"What am I doing here?"

Remus Lupin stared at the stone gargoyle that guarded the entrance to Dumbledore's office—no, Malfoy's office—wondering what had possessed him to do this. He had often stood in front of this statue, wondering what had possessed him to do something, and usually the answer to that question had been either 'James' or 'Sirius', though he'd not been here often in recent years. In fact, only twice in the past fifteen years, come to think of it—once three summers ago when he came to discuss a position with Dumbledore, and then that following spring, when he came to hand in his resignation.

And now? What was the answer now? Why was he here? Because Minerva McGonagall had appeared in the kitchen at Number Twelve Grimmauld Place just after breakfast, transfigured his least worn robe into something more presentable. Something with no rips or patches. He had a neatly—if hastily—penned résumé and two equally hastily penned letters of reference. Not that he was sure how much weight letters from Albus Dumbledore and Molly Weasley would carry with this Headmistress Malfoy.

In all honesty, he should have told Minerva to sod off. He couldn't even bring himself, in his eternal optimism, to hope that he might have a chance of a position at Hogwarts again, unless it was taking over for the likes of Hagrid or Filch. Certainly not as a professor. This was not only a waste of time, but likely to be a humiliation as well; it was simply unfathomable that he would be offered the Defense Against the Dark Arts position that he had left so abruptly not three years before. That he would be offered any position at all given the circumstances surrounding his leaving.

Just turn around, and walk away, he commanded himself. If he left now, no one need ever know.

The gargoyle suddenly lurched, though, and rotated away, exposing the staircase behind it, and his sense of decency wouldn't allow him to simply turn away from it now. With a sigh, he stepped onto the lowest stair and closed his eyes, sending a prayer to any deity who might happen to be listening: Please just let this be over with quickly.

When the stairs came to a halt and he exited into the Headmistress' office, Remus was momentarily caught off-guard. He'd apparently been expecting to find the office largely unchanged from the way Dumbledore had left it, though the expectation was probably because he hadn't considered any other possibility. Even if he had considered another possibility, he would not have expected the difference he saw. Dumbledore's astrolabes seemed to have been replaced with fountains, the comfortably cluttered bookcases with neat, black lacquer. The chintz-covered chairs that Remus could remember sitting in many a time were gone, given way to simple black chairs with clean lines. The warm glow of candlelight had been replaced with something more akin to natural light. Everything about the room was different now.

Even the birds. For as long as Remus could remember, Fawkes had sat like a guard in this office, but where his perch had once stood there was now a potted tree, and on that tree sat half a dozen brightly colored birds. Tropical birds. Birds wholly unlike Fawkes. Between keeping a wary eye on the birds and trying to orient himself in a setting that was vaguely familiar, Remus momentarily forgot that he was not alone in the room. A movement caught in the corner of his eye brought his attention to his companion, and for a moment, he was rendered speechless.

Minerva had told him that the Headmistress was young, but he had interpreted that as meaning similar to his own age. Headmistress Malfoy was young. She couldn't be much older than some of the students. Giving himself a mental shake, he shifted his briefcase to his left hand and extended his right.

"Headmistress Malfoy?" he asked, and for a moment she simply looked at his extended hand, and he could have kicked himself—he should have let her begin the introductions.

After a pause that he could not term a hesitation, though, she took his hand and rewarded him with a smile. "Regalia," she replied, shaking his hand with a surprisingly firm grip. "You are Remus Lupin, I presume? Professor McGonagall has told me a great deal about you."

There was a formal distance to her voice, and as she took a step back from him and her pale blue-gray eyes drifted from the top of his head to his shoes, Remus remembered very suddenly that this delicate vision was a Malfoy. It was a calculating, considering look, and he felt almost as though she were looking past the transfiguration to the patched and threadbare robe he wore. As though she knew that there were holes in his socks, and that he hadn't worked since he had given Dumbledore his resignation.

"Yes," he replied, clearing his throat. "She... ah... suggested that I come."

"Did she?" There was a flicker of something, amusement, perhaps, across Malfoy's face. "I wasn't aware that Professor McGonagall knew how to suggest anything. She strikes me as the sort who tells others what to do and expects to be obeyed."

"Ah... well, yes," Remus replied, shifting his briefcase back to his right hand. If this 'interview' was going to turn into a chance for the headmistress to insult Minerva, he didn't want anything to do with it.

"Understand, of course, that I recognize easily in others the traits I possess myself," she added with a smile that would have been warm if it touched her eyes. He filed away that tidbit of information she had offered, keeping a wary eye on the young woman. She was, without a doubt, a Malfoy, and he didn't need the pale golden hair or the delicately boned face to tell him that. She carried herself with a dignity that he had only seen in one other person, and that person was Lucius Malfoy. And Lucius was a force unto himself.

"Of course," he replied, making a mental note to guard his words with her. She was beginning to circle him slowly, her eyes taking him in and measuring him. He wondered how he measured up. If he measured up. After a long moment, she returned to where she had begun, her arms folded, and looked into his eyes. He met her gaze steadily.

"Have a seat," she invited finally, gesturing regally at one of the chairs. He sat. It was a surprisingly comfortable chair. She picked up a folder from the table between the chairs and then sank gracefully into the other one, and he couldn't help but think that she looked as though she were seated in a throne. "I presume Professor McGonagall told you that there is an opening on the faculty for a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher?" she asked, and he nodded, keeping his eyes on her. "So you are here to inquire about the position, yes?"

"Yes," he replied, watching her warily.

"Have you a résumé?" she asked, picking up a quill and uncapping a bottle of ink. "References? Previous experience?"

Previous experience? Was it possible that she did not know? "I... taught for a year," he said slowly. "And yes, I do have my résumé." He opened his briefcase and removed the parchment, handing it to her along with two folded and sealed letters of recommendation. She glanced at the résumé for a moment, pointing her wand at the two letters as she skimmed. A moment later, she looked at the letters, frowning slightly.

"I believe I will give this one back to you," she said after a brief perusal of the letter Dumbledore had written. "It will, I fear, only hinder the process." She was looking over the other one now, and Remus felt his hopes sinking once more. If a letter from Dumbledore carried no weight, he couldn't imagine that a letter from Molly Weasley would fare much better. She did not hand it back to him, though, but tucked it into the folder she had.

"So tell me about your previous experience, Mr. Lupin?"

Surely she knew. He couldn't imagine that there were ten wizards in all of Britain who hadn't heard about the scandal involving the werewolf at Hogwarts. "I taught at Ho—"

"No, it isn't necessary I know where you were teaching," she interrupted quickly, and he almost had the impression that she was preventing him from telling her. What was she playing at? "I'm more interested in your classroom experience," she told him. "I want to know what you think your purpose is, as a teacher. What did you enjoy about it? What was rewarding?"

What did he enjoy? "Wow," he breathed. "I enjoyed every second of it," he said softly. "It was the most gratifying experience I've ever had, to see understanding dawn where there had been confusion, to see interest where there had been apathy..." He closed his eyes for a moment, transporting himself back to Hogwarts three years ago. "I don't want to speak ill of my predecessors in the position," he continued after a moment, then leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. "But I think it is without a hint of malice that I can say that the students were very far behind where they should have been. I don't know all of the situation, but I do know that my third year students had never had a practical lesson to that point, and the fifth years were beginning to grow antsy, thinking they were going to have to prepare themselves for the OWLs."

"Not unlike the situation now, then," Malfoy commented neutrally, and again he searched her face for some indication of a double meaning behind that comment. He could find none.

"It was a constant challenge. The only thing the students had in common was that their formal training had been lacking, though some seemed to have a knowledge of the Dark Arts that was more advanced, and I don't even want to think about where they picked up some of it." He frowned slightly. "I regret that most of the students still weren't caught up entirely at the end of the year, so I'm sure my successor had still more catch-up work with them."

"One cannot reasonably expect years of neglect to be successfully counteracted overnight," she replied, again her voice neutral.

"Maybe not," Remus conceded, "but that didn't keep me from trying."

A brief smile pulled the corners of Malfoy's lips upward, and he was struck quite suddenly by how beautiful she was. He hadn't noticed it earlier, perhaps because he was nervous, and then reeling from the shock of her youth, and then off-kilter at the entire situation, but now that he'd noticed, it was unavoidable. She was a vision with pale golden hair and silver-blue eyes and delicate features. "I'll tell you now that such an effort would, again, be necessary," she told him, the smile fading. She opened the folder on her knee and ran a fingertip along a piece of parchment inside it. "One might as well conclude that the students effectively did not receive any instruction at all last year, and the year before, the content covered was... questionable."

Remus coughed politely. He was perfectly well-informed on the matter of who had been teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts two years ago, and the idea made him shiver. What would a Death Eater have taught those children? "I see," he replied, his tone matching hers for neutrality.

"There is particular concern about this year's fifth year students," she told him, "as they, too, have had entirely too much neglected in their education to this point. In fact, in the past ten years, the Defense Against the Dark Arts OWL and NEWT scores have consistently been the lowest in the school. Dismal, in fact. I have a great desire to see those scores raised to something less humiliating. How would you go about contributing to that goal?"

Lupin raised his eyebrows. "Well," he replied slowly, "by and large I would rather see to their education and let the OWL and NEWT scores reflect their knowledge and skills. The ministry-mandated curriculum is, by and large, easy enough to work into the lesson plans; the last time I was teaching, I don't think there were three chapters I included that I wouldn't have had they not been required. So, I suppose that my answer is that I would do everything in my power to see the students had a solid foundation in the subject, and if they do, one can assume they will do well on their tests."

Malfoy nodded slightly, her expression still closed to him, but there was something that gave him the impression that she was pleased with his response. "Specifically, though," she persisted, "how would you prepare your fifth year students for the OWLs when two of their last four years have been a complete waste of everyone's time with regards to Defense Against the Dark Arts, and one of the remaining years was spent with a teacher who, while apparently interesting, veered frightfully far from the required skills?"

She had to know who he was. It was simply unfathomable that she knew so much about the previous teachers but failed to realize that he was one of them. "I'd instruct them on as many levels as possible," he replied. "Perhaps even run parallel lesson plans. I'd require reading and note-taking outside of class so that class time could be spent on practical applications. I'd hold them to a high standard of independent study and make it clear to them that it is their future hanging in the balance, and then we'd move through the material as quickly as possible. For the fifth year students, the class would likely take on a strictly ministry-mandated curriculum, as I'd be attempting to fit three years worth of lessons into three terms, but I believe I would be up to the task. I don't think they will be in as bad a place as my fifth year students were the last time I taught, as you said that they had, at least, had one instructor who managed to advance them, and one more who at least taught them something."

"I've had a suggestion for after-school lessons," Malfoy told him, "and I think the suggestion rather impresses me. Would you be willing to contribute additional time for such an undertaking?"

Remus frowned slightly. "Of course," he replied. "Though I would ask—would these additional lessons be voluntary or required?"

"Voluntary, of course," she replied promptly. "Though strongly encouraged."

He nodded uncertainly.

"And, I believe there would be additional help from other faculty members."

"That would be most appreciated," he replied, distantly acknowledging that he sounded vaguely as though he already had the job. But then, she was sounding as though he did as well.

Malfoy stared into her folder for a moment as though the secret of life was contained therein, a slight frown creasing her brow. After a long moment, she nodded almost imperceptibly, as though having come to a conclusion. "I believe, Mr. Lupin, that I am prepared to offer you a contract, pending verification of your references," she said at last. "I have a meeting to attend just now," she continued, "but if you are able to busy yourself until 4:30, hopefully I will be ready to discuss the terms of your employment."

Remus' eyebrows climbed almost to his hairline. "I... uh... Er, yes," he stammered. "I can be back this afternoon."

"Excellent," she said, standing, and he stood as well. She gestured towards the door, and he found himself being swept from the room. "I will look forward to speaking with you again, then."

"Headmistress," he stopped suddenly, and she lifted a querulent eyebrow. "I... there is one more thing you must know." What are you doing, you half-brain? If she doesn't know... He didn't know if she did know or not, but he felt duty-bound to inform her. "I have a...condition which might present... difficulties."

She smiled slightly. "You mean," she said softly, "that you are a werewolf and you don't wish that I discover the circumstances surrounding your last departure from Hogwarts, correct?"

Of course she knew. He sighed. "In essence, yes," he replied.

"Thank you, Mr. Lupin. I must say that it bodes well for you that you saw fit to mention it. Is there anything else you think I ought to know?"

"No," he answered quietly. "There is nothing else."

"Very well then," she replied. "I shall see you at 4:30 then?"

"Yes. Thank you, Headmistress." He took a step towards the door, but a hand on his arm stopped him, and he looked down at her. She had a half-amused smile on her face.

"Tell me, Mr. Lupin, what do I have to do to get people to call me Regalia?"

One side of his mouth quirked into a smile and he laughed softly. "Earn their trust and respect," he replied truthfully.

"I was afraid you were going to say that." She let go of his arm. "Have a good afternoon."

"Thank you. You too," he offered. She turned back into the room, and picked up her folder again, and he had the distinct impression that he might as well not be there for all it mattered now. He might as well have been invisible.

He stepped onto the spiraling staircase wondering if he dared allow himself to hope.