Lupin's Little Dark One
A/N: Ugh... you guys run me ragged. J/k. Yay! Next Chapter!
Last Time:
"It's his, he's the only werewolf that bites himself! I swear." She was looking a little hurt, but she didn't dare express it. She knew that this past month or so had been a lie, and she was determined to find her father. Then she saw him, Remus huddled in the bushes, bleeding profusely and whimpering. She ran to him and knelt by his side. "Daddy, it's me."
"Kieran, is that you?" Remus asked weakly.
Chapter Eighteen: The Healing Process
With the help of Severus, Kieran managed to get Remus to the hospital wing. News quickly flooded the school that he had appeared. Kieran urgently wrote Tonks of the news. She then found her normal friends in the common room, waiting for her.
"Kieran! I'm so glad you found him!" Neville said happily. Remus was after all, the young man's favorite professor.
"Me too Neville." Kieran agreed smiling. Her mood had greatly lightened now that Remus was at least accounted for. Ron put his arms around her warmly, having definitely missed her during her depression. She was uneasy at first, but soon settled into his arms. The group there smiled, glad to see her back with Ron, comfortably. Unfortunately, she now noticed that nobody had, she had forgotten to do concealment charms on her arms this morning and Harry was staring at them. She quickly put her arms on Ron's, covering the marks on her forearms. Harry glanced up and made eye contact with her, and she looked away, instead nuzzling into Ron's neck and kissing it. Her actions caused the group to dismiss.
"You okay Kieran?" Ron asked softly. "You really scared me since it happened. You weren't yourself, and you wouldn't let me help."
"I'm just fine Ron, I just need to go upstairs and get something." Kieran kissed his cheek and ran upstairs. She drew out her wand and started concealing scars, it was a long process for her, as each had to be done separately. There was a knock on the door. "Come on in girls." Kieran called out, slipping on a long sleeve cloak. It was very warm so she hoped the girls wouldn't stay for long. To her dismay it was Ron that opened the door.
"I'm a girl now am I? What's with the cloak, you're not cold are you? You felt warm downstairs." Ron said, walking over and sitting on her bed. She sat next to him, she felt the sweat begin, it was way to warm in the dorm for the cloak. "You're too warm, here take that off. What's it Remus's?" Kieran nodded quickly, cuddling the cloak closer to her. "That's madness, come on, hospital wing allows visitors, we'll go down and see him." He pulled the cloak from her and stared at her arms. "What's that mess?" His voice cracked slightly.
"I used to, I stopped, it's from the drugs really." Kieran hurried an explanation. Ron, not knowing anything about it, nodded.
"You stopped thought right?" He asked firmly. She nodded, biting her bottom lip. She had always been good at lying, but lying to Ron made her stomach turn. "You all right love, it's okay to talk about it."
"I'm fine Ron, I just want to go see Daddy."
"You sure?"
"I already spoke with Snape about it." She told him, adding a bit more malice to Snape's name than any normal student would.
"Something happen between you and Snape?"
"No, he just didn't believe me about my dad being alive. Imagine if I hadn't gone to look for him?"
"I'll pass on that thought. That greasy git probably told the other Professors that you're crazy, and that why they've been giving you poor mark. Not to mention the git's been teaching Defense."
"It's not grease, it's product, like Draco uses. And he just has a naturally oily complexion. "
"Don't defend him. Come on, let's go see Remus." He looked at her strangely. "You want to cover your arms up like you normally do?" Kieran nodded and began her normal concealment charms, rather quickly. Ron figured she'd had plenty of practice. It only took her a minute and they were hand in hand sliding down the slide to the common room. To their dismay, Professor McGonnagal was waiting at the bottom.
"Miss Lupin, Mr. Weasley, I intend on knowing how Mr. Weasley got up there, and what you two were doing to hear that all members of the hockey club are to meet in the hospital wing." she said sternly.
"Professor, I figured it out on my own." Ron said quickly. "As for the not hearing the announcement, Kieran was looking for something of her father's to bring to the hospital wing with her. We were going to visit him anyway."
"All right, but Mr. Weasley, I do beg of you never to go up there again unless it is an emergency, and do not instruct other boys on how it is done." McGonnagal said. The aged with smiled at the entwined fingers of the two teens, and remarked how much smaller Kieran's was compared to Ron's. "Come, the meetings being held for us." The two teens followed McGonnagal, hand in hand, down to the hospital wing. The rest of the group was there, and the group was all around the injured Remus. Snape was first to look up to the three that had just entered. He caught gaze with Kieran, who took this opportunity to hug Ron, sniffling about her father. A jealous urge rushed through Snape and made him quite disagreeable. Dumbledore now noticed them, and the meeting began, now including the alert Remus, who wasn't much more than alert and in pain.
"Take seats, right here on the floor, you'll find Madame Pomfrey keeps it quite clean. Kieran, why don't you sit back by your father more, next to Severus, you might find you need to sit closer to Severus." Dumbledore instructed. "Harry, Ron, Draco, why don't you take a seat along the bed, no Kieran, on the bed. Justin, right... there. No Padma, sit over by Draco. Susan, on the other side of Harry. Neville, right next to Severus. Ginny stay right there. Minerva, stand at the foot of the bed. As the group found their places, Albus took a place next to McGonnagal and enchanted a camera to snap a picture. "There, now. You see we took an Order picture at our last fully attended meeting, so, being as we found our members, I thought it be best to take the picture."
"And what if I hadn't shown up?" Remus said softly.
"Then I highly doubt Kieran would have either. Then naturally Ron wouldn't, then Harry wouldn't, and so on, until the only ones left would be Minerva and I." Dumbledore replied. Remus cringed in pain. "Your daughter has truly missed you, and been a wreck without you."
"She's failing every class except Potions." McGonnagal said heatedly.
"And I'm only passing that because Professor Snape was my guardian." Kieran said, the tone she took when addressing the Professor's name was truly hurting to Snape. He shuddered and stared at her. Dumbledore caught him with a twinkle in his old eyes.
"Well, you better shape up Kieran Marie." Remus said, laying back. "When I get back to teaching, you better be back up rivaling Hermione." Kieran smiled and stroked her father's hair gently.
"I will Daddy." Kieran whispered. "I promise. Now you get some rest. All of you out!" The group looked at her with wide eyes, and Madame Pomfrey, who had come to say the exact same thing, just smiled and shooed them out. The group disbanded in the hall and Dumbledore stopped Snape.
"There was a bit more than guardianship between you and Miss Lupin, wasn't there Severus?" The wise old man eyed his friend.
"I stopped it before it even started Albus." Severus said quickly. "She wanted to be more than friends and I told her it wasn't acceptable." He glanced in at Kieran, who was talking softly with her father. "But there is something that since she has stopped speaking with me, needs to be addressed by someone else."
"What would that be?" Dumbledore asked.
"Her self-mutilation." Snape said, and he turned and stalked off towards the dungeon, his robes billowing behind him. His whole body tensed at the fact that he had told her secret, that he had betrayed her. After taking a moment to assure himself that is was for her own good, changed his course to the library, he could use a book to read.
Back at the hospital wing, Remus had just dozed off. Kieran gently kissed her father's forehead and walked out, looking at him as she did so and she ran into Dumbledore. She looked up in shock as he only smiled.
"Sorry Headmaster." she said softly. He shook his head and grabbed her left arm and with a simple counter spell, the scars and fresh slashes were visible. She looked at him, wide-eyed and trembling. "Please, Headmaster, you can't tell my father, I beg you."
"No Kieran, I don't think it would be best to tell him now." Dumbledore said. "But I will be telling Harry, and I'd like you to talk to him a
bout it. I'd also like to teach you an easier way to cover up the marks. I'm under the impression that you use separate charms for each, so to do the whole forearm, it's Cache. French made spell, useful really. It's a favorite of Severus's in the summer." He waved his wand and did the spell, covering her arm back up.
"Thank you Sir, but don't you mean Professor Snape?"
"I know what I said, I meant to say it. You should not have ill feelings for Severus. He's only trying to help you, he truly cares for you. And what you felt for him was a simple high school crush. But it still hurts him to have you mad at him."
"He said he only liked me because I reminded him of my mother." Kieran said cooly. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have work to catch up on and studying to do in the library." She walked off towards the library. The headmaster stared after her and tried to figure which of the younger people had been lying. Snape had been fond of Marie, but was he that fond? He dismissed the thoughts and decided to see if the two would meet up with each other.
Kieran was walking quickly down the hall, tears brimming her eyes. She'd asked him to keep it their secret, now Dumbledore knew everything. She went into the library and started grabbing all the books she needed. They were all the level above her year. She was going to read them all. So that she could do what her father asked of her, thought it seemed foolish, she wanted to make him happy since she had almost lost him. Soon enough she had a stack of books that she couldn't see over and was heading towards the front desk when she rammed into someone. Both persons fell to the floor, the books they were carrying falling to the floor.
"Sorry dude or chica." Kieran said, not bothering to look at the person, but picking up the books. She found it rather easy to separate the books between them, as the person she had bumped into had several books on music and hockey and Canadian wizarding. "You know, instead of reading all that, I'd be happy to explain it to you." She said smiling and glancing up to see Snape smirking at her. "Never mind."
"No, Miss Lupin, perhaps, I can assist you with your school work, if you assist me on how to apologize to a hockey playing, guitar strumming, wolf-blooded, Canadian witch who I've seem to have truly hurt by lying to her." Snape said.
"Well Professor, the witch you're referring to does not want to remind you of her mother. Therefore, she has already asked Hermione Granger to help her catch up, and she believes she can after that surpass Hermione easily."
"Oh yes, we have a Canadian know-it-all, so much worse I tell you."
"There's also the problem of the Potions professor, that goes around leading on his students and just when the said student was going to break up with her boyfriend for him, the said professor breaks her heart!" Kieran now found the tears flowing. "Not only does he break her heart, but he betrays her trust by telling the headmaster something she asked him to keep secret and something he asked her to keep secret, which she did." Snape looked around and saw no one other than them in the library on this Saturday, Madame Pince seemed to have stepped out. He hugged her and she sobbed, pushing him away. "No Severus, you're my professor, and I have a boyfriend who understands me."
"Kieran please," Snape began.
"Severus, Kieran, please, accompany me to my office." Dumbledore said, leading them out of the library, the pile of books discarded.