Ten.
I had an awful lot of difficulty sleeping that night. I lay awake in bed way into the small hours of the morning, well after Nat and Kate had gone to sleep. My thoughts just kept running round and round in circles. Every time I closed my eyes, I could feel and taste Lupin's lips on mine. I knew that I really did like the kiss that we shared earlier on, and I would happily have done it again if I wasn't his student. It had felt so right, like we clicked together the moment that our lips touched. I curled up into a ball, shuddering as I remembered the sound he'd made when I'd made the mistake of pressing myself up against him while we were kissing. It still made me break out in goosebumps at the thought of it and I felt my stomach churn. What the bloody hell was wrong with me? I shouldn't have even kissed him back in the first place. No, but you still don't regret a thing, do you? A voice inside my head whispered back at me. Oh God, what was gonna happen next? I was pleased that he'd came after me to speak to me about it before Professor Snape interrupted and sent me away. What had he said to Lupin? Had he twigged onto what happened between us?
Remus tossed and turned in his bed, desperately trying and failing to be able to get some sleep. He couldn't stop thinking about Aurelia, no matter how hard he tried. He knew that he'd really landed himself in trouble this time, kissing a pupil like that. There was no denying that he had pretty strong feelings for her, but he knew that he shouldn't have acted on them as it had made them even worse. He squeezed his eyes shut and put his hands over his face, desperately trying to push the images of her during the lesson earlier on out of his head. Despite what was right, he knew that he'd really wanted to go back and kiss her again when she had turned and left the room. He also wanted to blame all of this on the full moon being so close, but that was only the cause of how he'd felt towards her throughout class. All he could see where her pools of chocolate brown eyes the moment before he'd kissed her, and he could still taste her lips. He desperately needed to talk to her about this. Tomorrow.
I must've got to sleep at some point, because I was rather rudely woken up by a jet of water being squirted into my face. This was shortly followed by the sound of sniggering coming from somewhere in the dormitory. I opened my eyes and glared upwards to find Kate and Nat stood right in front of me. 'Kate Barrows, I'm gonna sodding well kill you,' I grumbled as I tore back the covers. 'What makes you think it was me?' Kate replied innocently. 'Because I know that you can cast bloody good water spells,' I scowled, making my way towards the bathroom. 'You have to admit, she's got you there,' I heard Nat giggle. I glanced in the mirror and scowled even more. My face was dripping. The little makeup that I usually wore (and had obviously forgotten to take off last night) had run and smudged. I sighed loudly in annoyance and set about casting a spell to get rid of the residue makeup and dry my face off. Once that was done, I waved my wand again, neatening up my bed hair and re-applying my makeup. I usually did both of these the Muggle way, but I was in a fowl mood and really didn't have the patience to perfect doing them both by hand.
I finally emerged from the bathroom to find Nat and Kate sat down on my unmade bed, looking rather concerned. 'Sorry about that,' Kate apologised. 'You know I was only mucking about, right?' I kept my expression neutral and nodded. 'Right.' 'What we really wanted to ask though, is if you're okay,' Nat said. 'You look as if you had no sleep last night.' 'How did you know?' Now it was my turn to act all innocent. 'Well, the fact that you've got massive bags under your eyes is a bit of a hint..' Nat stated, folding her arms. 'Alright, I just.. I couldn't get the thought that I'd been snogged by my teacher out of my head.' I muttered. The pair of them exchanged some kind of look that I couldn't quite work out, then stood up. 'C'mon, let's get down to breakfast,' Kate grabbed my arm, smiling sympathetically at me. One of the things that I loved about both of my best friends was that they knew exactly how to distract me if I ever had problems trying to sort things out in my head.
We walked down the corridors towards the Great Hall in a comfortable silence. We quickly went inside and found some seats at the table. 'Please, Merlin, don't let him be in here right now,' I commented as our plates appeared in front of us. I couldn't possibly last throughout breakfast at the thought of Lupin staring at me or trying to catch my eye whilst I ate. In fact, I didn't even want to face him at all until I'd worked out what on Earth I was going to do about everything. Kate and Nat remained silent, confirming the opposite of what I'd hoped for and giving me the impression that I wasn't having much luck with anything at all this morning. Brilliant. I fought back the temptation to put my head in my hands and was just about to get up and leave, when Sacha landed on the table. She was carrying two envelopes, both with familiar handwriting scrawled across them. I instantly recognised my mother's neat, elegant cursive on the smaller one and my Muggle best friend Georgie's on the other.
Georgie and I had met when we were about four or five, as we moved in next door to her. Her parents came round to introduce themselves and brought her along with them. We ended up going to the primary school and spent endless hours playing together. Once I'd got my letter for Hogwarts the summer before my eleventh birthday, I was gutted that she didn't get one, too. I hated the thought of being separated from my best friend, only being able to see her during the Christmas and summer holidays each year until I finished school. When mum and dad bought me Sacha to take with me, we vowed to write to one another every week, so that's what we did. I felt extremely happy, as we both then were frequently updated on how the other was doing. It wasn't the same as seeing each other face-to-face, but at least it was something. In her last letter, Georgie had explained to me how difficult she was finding her last year of GCSEs (the Muggle equivalent of OWLs, which took them two years to complete). I could sympathise with her, as this was exactly how I'd felt at the start of my OWLs last year. I'd sent her a reaussuring letter back, giving her as much advice as I possibly could with reguards to how to deal with the piles of coursework that she was getting.
I thanked Sacha and took the letters off of her leg, then gave her a couple of owl treats that I had in my pocket and my slice of toast. She nipped affectionately at my finger, flying off in the direction of the owlery with my toast in her beak. I really had lost my appetite and I pushed my food around my plate. 'Are you not gonna eat that?' Nat asked. I shook my head. 'Nope, 'm not hungry.' I pulled a face and pushed my plate towards her. 'You can have it if you really want. I'm going back to the dormitory until we have to go to lessons.' And with that, I promptly stood up and walked out of the Great Hall. I turned the corner and had got halfway down the corridor when I heard footsteps behind me.
'Aurelia!' They called out. 'What?' I turned around angrily, crossing my arms. 'We need to talk.'