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Chapter 17:Fate Takes a Hand

A large smack in front of Remus made him instantly jolt awake. McGonagall gave him a stern look before continuing to hand out the rest of the results from the quiz they took last week.

"And in truth I was actually surprised at the standard of work you displayed on your latest quiz. I am quite confident that at this rate none of you should be questioning about whether to drop Transfiguration at the end of this year. However, those few of you who scored less than 50% on your exam, would you please be kind enough to stay back after class and see me,"

Remus groaned. He had a big 48% written in the top right hand corner of his paper in bright red ink. The bell rang shrilly and the class instantly began collecting their possessions and packed up.

"For homework I would like a brief summary on the theory of human transfiguration. That will be all for today. Those of you with under 50%..." she trailed off as there was no need to continue with her request. Remus only bothered to look up when he heard the large oak classroom door bang back into position and found that he was the only one who was left behind. He groaned again.

"Mr. Lupin, would you kindly join me up here please," McGonagall called from where she had seated herself back at her desk at the front of the classroom. Remus pushed his possessions off the desk and straight into his backpack with a rattle and a clank before slowly walking up to McGonagall.

"Please sit, Mr. Lupin," McGonagall gestured to a skinny wooden chair that he was sure wasn't there during the lesson. He sat. "Now Mr. Lupin, you're marks have been continuing to decline steadily since Christmas when you failed to hand in the homework I had set over the holidays,"

Remus looked down at his lap and fiddled with his fingers, not knowing if he was supposed to say something or defend himself.

"Now I understand that you've been seeing Miss. Roderick for sometime now and the school acknowledges that these things of course happen in co-ed schools. However if this is going to stop you from performing to your best ability in mine, or any of your other classes then I am afraid something will have to be done about this, 'relationship'. Am I clear?"

"Yes Professor," Remus agreed, slightly pink in the face. McGonagall gestured towards the door and acknowledging the sign of dismissal didn't hesitate before fleeing back to the common room. As soon as he walked through the portrait hole, he found himself being attacked. Well, he called it being attacked. Others, he thought, probably considered it a hug.

"Hey Remus," Claudia said in one of her most sultry voices as she pulled away "I'm so bored," she sighed "and I was wondering if you could help me solve that?" she said very slowly, a finger tracing around his chest as she did so. He grabbed her wrist and thrust it back at her; he did not need this right now.

"Sorry. Can't. I have to go study," he told her, looking around. He could see when his eyes looked back to Claudia that there was boiling molten lava brewing up inside of her.

"Study?" she managed to get out through her clenched teeth. Remus smiled and backed away slowly. It was best to be out of arms length at the point of explosion.

"Yeah study. Studying the subjects we learn everyday. Because this is a school. And schools make you study. I'll talk to you later," he smiled before turning on his heel and bolting out of the portrait hole and into the corridor beyond.

Remus found himself wondering the corridors for a bit after that, not quite sure of his intensions but just going where his feet led him. He was feeling bad about shutting Claudia down so fast, it wasn't her fault that he was failing Transfiguration. Well, actually it was and then he felt the growing anger building back up inside of him. Remus went through this cycle quite a few times. He finally found himself outside a classroom that had supervised study hall in this. Poking his head in, he found that it was McGonagall supervising and that it was probably best if he went in. He still had his books from their lesson this afternoon and it would show McGonagall that he was going to try.

Well, he had intentions of trying. After taking out his textbook and finding when he shoved all his belongings back into his backpack that the lid of the ink bottle hadn't been screwed on properly and that the contents of his bag was now stained, he spent the next ten minutes cleaning every visible ink stain. But even when he had finally set up with clean parchment and a tightly closed ink bottle, his mind continued having the argument it had been having on and off since Christmas.

"Do you even like her?"

"Well of course I does, I wouldn't be with her if I didn't,"

"That's not necessarily true, after all, there's not much to the relationship…"

"But we've committed to loving each other,"

"Yeah, somehow screaming 'I love you' surely doesn't count for much during sex"

"That's not the only time. Besides, that's not they only thing we do,"

"Okay name another time you've both said I love you to their face with their pants on. And tell me what the last conversation you had was about,"

"The last conversation we had with their pants on was when- was when Claudia was complained she couldn't be bothered casting a birth control spell every time as it was a mood killer and claimed a rubber was reliable enough,'

"My point, even with their pants on you're thinking about when you take your pants off"

"That's hardly fair-"

"HEY!" someone clapped their hands really loudly in front of Remus's face, bringing him back out of my head.

"Sorry, what?" he asked the brunette Ravenclaw sitting across from table from him.

"You've been staring at me straight for the last ten minutes. You're creeping me out,"

"Sorry," Remus hurriedly replied, instantly looking down and intently flipped through his transfiguration textbook for the theory of human transfiguration. A few minutes later he sneaked a glance at the girl across the table from him, to make sure she wasn't looking at him looking at he but he found her deeply engrossed in her charms textbook –

"Hey, you were here over Christmas, you were at the feast," Remus said, snapping his fingers in realization of when he had seen this girl before. The girl smiled from over the top of her charms textbook.

"Very good. And it only took you ten minutes of intense staring and a few minutes full of quick glances to figure it out. Good job," Remus blushed slightly and turned to look back down at his transfiguration textbook before remembering

"Hey, did you ever perfect that bedazzling charm?" Remus asked and the girl smiled broadly.

"Oh yes, you want to see?" she asked putting her book down on the table, looking eager.

"Sure, why not?" Remus asked, placing his own quill down on the table and folded his arms, waiting for the magic to happen. The girl pulled out her wand, and smiling broadly, tapped her wand onto her head. Remus couldn't help but opening his mouth slightly when the girl disappeared entirely from in front of him. She had moved on from the bedazzling charm which relied on objects for their invisibility and was now able to manage a self reliable spell. He laughed as one by one the girl's possessions levitated and moved slowly but surely out the door in a nice, straight line.

-:-

Back in the dormitory, Claudia was crying her eyes out on Lily's lap, however Lily would use the term 'cry' loosely. No matter how much noise Claudia was making, no tears seemed to ruin her eyeliner.

"It was just, just SO harsh!" she cried and Lily reached over to her bedside table to grab her tissue box and offered it to Claudia. She took one and sat up slowly, daintily dabbing the corners of her eyes with the tip. Lily knew enough that her role was to nod and agree with whatever Claudia said and believed at the time, her teen flicks had taught her that much, but Claudia wasn't really giving Lily a chance to add anything in.

"And I mean, nobody should talk to me like that," she began again after blowing her nose "I am a lady. Not to mention his girlfriend. How he could just brush me over like that to study, what am I, his toy? Claudia Roderick is nobody's toy. He's behaviour is just despicable,"

"Despicable" Lily nodded, passing her another tissue.

"But I guess I should be thankful it's only his studies he's passing me on. Its not like its another girl, its not likes its Felicity," she blew her nose again "And we've had fun, so much fun, like you would not believe, but he's right. OWL's are coming and we need to study. We need to think of our future," she said looking earnestly at Lily.

"Yes, the future," Lily nodded.

"But that doesn't excuse him from how he broke the news to me,"

"Not at all," Lily nodded, placing the used tissues in the bin.

"I think I'll remind him about who is on top in this relationship. Remind him his place and remind him how lucky he is to have me,"

"Remind him?" Lily asked in surprise at the sudden turn in tone. Claudia turned around to face Lily and smiled.

"Yes Lily, remind him,"

-:-

Remus returned to the common room that night with his Transfiguration homework done, revision of the work he hadn't paid any attention to and a nod of approval from McGonagall. When he entered the common room he had spotted Claudia but she showed no clue of seeing him and no intention of wanting to see him. Remus shrugged, this was fine by him at the moment. None of the other Marauders were in the common room so he decided to sit and watch the game of Gobstones that had gotten into full swing on one side of the common room. From his position, he had a clear view of Claudia and found himself slowly paying less and less attention to the game and more and more attention to Claudia who was talking to one of the seventh year boys, McDonald, who played keeper on the Gryffindor Quidditch team.

She was probably flirting on purpose Remus realised, because she was still pissed of at how he had left things this afternoon. That was fine by him, he was pretty sure McDonald was one biscuit short of the packet from when he took a bludger to the head in his second year so he wouldn't think of him as a threat. But then again, 'the threat' was deemed attractive by the opposite sex so it was wrong to underestimate him.

'You never know,' Remus thought to himself 'She could dump me for him and let me off the hook,'

'Do you really want to dump her though?' the other part of his brain contradicted, as always. There was an unspoken law between the two parts of his brain that stated they could never let the other side win, always disagreeing.

Remus shook his head. He didn't know what he wanted. He needed to think, have space. Sometimes they call that breaking up, sometimes taking a break, whatever. The part of his brain that wasn't affected so much by his hormones was arguing a point strongly that his relationship was not a 'relationship', which was true. He and Claudia had never had a real decent conversation. She didn't care much for Quidditch and he didn't care about which Weird Sister was dating whom. Besides, not trying to think so highly of himself, but Claudia's magic skill in terms of his own wasn't quite up to par… All that was holding them together was their hormones.

"Stupid hormones," Remus muttered and turned his head to watch the Gobstones match. He had been staring at the Gobstones very intently until he saw something out of the corner of his eye that forced him to turn around. Before, McDonald had been sitting on the long sofa in front of the fire and Claudia had been sitting next to him, but turned towards him and throwing herself at him. Now, she was on top of McDonald, straddling him and passionately kissing him.

'Well, I get the message' Remus thought to himself and stood up 'Pity you're too immature to say it to my face,' and with that he walked out of the common room. He was nearly at the end of the corridor, about to turn the corner when he heard the patter of running footsteps on the stone floor. Turning around he found Claudia approaching him and he didn't know why, but he stopped.

"I get the message Claudia, I maybe failing subjects but I understand that much,"

"No, no that's not what happened!" she cried, throwing herself forward onto his shoulder. He sighed exasperatedly and stepped back.

"Really Claudia? Well then please tell me what really happened. You know, its not like I just caught a quick glance, I saw you there for at least 15 minutes," Remus told her and Claudia began her stifled cries.

"He came on to me-"

"Yes, I'm sure. That's why you were on top of him," Remus rolled his eyes and began walking off in the opposite direction. Claudia reached out and grabbed his arm and pulled him back around to face him. He groaned.

"What Claudia? You're plan isn't working the way you wanted it too otherwise you'd be talking about it with Lily up in your dorm. So what's the problem already? Trying to teach me a lesson for studying instead of having sex with you? Coz I'm telling you Claudia, running off and snogging a guy every time I choose to do homework or study over you, that's not a healthy relationship,"

"I'm- I'm- I'm-" Claudia began, opening her mouth then shutting again, the words failing to come out.

"I'm what? Sorry? Lying? Spit it out already Claudia,"

"I'm pregnant!" she yelled at Remus, her voice echoing around the corridor long after her mouth had closed. Remus smirked.

"What the fuck are you smirking at?" Claudia yelled at him, "I just told you I'm pregnant and you stand there grinning. You don't say 'Oh God' or 'I'm sorry, I love you' or 'It will be okay' or 'What the hell are we going to do'? What are you fucking smirking at?"

"I'm smirking at the fact that you're grasping at straws. And I mean you really are grasping, you must be desperate. For one, a girl, upon finding out her pregnant state, does not continue with the vendetta she has against her boyfriend by getting it on with the Gryffindor Keeper in front of him. No, she finds her boyfriend, and she tells him through some hush hush way to save her reputation and she cries as the two of them think of something to do. Also, when she began to suspect the pregnancy, she would have confided in her best friend, whom I'm sure at this point is Lily, and for reasons you will never know or understand, Lily would have told me, no matter what she promised you," Remus told her, slowly walking away slowly.

"And, if you really had gotten pregnant, the pregnancy occurring would have been your own fault, for not bothering with the spell. And you know what Claudia? It's been fun, it really has. Thank you for your time and teaching me all those wonderful things. But the thing is, our relationship wasn't real. It never was real. And you know how you can tell?"

Claudia shook her head.

"It doesn't hurt when you walk away,"

-:-

"So that's that," James stated later that night when Lily, Sirius, Jess and himself had finished their dinner down at the kitchen.

"They're finished,"

"The end"

"Well," Lily concluded "At least Remus came to his senses without our help. I always knew he was smart,"

"Yeah, but couldn't he have waited for him to have his epiphany?" Sirius complained, helping himself to some ice cream and hot fudge sauce "I mean, we couldn't even put our plan to destroy Claudia into action,"

"Well, I'm glad Remus figured it out himself," Jessica told them "As much as I hate Claudia, no matter what we could do we could never have hurt her as much as Remus could by dumping her sorry ass,"

"So what's Remus doing with new found freedom?" Lily asked James as he tried to wrangle the hot fudge sauce bottle out of Sirius's hand as now he was eating hot fudge sauce with a bit of ice cream.

"Studying. Apparently it was all because of McGonagall. She gave him the wake up call he needed to be able to see past his hormones,"

"So you're saying we could have just bribed McGonagall to tell Remus had failed and that would be all we needed to do to break them up?" Sirius complained as James succeeded in the tug-a-war "Hindsight = useless,"

"So I guess that's half our plan done," James said as he handed the sauce to a house elf with the strict order to 'hide it' "The couple are apart. So we just need to bring in the other half and it's a done deal, right?"

"I dunno, I haven't seen Felicity all day. She's still AWOL, maybe we need McGonagall to tell her she's failing and put her into a study group so we can find her," Lily said thoughtfully as she ate her ice cream. Jessica shook her head.

"McGonagall has been telling Felicity has been failing every term since she practically began and has yet to take effect,"

"Good point. But what happened today got me thinking. Remus and Claudia broke up naturally, without our help. I was thinking that maybe things might sort themselves out, that we should stop meddling," Lily told them, looking at the faces around her.

"True, but what's life without a bit of meddling?" James smirked.

Lily grinned.

A/N:Hey guys, what did you think? Acceptable I hope :P Please leave me a review, telling me how I'm going, what you think, if its completely horrible, along those sorts of lines. Thank you so much to Zafrinacarlisleesmebellaedward, An Aspiring Author, Riauna, pearberry14, pottyaboutpotter, and lundigurrl for reviewing my last chapter. Means so much to me, you guys rock :D