Chapter 10
Groaning, Emily rolled over in bed.
"Time to get up, sleepyhead!" teased Gabrielle.
Emily tossed her pillow at her.
"Do you want to be late for class?"
Emily sat up at the new voice. On the bed with the lacrosse poster was the final Hufflepuff fourth year girl. She had wavy, red hair and hard, blue eyes. She looked a little bit annoyed.
Emily yawned. "No, sorry. By the way, my name's Emily. I just switched to this school."
The red-head smiled apologetically, "I'm Genny. Sorry if I seemed a little bit annoyed. I'm an awful grouch in the mornings."
Luciana rolled her eyes. "It didn't help that you got in around midnight last night. What were you doing- snogging with Seamus?"
Genny shrugged and pulled on her sweatshirt. It had a picture of a lacrosse stick on it, just like her poster.
"Oh, so are you muggleborn?" asked Emily, thinking it would be nice if somebody else in her dorm knew about the muggle world.
Genny's smile immediately disappeared. "No, I am not." With that she turned her back to Emily and resumed brushing her hair, but refused to talk any further.
Luciana shrugged at Emily and mouthed, 'Don't mind her!' Then aloud, she said, "we'd better get going. We have Herbology first. What about you, Emily?"
Emily scanned her schedule quickly. "Potions." 'Oh, well. At least it'll be with Jon,' she thought.
The girls went their separate ways outside the tapestry
Emily found Jon waiting for her in the Main Hall and they somehow managed to find their way to Potions by asking all of the other students. It began to get embarrassing when two first years they had asked whispered as they walked away and one started laughing. Eventually they made it to class, but by then they were really late.
"Oh, no matter. You'll catch up soon enough, I suppose. Now, I'm guessing you both know elementary potions skills," asked the jolly, large teacher who had introduced himself as Professor Slughorn.
Jon thrust his chest forward proudly. "I went to Durmstrang and was top potion-maker in my class."
"Wonderful, m'boy! I knew you were natural at potions from the moment I saw you, Mr….ummm…sorry, I don't think I caught your name."
"Jonathon Granger," answered Jon proudly, shaking Slughorn's hand.
"Oh, ho, ho! Another Granger. Not related to the brilliant Hermione granger, of course, are you?"
Emily was starting to get slightly annoyed by this teacher's pushy personality.
"She's my cousin," grinned Jon.
"Well, I'm sure you must be brilliant like her, then, oh?" Slughorn slapped Jon on the back. "And what about you?" he asked, unexpectedly turning to Emily.
"I know…some potions. Mostly I know from the books I've read, but I don't think I know very much about it."
Slughorn looked thoughtfully around the room filled with Ravenclaws. "Hmmm…might be a bit of a problem. I suppose you could just work with your friend, Mr. Granger, here. I'll get you both books and you can use the extra cauldron in the back of the class. What's your name, girl?"
Emily showed him a little smile. "Emily Lupin, professor."
Slughorn looked amazed for a second, but quickly recovered. "Oh, so you're HIS girl, eh?" He winked at her, but Emily had no clue what he was going on about.
He shoved Emily and Jon towards the back of the class, handing them each beat-up copies of a potions book titled, "Mixing and Brewing; Level 4".
"What was he talking about?" Emily whispered to Jon as he pulled out his potions ingredients.
Jon shrugged, but wouldn't meet Emily's eye. When she kept bothering him about it all class, all he would say was, "It's not anything important, probably," which Emily took as, "It's important, but I just can't tell you."
Emily's potion-making skills were, if anything, mediocre. She could mix the potions fine, but she didn't have the best memory, and cutting perfect, little pieces wasn't exactly a skill of hers.
Finally the class ended an Emily exited the smoky room, sweating.
"Now what?" she asked as they breathlessly climbed hundreds of steps to reach their next few classes. The stairs kept moving, so Emily and Jon couldn't memorize where each class was very easily. One day they could go up the steps to their right and the next they had to climb the stairs to their left.
Charms and Transfiguration passed by, without any problems. Leila had taught Emily most practical magic she would need, which included most spells done with a wand. The transfiguration teacher, Mr. Hite, explained what the class was trying to do to Emily without her even asking. Flitwick, in his jittery, little way, gave Emily an extra book so that she wouldn't have to buy one. "You can keep it," he said when she mentioned she's return it as soon as she had bought her own copy.
Emily and Jon reached lunch feeling satisfied. They had only gotten lost once.
Emily found Genny sitting with Luciana and Gabrielle. Careful not to bring up Genny's parentage, she asked, "How was your day? Mine went pretty well, I guess."
Gabrielle scooted over so that Emily would have room. "It was good. I just found out that the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher is a werewolf from Dennis Creevey, though! Can you imagine that? It's scary!" She shivered as if just the thought gave her the chills.
Luciana gave her a look. "Gabby, everybody knew that in our first year. Apparently he had taught the year before, but left when the old potions teacher leaked what he was." She leaned in as she eyed Genny and Emily as if this piece of gossip was too juicy to let everyone hear.
Genny shrugged. "I had heard, but really don't give a damn. He teaches well, he must be safe or he wouldn't have been hired, and he has classes that are far more interesting then most."
Emily glanced up at the teacher's table. "So which teacher is he?"
Genny pointed at the teacher with the shabby clothes, and pale face. However, today he wasn't looking quite as pale.
"One more calls, then freedom for a whole afternoon!" shouted Luciana happily, attracting some glares from the Slytherins at the neighboring table
"Yeah, but first we have to get though Defense Against the Dark Arts. What do you have, Emily?"
Emily glanced at her schedule with Genny looking over his shoulder. "I'm with you this period."
"Awesome," cheered Luciana.
"You last name is Lupin?" asked Genny, sounding disbelieving.
"Yeah, why?" Emily asked, sharply. Why were there suddenly so many people in her life who recognized her last name?
"Oh, nothing really. The Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher has the same name.
Emily's heart leapt. Could it be? Lupin wasn't a very popular surname.
"He's dating some lady who's like 20 years younger than him."
Emily's hope faded. If he was so desperate to be dating someone so young, he could barely be his mother's lover. Leila was in her forties or so. A man who liked young woman couldn't be much older than her mom, so the chances would be small…and a little awkward.
"Well, go get your boyfriend and you can walk with us," stated Luciana matter of factly, digging through her bag.
Emily blushed. "Oh, no. Jon's not my boyfriend. We're just friends."
"Mm, hm. Sure you are. Go get him, I wanna get good seats."
With a sigh, Emily got Jon and they all made it to Defense Against the Dark Arts easily.
The thin, teacher with the ragged robes began to take roll as the last few students strolled into class. As he called each students name, they raised their hands and he would check off their names. When he reached Emily he started, "Lupin,…hmm, that's odd." He looked up to see Emily raising her hand, shyly.
Their eyes met and something clicked. Lupin dropped his papers, his mouth still open in shock.
Emily met his gaze with an unwavering stare. She knew this man. He was her dad.