He liked Vivian already. There seemed to be quite a bit to like about her; she was organized and thorough, and appeared to think carefully before she spoke. Furthermore, she wasn't very likely to try to push him into doing anything against his better judgement, and when she asked him questions, she actually paused to let him answer instead of continuing the conversation without him. Remus felt rather guilty for comparing her to his two best friends... but as much as he loved James and Sirius and was grateful for their acceptance of him, they got to be a little overwhelming sometimes. Vivian's quiet company was refreshing, and based on what he'd seen of her so far, Remus liked her very much indeed.
In fact, it was starting to worry him. It really shouldn't have... in fact, if anything, it ought to have been reassuring. Remus was, after all, a seventeen-year-old boy, and seventeen-year-old boys tend to have rather limited interests, but Remus had never met a girl who made him respond the way, say, James responded to Lily Evans. Even the Black sisters, who were beyond gorgeous, didn't excite him. Compared to his perpetually horny friends, Remus was downright asexual. He often wondered if this meant that something was wrong with him, and if so, whether it had anything to do with him being a werewolf.
With that in mind, worry should have been the last thing he felt when he caught himself watching Vivian turn pages and thinking what beautiful hands she had. But having got over the initial happy surprise of finding out that he was normal after all, he realized he had a great big problem. No, two great big problems. In fact, make it three.
The first and second problems were, unsurprisigly, James and Sirius themselves. Remus might be starting to like Vivian, but they were sure to have more discerning tastes. Nice as she seemed, Vivian Calibourne was a nerdy Ravenclaw with limp blonde hair, big glasses, and a quiet, studious disposition. The infamous marauders could do better than that. If Remus took the Room of Requirement's apparent advice and asked Vivian to the ball, James and Sirius would...
Well, he didn't know what they would do. He generally went so far out of his way to AVOID their disapproval that he wasn't quite sure what it would be like. But he wanted to keep the only real friends he had, the only ones who knew his secrets.
And that brought him to the second problem. Remus was a werewolf. Not that he was in any position to know from experience, but he suspected that would put a strong damper on any attempt at a relationship.
"Do you like Professor Gunter?" asked Vivian.
"Hmm?" Remus broke out of his thoughts and forced himself to look at Vivian's face instead of her hands. "Sorry - I beg your pardon?"
"Professor Gunter," she said. "The Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Do you like him?"
Remus shrugged. "I guess," he said. Professor Gunter wasn't the kind of teacher students particularly liked or disliked... Remus had a bit of a soft spot for the man because he was a werewolf rights activist, but otherwise, he did not inspire strong emotions. "Why?"
"Just curious," said Vivian. "I find him..." she paused, trying to think of the right words, "awfully opinionated, I guess. He's always talking about what he thinks about this thing or that thing. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think that's really a teacher's job."
"I guess not," said Remus. He'd noticed that particular quirk of Professor Gunter's, but it had never bothered him because he shared the majority of the professor's opinions. "So... this is the Werewolf Essay, you said. Is it the same one about classification?"
Vivian nodded and read a line out of her notebook: "Should Lycanthropy be Classified as a Curse or a Malady?: two rolls of parchment," she recited. ""It's legally a Curse, but Professor Gunter thinks it should be reclassified as a Malady."
"Yeah, he's campaigning for that," agreed Remus, remembering the speech his own class had recieved on the subject.
"I don't agree with him," said Vivian.
"Me, either," said Remus. Professor Gunter's attempt to get Werewolves reclassified hinged on a technicality - in strict legal terms, a 'Curse' was cast on purpose by a conscious agent while a 'Malady' was something a person contracted by accident. But there was a reason why an exception had been made in the first place... Remus was in a position to know.
"You don't?" Vivian sounded surprised, but relieved. "Oh, good! I tried to talk to my classmates about it, but they all think he's right. It IS a Curse!"
"Of course it is," said Remus. "They classified it as a Curse because it causes so much suffering. Not just for the werewolf, but for everybody who knows him."
"Yes," Vivian nodded. "People with maladies can still lead normal lives. People who've been cursed can't."
"Right!" said Remus. They could try... but that didn't always mean anything. He caught Vivian's eye for a moment, and found himself very tempted to tell her just how many problems the curse had caused him... and his friends... and his family... and everybody else he came into contact with... but stopped himself. He'd only just met this girl, after all. He might be developing a little bit of a crush on her, but he really didn't know her that well. It would be a very bad idea to start telling her all his innermost secrets now. "Uh... so... you're going to write your essay on why it is a curse?"
Vivian sighed. "That's the problem. If my essay doesn't agree with what Professor Gunter says, he'll give me a lower mark."
"He wouldn't do that," Remus began, but she interrupted him.
"Yes, he would!" she said. "He's done it before! I was only in third year at the time... and I was stupid enough to owl my parents so that they came in to talk to him. It was the most embarrassing thing..." she shook her head. "So when you wrote yours... you agreed with him?"
"Well, yeah..." Remus suddenly felt embarrassed by it. At the time, he hadn't thought of it as compromising his principles at all... agreeing with Professor Gunter would get him marks, so agree with Professor Gunter he had. It wasn't until weeks afterwards that he'd gotten tired of the issue gnawing on his conscience and worked out what he really thought about it.
"Good," Vivian nodded. "What did you put? The only thing I can think of is that stupid legal technicality he mentioned to us... about how it's a malady by the definition they normally use."
Remus tried to remember. "Um... I think I said something about how it spreads like a disease. You know, by passing itself on to people who come into contact with someone who's been infected. I'd have to dig up the essay... I think I kept it, but it's not here at school. I'll have to owl my parents to send it to me. If we could meet again in a couple of days, maybe?" he suggested.
"Sure," said Vivian. "That's a good idea - the 'spreads like a disease' thing. I'll have to use that." She glanced at him, then looked away. "I'm sorry - I must sound like an idiot."
"No, you don't," Remus quickly reassured her.
"Yes, I do," she said. "I don't know how I ever managed to get put into Ravenclaw when I have so much trouble with essays."
"Well, it's not the essay," said Remus. "It's the fact that you don't agree with what you're writing. Of course that's going to make it harder."
"It's so frustrating," she said.
"Yeah." Remus' memory of the essay was coming back to him quite strongly now. He'd had a lot of trouble with it and had suspected afterwards that the only reason he got a good mark was because Professor Gunter felt sorry for him. "Well, if it's going to be that much trouble, maybe you should just write it the way you want."
"And take a lower mark." She grimaced. "No, I'd better do it the way he wants. And if that's all we can do tonight, I guess you'd better get back to your common room before anybody starts to wonder why you're missing. People are used to me disappearing all the time, but probably not you."
"My friends will be wondering, yeah," said Remus. "And we'd better not let people find out we were missing at the same time. If you vanish along with one of the infamous Marauders, your reputation will be ruined!" He meant it as a joke, but saying it reminded him sharply of James' and Sirius' likely disapproval.
Vivianlaughed out loud. "It could only help! I haven't had a date in three years."
"Why not?" asked Remus.
"I don't know," she said. "I'm... just not interested. It doesn't seem as important as other things. This is school - I'm supposed to be here to learn, not see boys. It must be nice being Sirius Black's best friend - you've got those gorgeous triplets at your beck and call."
"Not really," said Remus. "We're only friends with them. Bellatrix Black is okay, but I wouldn't call her my girlfriend, and I know she wouldn't call me her boyfriend." He hesitated, then said, "she's not even going to the Graduation Ball with me. She's going with Rudy LeStrange."
"Really?" asked Vivian. "So who are you going with?"
"At the moment? Nobody," said Remus. She wanted him to ask her... well, perhaps he should. It was just a ball. It didn't represent the commitment to a friendship that telling her he was a werewolf would. But if he did, James and Sirius would never let him live it down. They were pains sometimes... but they were the only friends he had who really knew him. He wanted to keep them. "I'll send that owl to my parents tonight," he promised, "and I'll let you know as soon as it gets back."
"Thanks," said Vivian. "See you soon, then?"
"Sure," said Remus. "I'll probably see you tomorrow."