smiling. "So you know about this room too, eh?"
"From when I was a student here, my friends and I used to come here and attempt to study." He reminisced. Lupin extended his hand, and Hannah took it. He helped her up. In the torchlight, she could see his hair was mostly gray, but some chestnut shone through. His face was quite lined, too, but he might barely have forty years on him, she reckoned.
"Ah. Well, I guess I'll be going now." She looked down nervously, and made to get away, but he grabbed her arm. Her skin burned pleasantly with his touch, and her heart seemed to do the same.
"Your eyes look rather red, Hannah." He said, peering into them. Her's were blue, his a deep lovely brown. "What's the matter?"
"Um….nothing." she informed him. They began to water again; she couldn't help it. "Just normal stuff."
"Hm." He murmured, still looking deep into her eyes. The back of her neck prickled and warmed. His gaze gave her the odd feeling of being searched. "Are you quite sure?"
"Yes…" she nodded quickly. She just missed Fred, and with all the pressure from her teachers, the stress was becoming unbearable.
And somehow, he knew all that. Sometimes Hannah thought he knew everything.
Again, she burst into tears. For a moment, she just stood before him and cried, and nobody did a thing. Then, slowly, cautiously, maybe a little nervously, Lupin took her in his arms and seemed to cradle her. It was very comforting, but Hannah just kept on crying.
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She
seemed dressed in all of me, stretched across my shame.
All the
torment and the pain
Leaked through and covered me
I'd do
anything to have her to myself
Just to have her for myself
Now
I don't know what to do, I don't know what to do when she makes me
sad.
She is everything to me
The unrequited dream
the
song that no one sings
The unattainable.
She's a myth that I
have to believe in
All I need to make it real is one more reason
I
don't know what to do, I don't know what to do when she makes me
sad.
But I wont let this build up inside of me
I wont let
this build up inside of me
I wont let this build up inside of me
I
wont let this build up inside of me
A catch in my
throat
Choke, torn into pieces I won't - No
I don't want to be
this
But I won't let this build up inside of me (won't let
this build up inside of me)
I won't let this build up inside of me
(won't let this build up inside of me)
I won't let this build up
inside of me (won't let me build up inside of me)
I won't let this
build up inside of me (won't let this build up inside of me)
I
won't let this build up inside of me
I won't let this build up
inside of me
She isn't real (I won't let this build up inside
of me)
I can't make her real (I won't let this build up inside of
me)
She isn't real (I won't let this build up inside of me
I
can't make her real (I won't let this build up inside of me)
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Lupin rubbed her back, then became aware what he was doing, and stopped. That was something that James used to do to Lily when she became disoriented. It was something between lovers, husband and wife…not something to do to his student.
But what else could he do?
"It will all be over soon. Exams are almost here." He said. "Look forward to the end."
"It seems so far away." She said, choking on her tears.
"I know." He replied, and he did. He remembered feeling that way before exams when he was in school. It was nothing new.
She gradually stopped crying. The front of his robes was a wet mess of her tears, but it didn't bother him. They were shabby enough as it was. He stroked her hair, and for some reason she gasped at this, so he stopped.
"What?" he whispered, so close to her now. He knew he should stop, but he didn't.
She shook her head. "I didn't say anything."
He frowned but decided not to pursue it further. He had always liked Hannah. Not in that way….but there was something there he couldn't quite describe. He searched in his mind for the right word. Finally, he found it, and it seemed to bridge the gap between so much.
Understanding.
He was understood by a handful of people, and somehow Hannah was one of them. Lupin hadn't realized how much he appreciated that until that moment.
"We understand each other." He stated, and she looked up, her eyes full of wonder.
"Exactly." She said as her tears dried. He wiped the last of them from her cheeks with his thumbs, and let his hands rest on her face. He knew he'd never forget the way she looked at him, because there was such love in her eyes, and he accepted that.
They were almost of equal height, Hannah only a bit shorter. As he looked into her eyes Lupin realized how close they really were, noses only inches apart. He loved her – or more the bond between them – and the moment was so cherished. Understanding was perfect or so it seemed and he preferred that to anything else.
He bent down to kiss her and he didn't care if it was wrong, didn't care about how many years lay between them, didn't care about anything else except everything that lay behind that kiss, and why it was there and how to make it stay. And he knew she felt the same because they understood each other, and even if his brain was spouting nonsense he knew he would never have a moment like this ever again with another person, and so nothing really mattered except the bliss they both felt, and for a bit he thought he might live off it.
That was real love, he knew that. Understanding each other fully and deeply. He had the near irresistible urge to take her and fly her away over those distant hilltops, just to kiss her again, just to have one more moment like the one before and make it last seemingly twice as long.
But, unpredicted and unwanted, logic broke its way through the haze in his mind and he stopped and pulled himself away.
"I'm sorry, Hannah." He said quietly, and walked out without another word. Every heartstring he had, every emotional bone in his body, and every past experience with women told him he was doing the wrong thing, but his brain insisted and powered his legs to keep walking, forget that look in her eyes, and forget her kiss.
Keep on walking.
Forget about it.
But he could not forget her, he could not forget those moments, those blissful moments, and he never would forget them.
He just hoped she could understand that.
FIN
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The song in this story is done by Slipknot, it is called Vermillion Pt. 2. This song in no way belongs to me. And I don't own Harry Potter either. Ha, I wish.