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Chapter 6

The Potion part 2

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'Where am I?' Aithne rolled over on the bed and encountered a warm being. She opened her eyes and blinked slowly at the arm which was sprawled across the bed. She followed it upwards to the body it was connected to and let out a small gasp. She noticed the two self-healing bite marks of a vampire on his wrist.

"Remus," she whispered. "I am so sorry." She looked over the rest of him quickly and made sure that he had no other injuries. "C'mon, Remus, let's get you up here on the bed where you'll be a bit more comfortable."

As she moved him up onto the bed, Remus groaned and mumbled something the sounded like 'I can do it myself'.

"You just relax and get some rest; I'll go make you some food." Aithne tucked the covers of the bed up and around Lupin and walked down to the kitchen and made up some nourishing food to take back up to Remus.

As Aithne came back into the bedroom and set the soup she had onto a small table next to the bed, she noticed that Remus was awake.

"You're awake! Here, Remus, eat some soup, it'll help you to regain some of your strength."

Aithne helped Remus into a relatively sitting position before helping him to eat some of the soup she had made.

"Do you know how long have we been here, Remus?"

"We've been here for about two days. Don't worry about it, it's winter vacation, no classes." Remus finished the soup, leaned back into the bed, and closed his eyes with every intention of going back to sleep apparent. Before drifting off into that dark oblivion, he managed to mumble a soft almost inaudible 'thank you'.

"You have nothing to thank me for, I put you in this condition. You just get some rest; I'll find a book to read or something."

xXx Several days later

"Remus! Where did you put those potion ingredients?"

"Bottom left hand cupboard next to the garbage can." Aithne smiled as she got the ingredients and Remus finished coming down the stairs.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. How long will this potion take to make?"

"A week or so. I'll have it done in plenty of time before classes start again. Of course, then I'll have to face Dumbledore and all of his questions. That'll be fun."

"Well, it's not like you have anything to hide from him. I mean, I know your secret and I don't have any problem with it."

"You're different, Remus. You have been cursed as much as I have. Both of us have 'difficulties'."

"I don't think you really appreciate what Albus does for people like us, Aithne. He gave me a job when no one else would, not only that, he did it twice! He educated me when I was a boy, and treated me as a human instead of a monster. We both knew that Albus would find out eventually, we just didn't know when. The only reason we didn't tell him at the beginning was for his own safety. You yourself said that the less people know the safer they will be, but now Albus cannot be one of those people. Albus will then either make up something to explain what happened last day of term or explain what really happened. Don't worry, the other teachers have no say in the matter, it is Albus's decision alone. Besides, all of the teachers are part of the order, so they should support you. I'll go with you when the time comes if you'd like."

"Thank you Remus, I appreciate it. We'd better get started on this potion if we want it done before the end of break. I still need some lacewing and powdered horn of a mandragore."

"I'll head up to the castle and get those for you." Remus grabbed his cloak and headed down the passageway to the castle. It was helpful that she needed something, he needed to get his monthly potion from Severus anyway.

Aithne set up her cauldron quickly and went about getting it ready for the extremely difficult potion that she was about to make. "Not that it's hard for me to make anymore," she muttered adding one of the needed ingredients from her package.

Remus returned in a mere two hours.

"What took so long?" Aithne asked playfully.

"I had to get my monthly potion from Severus."

"Oh, I see. Did he ask about me?"

"Yes, and it took quite some time to get around most of his questions. Here are your ingredients. How is it coming along?"

"As well as can be expected."

Several days and one werewolf transformation later found Aithne and Remus still in residence at the Shrieking Shack and with Aithne putting the last finishing touches on her potion.

"Yum, doesn't this look tasty?" Aithne commented sarcastically as she ladled some of the potion, which looked like thick chocolate milk, into a glass. "Take my word on this, Remus, never become a vampire, the potions are less than desirable."

Aithne downed the entire gobletful in one gulp, grimacing as she swallowed. "Okay, when do we get to go back up to the castle?"

"Does now suit your needs?"

"Now would be perfect. We will beat the students by about 48 hours, giving me just enough time to be interrogated by every teacher currently residing at Hogwarts

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A/N: Sorry it took so long to post, but computer problems and writers block yadda yadda yadda. Thanks for reviews on the last chapter, please R&R.