Ok, so you're all thinking where the hell has Hippiechick been?

Well, I have no excuses. I didn't update for one day. And one day turned into almost two months. My most sincere apologies! It shan't happen again :)

Thanks to all those who reviewed all those many months ago. Larka, thanks for pointing out my typo, I fixed that.

Chapter 10

Aurora fluffed her hair one last time and smoothed her hand nervously down her blue robes. She didn't know why she was so nervous. It's only quidditch, she told herself. And it's only Remus.

She felt the little flutter in her stomach she always did when he crossed her mind. Poignant and intense, Remus made her feel out of sorts. Never sure what his next move would be.

He'd gone from amicable to hateful. To kissing her to stressing friendship. Even now with meeting for the quidditch match she didn't know if they were going as friends or if it was officially a date and Aurora found she didn't like not knowing.

Shaking herself from her revere she grabbed her Hufflepuff banner, which she had wasted thirty minutes looking for, and set off for the Great Hall.

It was almost six and if she didn't get there quickly Remus might think she had ditched him and leave without her. She broke into a gentle jog until she turned the corner and slowed as she saw him standing in front of the doors gazing anxiously at every student who passed.

Aurora felt her breath catch and knew it had nothing to do with her run as she forced herself to walk the remaining way to where he stood.

She watched as he broke out a relieved grin.

"Hey." Remus said as she smiled softly up at him.

"Hi."

"I thought you weren't going to make it." He said.

"Sorry about that. I was already running late." She replied apologetically. "Then I couldn't find my banner."

"Banner?" He asked.

Aurora held up her Hufflepuff banner to show him.

"You are supporting Hufflepuff right? Not Slytherin? Because if you were going to be supporting Slytherin, I never would have agreed to this dat...outing." She corrected at the last moment.

"Hell no. I'm not supporting Slytherin. It's Hufflepuff all the way."

"Good. I won't have to maim you then." She said with a smile.

"Well that's comforting. I'd hate to miss a quidditch game by being beaten up by a girl. Shall we?" He teased back.

"Ready when you are." She answered as she turned to for the front doors.

Remus reached out awkwardly, not sure if he was intending to grab her hand or press his to the small of her back but he quickly dropped his hand when she whirled around again.

"What?" She asked after seeing the movement from the corner of her eye.

"Erm...you have a piece of string on your robes." He said quickly.

"Oh. Will you pull it off please?"

Remus pretended to tug off an invisible piece of string and had to close his eyes as he felt her heat radiating through her robes, not noticing his hand had grabbed a handful of fabric and was convulsively squeezing it.

"Nearly done?" She asked after thirty seconds had ticked by.

"Nearly." He said as he released the balled up fabric he was holding. "There."

"Thanks." She said as she met his deep gray eyes. There were so many emotions brewing in his gaze Aurora began to feel as if she were drowning. So she took a step back and cleared her throat.

"Ready?" She said through a suddenly dry mouth.

"Absolutely."

Remus led Aurora to the quidditch pitch, up one of the seating towers and chose seats in the back row for the best vantage point. He couldn't help but notice how her blue eyes were gleaming with anticipation.

"Great conditions for quidditch." He remarked as he looked up at the perfectly clear sky.

"Not bad at all. A little chilly perhaps but really good other than that." She agreed.

"Are you cold?" He asked quickly.

"A little. I guess I should have brought my cloak." She said.

"Here. This will help." Remus said as he pulled a couple of bottles from his robes pocket.

"Butterbeer!" She exclaimed. "How on earth did you get this?"

"I have my sources." He said as he thought back to the Marauders Map sitting in their dormitory.

Aurora accepted it gratefully and took a sip. Instantly she felt a pleasant heat spread through her limbs and a purr of contentment slipped past her lips.

"Mmm. Perfect. Thanks." She said in a voice so smooth it was Remus's turn for dry mouth.

"Bertie Botts Every Flavor Bean?" Aurora offered as she dug them out of her robes pocket.

"Wish me luck." Remus said as he accepted a brown one but quickly spit it out.

"Mud." He explained at her amused expression.

"Ahh. Mine was raspberry." She said and offered another.

He reached for a yellow one this time.

"Yellow for Hufflepuff." He stated.

He popped it into his mouth hoping for something better than mud and was relieved when a citrus flavor filled his mouth.

"Lemon." He told her.

Soon they were having fun trying to guess which flavor the other had and trying to decide who had the nastier flavor. Remus had to admit when Aurora came across the troll sweat flavored one she had won that battle. But he did try to keep from laughing when she took a big gulp of Butterbeer to wash the taste away.

"Couldn't budge up a bit, could you?" A fourth year Gryffindor boy interrupted.

Startled, Aurora looked over at the voice, almost forgetting where they were.

"Sure." She said nicely as she scooted even closer to Remus. They still weren't touching but now he could feel her heat through their robes again.

"Oy!" The boy yelled and began motioning to his friend a couple of rows below them. "Up here."

Aurora looked at the guy coming up the stairs and back at the space on the bench that had been cleared.

"They've got to be kidding." Aurora whispered to Remus.

But she soon found they weren't kidding. The fourth year boy and his friend plopped down in the small space and pushed her so close to Remus her whole left side was plastered to his right. Her soft contours pressed into his hard planes.

"Sorry." She said quietly as she accidentally stepped on Remus's foot.

"It's ok. A little tight isn't it?" He replied just as quietly as he stretched out his cramped arm on the back of the seat behind her, creating an even more intimate feel to their already close positions. She realized she was no longer chilled as her body heated due to his proximity.

Aurora started to answer him but was interrupted by the screaming that erupted from the stands. The game had began.

Remus watched Aurora's eyes light up and he realized he had no interest in watching the game today. The game was nothing compared to watching her.

As the match went on Remus found he became more and more entranced with watching Aurora. She yelled. She shouted. She jumped. She waived her banner. She was positively fascinating.

"Are you not having fun?" Aurora asked as the teams took a time out.

"I'm having a great time." He said. "Why?"

"I know everyone celebrates a different way but you're just sitting there."

"I'm keeping it all inside." He explained. "You still cold?"

"Not at all. I'm too excited to be cold now. Hufflepuff is flattening Slytherin." She replied.

Remus looked up in surprise and saw that he must have missed a lot since the score was fifty to ten.

"Are you sure you're having a good time?" She asked, not missing the fact that he obviously wasn't paying attention.

"Positive. Look they've begun again." He said as forced his attention to the game instead of the woman plastered up against him.

Then they were both yelling and screaming as the Hufflepuff Chasers put another two goals past the inept looking Slytherin Keeper. Then they had to boo as Slytherin put another two shots past Hufflepuff.

But when the Hufflepuff Seeker took off like a shot toward the opposite end of the field and caught the golden snitch in a spectacular dive they both jumped up and began bouncing up and down on their seats.

"And the game goes to Hufflepuff at two hundred points to thirty." Yelled the commentator, Donaghan Trimble.

Aurora lost herself for a moment and threw her arms around Remus for an excited hug but felt awkward at once. Not once today has he given you any indication that this is a date. It was just a nice friendly outing, she chided herself. So she continued bouncing up and down and excitedly hugged the fourth year next to her too, ignoring his friends high-five when she released him.

Remus felt a pang of jealousy as she turned her attentions to guy next to her and had to work to tamp it down.

When she calmed a bit she sat back down in her seat, as Remus had already done.

"Great game." She said.

"Very exciting. Glad Slytherin didn't win." He agreed.

"Ugg. That would have been intolerable."

"You're very free when you're watching quidditch." He remarked.

"What do you mean?" She inquired.

"You're fun. You get into it." He said.

"Ahh. Well I've always loved this game. And when I got selected for the House team, I suppose it just turned into an addiction."

"You never told me you were on your House team!" He said with disbelief. "What position do you play?"

"Chaser. This is my first season. I was only on the reserve team before so I only got to play one game.

"Well congratulations. That's exciting."

Aurora gave him that heart stopping smile again before she glanced up at the moon overhead and then around the almost empty pitch.

"I suppose we better go." She said with a hint of sadness.

She stood and led the way down the stairs to the grass. Remus who was not ready for the night to end quite yet either grabbed her hand to stop her.

"How about a walk?" Remus asked.

"That would be lovely." Aurora said as she looked down at their joined hands, trying not to get too hopeful when he didn't release her.

He led her leisurely toward the lake, still chatting about the game. When he stopped at their normal spot at the lake edge they sank down to the ground and looked over the reflective water.

Remus saw her shiver out of the corner of his eye and pulled his robes off and wrapped her securely in them.

"Better?" He asked as he continued snuggling her in closer into the warmth of the fabric.

Aurora could smell his intoxicating scent on them and inhaled deeply.

"Perfect." She said moved her hands up to pull it even more tightly around her neck but found Remus's hands doing the same thing.

They sat there staring intently into each others gaze and not moving their touching hands.

"Aurora, I..."

"Remus, what..." They began at the same time and laughed awkwardly.

"You go." They both said again.

"Ladies first." Remus insisted as he chuckled.

Aurora finally pulled her hands away and looked uncomfortably away before speaking.

"I was just wondering...erm. What do you want with me?"

"In what way?" He asked feeling a little endeared as she blushed scarlet.

"I never know where I stand with you. Everything is always so mixed up. What kind of friends are we?" She said as she finally looked him in the eye.

Remus looked into her searching blue eyes and felt a tug on his heartstrings. She was twisting her necklace nervously around her fingers when he lifted his hand to her cup her cheek and brush his thumb over her full lower lip. He watched her eyes close slowly and open again as he leaned in purposefully.

When his lips finally touched hers he felt little explosions taking place in his stomach and couldn't help but notice that she tasted faintly of Butterbeer. He scooted closer and tugged them to their knees so he could get better access and felt her wrap her arms around his waist, bunching the fabric of his jumper. He sank his fingers into her soft blonde curls as he tilted her head to allow his tongue access to the warm recess of her mouth.

Aurora groaned low in her throat as Remus kissed her senseless as their tongues continued dueling and only when she began feeling dizzy from lack of breath did she pull away. But Remus only used this time to press kisses down the column of her neck and up again until he reached the shell of her ear.

Nibbling and biting playfully until she was shivering for an entirely different reason than the cold. Then he began teasingly darting his tongue in and out of her ear as she trembled and whimpered and arched into him.

He daringly ran a hand up her rib cage to cup one of her breasts through her clothes and the two robes covering her while the other traced lazy circles on her neck, sending chills down her spine and setting her on fire. A fire only he could quench.

"Remus.." Was all she could strangle out.

He looked into her passion filled gaze and smiled before he brushed her hair out of her face brought her lips to his for another hot kiss that had her clinging to him desperately until a crunch on the grass caught their attention.

"Dammit! Someone's coming." Remus said quietly as they stood quickly.

"Come on. We better get back to the castle, fast. I don't think the Headmaster would like it if one of his prefects was caught snogging at the lake in the dead of night." Aurora replied with a smile before she tugged him into a run toward the castle.