Chapter 4: The End of the Future

After Remus left to pursue whatever else his day would hold, the professor slowly closed the door and returned to her desk, and a stack of essays that would need to be graded at some point. Why did everything always turn out like this for her? It was starting to be very depressing. She knew with her position at Hogwarts a relationship was hard to keep, but if anything real developed she could always take a job somewhere else. The problem was, when she went after adults they were all either far too serious, or far too weird for her liking. Any good males were intimidated by her, either by the way she looked or how successful she was. They all thought she was far more unapproachable than she ever really would be. There were no middle ground male wizards who knew how to have fun, but could also get the job done when the time warranted it. It seemed that she was doomed to be lonely for a long time, possibly forever. It was not at all the way she had envisioned herself at this point in life.

This had been what caused her initially to look towards her students for someone to devote her time and energies to. Immediately, Remus Lupin stood out as everything she had been trying unsuccessfully to get from a relationship. Plus, with him as her student, it would not be at all out of the ordinary for her to make a move and approach him, and most students would love for a teacher who looked like her to show interest in them as more than a student. Surely this was the dream that every one of her male students had on their minds when they looked at her in the school. This would be very easy for her to make work, and she would in the long series of rejections she had been faced with lately. What more could possibly ask for right now? In her opinion, very little or nothing.

And their relationship had started out more than perfect earlier that year, and stayed that way for a while. The first two months or so were lovely, with them learning more about each other, and Minerva teaching the young male things he would have never expected to learn in the confines of a classroom. Almost the last month though, things had gone quickly downhill. She needed the physical part of the relationship, and it seemed more and more that Remus, even when healthy for him, was not going to be able to provide for them. It also seemed more and more likely that they were going to be discovered by someone who would not approve of their relationship and would be in a position to do something about it. Minerva somehow doubted that what she had with Remus was really worth losing her job over, at least not what they had right now. It was really all getting rather depressing for the dark haired, blue eyed woman. She should have many men after her attention, but she had none. She had only one teenage boy who would never know what to do with her, and she would probably not even have him for much longer.

She figured that she would take one more big chance to let Remus prove to her that he was worth the risk that she was taking in keeping the relationship they had. If he could not prove himself now, she would simply have to take her love life in some other direction, no matter how little she wanted to do that. Remus was not worth her career unless he could be the man she needed him to be, and any day now Snape or another of James Potter's enemies would go to Professor Dumbledore, and she would have to be fired no matter what the headmaster thought of her. There were just some things that could not be covered up, and teachers having relationships with students was one of those things. It was a fact of life and it was time to deal with that. It was time for Remus to show exactly what he was worth.

She pulled out a short roll of parchment and a quill and set out to write a letter to her young lover.

Remus,

I need to know once and for all exactly how committed you are to me, and to what we have together. I cannot just sit and wait for you to be ready to grow up and be a man. I am a grown woman, and have the needs of one, not just in sex, but in all aspects of my relationship. I guess what I am trying to say is, we need to get together and talk and probably more. We need to do it tonight, and I will not take no for an answer. I do not care what else you have planned; you need to make time for this. I will see you around midnight; please do try to get somewhere close to that time. My priorities for tonight do not include waiting up all night for you to arrive at my chambers whenever you decide is a good time. The door will be unlocked, do not bothering knocking just come on in whenever you arrive.

With all of my love,

Minerva McGonagall

She read over the note, and then pointed her wand at it, shooting out warm air to quickly dry the fresh ink. It was almost time for dinner; she would discretely slip the note to Remus while he was in the Great Hall eating. For now she rolled up the note into a tight scroll and set it to the side of her desk, then pulled the essays that needed grading towards her. There was no need to dwell on Remus and their relationship too much, at least not this early. All would figure itself out tonight, and until it did there was nothing she could do about it. Plus, no matter what happened, she would still have to do her job. And right now, that job meant getting these essays of her fourth year students graded so that she could hand them back in their next class. She would have plenty of time to worry herself to death between when she finished grading the essays and midnight, when Remus would finally come to her again.

Dinnertime came and she entered the Great Hall right at the beginning and then waited, knowing James and his friends always ate right at the end of meals, but there just in case as she could not afford to miss them tonight. As soon as they were seated at the Gryffindor table, she strode quickly over to them, dropping the rolled up scroll in front of Remus and just continuing to walk until she was out of the Great Hall. She had no desire to see the reaction of the young man to what could only be seen as a very grim assessment of their relationship in that note. She would not know at all how he felt until he arrived in her private quarters that night. She graded the rest of the group of essays and then waited for him, silently thinking of every possible scenario that could happen that night, and what each would mean for her.

Lupin meanwhile was caught off guard by the scroll landing in front of him and did not open for a few long moments, but instead merely picked it up and stared at it. He finally broke the seal, very slowly reading it, then stopping and reading it again to allow it to sink in. Without saying a word, he reached over Peter to hand it to James to read, wanting him and Sirius to give him their thoughts on it. James clearly understood this, and read it quickly before passing it on to the friend sitting on his other side. The two of them exchanged significant looks before James began speaking to the recipient of the note, having to lean around Peter, who was trying to snatch the note from Sirius, who was casually holding it out of the small boy's reach while flirting with a girl seated a few chairs away on the other side of the table.

"So, Moony, I guess you won't be coming to watch the show tonight?" James asked gravely, not really wanting to deal with the content of the letter, but knowing as a friend and leader that he would have to now. "That sounds pretty bad mate, like it very well may be the end for you and good ole McG. Any idea what you are going to be saying and doing while I am humiliating Snivellus tonight?" He stopped and waited, knowing that Remus was smart enough to come to his own conclusion, without needing the advice Sirius would, or the direct orders that Wormtail would. Unfortunately, it seemed his good friend did not know what he was going to do, at least not yet.

"I'm not sure, mate, I think I need some time on my own to think everything through. I'm going to head to the Shrieking Shack, and I'll see you guys tonight after everything goes down. Try not to embarrass Snape too much James. Lily will probably be there, and I sincerely doubt that she will be overly impressed by you stunning him and then taking his clothes off and covering him in something disgusting looking. Do keep your head tonight." With that he left, not having touched his meal at all. The rest of the group ate and left to prepare themselves for the coming duel, pushing their Prefect friend's problems from their mind for now. They could deal with them after they had dealt with Snivellus.