Author's Note: Thank you, GraceMonroe, for reviewing! I'm sorry Remus and Sirius were being so infuriating in the last chapter! This chapter is pretty much all fluff, so hopefully you will forgive me.

You know the drill by now. Censored spice follows. Uncensored spice can be found over on Ao3.

Chapter Twenty-Five: On the Acquisition and Healing of Scars

Remus was in far over his head.

He stole a glance across the table at the young woman whom McGonagall was currently praising for her work on a cleverly created cloak, customized to the Deputy Headmistress's specifications. The young woman sank lower in her chair, turning a shade of red that competed with the color of her hair and looking as though she wished she could disappear into the floorboards as everyone looked at her.

Remus felt his face automatically form a warm, proud smile as Dumbledore congratulated her on a job well done on McGonagall's cloak. He was satisfied that, externally, he betrayed nothing but indulgent fondness for the young woman.

Inside, he was going mad with the longing to touch her.

He had told her that things could never be anything more than physical between them. He had told himself that if he just sated his lust for her, his unreasonable and entirely senseless infatuation with her would pass.

Looking at it now, he couldn't figure out why exactly he had thought this made any sense. His feelings for her had never been merely physical, even before things had become remotely physical between them.

Remus gave his head a little shake and returned his attention to Dumbledore, who had a happy announcement to make. Hagrid had finally returned to Hogwarts, and though it appeared that he had sustained some injuries during his journey that precluded him from joining them this evening, he was sure to make a full recovery. It did not, however, sound as though he and Olympe had enjoyed any success making headway with the giant community.

Remus hadn't enjoyed any success making headway in sorting out what to do regarding Mairead, either. He could not for the life of him figure out what she saw in him, but he could tell that she was at risk of falling in love with him, and this posed a massive problem.

Mairead was never meant to have fallen in love with him. He had never considered it seriously as a possibility, despite Sirius's frequent insistence of Mairead's devotion. Mairead could not be in love with him. He could not allow it to happen.

Remus had tried to ignore the warning signs that Mairead had deeper feelings for him than just a... what was it Molly had called it? A little schoolgirl infatuation. He had tried to convince himself that he wanted her to love him and so he was willfully misinterpreting her body language, the looks she gave him, the way her voice shook when they got too close to discussing how they felt about one another. He tried, but he knew it was a lie.

Remus knew he was being inexcusably selfish in keeping their affair going. He knew it was inexcusably selfish of him to have agreed to the affair in the first place. None of their circumstances had changed. Should they be discovered, should the true nature of their relationship be found out, Mairead would be ruined. She already had a difficult enough road to walk in wizarding society given her own personal background. But if she was found to have taken up with a werewolf?

It was bad enough, how wizards viewed werewolves, but at least some people weighed their fears and prejudices against the knowledge that no werewolf became infected on purpose. But if word got out that Mairead had taken up with Remus - knowingly taken up with a werewolf - she would be a pariah. Society would not hesitate for one second to excommunicate her, nor would anyone lose a moment's sleep over the decision. Remus knew what they would think of her, what they would call her. They would count her among the lowest, dankest, seediest members of the magical world.

A werewolf's whore.

Remus knew that he would eventually have to find a way to get Mairead to see the dire consequences to what they were doing, but the girl was so immovably stubborn. And when her emotions got involved? She was truly impossible.

He knew he needed to break things off before they got out of hand, woke up every morning with the guilt eating away at him, felt the decision build within him throughout the day to put a stop to this madness, and yet, every night when he heard the soft knock on his door, his resolve vanished as he brought Mairead into his room, into his bed, and further tainted her.

Every day this went on Remus knew he was gambling with her future. But every night Remus rolled the dice, unable to bring himself to do what he knew must be done.

It wasn't just the sex, although that was truly outstanding. What Mairead lacked in experience she more than made up for in raw enthusiasm. He had long known that she was an eager student, and he despised himself even more than he already had as he took a sick enjoyment from showing her all the ways she could feel pleasure. And - Mairead being a fast learner and anxious to please - there was plenty of pleasure to go around. Remus hated the way he had corrupted their relationship of teacher and pupil, which had formerly been a source of pride and satisfaction for him.

But no. Though Remus craved closeness with Mairead with a longing he could not remember having ever experienced before, he knew that if the heart of the problem lay merely in sexual matters, he would have been able to rein things in. The real problem was Mairead herself.

Mairead, with her adorable freckles and beautiful hair and arresting green eyes that sparkled with life and curiosity. Mairead, with her cute laugh and thoroughly charming sense of humor. Mairead, with her stubborn refusal to leave him behind to fester in the degradation and decay of the disease that ruled his life - her stubborn refusal to leave anyone to suffer if there was anything that could be done for them. Mairead, who didn't have a hope in the world of defending herself against him and yet refused to fear him. Mairead, with her fiery spirit and truly sweet nature that simultaneously set him on fire and made him wonder if he might not actually be able to find peace in this lifetime...

Mairead, who, though he could not say when, had somehow made her way through all of his myriad defenses, stood right in front of him, and bewitched him. And now here he was, a fully-grown, fully-qualified wizard, utterly under her spell. She was the most enchanting person he had ever met, and somehow over the course of the summer she had turned the tables on him. For now she held all the power, and he was the one who didn't have a hope in the world of defending himself against her.

But unlike Mairead, Remus was terrified.

Because the problem was not whether Mairead had fallen in love with Remus.

The problem was that Remus had fallen in love with Mairead.

October turned into November, and gradually the cool and crisp autumn days began to turn steely and damp.

Life went on, both inside and out of Grimmauld Place. Mairead found out that Sirius's birthday was on the third of November and insisted on throwing him an extravagant party. She wrangled Remus into distracting Sirius while she sneaked the entire Order of the Phoenix (except for Snape) into Grimmauld Place. They decorated the basement kitchen with red and gold streamers and balloons, Mrs. Weasley brought extraordinary provisions, and Mundungus supplied copious amounts of alcohol (which Mrs. Weasley set up in a bar area off to one side) and a handkerchief stuffed full of a pungent-smelling herb Mairead strongly suspected was pot (which Mrs. Weasley confiscated from Mundungus, almost blowing the surprise by starting to shout at him).

When Remus led Sirius into the kitchen and everyone burst into song, Sirius looked happier than Mairead had seen him in months. She couldn't have been more satisfied with how the party went over, and neither, it appeared, could Sirius. He laughed uproariously, smiled constantly, and startled everyone by lifting Mrs. Weasley off her feet in a crushing hug when she presented him with a homemade, three-tier birthday cake.

The party lasted so long that most members of the Order, save the Hogwarts faculty members, wound up staying the night. Those who stayed all spread out in the drawing room, sprawled on couches, chairs, or the floor and enjoyed a joint birthday gift from Remus, Mairead, Bill, Fleur, Charlie, and Tonks: a home theatre projector and a projector screen, complete with a small collection of films, all sourced from secondhand shops Mairead and Remus had scoured. Sirius had at first had no idea what he was looking at, but when the concept was explained to him, he laughed until tears came to his eyes at the thought of what his "dear, departed mum" would say at the thought of him watching Muggle films in the Black ancestral home.

Which was exactly what Mairead had predicted.

The next morning, Sirius gave Mairead a long hug and thanked her for orchestrating "the least depressing night I've ever spent in this place."

And when Mairead got home from work that evening, Remus pulled her into his bedroom to thank her in his own way.

Afterwards, Mairead lay curled up against Remus's side, which had become her favorite place in the world. She listened through his shirt to the sound of his heartbeat returning to its regular, steady rhythm, and before she could stop herself, the words popped out of her mouth.

"May I ask you a question?"

"Anything," Remus said softly, turning his head and kissing her hair.

Mairead nibbled on her lip, unsure whether she had the guts to actually ask the question she had been dying to know the answer to. She pulled away from Remus slightly, and she saw him tuck his free arm up behind his head so that he could look at her. A quick glance at him told her that he was curious, and not on his guard at all. She felt the fingers of his other hand gently stroking her back.

"Why - erm..." she faltered. Her fingers found the breast pocket of the shirt he was wearing, and she fiddled with the place where the pocket was becoming detached from the rest of the shirt. "Why do you leave your shirt on? During... erm... I mean..." she trailed off, feeling her face growing warm. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him smile crookedly.

"Ah," he said, and just in that one syllable, Mairead could hear that he was feeling embarrassed. She felt horrible and opened her mouth to apologize and retract her question. Before she could, though, he said, "I have a... fairly hideous scar under my shirt. Most women who have seen it have considered it to be rather off-putting. I've found it's best just to keep it covered."

Mairead lowered her gaze. "Oh," she said in a tiny voice. She felt awful, not only for embarrassing Remus, but for the reminder that she was far from the only woman he had ever been with. It was clear as day from his considerable skill in bed that he was very experienced, but Mairead hated to be reminded of this fact, and here was incontrovertible evidence: Remus had obviously been with so many different women that he had a large sample size driving his choice to stay partially clothed during sex with Mairead. The things that they did together were only the product of years of experience Remus had gained pleasuring other women - and being pleasured by other women. She loathed how insignificant and inexperienced this made her feel.

"Are you all right?" he asked her softly.

"Yeah," she said quickly, giving her head a little shake to clear it. "I'm - I'm sorry I asked."

"There's nothing to be sorry for," said Remus, kissing her forehead. "To be honest, I'm surprised you didn't ask sooner."

"Oh," Mairead said again, then, "Do - do most women ask sooner than I did?"

There was a brief pause, then Remus said, "No, actually. But then... I don't normally see the same woman multiple times."

Mairead looked at him, a little shocked at his admission. He nodded in confirmation to the question she must have been telegraphing on her face.

"Ah, the life of a vagabond," he said with a partially twisted smile, quoting back to her something she had said over the summer. "One night stands have been standard fare for me most of my life. Although, now that I think of it, it was one of my more... ongoing trysts that got me in the habit of keeping my shirt on."

Mairead waited silently to see whether he would continue, not wanting to seem too curious about his previous lovers for fear he would think she was being nosy and intrusive.

"Our first time had been somewhat... rushed," he said delicately. He glanced sideways at her. "It wasn't until our second time together that a bed got involved, and it was our third time before clothes came all the way off."

Mairead felt her face growing warm even as she felt as though she had swallowed ice. The woman must have driven Remus mad with passion. He must have been so much more attracted to her than he was to Mairead. She must have been breathtakingly gorgeous. Someone like Fleur, or Tonks.

"When I took my shirt off, she was... less than pleased," Remus said wryly. "She told me it - well. It was a turn-off for her, to say the least. We didn't see each other after that."

Mairead looked sharply at Remus at that. "She broke up with you because of your scar?" she asked incredulously.

Remus shrugged. "'Broke up' implies we were in a relationship," he said, smiling crookedly again. "We weren't dating. We were just..." He shrugged.

"Were you in love with her?" Mairead asked meekly, afraid of the answer but needing to know.

"No!" Remus laughed. "Not even remotely. We were just... using each other."

Mairead pulled both lips into her mouth and bit down as she considered her next question. "Have you ever been in love?" she asked in a whisper.

Remus looked at her searchingly. "Yes," he admitted softly. "But not with her."

Mairead nodded, thinking over his answer. "She still shouldn't have said that to you," she said after a while. "Whatever it was she said. That's horrible that she made you feel so bad that you've never taken your shirt off since then!"

Remus smiled at her, his eyes soft. "Perhaps," he said noncommittally. "Or perhaps she was doing every woman who followed her a massive favor."

"Not me," Mairead said fiercely. "Whoever she is, she doesn't speak for me."

Remus chuckled under his breath and tilted his head, gazing at her softly. He was silent for a long time, and Mairead went back to fiddling with the pocket of his shirt. When he spoke again, his words were so quiet she almost didn't hear them.

"Why don't you take it off, then?"

Mairead blinked a few times in confusion, sure she had misunderstood. But then, using the hand he had been propping his head up with, Remus reached for her and guided her fingers away from his pocket and towards his top button.

"If you'd like," he said quietly.

"I - I don't want to make you uncomfortable," Mairead said uncertainly.

Remus gave her a lazy smile. "Whatever you'd like," he said casually. But something flitted across his eyes, almost unnoticeably. It was like a lone firefly at night, the flash of its light so brief and unexpected you almost questioned whether you saw anything at all. Mairead knew instinctively in that moment that the nonchalance was an act. This was something Remus was deeply self-conscious about, and yet he was giving her permission anyway. He was offering to make himself vulnerable for her, but leaving the choice in her hands.

Mairead's hands made their choice. She moved slowly, the way he had moved their first time together, giving him plenty of opportunities to change his mind and back out. Her fingertips closed around the top button on his shirt, and slipped it free. She slid her hand down to the next button, and undid it as well.

Remus watched her silently. He looked perfectly placid, but by the time Mairead had undone the fourth button, she could see flickers in his eyes, tiny signs of nervousness she never would have noticed if she hadn't been searching for them. She held his gaze, praying silently that he would find her to be as strong as he needed her to be.

The last button slipped free, and Remus pushed himself into a sitting position, his back against the headboard. Mairead sat up as well, watching him, waiting for permission to continue. He nodded.

Never breaking eye contact with him, Mairead reached for the two edges of his shirt and pushed them aside. Remus shrugged out of the shirt, sitting it beside them on the bed. He looked apprehensive now, but when Mairead did not take her eyes off his, he looked pointedly down at his left shoulder. Mairead followed his gaze.

It was fairly awful.

A large chunk of Remus's deltoid was missing, as though it had been torn away and had never grown back. The skin that covered the area was puckered, and looking closely at it, Mairead could see the telltale signs of a Healer's work.

"Skin graft?" she guessed. Remus nodded. "Where did they take the skin from?" she asked.

"My thigh," he said. "You can't see where they took the skin from because -" but he broke off when he saw Mairead nodding.

"They could've healed that invisibly in two seconds," she finished for him. "But for them to have needed a skin graft, this must have been a cursed wound... one that wouldn't heal through the usual healing methods." He nodded once again.

Mairead tilted her head to one side curiously as she considered the scar. Dark pink streaks radiated out from the center of the scar. They reached as far down as the pectoral muscle and as far inwards as the place where his collarbones met. The streaks were jagged and sharp and formed a starburst pattern, almost like -

"Teeth," she whispered. "This is where you were bitten." She felt stupid that it had only just occurred to her.

"Yes," he confirmed softly.

Her brows knitted and her mouth opened a little. "It must have hurt so badly," she whispered, looking into his eyes.

"Yes," he repeated.

Her breath left her all at once. Looking back at the scar, she could see now how it had distorted as Remus had grown around it. "You were five?" she asked.

"Four," he corrected, his voice a bit hoarse. "Almost five."

She took an unsteady breath and swallowed. "You must have been so afraid," she said, her voice shaking.

"Yes."

The image flashed before her eyes. Remus, a tiny child sleeping peacefully in bed, only to be awoken by a fierce snarling, then agonizing pain. The confusion and shock he must have felt at the tearing, shredding of his flesh. The terror of being attacked by a wolf - so much larger than himself - in his own bed.

All at once, Mairead understood Remus's viewpoint in a way she never had before. Though she would never see him as a monster, the way he saw himself, she felt she had been granted a great insight into why he hated himself so much. She had only ever thought of his affliction in terms of how it affected his standing in society, his ability to find work, and his well-being from month to month. She had only ever thought of it, she now realized, in the context in which her own disability affected her. She had never before considered the fact that Remus had his own reasons for hating werewolves.

Remus was not only a werewolf. He was also the victim of one.

He knew better than any of them how great and terrifying they could be. He knew the pain of being bitten by one, the fear of believing he would be killed by one. For the first time, Mairead imagined what it would be like to survive something so violent and traumatic, only to be told that it was now her fate to become that which she had come to fear more than anything. To be told that she was at extremely high risk of doing to another what had been done to herself. It would be, she thought, like someone telling her she was fated to become a Death Eater.

I would hate myself, too, she thought.

She felt her throat grow tight as the weight of this settled around her. She looked up into Remus's eyes and saw that he was watching her intently. He looked tense and wary, ready at any moment for her to scream and leave him, like so many other people did when they found out.

She had to show him that he was wrong. She had to prove to him that she loved him just as he was.

Without thinking about it, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the scar.

Remus jumped and flinched away from her. "What are you doing?" he demanded, looking and sounding shocked.

Mairead startled backwards. "I'm sorry!" she exclaimed. "Does it still hurt?"

Remus was staring at her as though she were out of her mind. "No, it doesn't hurt..." he said slowly. "Why - what - why would you do that?"

Mairead cringed, feeling horribly guilty. "I'm sorry," she said again. "I didn't mean to offend you."

Remus continued to look at her as though he didn't understand her at all. "You didn't offend me," he said eventually. "I just don't understand why you would... weren't you kissing it?"

Mairead nodded and wrapped her arms protectively around herself. "I'm sorry," she whispered a third time.

Remus tilted his head to one side, trying to understand. "Why?" he asked again. "Why would you want to kiss it?"

"Because it's a part of you," she said in a small voice.

Remus still looked mystified, as though he could not comprehend why she didn't understand. "It's not an attractive part of me," he said.

Mairead took a moment to gather her thoughts before saying softly, "I don't pick and choose which parts of you I accept." Remus was silent, so she continued. "I - I know that you're a werewolf, Remus. I knew that going in. It's not a surprise to me. I don't... I don't pretend that you're not a werewolf, or try not to think about it, or tell myself that you just get a really bad head cold once a month. I... I like you, Remus. I like you. Not you-minus-some-other-stuff. Just... just you."

She looked down at the blanket covering them when she finished, feeling foolish in the extreme. He probably thought her so childish and naïve right now. Or worse: perhaps she had insulted him and behaved entitled in the way she had done the night of the boggart. Perhaps she should take it back. Perhaps she should leave.

Mairead looked up at Remus and opened her mouth to apologize, but stopped when she saw his expression. His eyes were brighter than usual, and he was looking at her with a fierce devotion she had never seen in him. Before she could move, before she could say anything, Remus reached for her and pulled her to him.

In one slick move, Remus flipped Mairead onto her back and began kissing her like he had never kissed her before. His hand tangled in her hair, and his other arm slipped beneath her body, holding her to him in a tight embrace. Mairead kissed him back with her entire soul, determined to pour everything she had into the kiss, to show him how completely she loved him.

Mairead opened her mouth at the insistence of Remus's lips. She reached up and wrapped her arms around him and moaned helplessly at the feeling of being able to touch him, all of him. The skin of his back was warm and smooth. She felt him shiver against her as she ran her fingers down the bumps of his spine. She slid her hands around to his front and touched his abdomen, Remus lifting himself off her slightly so she could continue her exploration. She could feel the ridges of his abdominal muscles, and she skated her fingers over the trail of coarse hair that started below his navel and led down to his...

Remus groaned when her fingers found him. She pumped him up and down a few times before releasing him, eager to discover the parts of him she had never been allowed to see or touch before. Her hands danced up his front to his pecs, and she marveled at the feeling of his nipples hardening under her fingers. He had a small amount of hair on his chest, and she swirled her fingers around in it before continuing upwards. Remus finally broke the kiss and pulled away to watch her run her fingers along his collarbone, dip her finger into the hollow of his throat. Her hands went to his shoulders and she could feel the difference between them - the smooth, well-formed muscle on one side and the ravaged state of the other - and she loved them both.

"That woman was mad to let you go." The words popped out of her mouth with no premeditation, and Mairead immediately felt her face catch fire at the implication, what it said about her own feelings for him.

Remus laughed, and Mairead's heart swelled that he could sound so carefree after he had been so nervous moments earlier. "I think she would say that you're the mad one," he teased.

"That's fine," Mairead said easily. "Her loss is my gain."

Remus shook his head at her and stroked one finger down her face. "You really are mad, do you know that?" he asked softly, but he was smiling and there was such warmth and fondness in the way he looked at her that she preened under the attention.

She smiled unabashedly at him. "Now that's one compliment I'm happy to accept," she said.

Remus laughed again. "Finally," he said, rolling his eyes playfully.

He kissed her again and Mairead thought her heart might burst with happiness and fulfillment. Remus kissed her quite thoroughly before moving away from her lips to kiss her cheeks and nose. Mairead giggled when he kissed her eyelids.

"I can't tell you how mad those freckles on your eyelids drive me," he murmured, his lips curling up into a smile.

"You've got yourself a real freckle kink, don't you?" she teased.

"I've got myself a you kink," he corrected her, letting his teeth scrape over the skin of her neck as he made his way down her throat.

His words elicited a whimper from Mairead, which grew into a moan when he nibbled a path along her collarbone. Mairead tangled her fingers in Remus's hair while he trailed kisses down her sternum. She arched at the feeling and let out a breathy moan when he ran his fingers over her skin, caressing and stroking and driving her higher and higher. He continued a path downwards with his lips. He kissed along each of her ribs, kissed her belly and her navel, finally coming to a pause when he reached her hips.

"Please, May," he breathed, looking up at her. Mairead met his gaze and saw raw desire swirling in the light and dark greys of his eyes. "Please let me taste you," he whispered.

Mairead considered this. The thought of him putting his mouth on her still caused nervous butterflies in her stomach, but they were not quite so all-powerful as they had been the last time. Ardor had a far stronger grip on her emotions now, and she wanted him so badly she could barely stand it. She recalled how vulnerable he had made himself before her only minutes ago, and all at once she felt certain that if he could show her that level of trust, she could, too.

She nodded.

Remus looked like he couldn't believe his eyes. "Are you sure?" he asked, unable to hide the eagerness in his voice.

Mairead nibbled her lip. "What if I don't like it?" she asked quietly.

"Then tell me and I'll stop," Remus said immediately.

"...And what if you don't like it?" she asked.

"I will," he said so confidently he almost sounded cocky. But he saw at once that she was not satisfied with this, so he quickly added, "But if I'm wrong I'll stop."

She considered this for a moment, then nodded. "Okay," she said breathlessly.

Remus's eyes took on an almost fervent glow of excitement. He quickly crawled up her body and kissed her hard on the lips, as if to thank her, then lowered himself back towards the foot of the bed, dropping dozens of tiny kisses along her stomach and hips while he did.

Mairead began to tremble with nerves when Remus positioned himself between her legs, his long hands holding onto her hips. Remus glanced up at her, his eyes concerned and observant.

"Nervous or afraid?" he asked.

"Nervous," she said, though her voice shook when she spoke.

"Are you having second thoughts?"

She shook her head.

"You can stop me at any time," he reminded her. "You can always tell me to stop and I promise I'll stop."

She nodded. "I know," she breathed.

Remus looked at her for another long moment before he nodded and broke eye contact. He began to leave featherlight kisses along the tops of her thighs. Mairead's legs jerked nervously at the first touch, but she soon relaxed into the sensation. It occurred to her that he was acclimatizing her to being touched this way, skimming his lips and the very tips of his fingers along her legs, stroking the backs of her knees, lifting her legs very gently and leaving kisses along her calves, rubbing his thumbs in circles on her hipbones, and slowly, achingly slowly, working his way upwards.

Desire battled with nerves as Mairead watched Remus carefully, considerately, and very patiently work her into a frenzy. Every time she saw him so much as glance at the place where her thighs met, she felt her face burn with embarrassment. And yet, the more he touched her, the more she wanted him to touch her, and the more he touched her everywhere but where she was aching and throbbing, the more she felt certain she would go mad if he didn't put his mouth on her soon.

By the time his lips were gently suckling on her inner thigh, Mairead was beginning to feel her hips straining to move. She felt a light sheen of sweat forming on her forehead, and when she was certain Remus was seconds away from tasting her, only for him to turn his head to the other side and give her opposite thigh the same sweet, languid treatment he had just finished subjecting her to, she ground her teeth and struggled not to let out a growl of need.

Just when Mairead thought she would scream if he didn't touch her, she felt one of Remus's hands find her own. He intertwined their fingers and held onto her with a reassuring firmness.

Then, watching her closely, he brought his mouth to her center.

Mairead's entire body jerked and she felt as though the wind had been knocked out of her. Remus repeated what he had done, and Mairead's spine arched so sharply it almost brought her to a sitting position before she crashed back down onto the mattress.

Pleasure like nothing she had ever experienced in her entire life radiated in warm bursts from her center. She made a breathy, high-pitched sound, like the sound made when sitting down into a tub of too-warm water, which presently turned into a wail that tore its way out of Mairead's mouth. She thought she would start to cry with the pleasure she felt.

As Remus continued to work her, Mairead became aware that she was wringing his fingers with her own. He did not seem to mind, though, and continued to hold onto her firmly, letting her ground herself in the touch of their hands.

Mairead was making sounds she had never made before. Her body writhed and her hips undulated of their own accord.

Mairead clenched the sheets with her free hand, feeling her orgasm build fast and hard. She gasped for air at the sensation of hurtling towards her climax. She lost all sense of where she was or how she had gotten here. All she knew, all she cared about, was that she was with him.

"ProfessorLupinProfessorLupinProfessorLupinProfessorLupin!" she gasped.

When her orgasm overtook her, for one brief moment Mairead felt that she had flickered out of existence. And then sensation slammed back into her and she was coming and coming and screaming and clenching her thighs around Remus, who was still stimulating her, making pleasure crash over her again and again until she began to believe it would go on forever.

When it ended, Mairead fell back, boneless and trembling, onto the bed. Aftershocks were still regularly coursing through her body when Remus pushed himself up, stretched out on top of her, and gently guided his straining erection into her.

"Is this all right?" he asked, already sounding out of breath. "Do you need a break?"

Mairead responded by wrapping her arms and legs around him and pulling him in for a kiss. She tasted something strange on his tongue, not unpleasant, but unusual.

Oh. It's me, the thought occurred to her.

For as much pleasure as she had just experienced, she felt a renewed delight at what it felt like truly to be skin to skin with Remus, to be able to see and feel his muscles move and tense and relax. They easily found a rhythm that worked for both of them. She felt a sense of wonder that she now had ingrained knowledge of how to make love with Remus. They moved as naturally together as though they had been doing this all their lives. Mairead knew how to roll her hips to make Remus release a deep moan, she knew that winding her fingers through his hair made his mouth fall open and his eyebrows knit together with pleasure, and she knew the moment his own orgasm began to build.

She was still too high from what he had done to her with his mouth to be able to climax with him, but she held onto him and felt her heart surge with pride and love when Remus lost control, shouting out his release and moaning her name.

Remus rested on top of her for several minutes before rolling off her and pulling her to his chest. Mairead settled there, turning her face to brush a kiss against the scarred skin she was resting her head against, and heard Remus emit a shaky sigh.

They lay in each other's arms, drowsily stroking and caressing one another. Dimly, Mairead recalled that, at the moment of her climax, she had accidentally reverted to formalities with Remus. He hadn't said anything about it, and so she hoped he had not noticed her slip-up.

"May I ask another question?" she asked after a while.

Remus chuckled. "Considering where your last question got me, you may ask as many as you'd like."

Mairead snorted in an undignified sort of way, but quickly sobered. "You mentioned - I mean, I think I recall your saying at one point - that... that when you transformed when you were a student at Hogwarts, you were separated from other people you could attack, so you, erm... so you attacked yourself instead."

"That's right," he confirmed.

Mairead's brow furrowed. "So, like... erm... sorry - but if - if you, erm... I mean - er... I guess, just... why don't you have more scars?"

Remus looked sideways at her, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "Surely my star Defense Against the Dark Arts student can work that out herself, can't she?"

Oh. He totally heard me.

"Erm... because... erm..."

Remus was smiling teasingly at her now. "What do you remember about werewolf bites?" he quizzed.

"That... they're... bad?"

Remus burst out laughing. "I feel like a failure," he remarked dryly. "What category do werewolf bites fall under?"

"Cursed wounds," Mairead answered promptly.

"And what do you recall about cursed wounds?"

"That they're difficult to heal," she said. "You have to remove the curse before you can heal the wound, either by finding the countercurse, or by antidote, or by drawing the curse out - siphoning it into something else."

Remus smiled and raised her hand to his mouth. "That's all correct, though I suspect you learned most of that from your healing textbooks, and not in my classroom," he said, kissing each of her fingers as he spoke.

"I've actually read historical accounts of Healers who used their own bodies as vessels for drawing curses out!" Mairead exclaimed, excited to be sharing what she considered to be a fascinating piece of history with Remus. "They siphoned the curse up out of the wound, through their hands, and out of the patient."

Remus arched an eyebrow. "That sounds like an excellent way to get yourself killed," he remarked.

"Well, that's true," Mairead conceded. "But there were several really interesting case histories of Healers successfully curing patients that way, and living to tell the tale! Most often it took two Healers working as a team, one drawing the curse out, and another working to prevent the curse from killing the first Healer."

"Very interesting," said Remus, turning her hand this way and that, deciding where to kiss next. "What else do you remember about cursed wounds?"

"Well - that's the thing," Mairead said, furrowing her brow. "Cursed wounds leave scars."

"Mm-hmm," Remus hummed, now nibbling the pad of her first finger.

Mairead looked at him, feeling baffled. "What am I missing?" she asked.

"You've talked about methods for removing a curse, how to heal a cursed wound, and the scars left by cursed wounds," Remus listed. "What is it about werewolf bites that makes them so bad, as you say?"

"They can't be cured?" Mairead guessed.

"Correct," Remus said, leaving open-mouthed kisses on her pulse point. "Once someone has been bitten by a werewolf in his wolfish state, they are forever cursed themselves. If they survive the attack, of course."

Perhaps it was the way Remus was kissing Mairead, making her heart flutter and her breath quicken, but she was still confused. "I - I still don't understand," she admitted.

"What could possibly be seen as the one benefit to being cursed with something like lycanthropy?" Remus asked.

Mairead's mouth twitched. "Erm - er... you've got a great sense of smell?"

Remus snorted. "We've already been over this," he teased. "Having a great sense of smell is no gift when you're surrounded by hundreds of hormonal teenagers with questionable hygiene practices."

Mairead made a face. "Erm..." she tried again, glancing up at him. "No signs of male pattern baldness?"

"Why, thank you," said Remus dryly. "That's not it either, though. What would happen if I were to encounter a vampire, and be bitten?"

All at once, it clicked into place. "You're immune to other curses!" she said. "If a vampire bit you, it would be just like any other wound for you. You could just heal it; the curse wouldn't affect you."

Remus smiled. "Correct," he said.

"And that's why you don't have more scars," Mairead went on. "You can't be cursed twice with lycanthropy. So any further bites or scratches could just be healed like any other wound."

Remus gently tugged at her until she was lying partially on top of him. "Head of the class," he murmured, brushing her hair away from her face and kissing her lips.

Mairead was thoroughly distracted by the kiss for several exquisite minutes, but she pulled away when a thought occurred to her.

"Wait a minute," she said, hope flitting around in her chest. "If you're immune to other curses... does that mean - Remus, are you safe from the Killing Curse?"

Remus smiled and shook his head. "I'm afraid not," he said. "Cursed bites are their own category of curses - think of them as a twig on the branch of curses on the Dark Arts limb of the tree of magic you hate so very much." He smiled teasingly at her and leaned up to bump his forehead against hers. "I'm immune from other cursed bites, but not from any curse."

The hope that had been swelling in Mairead's breast deflated. "Oh," she said softly, dropping his gaze in disappointment.

Remus stroked her face. "I'm sorry to disappoint you, sweet girl," he said softly.

Mairead looked up and smiled weakly. "Can you - can you just try really hard not to get... erm... any other curses? You know... like other curses?"

Remus smiled and kissed her before pulling back and touching the tip of his nose to hers. "You have my word, May."

Author's Note: Well? Did you like it? Did it make up for last chapter? Or was it too fluffy? Please let me know!