Chapter 3: Firecracker

September 1993

It turned out Pippa and Clara wouldn't have time to talk about Clara's hallucination the next day, which was the first day of their Second Year classes.

As one would expect, lessons were more challenging in Second Year. In Transfiguration, Professor McGonagall took the first ten minutes of class to revise animal-to-inanimate transfiguration before instructing them to transform beetles into buttons. Very few were successful; Colin Creevey somehow charmed his to whiz around the classroom and smack students in the face with unexpected force.

In Herbology, Professor Sprout escorted them immediately to Greenhouse Three, where the more interesting (and dangerous) plants were cultivated, to repot infant mandrakes. It was less vital that the mandrakes survive this year—mandrake being the essential ingredient in the Mandrake Restorative Drought that revived the basilisk's victims the year before—but Professor Sprout was nevertheless miffed when Pippa accidentally dropped her screaming mandrake on the floor.

"I think she took points, but I couldn't say for certain… we still had our earmuffs on," Pippa explained moodily as they trudged back up to the castle for Potions.

Implausibly, Potions was even less enjoyable than the year before. Evidently angry that he was again passed over for the Defense Against the Dark Arts job—this according to Pippa, Hogwarts's high queen of gossip—Snape coped by taking his frustration out on his students. He swooped around the dungeon with more malice than ever, beady eyes probing for minor mistakes to publicly shame.

Snape famously despised all his students (excluding members of his own house, of course), but Clara was certain he had acquired a personal vendetta against her over the summer.

"Can anyone remind us what the twelves uses of dragon blood are?" said Snape. His gaze wandered over his squirming class before resting on Clara, as if by complete coincidence. "Ah… Miss Durant. Enlighten us."

Clara bit her cheek. She'd be hard pressed to remember a single one. "All twelve, sir?"

"That was the number I asked for, yes." A couple of Slytherins across the room snickered. Irritation bubbled in her chest.

"Well, there's, um, as an oven cleaner—"

"The least important of the twelve," interrupted Snape with an infuriating smirk.

She clenched her teeth. "If you've never cooked anything, maybe."

His black eyes glittered. "Five points from Gryffindor for your cheek, Miss Durant. And another five for sheer incompetence—any first year could name all twelve uses."

Her mouth fell open. "But you didn't even give me a chance!" Clara protested stupidly, knowing full well that given the chance she'd make a further fool of herself.

Snape was positively grinning now. "Five more for backtalk; shall we try for an even twenty?"

Clara furiously opened her mouth once more. Thankfully, Pippa stomped on her foot and hissed, "Shut up!" in her ear. Seething, she obeyed, though she had to dig her fingernails into her thigh to stop herself from hurling spiky valerian root at a now very smug Snape.

"He's out to get me!" Clara fumed to her friends as they entered the Great Hall for lunch. "What in Merlin's bleeding name did I do to that overgrown bat bas—"

"He's just bitter about the Defense job and trying to pick a fight," said Pippa, rolling her eyes. "He called on you because he knew you'd fight back. You always fight back."

"I do not always fight back!" Clara fought back.

The other girls gave her pointed looks. Clara colored, and conceded in mumbling tones that they were perhaps right.

Clara's rash temper had been worse before she started fencing, a sport in which self-control was essential to victory. Nevertheless, Clara was embarrassed to admit that, even after five years of training, she could still be so predictably provoked, especially by a professor.

"Give it a rest already," muttered Ginny as they sat down for lunch.

"Oi, alright…" said Clara, slightly wounded. Then she noticed Ginny was not looking at her, but over her shoulder at the Slytherin table.

Even before pudding was finished the night before, the news that Harry Potter had fainted at the sight of the dementor had reached every corner of the castle. No one with any decency thought less of Harry for it. Unfortunately, Draco Malfoy was a boy without decency. At breakfast that morning, he delighted his dim-witted audience with a dramatic reenactment of Harry's misfortune, complete with an exaggerated swoon into a smirking Zabini's side. The Slytherins were apparently eager for a lunchtime encore performance, which Malfoy happily provided.

"Someone should stop him," said Clara stiffly. After an hour as Snape's plaything, Clara felt rather ungenerous with her mercy.

"Yeah…" agreed Pippa, until she realized that Clara intended to be that someone. "Wait, no, Clara—"

Before Pippa could scramble over the table to physically restrain her, Clara was halfway across the hall.

Malfoy paused mid-impression.

"What is it, Durant?" he drawled. On either side of him, Crabbe and Goyle flexed their muscles at her. She glared at all three of them in turn, saving particular venom for Crabbe, who, for whatever reason, had always loathed Clara very personally.

"Would you do us all a favor and kindly shut up?" she told Malfoy as calmly as she could manage. "It wasn't funny this morning and it's not funny now."

The second-year Slytherins laughed. Pansy Parkinson shrieked, "Oo, somebody fancies Potter!"

"I fancy the idea of never hearing your voice again, Parkinson," snapped Clara. Even Malfoy sniggered at Parkinson's red cheeks.

"Oi, Potter!" he shouted over to Harry, obliviously sipping pumpkin juice at the Gryffindor table with his friends. "Did you really send your little girlfriend to defend your honor?"

Harry shot to his feet, fury crossing his face. Whether it was directed at Malfoy or her, Clara couldn't say.

Malfoy, gleeful in the face of their wrath, continued, "All the better that you have to be defended by a filthy mudbl—"

Her temper flared. With a quick flick of Clara's wand and a mutter, Malfoy fell silent.

"There," Clara said smugly. Malfoy stared at her in horror. "Don't worry, I doubt anyone will notice any difference."

Tentatively, Malfoy tried to speak. But instead of uttering words, a very angry goose call echoed in all corners of the room.

There was a stunned silence.

The entire Hall burst into gales of laughter. Even Dumbledore cracked a smile up at the teacher's table.

McGonagall, however, did not find it amusing. Appearing beside her as if by apparition, McGonagall bodily hauled Clara out of the Hall as Snape escorted his furiously honking student to the Hospital Wing.

Clara's Head of House hardly made it past the Entrance Hall before she let loose in a torrent of sputtering admonishment.

"In all my years—on the first day of term—in front of everyone—the audacity—there is no excuse—a student in my house—Potter, did you—?"

Clara hadn't even noticed Harry there, apparently roped into her punishment for the crime of standing up when she jinxed Malfoy.

"Harry had nothing to do with it," she said quickly, turning red. Familiar embarrassment crept up her spine as it always did following an outburst. "I was just annoyed that Malfoy wouldn't shut up—"

"Annoyance is not an excuse to jinx someone!" McGonagall said thunderously, glaring so fiercely Clara was surprised the professor's glasses did not shatter. "I am truly stunned that needs to be said to you."

Shamefaced, Clara hung her head. Harry jumped in.

"Professor, I heard Malfoy about to call her a…" Harry fumbled for a less offensive word than the one Malfoy had nearly used. "…er, a slur—"

Clara gawked at him, amazed. Clara could not remember ever sharing a more significant interaction with Harry than making brief eye contact after the dementor attack on the Hogwarts Express the night before.

"That will do, Potter," said McGonagall, her mouth a straight line. "Reprehensible as that may be, Mr. Malfoy is the one in the Hospital Wing honking like a goose, not you—"

In spite of the palpable tension, neither Harry nor Clara had the wherewithal to hold back snorts when McGonagall uttered the phrase 'honking like a goose' in a deadly serious Scottish brogue.

"Fifteen points from Gryffindor, Miss Durant," whispered McGonagall icily. Clara's laughter died. The term had barely started and she'd already lost Gryffindor thirty points. "In addition to one week of detention and a personal apology to Mr. Malfoy."

Detention was a far less detestable prospect that groveling to that racist goose, but telling McGonagall that would probably earn her another week in detention. Instead, she bit her lip and nodded.

McGonagall spared her one last pinched glare before departing. Harry lingered.

When she first began at Hogwarts, Clara didn't hold the same fascination with Harry Potter that someone who grew up in the magical world did (read: Ginny Weasley and Pippa Hornwood). By the end of the year, however, it was evident he was as spectacular as Pippa had been telling her all along—he rescued Ginny from the Chamber of Secrets, possibly faced You-Know-Who, and definitely killed a basilisk with the Sword of Gryffindor.

It was astounding that he—this spindly, specky boy awkwardly stuffing his hands into his trouser pockets and frowning—was the one to do all of that.

"Why'd you do that?" he asked, somewhat suspiciously. "I didn't ask you to defend me. I don't even know you."

"I already said you had nothing to do with it, didn't I?" said Clara. "Malfoy's an awful bully. He's always humiliating others; he deserves to get humiliated once in a while."

Harry looked like he was trying to hold back laughter. "It was brilliant," he admitted. "But now he's going to retaliate, especially if you're muggleborn—"

She huffed. "I'm not though. My mum's muggleborn, which makes me a half-blood. He's just an idiot."

Harry sighed, running his hand through his messy hair. He seemed many years older than Clara then, rather than just the year older.

"I'm not arguing Malfoy's an idiot, but if he thinks you're muggleborn, you've got to watch your back. Don't go sticking your neck out for me. I can defend myself."

"I'm not afraid of him," retorted Clara hotly.

"That's obvious," said Harry dryly, starting back towards the Great Hall. He offered a final piece of wisdom over his shoulder. "Look, take it from someone who's lost loads of points from Gryffindor: don't get caught."

Clara had to laugh at that. If Harry was known for anything other than being the Boy Who Lived and the youngest seeker at Hogwarts in a century, it was for losing prodigious numbers of points.

She teased, "That is a bit rich of you, Potter."

Her amusement faded when he met her eyes somberly.

Lowly, Harry said, "It's a horrible feeling when everyone hates you. The worst is when your own house turns on you, though. You really don't want that to happen. If you're not careful, it will."

Clara stood stock-still in the entrance hall as Harry returned to breakfast. Her eyes went to one of the massive stone torches flickering beside the door as she thought on his words, on Pippa's words – "You always fight back!" – and then at last on the words her mother repeated whenever something like this happened.

Always do what you know is right, mon coeur.

Suddenly, Clara had no appetite.

In her first year, Clara quickly learned to dread Defense Against the Dark Arts. Lockhart was somehow completely incompetent, a terrible teacher, and extremely arrogant all at the same time. Yes, he was handsome and had a shiny smile, but he was too old and absurd to actually fancy. Pippa managed it somehow.

Perhaps she was an optimist, but Clara had more hope for Professor Lupin's instruction this year. The textbooks he assigned didn't have his smug face on them, for a start. He selected sensible books like Defense Against the Dark Arts for Beginners and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. And he seemed like a very kind person from the brief conversation Clara had with him on the train.

"My brothers had him yesterday. They said he's the best DADA professor they've ever had," said Ginny as they milled around outside Classroom 3C the next morning.

Pippa sighed dramatically. "I don't see how anyone could be better than Lockhart…"

Behind Pippa's back, Ginny made such a disgusted face that Clara pretended to tie her shoe to hide her giggles.

"Oh, Lockhart was terribly unwell all year, you know," came a dreamy voice. Clara glanced up.

Luna Lovegood was a rather odd Ravenclaw girl in their year. Clara had never seen her with any friends, but that fact never seemed to bother her terribly. She wore a long necklace strung with butterbeer bottle-caps, two glowing drops from her ears, and an interested look in her bulbous silvery eyes.

"He must have been affected by the massive Snootifers outbreak last summer. It was obvious to anyone who knows the symptoms—grandiosity, excessive hair-brushing, vacant expressions…"

Pippa reddened. Ginny did too, but clearly from choking back laughter.

"That's not a real disease," snapped Pippa.

Luna's eyes became impossibly wider. "It's very real. Twenty-seven people died in Bali after claiming they could fly and—"

"Oh shut it, Loony."

Aghast, Clara scolded, "Pippa!"

Luna was unfazed. "It's alright, Clara. People are always testy at the beginning of September because of the Crankution blooms; they release loads of pollen—"

Mercifully, Professor Lupin swung open the classroom door then.

"Sorry I'm late—I was finishing up preparations for our lesson today. Please come in."

All of Lockhart's old portraits had been removed and replaced with informative posters about dark creatures like Red Caps, Hinkypunks, Ghouls, and Trolls. There was even one behind a new skeleton of a Grindylow that described how to escape a Lethifold (apparently, if you can't cast a Patronus charm, there is no escape).

More surprising was the sight of the desks pushed to the sides of the room, leaving a large empty space that the class filled, murmuring curiously.

"You ought to apologize to Luna," hissed Clara to Pippa, who rolled her eyes.

"Clare, everyone calls her Loony. And she doesn't care. Look!"

Luna had broken off from the class to study a mysterious horn mounted on the wall beside the door with intense curiosity. When Professor Lupin reentered, she said something quietly to him, probably asking what creature it had come from. When he answered, Luna shook her head and responded with that same dreamy look on her face she'd just had outside. Professor Lupin just blinked once and shuffled her over to join the rest of the class before standing in front of a blank blackboard.

"Good morning, everyone. Welcome to your second year of Defense Against the Dark Arts. I'm Professor Remus Lupin." He waved his wand over the blackboard. His name appeared in neat cursive letters.

"Please put away your textbooks and take out your wands. This will be a practical lesson."

Pippa and Clara exchanged looks of great interest as they followed his command.

"As I understand it, there was a dueling club at Hogwarts last year, wasn't there?" he asked.

Students nodded and shrugged, some snickering as they recalled how easily Snape dispatched Lockhart.

"By show of hands, how many of you participated?"

About a third of the class raised their hands, including Clara and Pippa.

Last year, knowing that she was likely the only fencer at Hogwarts, Clara resigned herself to practicing drills alone in empty classrooms to keep her skills sharp. That almost ended when she nearly skewered Professor Flitwick when he bustled into her practice space, assuming it was his unoccupied classroom.

This turned out to be a fortuitous turn of events; Professor Flitwick was a wizarding dueling champion, which had much in common with muggle dueling. After an initial scolding, he was more than happy to accommodate Clara. He obtained permission from Dumbledore for a permanent training space in a disused classroom and charmed suits of armor to act as opponents. Clara was immoderately grateful to him for all his help, though she suspected he practiced there himself. The suits of armor now cowered in fear at the sight of a raised arm.

It was Flitwick who encouraged Clara to attend the dueling club when it was introduced, though his face went terribly neutral when he told her who would be leading the meetings. Pippa, who had been initially uninterested in 'getting sweaty over spells,' immediately insisted on attending when Clara relayed that Lockhart would be leading the meetings.

"A fair number then. Ah, keep your hands up!—if you feel reasonably confident you could perform the disarming spell today."

Sensing a public demonstration was imminent, all but one hand went down.

Professor Lupin chuckled. "You're a shy lot! Yes, you, please come forward—what is your name?"

"Dirk Andersen," said Dirk Andersen, strutting to the front of the class.

Dirk was a fellow Gryffindor who was awfully pleased with himself. Pippa christened him 'Dirkhead' early into their first year. The name held fast despite his best efforts to discourage it. Even his own friends took to shouting 'Dirkhead!' when they wanted his attention. Clara couldn't bring herself to feel too bad about the insult; it did nothing to deflate his fat head anyway.

"Thank you, Dirk. I'll need one more volunteer…?" Lupin trailed off leadingly. There was another long silence.

Slowly, Clara raised her own hand.

Clara wasn't shy at all, but didn't love being the subject of a public demonstration. But how often did she have permission to embarrass Andersen in front of everyone?

Lupin smiled warmly at her. "Clara! Excellent. Now if you all could step back a few paces and give them a bit of room…"

Dirk and Clara took positions about ten steps apart as the rest of the class scurried to the back of the classroom.

"Dirk, for those who don't know it, can you tell us the incantation for the disarming charm?"

Smugly, he answered, "Easy. Expelliarmus."

Clara rolled her eyes. In the crowd, she heard Pippa loudly cough, 'Dirkhead!' to the sniggers of their classmates.

"Very good," said Lupin, suspiciously neutral. "Five points to Gryffindor. Let's see a demonstration, now. On the count of three, please attempt to disarm one another."

Dirk extended his wand arm. Clara got into position.

"On three—one, two, THREE!"

"Exp—"

"Expelliarmus!" shouted Clara.

Dirk's wand shot out of his hand. It flew across the room, coming to rest under a nest of empty desks.

Professor Lupin clasped his hands together, beaming.

"Well done! Clara, ten points for successfully disarming Dirk here—and Dirk, take five points for a very good effort."

Dirk scrambled to retrieve his wand, face burning and scowling fiercely.

"Big bloody deal, we're still 20 points down 'cause of your stupid stunts yesterday," he snapped at Clara. She glared back.

"Shut up, Dirkhead. You're just embarrassed you got beaten by a girl, you sexist."

"Alright," interjected Professor Lupin; mildly, but firmly enough to cut through the class's titters. "There's no need for that, either of you."

When Lupin took his eyes off of them to address the rest of the class, Dirk sneered at Clara. She rolled her eyes.

Dick.

"Now anyone please answer this—and no need to raise your hand, just shout it out if you know it—what is a counter-measure for the disarming charm?"

No one knew the answer.

After several awkward beats, Luna Lovegood offered up, "You could carry two wands."

Everyone snickered. They quieted when Lupin smiled.

"Quite right. Losing your wand doesn't mean much if you've got another up your sleeve. Five points to Ravenclaw. Anyone else?"

If Luna's odd answer received praise, then certainly Clara could try another odd answer. She ventured, "Er, dodging?"

Lupin nodded approvingly. "One of the best counter-measures against any spell! Take five points."

Other voices started shouting out answers, some cleverer than others.

"Apparate away?"

"Hide behind a rock!"

"Don't get into a fight in the first place."

"Punch your opponent in the mouth!"

"All very good answers—except for yours, Mr. Harper; beyond violating school rules, you'll find physical violence is ineffective against magic more often than not," he sternly told the skinny Slytherin boy, who shrugged.

"I'm very pleased by your answers. Even fully-realized witches and wizards tend to believe there are only magical solutions to magical problems. In reality, the greatest witches and wizards in history have been those who understand that magic is ultimately a tool to be used or misused.

"What we're going to learn today is perhaps less effective than dodging or avoiding a duel altogether, but will be vital in your arsenal of defensive spells: the general counter-spell finite. Can I get another volunteer to help me demonstrate how it works?"

By the time class ended, Clara had learned more than she had than in a year with Lockhart. As her classmates streamed out of the room, some still muttering disarming spells or counter-charms under their breath, Clara paused in the middle of slinging her bookbag over her shoulder when Professor Lupin spoke.

"Clara, a quick word?"

She looked over at Pippa and the other girls and nodded. "I'll meet you in Transfiguration."

Aoife, Indira, and Ginny headed off without needing any more explanation. Pippa loitered just long enough to remind Clara, "Don't be too late. McGonagall's already out for your blood."

Professor Lupin shrugged his shabby over-robe onto his shoulders, as though he too was about to head out.

"I'll walk you part of the way," he said, snatching up a worn leather briefcase. "My next class is downstairs, actually. Thought it best to keep the banshee I got for my N.E.W.T. classes close to the Entrance Hall in case it escaped."

As he paused to lock the classroom door behind them, Clara said, weakly, "Blimey."

When he grinned, Lupin looked at least a decade younger.

"Something to look forward to. Defense isn't all counter-spells and disarming charms, you know."

"Oh, but the lesson was brilliant, Professor!" gushed Clara. "Are you thinking about restarting the dueling club? I'd be the first to sign up!"

Steady on, girl, her brain told her. You're starting to sound like Pippa with Lockhart.

But Professor Lupin is actually good at things, unlike that nonce Lockhart, she replied scathingly.

Lupin rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I don't think I have the energy for that. But in that vein, Clara—" he glanced down at her seriously, "are you feeling better?"

"Better?—Oh! From the dementor, you mean?" He raised an eyebrow. "Yes, thank you. Sorry, it's been a hectic few days."

Clara flushed involuntarily when she once again remembered her public outburst the day before.

To her surprise, Lupin smiled. "Yes, that was a rather complex bit of spellwork you performed on Mr. Malfoy yesterday! As I recall, auditory augmentation isn't usually covered until fourth year Charms. Very impressive—er, though of course I agree fully with Professor McGonagall's punishment," he added hastily.

Despite her embarrassment, Clara grinned.

They turned down onto the main corridor on the third floor. There were a good number of students coming and going. Some hung about by the windows to soak in a few minutes of rare Scottish sunshine. Others hailed Professor Lupin when they spotted him walking by with Clara. Lupin nodded to them graciously, but absently. He chuckled under his breath once they'd passed by.

He told her rather quietly, "You know, you reminded me of your mother yesterday. She could never stand bullying either."

Clara stopped dead in the hallway.

"Do you—do you know my mum?"

Lupin assumed the look of someone who realized they said too much. He sighed and admitted, "Yes, we were the same year here. We were prefects together, in fact."

Prefect?! Clara supposed that wasn't too surprising given that Daria went on to become an Auror—basically a prefect for all of Wizarding Britain—but for some reason that didn't seem to suit the image of her mother at all. Probably because her mother was never punitive when Clara got into trouble as a kid. Even now, Daria regarded Clara's trouble-making with indulgent fondness at best—devastating disappointment at worst. Clara couldn't imagine her mother strutting around Hogwarts like Percy Weasley, pompously citing some arcane 17th century rule as grounds to take ten points here or dole out detention there.

"I didn't know she was prefect," said Clara quietly, biting her lip. "But I don't know anything about Mum, really."

Professor Lupin grimaced sympathetically.

"That doesn't surprise me," he assured her. "Your mother has been guarded as long as I've known her."

Guarded. I suppose that's true, isn't it? This was a fact that became more apparently true with each new piece of Daria's life that revealed itself to her: Daria didn't share anything about herself that really mattered. Clara had to learn her mother was leading the search for Sirius Black from Pippa, that she had been a prefect from Professor Lupin. Daria never talked about her family, Clara's father, her job, her time at Hogwarts, her thoughts and desires—Clara even let herself wonder for a moment if her mother simply didn't care about anything at all.

As soon as the nasty thought entered her mind, Clara pushed it away, guilt pooling in her stomach. Her mother was a complicated person. She was someone who'd experienced a lot of trauma, but she loved Clara dearly. Clara knew that. She wondered if Professor Lupin knew that.

She chewed on her lower lip as she wondered, really, just how much Lupin knew about her mother... and about her.

"Professor…" Lupin tensed at her contemplative tone, "When you said people that've have trauma are more affected by dementors, did you mean—what did you—"

But she cut herself off when she noticed the white blonde head knelt down in front of them, gingerly picking through ink-soaked parchment scattered about on the flagstones. Luna Lovegood held her school bag up looking through the opening and peered straight through a clean slice in the bottom of it at Lupin and Clara.

Abandoning her train of thought, Clara hurried over and kneeled beside her, asking urgently, "Are you alright, Luna? Who did this to you?"

Luna shrugged.

"Oh, some older boys. I think they were Slytherins."

She sounded rather less dreamy than usual. Clara set her jaw.

"Point them out to me at lunch and I'll sort it out," she said firmly, grabbing a dripping copy of Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2 and casting a quick scouring charm.

"I don't think—"

"Clara, honestly, do you really want more detention?" asked Lupin wryly, kneeling down as well.

He muttered a repairing spell on Luna's shattered ink bottle, then added to them conspiratorially, "The siphoning charm: siphonis!"

A blue charm burst from the tip of his wand and the puddles of ink that hadn't yet dried on Luna's parchment slithered back in the bottle.

Once Professor Lupin cast a stitching charm on the huge tear in Luna's bag, she stuffed the last few rolls of rumpled parchment into it, carefully pinning one of about a hundred buttons on it (this one read SAVE THE KNEAZLES in massive red letters though Clara was fairly certain the feral Kneazle population was overrunning parts of Britain). Luna smiled at them both beatifically.

"Thank you, Professor, Clara. No one is ever so kind to me."

Even Professor Lupin seemed a bit embarrassed by Luna's utter sincerity. "Ahem—if you would like me to talk with Professor Snape about this matter, let me know."

Clara jerked her head towards him, scowling. "They can't just pick on younger students because they feel like it—"

"That's alright," Luna answered Lupin as though Clara hadn't spoken at all. "There was no harm done. If I keep to myself, they'll surely leave me alone in the future."

"It's not right," said Clara fiercely.

Luna turned her wide eyes onto Clara, smiling serenely. "You really are so lovely, Clara," she said softly. "Will you be my friend?"

The completely random question had the strange effect of cutting right through Clara's fury. She blinked.

"Oh, um—yeah, of course."

Luna clapped her hands in delight. Clara smiled awkwardly.

"Luna, listen, about Pippa—"

"It really is alright, Clara," interrupted Luna as she glanced down at a chunky gold watch around her thin wrist. Whatever she gleaned from the face that had stars and moons whizzing around the center made her say, "We must be going now if we don't want to be late."

Professor Lupin glanced at his own watch—a dented silver face on a fraying leather band—and grimaced.

"Yes, I'm afraid Luna is right. Have a good class, you two."

"Wait!" Clara grabbed his sleeve, but when Lupin jolted under her touch, she hastily released him. "Sorry. I'm not done talking to you about—"

Lupin placed a hand on her shoulder, smiling. "My door is always open, Clara. Please come by whenever you like. I'll put a kettle on."

The place where he put his hand felt very cold when he began to walk away. Absurdly, without meaning to, Clara had a rather pathetic realization:

That must be what it feels like to have your dad's hand on your shoulder.

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