Chapter 1: Bungles and Boggarts
The girl watched as the sky started to bleed. Slowly, brilliant shades of red spread over the sky as sunset arrived. The water in the Great Lake sparkled, reflecting the warm colours of the sunset. Waves rolled carelessly and hit the edges of the numerous small boats that were littered around the lake. However, the girl could not fully appreciate the beauty of her surroundings as the sound of first year voices distracted her. Still, she sat on the boat watching the sky with her hands dipped in the water.
The girl's name was Linda. She was a third-year Gryffindor who was sitting amongst a bunch of excited, but alert first years who were looking out for the giant squid. All the other third years would be riding the Thestral-drawn carriages to the school, but she has specifically asked Hagrid if she could take the boat to the castle just so she could have a good view of the sunset. Unfortunately, she had forgotten how loud first years could be after catching a glimpse of the magnificent Hogwarts castle for the first time.
"It's like something out of a fantasy novel" one muggle-born first-year said, his eyes and mouth wide open.
Linda smiled sadly with her eyes fixed on the castle. Her past two years at Hogwarts had been far from fantastic. It wasn't like she didn't have friends or fun at Hogwarts. In fact, she had wonderful friends at Hogwarts. She was respected and admired by many as she nearly always received top marks in all her subjects. Professor McGonaggal had even hinted that she might become a prefect in fifth year. So although her life seemed perfect, she felt like it was a stagnant pond. This idea grew as each repetitive school days flashed on by. Her life didn't seem exciting or meaningful…Linda was waiting for something important and exciting to happen to her.
The boats suddenly halted as they reached the castle. Hagrid led the pack of first-years and Linda into the Great Hall. As Linda stepped in she realised that she could not stay with the first years because they needed to get sorted. She had to sit with the rest of the third years, who were sitting at a long table at the other side of the hall. She squeezed her way past several first-years who were busy gawking at the roof and ran towards her table. As she was running she turned around to yell out words of thanks to Hagrid who had kindly let her on the first-year boats.
"Thanks Ha-" BUMP!
She had bumped into someone.
Despite Linda's multiple talents, she was still extraordinarily clumsy.
She opened her eyes. Sitting in front of her was a student. A student with light brown hair and amber eyes. Wait…he couldn't be a student. The grey specks in his hair told her that he was forty and yet his face did not look that old. His face seemed gentle and yet there was a hint of sadness and tiredness in his eyes. His robes were quite shabby and he looked rather ill. He was lean and his limbs seemed slightly skinny. He seemed quite tall and his legs…she was sitting on his legs!
She felt blood rushing to her cheeks. She suddenly noticed the laughter in the Hall.
"I'm very sorry…are you unhurt?" the stranger said, not seeming to care that she was cutting off the blood circulation to his legs.
The look on the stranger's face was not anger. He looked at her with patience and concern. Their eyes met and suddenly there was a flash of emotion in his eyes, an emotion Linda could not decipher. She looked away immediately.
"I'm fine," Linda muttered with her eyes on the ground. She hastily got up and scurried to her own table as the laughter died down. She then realised that she did not even apologise to the stranger.
"You are the most uncoordinated person in the world!" he friend, Amy whispered to her.
"Is that a good way of greeting a friend you haven't seen in ages? Anyway, at least I wasn't the one who fell down the stairs and ended up giving the whole school a good look at my underpants," she hissed, causing her friend to blush.
They had been friends before they were at Hogwarts as they lived near each other. Amy had muggle parents. However Linda's parents were both pure-bloods who believed in the old-fashioned, pure-blood ideas. Her parents did not approve of Linda's friendship with Amy (they referred to as 'the mudbloood' at home) and were dismayed to find out that she had been sorted into Gryffindor house. Although she was surrounded by her parents' ideas from an early age, her early friendship with Amy helped her establish her own ideas about muggle-borns. Although Amy did not achieve as well academically as Linda, she was immensely popular. She knew most of the students in the school because she was…as corny as it sounded…incredibly kind-hearted. Linda always thought it was impossible for her to hate anyone and for anyone to hate her. Even the Slytherins didn't seem to mind her!
Before Amy could retort, Dumbledore started his yearly speech. But Linda wasn't paying attention to what the principal was saying because she was looking at the figure next to him. It was the person she had bumped into…she felt an overwhelming sense of embarrassment as she started to realise who the stranger was.
"And introducing the latest addition to the staff, Remus Lupin, the school's new Defence against the Dark Arts teacher" Dumbledore said, gesturing to the man on his right.
Oh no…
Linda loved Defence against the Dark Arts. Although she excelled at all her subjects, Defence against the Dark Arts interested her. She also felt that it was important to protect herself-especially now that mass murderer Sirius Black was on the loose. Every year, she could not wait to go to her DADA class…however today was an exception. She grumbled as she trudged onto class. She did not want to see Professor Lupin.
She walked into the classroom to find it empty. She glanced at the classroom clock and then at her own pocket watch. Why was her watch 20 minutes behind the cla-it must have been Amy getting revenge for the unpleasant remark she made yesterday!
Linda angrily walked towards a desk and dumped all her books onto the table.
"I'm going to hex her so that all her teeth fall out" Linda muttered.
"I beg you pardon?" came a familiar and slightly playful voice.
Linda looked behind her shoulder and there was Professor Lupin holding his briefcase with a quizzical expression on his face.
"Nothing…" she said nervously, remembering the events that had occurred the previous night and feeling her cheeks becoming warmer.
"You're here early" he said, plonking his briefcase onto the desk and then opening it.
Linda nodded and for a moment there was an awkward silence that was only broken when the contents of Professor Lupin's briefcase burst out of his briefcase and started flying around the room. It must have been Peeves.
"Ah…introducing Peeves, the school poltergeist," Linda said quietly, looking at all the sheets of paper falling down like feathers.
Linda started picking up all the papers whilst Lupin looked at her with a puzzled expression as Peeves' cackle rang down the corridor.
"Aren't you going to pick them up using magic?" he asked.
"I haven't learnt the summoning spell yet…" Linda said, trying not to crumple the sheets.
"Then I'll teach you!" Lupin said, with a grin on his face "Come over here."
Linda looked at his smile. It was a lovely, genuine smile that indicated to her, the love he had for teaching. Yet, there was also a mischievous twinkle in his eyes.
"The spell is simple. It is Accio. Repeat after me. Accio."
"Accio"
"Good. Now in order to perform it properly, you have to give your wand a flick like this. Now, don't worry if you don't get it right the first time. This is above third year level."
Linda tried to imitate Professor Lupin's wand movements.
"Not quite…but you're doing very well for your first time"
She tried again…
"It's more like this," he said and put his hand on hers.
His hands were much larger than hers own. It was a large, but gentle hand. She felt the warmth of his hands. He gently squeezed her hand gently and guided it. Linda felt a tingling sensation inside her. She did not dwell on it because she noticed the scars on Lupin's hand. Even though she had only just met him, Linda could not imagine this friendly individual getting involved in fights.
"Now say Accio Papers"
Linda was curious, but she could not ask him how he received those scars for they had only just met! She tried to keep her curious thoughts at the back of her mind as she tried to concentrate on performing the spell.
"Accio Papers" she said. The papers flew up from the ground and stacked themselves in a neat pile.
"Thank you!" Lupin said, smiling "That was excellent! You are a very fast learner. Can I count on you to tidy up my papers if that ever happens again?"
Linda nodded as he released her hands from his grip.
"Um, I'm sorry about yesterday…" Linda muttered.
"What? Oh? Falling over on me? It's alright! It was partly my fault as well." Lupin said, light dancing in his kind, amber eyes.
Linda felt her face burning up again.
"Ah, I didn't quite catch your name…" he said frowning a little.
"My name is Linda. Linda-"
"Wilkes?" Lupin finished for her.
"Yes…how did you know?"
"I…er…r-remember seeing your name on the class roll…" he said clumsily.
She did not believe him entirely. But how else could he have known her name? She certainly wasn't famous and she had never met him before…had she?
Linda had thoroughly enjoyed the lesson with Lupin. He was good at explaining and patient. An added bonus was that he was very generous with house points. She enjoyed the first practical lesson she had ever had, involving boggarts. Her fondness for the teacher grew when he displayed such kindness to Neville, who was always being mentally abused by Snape.
However, the only aspect of the lesson she was disappointed with was with was that Lupin did not let her tackle the boggart. He approached her when she was in the line of student who were waiting impatiently and tapped her shoulder, whispering, "You can see me in the office on Wednesday night, seven thirty. You can tackle the boggart then…"
She had wondered why he didn't want her to fight the boggart then. However, she didn't know what she was most afraid of. After sneaking to the cinema to see 'The Revenge of the Mutant Mummies' with Amy when they were eight, both girls had developed a fear for mummies. However, their fears had disappeared over the course of five years. Well, at least Linda's fears had. So it was slightly insensitive to laugh at Amy when the boggart transformed into the four-metre-tall mummy in the film…
Linda hurried up the stairs, to Professor Lupin's office. So she had been slightly late as Professor McGonagall had made her tutor Neville. She was somewhat alert after Neville had missed his target when firing that shrinking charm...it only missed her head by a few centimetres. Linda nervously knocked on the door.
"Come on in," said Lupin.
She walked inside and the first thing her eyes landed on was the grindylow tank in his office.
"Ah yes, we will be studying them in the not too distant future and of course it is easier to learn about them if they are right in front of you" said Lupin, getting up and pulling his wand out of his robes, "but what you are learning about tonight is boggarts. I trust that you still remember the spell?"
"Riddikulus?"
Lupin smiled.
He led her into the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, towards the wardrobe. He flicked his wand, muttering a spell and the doors flung open.
Linda stared into the darkness, not knowing what to expect…and then a black high-heeled shoe hit the floor of the classroom with a loud thud and she knew what she would be up against. She was glad that Lupin asked her to tackle the boggart alone, without the prying eyes of the other students. But how did he know that the boggart would turn into them? Or was it just a coincidence? It must have been. Even she did not know what the boggart would transform into. How could he know her better than she knew himself when they had never met before?
Her parents stepped out of the wardrobe.
Linda didn't give them a chance to open their mouths. She pointed her wand at them and yelled out 'Riddikulus'.
Her parents suddenly morphed into balloon-people. The balloon people then deflated and flew around the room in a humorous fashion. The boggart-balloon then landed in front of Lupin and Linda.
Lupin stepped in front of Linda with his wand at the ready. The boggart then morphed into a large, shining orb in the sky.
'Why on earth is it a crystal ball?' Linda thought to herself.
Then a thought struck her. Maybe Lupin was a seer. How else could he know her so well? But why would he be afraid of crystal balls? And why would he be teaching Defence Against the Dark Arts instead of Divination? There were so many mysteries about this man…
"Good work," Lupin said smiling at her.
"Um, Professor Lupin…" she said, unable to hold her burning curiosity any longer, "Did you tell me to fight the boggart away from my classmates because you knew it would turn into my parents?"
Lupin hesitated. He was clearly uncomfortable with answering the question. His eyes averted her own and they darted around nervously.
"Yes"
"B-but how could you-"
"You will understand very soon"
"What-"
"And when it does happen to you, remember to keep calm"
"What?"
"I am sorry Miss Wilkes, but I cannot disclose that information to you at this certain time. Now, I think I have kept you here long enough. A third year has a fair amount of homework…especially if she has Potions with Professor Snape"
He walked towards the door of the classroom.
She had no choice but to leave.
"Goodnight," came Lupin's voice as she walked out the classroom.
"Goodnight"
She could concentrate on her Potions assignment that night. What on earth was Lupin talking about? He said that she would understand soon, but how soon was soon? She went to bed, annoyed and curious, but eventually slumber took hold of her.
Little did she know that 'soon' meant 'the moment she woke up on the next day'.
Author's note: I do not own Harry Potter. But I do own my characters evil laugh
Please review if you enjoyed this fanfiction. Next chapter will be up soon-ish (I hope) because I'm on holidays! I may illustrate this fanfic. I did not a huge fan of Remus X Tonks so I thought I would write my own fanfic (because Remus needs some looove 3 ).