Fourteen.
After yet another short but sweet kiss, I left Remus' office and walked back down the corridor to the library. As I pushed the doors open, I could see someone familiar sat in my favourite seat by the window. I felt my heart leap a little at the sight of them, but I mentally scolded myself for it. I'd only just agreed to start seeing Remus, yet my heart skipped a beat when I saw someone else? This wasn't good. I swallowed hard, taking a deep breath when I reached where they were sat. 'Kate and Nat said you'd be here,' Oliver said quietly, that same grin that I used to love appearing on his face. 'You were looking for me?' I frowned. 'Yeah,' he sighed. 'Listen, I know it's been a while since we were..' He trailed off, looking a bit uncomfortable. 'But I just need to do this.' Before I had the chance to move, he kissed me. Every instinct I had was screaming at me to pull away, but I couldn't help old feelings rising back up inside of me again and I kissed him back. Eventually though, I pulled away and stared at him, shocked. 'What was that for?' 'Just to say I'm sorry for hurting you.' I shook my head. 'And I'm sorry, Oliver, but I can't do this.'
I turned and headed straight back towards the door. There was no way I could stay in here, not with him sat in my place after what he'd just done. I felt so guilty already. Less than five minutes ago I was kissing Remus.. What was I supposed to do? The right thing would be to tell him, but that meant that he'd probably take it the wrong way and end things before it'd barely got started. Then again, I'd still feel terrible every time we're together if I didn't tell him. I pushed the library door open and stepped outside into the corridor. This was so bloody typical of me to manage to get myself into this much of a mess after not even a month of being back at school. I thought about what I was going to do all the way back to the common room, and I eventually reached the decision that I needed to tell Remus what had happened. Firstly though, I had to explain mine and Oliver's relationship which lasted throughout the whole of last year. He'd ended up finishing with me because this year, he wanted to 'focus on winning the Quidditch cup and getting decent grades in my NEWTs'. It had hurt, to tell you the truth. I completely understood the NEWTs thing, but using Quidditch as part of the excuse? Not exactly the best way to make someone feel any worse. I knew that Remus would probably think it immature and stupid of me to have got upset over something like that, but it had explained why Oliver had kissed me in the library.
The main worry on my mind though, was that he wouldn't understand how bad I'd felt afterwards. Of course, I wouldn't tell him about how I thought some of my old feelings for Oliver were going to resurface again because of that kiss, as I wanted to be with Remus more than anything else. No matter how stupid and wrong it was supposed to be. Putting the whole Oliver thing aside, I couldn't help grinning as I thought about what an amazing kisser Remus was, and how he'd been the one that suggested we tried seeing each other. The only difficulties with that would be the whole sneaking around thing, and how we'd have to try really hard during my Defense Against the Dark Arts lessons with him every week to act like teacher and pupil, not like we were almost.. together. I had to admit, it was definitely going to feel weird calling him sir or Professor Lupin.
What had got me confused though was how after Snape had given him that smoking potion and left, Remus had almost said that it always tasted disgusting. It was as if he'd been ill with whatever it was several times before, if not more than that. What on Earth could be wrong with him to have to take something that tasted that bad? I'd got a slight twang from it when we'd kissed after he'd taken that sip. I recognised the properties of that potion too, and I was sure that we'd studied that a few years ago in both DADA and Potions. I should tell Nat and Kate about it, I thought to myself. Maybe they'd know.