Disclaimer: Anything that you recognise does not belong to me; it belongs to the very talented J.K. Rowling. Lucky her! I am doing this purely to see if I can, I am not making any money off of this what so ever. Unlucky me!

Also, I have read a lot of stories on this site, so if anything is familiar, it is not on purpose… Could you simply take it as an homage?

AN: cherrity: Woops! I forgot! Thankyou to the wonderful Quentin Tarrantino for bringing Pulp Fiction to our screens and giving us the immortal line "Lets Get In Character" (when Samuel L. Jackson and John Travolta are in the hallway, just about to go in and kill those guys for Marcellus Wallace at the beginning of the film). Also, the letter is coming, I am saving it for when I run out of things to write about!

Remus Lupin walked into his seventh year defence class five minutes before the bell and, seeing that he entire class was in their seats looking at him expectantly, clapped his hand with a broad grin

"Good Morning All! As I see everyone is here I think we shall get started right away, and then we can have a longer lunch break than everyone else. Any objections? No? Good. Now, first things first, my confession. I, Remus John Lupin, am a werewolf. I received the bite when I was very young, but thankfully I no longer turn into a fully fledged monster once a month due to Professor Snape's excellent skills as a potions maker. Does anyone know what potion Professor Snape brews for me?"

Hermione and Harry's hand were raised.

Professor Lupin waved towards them, "Yes, Hermione?"

"You receive the Wolfsbane Potion, a very complex potion that allows you to keep your mind when you transform. You simply turn into a wolf and can spend the night curled up in front of the fire" Hermione answered, remembering back to what the Professor had told them in the Shrieking Shack in third year.

"Well done Hermione. Well yes, there you have it, you all know my secret. Gosh, that feels good to get it off my chest. Does anyone else have anything they want to share with the class? No-one with mermaid blood? Anyone a part veela? No-one with a bit of fairy in them?"

The class had been smiling at Professor Lupin's 'confession' as the entire school had been told of his condition at the welcoming feast, but at Professor Lupin's queries they started laughing out loud.

"Oh no, this is not a laughing matter; wizards can intermingle with other species, creating new races. Take Hagrid for example, he is a part giant" said Professor Lupin, talking over the laughter, "And that is what we are going to be concentrating on for the year, magical beings. I have read over what you did last year and you seem very well versed in protection spells and hexes so this year we will be looking at other magical species and how they can help with defence, or on the flip side, how to defend yourselves against them. Now I would like you all to open up your text books to page four and read the introduction chapter. Tomorrow we will start on the practical learning, but for today we are just going to read about the theory."

The rest of the class passed with the students doing silent reading and Professor Lupin going from student to student asking questions about their prior learning and making notes on a piece of parchment. Some students he spent more time with, mainly Harry, Hermione, Ron and the other D.A. members as they had learnt many more hexes and defensive spells than the others. They had continued to meet regularly as a group and practice defence work and learn new spells, even though the ministry was fully behind promoting Voldemort's return and dangers now days. The Professor also lingered at Draco, asking him inconsequential questions and not really writing much down. The blonde hoped it was just because he was a death eater's son, but had a sinking suspicion it was for a very different reason.

Draco got his answer at the end of class that day.

"Okay everyone, it's now ten minutes before lunch, as we started early I am going to let you go now. Mr Malfoy, could you please stay for a minute? Don't worry you haven't done anything wrong, I would just like you to show me one of the shields you said you could do. I don't think I have ever seen the Rius shield in motion before, and I just can't pass up this opportunity."

Draco stood by the teacher's desk watching as his classmates left the classroom.

"Rius Shield, Sir?

"Yes Draco, it is incredibly complex and when Miss Granger looks it up she will be suitably impressed with you. I would even think that soon certain students will be able to do the Rius Shield, so if you want to continue the deception maybe you could learn it too? Did you know that werewolves have an extremely sensitive sense of smell?" Lupin asked, suddenly changing the subject.

"Um, no Sir?"

"Well, they do, even in human form, some of the traits of the wolf never leave and a heightened sense of smell is one of them. And as I was walking through the class determining what I needed to teach and what I didn't, I noticed an interesting scent coming from you. Do you have any idea why?"

"Um, no Sir?"

"I think Mr Malfoy, that when I talked about wizards with mermaid blood, or part veelas, many people in this class thought it was a joke, but there were at least two people in this class that did not, one, we must assume was Miss Granger, because lets face it, she must have memorised the text book by now. And the other Mr Malfoy, I think was you." Seeing that Draco was about to dispute that idea, Remus continued talking, "Now, I am not going to ask you to tell me anything that might be weighing on your mind, I know how hard it can be to give up secrets. But I will give you this book and tell you that I am here, if you ever have any questions. Your Godfather is pretty knowledgeable about things as well, if you don't want to talk about this to any old teacher."

'Thankyou Professor" Draco looked down at the book and saw it was entitled, 101 Curses Any Teenager Should Know, looking back up at Professor Lupin, he saw a small smile cross his defence teacher's face.

"Its spelled to look like something innocuous, as to not give anything away, its really a book by Mathew O'Laughlan, Mystical Beings and Their Lives. Despite the ridiculous title it is the most comprehensive book on magical beings that I have been able to find. The werewolf section is brilliant, as are the other chapters about the other beings he chose to cover, veelas, vampires, merpeople, giants to name a few."

"Thankyou Professor" Draco repeated as he left the classroom and made his way to the great hall for lunch.

"Look at this" Hermione said shoving a book towards Harry, "This Rius Shield that Draco can do looks like something we all ought to know. How about we work on it this week at the DA?"

"Sounds like a good idea Hermione" Harry answered absently, looking across the hall towards Draco, he was deeply immersed in a book and not paying any attention to his surrounding Slytherins. Suddenly, as if sensing someone was watching him, the blonde looked up and stared directly at Harry

"Ah!" Harry gasped, his ring suddenly getting very warm on his little finger; it had been doing that a lot recently, on the train, in potions class and now here in the great hall. He was starting to wish that Sirius had written down what the stone did as it was kind of disconcerting having it go hot and cold at random times.

"You alright mate?" Ron asked through a mouthful of shepherd's pie.

"Yeah, just got startled that's all" Harry answered

"It wasn't, you know, your scar was it?"

Harry, who'd forgotten about his dream last night in all the excitement of going back to classes, gave a start.

"No, it wasn't him. That reminds me though, I need to go to Professor Snape to see if we can continue with remedial potions" Harry and Professor Snape had reached a truce last year, and had restarted occulmency lessons. Harry had a feeling that some of what he had learnt might have been forgotten over the summer holidays as he'd had that dream last night.

The next few weeks passed peacefully enough for Harry, his time falling into a routine, classes during the day, DA one night a week, captaining the quidditch team two nights a week, 'remedial potions' another night and keeping on top of all the homework the teachers set him kept him quite busy. As well as that, Hermione had already started up a study routine for him to follow on a Sunday, and though he complained to her about the ridiculousness of the timing, Harry stuck to it, enjoying the way that he could remember facts and theories a lot easier this year than he had been able to in the past. Even the Slytherins seemed to be getting serious as Harry, Ron and Hermione had not had any run-ins with Malfoy, Crabbe or Goyle since the beginning of school.

What they didn't know was that the Slytherin trio were hell bent on avoiding them as much as possible, or at least the public leader of the trio was.