Note: This chapter turned out much shorter than I anticipated...or more to the point the first chapter was much longer than I anticipated! I also doubt that it is quite as funny, I'm afraid. But then again, it doesn't star a drunk Tonks, so the lack of humour was probably inevitable!

There is M rated content in this chapter. Consider yourselves warned!

For any readers of the Meet the... stories – I have a new poll up regarding the final chaptered story in the series, so feel free to go and vote!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

2: So Sweet

It spread through the corridors, classrooms and corridors of Hogwarts School like fiendfyre.

Such wildly shocking gossip even penetrated the peace and quiet of one of the deepest, most secluded corners of the school library, where Remus Lupin had been attempting to finish his Transfiguration homework undisturbed. He was just completing the opening paragraph when he heard what sounded rather like a small stampede amongst the bookshelves, and he looked up, failing not to sigh to see Sirius Black, James Potter and Peter Pettigrew pushing and shoving their way around the corner in an attempt to reach him first.

"MOONY!" Sirius cried, eyes wide as he elbowed James in the ribs in order to come to a skidding halt beside Remus' chair. "Where have you been all bloody afternoon? We've been looking all over for you!"

Remus opened his mouth to point out that he had only been in the library for about half an hour, but before he could say a word, James demanded to know:

"Have you heard?"

Again, Remus opened his mouth to respond, only for Peter to conclude:

"He hasn't."

"I can't believe you haven't heard!"

"EVERYBODY'S HEARD!"

"Except you. I can't believe you haven't heard..."

Just watching the three of them babble was, quite frankly, making Remus' head hurt. He attempting to hold up a hand to silence them, but they were much too busy arguing amongst themselves about whether or not Remus was the only person in the entire school who didn't know about..."it".

Remus tossed his quill down upon the desk and leant back in his chair, before consenting to half-shouting:

"What haven't I heard?"

The other Marauders abruptly stopped arguing and turned to stare at him, all three sucking in deep, excited breaths...

And then they all started speaking at once.

"Claudia Honeyduke!"

"That Hufflepuff girl!"

"The mental one..."

"With the hair..."

"Tony Whathisface..."

"Bell! Tony Bell from Ravenclaw!"

"Yeah, him! You'll never guess..."

"He's been going round telling everybody..."

"EVERYBODY! The WHOLE SCHOOL!"

"He told Claudia if she gave him a blow job in the broom cupboard on the second floor..."

"The third floor! It was the third floor!"

"...he'd give her a lollipop! And you'll never guess what!"

"SHE DID!"

"She did it! She dragged him into the broom cupboard and did it!"

"FOR A LOLLIPOP!"

At this triumphant conclusion, the three of them lapsed in to an expectant silence, waiting for Remus to say something.

"That's...utterly disgusting..." Remus mumbled, face contorting at the very notion, and Sirius grinned quite manically and exclaimed:

"I know! I always said she was mental!"

"You know," James said, leaning to nudge Remus with his elbow. "I think she likes you, Moony! Ever since McGonnogal split us up and made you sit next to her in Transfiguration last year..."

"Didn't you offer her chewing gum?" Peter recalled as Remus eyed his shoes with extreme interest, flinching when Sirius exclaimed:

"Damn! If you'd known she was such a sucker for sweets back then you could've..."

"Shut up, Padfoot." Remus interrupted, desperately not wanting to hear the end of that sentence, and Sirius let out such a cackling laugh that he doubled over, clutching his stomach.

He didn't know a whole lot about Claudia Honeyduke, despite having sat next to her in Transfiguration for almost an entire term. They had probably spoken only a handful of words to each other, most of which could be whittled down to the phrases: Hello, Can I borrow your pencil?, When did she say this homework is due?, and See you later then.

The longest conversation they had ever had, as far as Remus could recall, was when Professor McGonnogal had initially banished him to the seat beside her and even that had been rather brief because thanks to his banishment he had been in a rather poor mood:

Hi!

Hello.

I'm Claudia.

I know.

And you're Remus.

I know.

Been a naughty boy, have you?

No.

I didn't think so. You're much too nice! Ooooh! Is that gum? Can I have some?

Um...

Pretty, pretty please with a cherry on top!

Er...

Come on! I said you were nice! You're not going to prove me wrong, are you?

It's my last one...

And you're giving it to me! Oh! You're such a sweetie!

He'd handed over the loot just to shut her up because her voice was dreadfully irritating and he hadn't wanted to risk being stuck in detention for another evening just for talking. When Professor McGonnogal had caught her chewing the gum just a minute or so later he had not been sure whether to feel pleased or very irritated. Eventually he had settled on irritated because for one thing that was just the sort of mood he was in, and, more importantly, it seemed like a waste of gum. He made it his business not to speak to her much after that because her voice was not only irritating, but the way she looked at him when she spoke was somewhat terrifying. He had never quite managed to decide why...

"Well," James said, reaching to straighten his robes before running a hand through his messy hair, causing it to stick up at rather odd angles, "I'm going for a walk down by the lake! Who wants to come?"

"We just went for a walk by the lake, Prongs!" Sirius pointed out irritably, but James merely asked:

"And? What's your point?"

"My point is if Evans wasn't down there ten minutes ago she probably won't be there now! It's almost dinner time..."

"But Angela said they were all going down there to study and..."

"Angela lied, Prongs." Remus pointed out, barely resisting the urge to sigh as he reached to retrieve his quill, eyes back upon his unfinished essay, and as James positively scowled at such an idea, Sirius agreed:

"I wouldn't put it past her, she's a dreadful liar, that Angela Finch! Octavia Jones said she wouldn't go to Hogsmeade with me because Angela told her I was a crap kisser because I tried to stick my tongue down her throat!"

"Did you?" James asked, as Peter gave a snigger, and Sirius frowned deeply for a moment before deciding with a rather proud grin:

"Well yes, but so what? She liked it, I can tell you..."

"Not now, Padfoot." Remus pleaded rather half-heartedly. "I'm about to go and eat my dinner..."

"They all like it, I know they do! They can't resist me afterwards. Once you go Black you can never go back!"

Remus squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think of something else. But for some horrible reason all he could think of was Claudia Honeyduke. Sucking a lollipop.

The werewolf gave a shudder and wondered what on earth was wrong with teenagers these days. Then he shuddered again because that made him sound alarmingly similar to his father.

The other three Marauders disappeared off to grab dinner early some five minutes later, and Remus stubbornly insisted on finishing the second paragraph of his essay before following them. He heard the distinct sound of Madam Pince shrieking complaints at his friends as they left and wondered what they were doing wrong now and why the librarian hadn't come to shout at them earlier. He finished his paragraph in peace and quiet and felt quite tempted to simply stay and write another one. It was difficult to grab a bit of peace and quiet when one was friends with the likes of James Potter and Sirius Black. They were only capable of two possibly volumes: very loud or silent, and the latter only ever really occurred when they were sneaking through the castle under James' invisibility cloak, or when they were asleep.
Even that wasn't entirely true, Remus realised with a heavy sigh, because Sirius could snore for England.

The werewolf set about packing away his homework into his school bag, sliding the half-written essay inside a hefty textbook to keep it from getting dog-eared and crumpled. Once he had cleared the desk he rose rather reluctantly to his feet, slinging the bag over one shoulder. For a moment he simply stood, enjoying the quiet, before he felt the distinct sensation of his stomach rumbling, which sped up his progress towards the library exit tenfold. As he weaved his way through the maze of vast bookcases, running an absent-minded finger across the spines of the rows and rows of books as he went, Remus wondered what was being served that evening down in the Great Hall. He was just musing upon the prospect of apple crumble and custard for pudding when the silence of the library around him was somewhat disturbed by a faint, pitiful sound that made the Gryffindor prefect stop in his tracks.

It was very faint, muffled even, but as he turned towards the source of the noise Remus had no doubt at all that it was the sound of somebody crying.

The werewolf sidled into another row of bookshelves and set about creeping towards the source of the noise. At the end of the aisle he flattened himself up against the shelves and, after a pause, peered around the corner at the lone desk that was set in a secluded little alcove, a favourite spot of his when he had been a first year because it was near a large shelf crammed full of Grade One Defence textbooks and was secluded enough for the purposes of hiding from friends, studying, plotting pranks and, after being the unwilling test dummy to a potion of Sirius' that had left him bald for some three hours until he hair had grown back, sulking. (Remus was quite convinced that his hair had never been the same since and was absolutely certain that it had grown back far thinner than before. He had not appreciated the lurid yellow bobble hat that Sirius had presented to him the following evening as way of an apology, especially when Sirius had insisted on pulling it right down over his face and declaring loudly that in the grand scheme of Remus' appearance it made a great improvement.)

Sat at the desk, her head buried in her arms upon the table, shock of blonde, frizzy hair in disarray as she sobbed dismally, was none other than Claudia Honeyduke.

For a long moment Remus simply stood there, peering around the bookcase at her, contemplating his bad luck. Because he knew within half a second that he was going to have to go and sit next to her, ask her very kindly what was wrong and perhaps offer her a tissue or something.

Because he was just too bloody nice for his own good.

He'd been expecting a first year having landed themselves in detention, or something equally as simple and unthreatening. Not Claudia bloody Honeyduke whose mere voice made him want to shudder, Claudia Honeyduke who stared at him as if she were about to pounce on him at any moment for no apparent reason whatsoever...

He allowed himself a brief moment to steel himself for what was to come, before stepping out from around the bookcase, shuffling his feet rather more than was necessary to let her know that he was there.

She didn't notice. She was sobbing much too hysterically and for a fleeting moment Remus considered using this fact to his advantage, turning tail and making a run for it. But instead he took another noisy step forward and called a little half-heartedly:

"Claudia...? Um...are you alright?"

There was a momentary pause in which he thought she might well not have heard him, before quite suddenly she sat up in her seat, her round, blotchy face growing somewhat murderous as she choked:

"Do I LOOK alright to you? DO I?"

Remus couldn't help it, he took a step backwards. He was just considering the fact that, despite his question being admittedly a stupid one, he felt somewhat put out to be shouted at in such a manner. He was just concluding that she was in some way related to a banshee when as abruptly as her fury had materialised it was gone again, her pink, tear-stained features softened and she gave a feeble sniff and observed:

"Oh Remus, it's you."

She was looking at him with those bizarrely predatory eyes now and he wanted to fidget, so instead he concentrated on plastering a smile onto his face.

"Yep...only me..." he was beginning to wring his hands together rather awkwardly, so he decided to shove them into his pockets. "I um...I heard you crying and I just thought...you know...I'd come and...and see if you were alright."

Claudia leant abruptly forward in her chair, eyes widening a little as she asked:

"Really?"

Remus carried on smiling until he realised that she meant this to be a proper question.

"Really." he assured her, giving his head a nod just to be clear, and she sighed dramatically and announced:

"I knew it! You're so, so sweet! Did you know that?"

"Um..." Remus let his mouth hang open ever so slightly as he contemplated his next move. Did she really expect him to answer that? Because of course it sounded like a rhetorical question, but he was beginning to think that when it came to Claudia it was difficult to be certain about anything she said...

"Sit down." Claudia told him, and he knew it wasn't a mere suggestion.

"Um..." he said again, swallowing a lump in his throat that probably wasn't there in an attempt to make his voice work better. He didn't really want to sit down, for one thing that would involve sitting next to her and those alarming eyes of hers, and for another that would suggest they were going to have a conversation longer than the one which he had planned...

No indeed, it wouldn't be the Are You Alright? Sod Off I'm Fine! Alright Then, Bye that he had been hoping for.

She had gone back to burying her face in her arms, her sobbing growing louder and he forced himself to shuffle over and take a seat beside her. There he sat in awkward silence for a long minute before she abruptly sat up straight again, eyes upon him suddenly accusing.

"Do you think I'm a slut?" she asked bluntly, rather as if she had already decided that the answer was yes.

For a moment, Remus simply stared at her in alarm. What sort of a question was that? It wasn't fair, for starters. The entire school thought she was a slut, so if he said no she'd only accuse him of lying, and what boy honestly wanted to look a girl in the eyes, scary eat-you-alive eyes like Claudia's, no less, and tell her: Yes, I do think you're a slut? No boy, that's who.

"Um...well..."

"You do, don't you? I knew it..."

"No! No, I...I don't...obviously I don't..."

"You're lying!"

"I'm not! I'm really, really not...I...I don't think you're a slut, not...not at all..."

And again, the murderous expression disappeared from her face within the blink of an eye. She gave a woeful sniff, reaching to swipe the sleeve of her robes across her watery eyes and said:

"R...really? Y...you don't?"

Part of him wanted to admit, for her own good, that giving a boy a blow job for a lollipop was one of the sluttiest things he had ever heard of, but quite frankly Remus didn't, and probably never would, have the nerve to do it.

"I really don't." he agreed, giving his head a rather stiff nod.

"Really?" she breathed, eyes wide as if she had never heard such a wonderful thing in all her life, and he opened his mouth to dutifully mumble: yes, really, only for the words to stick in the back of his throat when she leant abruptly sideways towards him until their knees were knocking together under the table and she could announce: "I knew you wouldn't! I knew you'd understand. You're not like the others, you're...you know!"

Remus didn't know.

"You're so sweet!" she exclaimed, voice oddly high-pitched, which made him wince. It was the second time she had said this since he had happened across her. If she said it again he might not be able to suppress a shudder because a third occurrence probably identified it as a new catchphrase of sorts.

Just that thought alone made Remus shudder.

"It's true, you're not like the others...n...not at all they...they're all so mean! They're horrible! They laugh and stare at me in the corridors and...and...they won't...won't sit next to me at...at dinner or...or talk to me in the corridors...I...I just...!" Claudia simply couldn't finish her sentence, she slumped back down onto the desk with a wail and sobbed uncontrollably into her arms.

"I'm sure they'll get bored eventually." Remus reasoned awkwardly, not really at all used to crying girls. "They'll find something else to gossip about and then they'll forget that you...um...you know..."

Gave Tony Bell a blow job. In exchange for a lollipop.

Merlin, it really was the most awfully disgusting and shameful thing Remus had ever heard, in all his years at Hogwarts! As if anybody would truly ever forget that!

"No they won't!" Claudia wailed, sounding abruptly aggressive again. "You're lying! They won't forget it, they all think I'm a...that I'm a horrible slut and...and they all hate me! Every last one of them!"

"Oh I don't think they hate you." Remus theorized, recalling the manic look of glee upon Sirius' face when he had relayed the whole incident a short while earlier. "And...and even if they don't think that much of you...well, that could change, couldn't it?"

"Could it?" she hiccuped, sitting suddenly up to stare at him in wonder, and he gave a shrug.

"Well if everybody thinks you're a...a slut...well you don't have to act like one, do you? If you...if you don't act like one for long enough...well then maybe they'll change their minds!" He frowned deeply as he mused: "Perhaps they'll realise it was just a...a phase you were...you were going through..." he trailed off, thinking he sounded faintly ridiculous, but Claudia seemed to swell with sudden enthusiasm as she exclaimed:

"Can a person do that? Can a person change who they are...just like that?"

She looked desperate. Remus couldn't help but feel sorry for her. After all, the rest of the school was apparently treating her abysmally and she didn't really deserve it. Everybody made silly mistakes, after all, and no matter how disgusting the whole business was, she clearly regretted it now. She was by no means the sharpest quill in the box, in fact she was really rather dim and he doubted she had really thought Tony Bell's proposal through in the slightest. And anyway, long before any of this had happened there had been a saying about Claudia Honeyduke: She'd do anything for something sweet.

Claudia's parents owned and ran the sweetshop down in Hogsmeade, and apparently growing up above the shop in question had affected her somewhat dreadfully. Having a sweet tooth himself, Remus could not imagine how wonderful it would be to grow up surrounded by so many sweet treats. But apparently it wasn't in the least bit wonderful at all, indeed it was probably torture. Claudia's parents were massively strict about her intake of sweets; for one thing, they said, too many of them would rot their daughter's teeth and for another they made the sweets for their customers, not for the Honeydukes themselves. Consequently Claudia spent much of her time looking at the confectionaries that she adored but was forbidden to touch, and as soon as term began and she could disappear off to Hogwarts she would do all she could to stuff herself with sweets as often as possible whilst no parent was around to stop her.

That fact alone made Remus pity her massively. Even if she was without a doubt stir crazy, bordering on demented and quite frankly terrifying.

"Claudia you can be anything you want to be if you try hard enough." Remus found himself telling her, even though he wasn't sure he believed it for a second. He'd heard this supposed fact from a whole range of people over the years: his mother, his father, Professor Dumbledore, Madam Pomfrey, James, Sirius, Lily...

It was utter rubbish. Some people, Remus were convinced, dark creatures like him and probably nutcases like Claudia Honeyduke were destined to abject failure in the grand scheme of life. It didn't really matter what they did, it was just bound to happen. Trying hard didn't have a whole lot to do with it, really. That was just something you did to try and convince yourself you had some vague hope.

But of course there was no point telling this to Claudia. She'd probably not understand. Or she'd cry even harder than she was now. Or she'd hit him. Hex him. Repeatedly...

A moment later Remus fervently wished that he had attempted to explain all of this to Claudia because making her cry, hit him and hex him repeatedly would have been massively preferable to what happened next.

She stared at him first, which made him fidget and was alarming enough really...

Then she let out an odd sort of squeal that made his stomach lurch uncomfortably...

And then she threw her arms around him, her grip upon him so tight that it knocked the air from his lungs.

Remus couldn't help it, he drew in a gasp in alarm that turned into a rather odd squeak of his own.

"You're so sweet!" she exclaimed, much to his horror because that was the third time she had uttered those cringe-worthy words. "You believe in me!"

He...what?

"I knew you would!"

She knew...what? Something he didn't, that was for sure...

"Because you're so sweet!"

Bloody hell, she'd said it again, Remus realised numbly. At least she had her face buried in his shoulder. If he kept very still she might just stay there and he would be save the alarming experience of looking at her face with so few precious inches between the two of them...

But then she sat back a little, their eyes meeting. Remus concentrated hard on not leaning backwards in his chair in a vain attempt to get away from her.

"You'll help me, won't you Remus?" she said, and yet again Remus didn't think it was a question. That probably didn't matter though, the werewolf realised, because he had absolutely no idea what it was that she wanted him to help her with. If it was a question he had no idea how to answer it. Then she said: "You'll help me change their minds, won't you? You believe in me, don't you?"

Remus opened and closed his mouth a few times, only to find himself completely and utterly tongue-tied. He rather wanted to beg her to let go of him because her grip upon him was alarmingly tight and one of her hands was sliding worriedly close to the hair at the nape of his neck...

Before he could wade through the panic in his mind to come up with some form of action, he felt her fingers sliding into his hair and he managed to breath:

"Claudia what...what're you..."

"Of course you do!" she decided on his behalf, fingers suddenly grasping hold of a clump of his hair in a rather threatening manner, causing his eyes to widen, his heart hammering in his chest.

"I um...I don't know what...what you're talking about, but..."

Claudia grinned and Remus instantly forgot what it was that he was attempting to say. She was leaning so close now that she had practically slipped herself onto his lap. He'd never had a girl sit on his lap before. Except Lily at the start of term when they had been forced to squeeze into a single carriage with the other prefects when making their way from Hogsmeade station up to the school. But obviously Lily was his friend and she didn't really count...

He wasn't quite sure that Claudia would count, either, because there were a whole load of girls he could think of that he'd quite like to have sitting in his lap, amongst other things, but Claudia wasn't one of them. Absolutely not.

Claudia really wasn't very pretty, to be perfectly honest. She had wild looking frizzy hair and her eyes frightened him and her forehead was too big...

She had big boobs, though. They were a bit like boulders, the striped neckline of her school jumper were stretched across them...

They were looking especially big right now because she was leaning towards them and they were very nearly pressed against his arm. Remus wanted to move his arm somewhere else, but he wasn't quite sure where to put it.

He hurriedly decided to concentrate on where to put his eyes instead because he'd just caught himself looking at her boobs and he didn't really fancy her noticing...

He looked back up at her and was certain that she had noticed. He swallowed the lump that instantly formed in his throat and waited for his doom.

Her grin widened and she let out an abrupt, watery little giggle.

"Well that's not helping, is it?" she said, waggling her eyebrows at him in a manner that so reminded him of Sirius that he jumped back in his seat a little in alarm. Merlin, if Sirius could see him now...

"I don't know what you're talking about." he mumbled, and she giggled and told him:

"I don't know either, do I? I'm much too good now for all of that!"

Remus consented to a vague chuckle as she dissolved into laughter, hand slipping further into his hair.

"Seriously, though." she said, expression abruptly stern again, "I know we'll make it all better! We'll show them, won't we? We'll show them all I'm not a slut! I'm better than that, that's what you said isn't it?"

Remus wasn't even slightly sure, but he suspected disagreeing with her now would be fatal, so he forced himself to smile a little and tell her:

"That's what I said."

"You're so sweet!" she exclaimed, leaving him to barely suppress a shudder, only for him to go rigid in a mixture of horror and confusion when she declared: "I knew you would help me get through this, Remus. Because I can feel it, you know. You and me, we're...connected!"

"We are?"

"Of course we are! You can't ignore it, a feeling like that, and that's how I knew you would understand and be so sweet and help me! It's going to be so great, I'm so excited!"

"You are?"

"Of course I am! Are you excited?"

"Um..."

"Of course you are! Of course it isn't going to be easy to start with, is it? Because everybody is going to talk about us and say the most horrible things! But we just can't listen to them, Remus, we just can't! Because you know they're wrong about me, don't you? And you're so sweet! We're going to have such a wonderful time, I just know it! You're going to be the best boyfriend a girl like me could wish for!"

Remus felt as if she had just thrown a glass of cold water in his face as the reality of the situation began to sink in...

"B...boyfriend?" he managed to stutter, completely horrified that she seemed to have come to such a ludicrous conclusion...

And before he could think to do or say anything, she lunged forwards, yanking his head forward until she could crush her lips against his with such force that he was pretty certain he had just chipped a couple of his teeth in the progress...

The world swam nauseatingly around him, and Remus wished at that very moment that the ground would open up and swallow the pair of them.

And then preferably spit her back out again.