Author's Note: Thank you to Wikked and GraceMonroe for reviewing!
The War is over! I hope you all thought their reconciliation was worth the wait!
Now that you're all thinking warm and fuzzy happy thoughts, I have two things to confess. First: this chapter ends on a cliffhanger. I'm sorry! I tried to find another way to end it, but it just came off as sloppy. Please forgive me. Does it help to know that this is another extra-long chapter?
Second, I won't be posting on Friday, December 22nd, because my sister is going to be flying in for the holiday and staying with me, and so I'll be spending the evening with her. So I will post Chapter 36 next week (which, I promise, does NOT end on a cliffhanger!), and then it'll be two weeks before I post again. Thanks in advance for your understanding!
Without further ado, here's the next chapter!
Oh, wait. Further ado: this chapter has been edited for sexual content. An uncensored version of this chapter is available over on Ao3. Okay, now let's get on with it!
Chapter Thirty-Five: Teacher Voice
Mairead and Remus stayed up all night talking.
And snogging. But mostly talking.
Truth be told, Mairead had gone to Remus's room with a different itinerary in mind for the evening. But when Remus had broken the kiss, and pulled away just enough to rest his forehead against Mairead's, and whispered, "I've missed you so much," Mairead had gone all weepy, which she had to admit had killed the mood a bit.
Remus had pulled Mairead over to the bed, drawn her into his arms, and in that fashion they had passed the night, catching up on all they had missed in the other's life over the past three months, tangling their fingers and limbs together, stroking hair and caressing faces, both held suspended in breathless wonder at being back in the other's arms.
The sky was lightening behind the curtains when Mairead's sentences started to blur together in a nonsensical pattern. Remus smiled, kissed her forehead, and guided her to rest her head on his chest. Mairead snuggled close to him, nuzzling his throat, and dropped off to the sound of his heart beating steadily beneath her ear.
A gentle, tickling sensation on Mairead's face woke her. She opened her eyes to find Remus dropping feathery kisses on her eyelids and cheekbones. She smiled dopily at him.
"I hate to wake you," he murmured, looking down at her with warm eyes. "But do you still work on Sundays?"
Mairead hummed and nestled further down into the blankets and sheets. "Not until eleven," she mumbled, letting her eyes fall closed again.
"It's ten thirty."
"WHAT?!"
Remus chuckled at Mairead, who rose explosively from the bed.
"Fuck, I'm so fucked!" she cried, hopping on one leg while struggling to disentangle the other from the bedclothes. "I need to brush my teeth and my hair's a wreck and I haven't showered - I mean, look at me!" She finally got both feet on the ground and turned to look at Remus, arms akimbo with stress.
Remus smirked. "With pleasure," he teased.
"Argh, you're no help!" she growled. She started for the door but Remus beat her there - having risen gracefully from the bed himself - and put his hands on her shoulders.
"Use the shower in here," he said. "It's closer to the boiler so the water heats up faster, anyway."
"I can't!" said Mairead. Remus released her and opened the door into the corridor. "All my stuff's in the -" She broke off when her little shower caddy came zooming into the room. Remus caught it smoothly and offered it to her.
"Leave it in there when you're finished, will you?" he said.
"Why?" Mairead asked quizzically. "Are you out of soap or something?"
Remus smiled crookedly. "No, I would just like it if you moved your things in here. If you're willing to, that is. I don't want to pressure you," he added quickly.
Mairead melted. Several long, delicious minutes later, Remus broke away and growled, "If you don't go right now you're staying here."
Mairead grinned and slipped out of his embrace.
"I'll get breakfast ready while you're in there," Remus called as she headed for the en suite. "Merlin knows what Sirius will cook up to 'celebrate' if I don't get there first."
Mairead's six-hour shift lasted approximately ten years, in her estimation. Sundays were normally quite slow at the library, but this day seemed to drag on so slowly that more than once she entertained the notion that some prankster was turning back the clock to keep the library open longer than usual.
All she could think about was Remus. This was not an unusual state of mind for her, but she felt it more acutely than she had in ages. They had been apart three times as long as they had been together, and Mairead felt an urgency to get back to him as soon as possible, as though to make up for their separation all in one day.
When at long last the day ended, Mairead had to work hard not to break into a run and dash for the exit. Fortunately, as a general rule, no one on a library staff wants to work weekends, and so there was a minimal amount of dilly-dallying after closing. She climbed the steps to number twelve, and her heart began to flutter in her throat. She couldn't wait to see Remus. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and feel his lips on hers and spend the whole evening finding dozens of ways to show him how much she loved him.
But when she walked inside and saw that he had been waiting for her, leaning gracefully against the doorway to the library, hands in his pockets and smiling at her, her stomach burst to life with butterflies and all she managed to get out was a breathy, "Oh, hi."
"Hello, May," he said. He shrugged off the door frame and walked towards her, looking the picture of ease.
Mairead's face caught fire as though he had just said something indecent, and not the mildest possible thing anyone could say. She looked away shyly and began tugging at her scarf.
She turned away and hung her scarf over a hook on the coat rack, and sensed rather than heard Remus walk up behind her. She unzipped her tatty Muggle coat and made to pull it off, but froze when she felt Remus's hands on her. He helped her out of her coat, slipping it off her arms and hanging it on the hook with her scarf. She felt her hair rustle. Turning her head slightly, she saw that Remus's eyes were closed and he appeared to be breathing in the scent of her hair. A shiver went through her that had nothing to do with the damp, chilly atmosphere in the entrance hall. Every nerve ending in her body felt like it was vibrating with anticipation. Remus lightly touched her back with one hand, and Mairead felt longing sweep through her like fire.
"How was your day?" Remus asked, brushing the backs of his fingers down her arm.
Mairead turned to face him. His eyes were alight with a warm glow she had missed like it was home. She took in his every feature, everything she loved so desperately about him, and thought he was so handsome her heart might stop at any moment.
Wait - did he just ask me something?
"Sure," she said dreamily.
Remus's mouth twitched with amusement. What had she just agreed to? His eyes flitted down to her lips, then back up to her eyes. "Well, shall we?" he asked.
Mairead couldn't speak, so she simply nodded, trying not to gape at him in an open-mouthed stupor.
Remus pulled away from her and gestured for her to go ahead of him up the stairs. Mairead could feel herself shaking with nerves and excitement as she started up the stairs. It would be their first time together in... how long? What if she had forgotten what he liked? What if he remembered her as being prettier, or as having a nicer body than she did in reality? Would it be strange, coming together now, when they had fallen back into their roles of teacher and student, unofficial as it was?
Mairead took a steadying breath and told herself not to let her nerves get the best of her. This was Remus. It would be perfect. It would be sublime. It would be -
"Mairead?" Remus's voice broke into Mairead's self-pep talk. "Where are you going?"
Mairead looked around and saw that, while she had been continuing up the stairs, Remus had stopped on the first landing and had been heading for the drawing room.
"Oh!" Mairead gave a start of surprise and shook her head. "I'm sorry. I don't know."
You know perfectly well where you were heading, and so does he, the cruel voice in her head taunted her.
At the end of all things, though, Remus was a gentleman if he was anything, and if he suspected what was on Mairead's mind he did not allow his thoughts to show on his face. He merely smiled mildly and headed into the drawing room. Mairead scurried after him, pulling out her wand as she went.
"I thought that, instead of dueling, we might focus on something specific today," Remus said while the two of them fell into their usual pattern of lighting the lamps from opposite sides of the room.
"Sure. Yeah. Okay, that sounds great," Mairead said. Any excuse not to be tossed around the room like a leaf in a cyclone sounded good to her.
"Excellent," said Remus. "I'd like to focus our work this evening on disarming methods."
They met in the middle of the room and Mairead once again found that she felt overwhelmed by his proximity. But she did not know how this new dynamic between them was supposed to go, and so she followed his lead. He was being professional, so she had to find it in herself to be professional, too.
"Okay," she said again. "Expelliarmus doesn't work for me."
"I know," Remus said thoughtfully. "But down in the kitchen a while ago you managed to disarm Severus. If memory serves, you used the Summoning Charm to get his wand out of his hand."
Mairead nodded. "Yeah, that was a trick I found in the Dueling Club," she said.
Remus smiled. "Very clever," he said.
Mairead looked down and pulled her lip into her mouth. "No, not really," she said. "I wouldn'tve thought of it if it hadn't been for -"
"Yes, yes, I'm sure you have a marvelous excuse for delegitimizing it," Remus cut her off flippantly. She looked up at him in surprise. His eyes were glittering and a smile was playing around his lips. She huffed out an annoyed breath. "Setting that aside for now," he continued more diplomatically, "I've brought some textbooks out for us to look through, and I'd like to find at least one more method you can use for disarming. Preferably two."
Mairead followed a gesture of Remus's hand and saw that he had, in fact, set several large tomes out on a coffee table by the fireplace. "Let's take a look and see what we can find," Remus suggested, heading for the table.
Mairead swallowed noisily. The coffee table was sitting in front of one of the couches. She had thought that she would relish an excuse to get out of dueling, but when she considered the herculean task now before her - sitting side-by-side with Remus, breathing the same air, knees and hands brushing up against one another's, perhaps reaching for the same quill to take notes, leaning into the other's space to point something out in one of the books - it seemed impossible.
Mairead decided that the best solution would be for her to sit on the floor across the table from Remus. He looked a bit perplexed by her choice, but did not say anything, merely turning one of the books around so that it was facing her and leaning forward to study his own book.
Mairead could not help but bask in the warm familiarity of this task. They studied in companionable silence, no sound except for the crackling of the fire and the dry shush of the turning pages. Mairead focused most of her energy on the book in front of her, but she had to admit that she stole the occasional look up at Remus.
His soft brown hair was falling into his eyes, which skated back and forth across the pages of the book he was reading, alight with intelligence and purpose. His brows were furrowed in concentration, and Mairead smiled wistfully at the sight of what she had come to think of as his Thinking Line between them. As she watched, he flicked the very tip of his thumb along the edge of the page, then turned it over, his long, graceful hand now reaching up so he could rest his chin as he read.
Mairead wondered what he would do if she stood up, shoved the table aside, pushed him back against the couch, and straddled his hips. She felt a pulse of desire beat through her and forced herself back to her book.
"Anything the matter?"
Mairead looked up, blinking in surprise. "Hmm?" she asked.
"You just sighed rather heavily," Remus said, the corner of his mouth quirking upwards.
"Oh," Mairead said, feeling her cheeks grow warm and scrabbling for an excuse. "I was just... erm... breathing."
She winced a little at her lame response, and at Remus's clear amusement. "Ah," he said, not looking convinced at all. "Well, carry on, by all means. Don't let me stop you."
Mairead pulled her bottom lip into her mouth and bit down. "'Kay," she breathed, returning to her book, determined to concentrate.
She had abandoned her first book and was flipping through the index of another when Remus hummed thoughtfully.
"If the Summoning Charm works," Remus mused, "I wonder if the Banishing Charm would work, as well."
"Depulso?" Mairead clarified. "I don't know if that would work."
"Why not?" Remus asked.
"Well, I tried it on you once before," Mairead confessed, shifting guiltily at the memory that resurfaced. "And it didn't have quite the effect you have in mind."
Remus cocked his head to one side. "What happened?"
"Erm... you kind of... went flying? Across the room? And then I sort of... got upset?"
Remus's eyebrows went up. "Is that what you used?" he laughed. "I always wondered."
Mairead looked down at the table and fiddled with a piece of scrap parchment.
"Let's give it a go, anyway," said Remus decisively, closing his tome and standing up.
Mairead hesitated, then joined him in the middle of the room, wiping the palms of her hands on her jeans. She could not understand why she was so nervous. She must have faced Remus a hundred times by now. And it was not as if she was afraid of him. More, she felt like her whole body was humming, like the sound the speaker of Remus's gramophone made when the table was turning but the needle had not yet been lowered onto the vinyl; she was crackling with anticipation for what the next song would be.
Remus took out his wand and held it loosely in his hands. "When you're ready, try to Banish my wand," he instructed her.
Mairead nodded and tried to clear her mind. She raised her wand and said, "Depulso!"
Just as it had two years earlier, the spell caught Remus straight in the chest, and he was knocked off his feet and halfway across the room. Mairead let out a squeak of distress and covered her face with her hands. Presently, she heard Remus laughing.
"I certainly hope you won't react like that if you're ever up against a true adversary," he teased, pushing himself to his feet. "All right. Let's see if we can't refine that in some way." He walked over to her and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I'm fine, May," he said gently.
Mairead's muscles jumped at the feeling of his warm hand on her. She wanted more than anything to turn and wrap her arms around his neck and make him forget all about Banishing. Instead, swiping one of her hands across her face, she tried to channel her sexual frustration into the task at hand. "I've got another idea," she said. "From when I destroyed my wand."
Remus nodded. "Give it a try," he said, gripping his wand and watching her.
Mairead tried to clear her mind of the image of Remus being blasted by her wand and faced him again. "Depulso, Magicum!"
This time, Remus's wand was ripped from his hand. She heard it clatter to the floor somewhere on the other side of the room. She looked at Remus, wide-eyed with surprise. "It worked!" she cried.
Remus smiled broadly at her. "Well done!" he praised her. "Five poin-"
Remus broke off, his eyes taking on a somewhat panicked look as it occurred to both of them what he had almost said. He turned on his heel and walked briskly away from her, muttering vaguely about needing to find out where his wand had gone. Mairead stood rooted to the spot, unsure what to make of his slip-up. She raised a hand to her face. Her cheeks felt warm to the touch. She hadn't a clue how to address what had just happened, but when Remus straightened up and faced her again, having retrieved his wand from behind a chair, she saw that he had carefully smoothed out his features, removing any trace of embarrassment.
Well, mostly. When he drew closer, Mairead noticed she was not the only one looking flushed.
"Right," he said in a businesslike tone. "So that makes two methods for disarming an opponent. Let's see if we can't round things out with a third option."
He strode back over to Mairead, wand in hand, and Mairead marveled yet again at just how skilled he was at wiping his face entirely blank.
"Er - okay, so, another method for disarming," said Mairead. "Erm... so, how precisely does Expelliarmus work?"
"Well," Remus began slowly. Mairead held her breath. If he started in with his teacher voice now... "It comes from the Latin. 'Expel' meaning to drive out, 'armus' meaning arms, which in this case refers not to the body part but to weapons. So if we put that together, it drives out the weapon of one's opponent. Put practically, it forces one's opponent to drop whatever they are holding."
Ohhh, fuck, he's using his teacher voice. God help me.
"Any thoughts?" Remus asked her lightly.
The problem was not that Mairead was not having any thoughts. The problem was that Mairead's thoughts mainly consisted of an amalgam of memories of the nights they had spent together and schoolgirl fantasies she had harbored for him back at Hogwarts. Her eyes must have slid somewhat out of focus, because Remus peered at her and said, "Are you all right?"
"Yeah," Mairead said, breaking out of her daze. "I'm grand. Erm, okay, so... so it forces the other guy to drop whatever they're holding."
"Correct."
Mairead cast her mind about for a spell that would perform similarly. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to think. She could have sworn they had gone over something very like this in their lessons. Her eyes opened. "Does it work the same way Relashio does?" she asked.
Remus's eyes snapped to hers. "What did we use?" he asked softly.
Mairead pointed her wand at Remus's wand arm. "Liberare," she said.
Remus's wand fell to the ground.
Remus's face lit up in a triumphant grin. Mairead felt herself blushing but couldn't help smiling at the jubilant look on Remus's face. She felt warm all over at the look of pleasure and pride in his dark grey eyes. Their eyes met, and Mairead's breath caught, the smiles fading from their lips the longer they stared into each other's eyes. She was sure he must be able to hear her heart pounding. Could his heightened senses pick up on just how much she wanted him?
Remus blinked and looked away. "The next -" but his voice came out quite hoarse and he had to clear his throat and try again. "The next thing I think we should do is for you to try these in a duel." He stepped away from her and back into the center of the room.
Mairead sighed in exasperation. She looked at the clock over the mantel. "Do we have to do a duel tonight?" she asked pleadingly.
Remus checked his watch. "We still have plenty of time," he said resolutely.
Mairead scoffed. "Like, five minutes!" she protested.
"My watch says there are seven minutes left," Remus said, as if this settled things.
Mairead huffed and rolled her eyes. She muttered darkly to herself as she took her place across the room from Remus.
"Now, remember: try each of the three tactics we discussed tonight," he reminded her.
"Yeah," she said shortly, feeling highly irritated.
They began to duel. After the first two rounds, Mairead begrudgingly admitted to herself that she could see Remus's point. It was one thing to practice these spells when he wasn't doing anything himself. It was another entirely to try to disarm a wand that moved so quickly she oftentimes could not even track its movements through the air.
After the third round, Remus halted. "Try not to broadcast your moves quite so much," he suggested. "Bigger movements are easier to predict, and they're slower, so I have more time to respond. Keep your movements small."
Mairead tried this, but did not fully understand what to do. She became so focused on keeping her movements small that she found herself overthinking each spell she chose. She reached for spells that required less movement, but these were not necessarily the right spells for the occasion, with Remus ramping up the difficulty.
After two more rounds, Remus lowered his wand. "May I show you what I mean?" he asked. Mairead looked up at a peculiar note in his voice. He sounded hesitant, uncertain almost.
She nodded and watched him walk towards her. "Here," he said softly, stepping behind her. Mairead felt her heart give an embarrassing and uncomfortable flip-flop in her chest when Remus placed one hand on her shoulder and wrapped the other around the fingers gripping her wand.
"Your movements are all correct," Remus's voice sounded in her ear. She shivered at the gentle rumble she could feel through her back. "But they're larger than they need to be. For example, the Summoning Charm does call for the arc you're using, but it will work just as well if your arc is only this big -" Here, he guided her hand in a graceful, efficient movement. "Do you feel how much quicker that is?" he asked in her ear. "How much less energy it wastes?"
Mairead swallowed thickly and nodded.
"Let's try another," Remus said. "The Banishing Charm's movement is the mirror image of the Summoning Charm. Show me how you can make it smaller."
Mairead mustered up the few remaining fragments of her sanity and tried to mimic what she thought would be the mirror image of the motion he had guided her to use for the Summoning Charm.
"Yes, exactly," he praised her, and Mairead thought it a miracle that she didn't die right there on the spot. "Do you want to go over any others, or -"
"Remus?"
The sound came out tiny and pathetic, but it was the best Mairead could do. She twisted her torso around so that she could look over her shoulder at Remus. His jaw was tense and she saw his throat muscles bob up and down when he swallowed.
"Mairead," he said without meeting her eye. His voice was hoarse again. "I - I think it would be best if we tried to separate our, er - well, if we tried to maintain some professional -"
"Remus," she repeated.
Remus's eyes flitted around the room as though trying to find something else to focus on. He continued on rapidly as though she hadn't spoken. "Really, I think you'll agree that maintaining professional boundaries while we're working together - followed, perhaps, by a one to two hour cooldown period before we -"
"Remus."
Mairead was begging. She was begging and she didn't care.
Remus pulled in a shaky breath and finally let his eyes land on her.
"Oh, hell," he growled.
Gripping her firmly with both hands, he spun her around to face him, pulled her close, and captured her lips in a searing kiss.
Mairead whimpered. Desire crashed over her like a wave striking a tiny boat on the water. She reached up and tangled her fingers in Remus's hair. He groaned into her mouth, his hands going to her waist. Her top had ridden up when she had lifted her arms, and his fingers immediately found skin, causing Mairead to emit a feral-sounding noise and press her body as close to Remus as she could get. Remus flattened his hands on her back at the same time as he tilted his head and swept his tongue into her mouth.
Mairead's knees gave out, but Remus was ready for it. He tightened his arms around her until she got her feet back under herself, never letting up his assault on her lips. He turned them both and began to walk Mairead backwards across the room. Mairead squeaked when her back hit a hard surface. Without breaking the kiss, Remus reached down and lifted her onto the table. Mairead sucked in a choked gasp.
Remus began tipping her backwards then, leaving a burning trail of kisses down her throat to her chest as he lowered her back onto the table. Remus kissed her through her clothing, his hands returning to the hem of her jumper and beginning to push it up.
"Wait," Mairead gasped, pushing feebly at Remus's shoulders.
Remus immediately stopped and looked up at her. The way he looked almost made Mairead forget her own name. His cheeks were flushed, his hair was mussed, his clothing was rumpled, and his eyes - his eyes were positively wild.
"What's the matter?" he asked. His voice was breathless and husky.
"Erm," said Mairead, feeling dazed. "...I don't remember."
Remus flashed her a wolfish grin. "Okay, then," he said, and promptly returned to his task of pushing her top up her stomach.
He dropped to his knees, kissing her belly and her ribs, his fingers finding the button of her jeans.
Mairead squirmed away. "Wait," she said a little more insistently.
Remus blew out a small huff of air, but obediently pulled away again. Mairead was worried he would be annoyed with her, but instead he reached a hand up and tenderly stroked her face. "Are you all right, sweetheart?" he asked softly.
"I, erm -" Mairead said faintly. Her arousal was making it difficult to think. "S-should we be doing this, erm, here?"
Remus glanced around the room, one eyebrow raised. "You're the one who simply couldn't wait until our lessons were finished," he said.
Was it just her, or was he using his teacher voice?
His lips were curling slightly, and Mairead's heart stuttered when it dawned on her that he was teasing her. He dipped his head and kissed her belly just above the button to her denims. "If we don't make it out of this room..." he said in a low, mock-scolding voice, and turned his head to kiss her hip through the fabric, "then it is my opinion..." he turned his head and kissed her other hip, "that you've got no one to blame..." he looked up at her, eyes bold and seductive, "but yourself." He ducked his head and attached his mouth to her.
Mairead stuffed a fist into her mouth to stifle the animalistic sound trying to fight its way out of her. "Remus!" she squealed. She could hear him chuckle - could feel the vibration of it against her - and thought she might just come undone with nothing but that. She wanted him so badly - had never stopped wanting him - that she would have been nearly content to let him take her on top of the table as they were. But then, this was their first time in months.
"Please," she whimpered, reaching a hand down and resting it on Remus's fingers, which had finished flicking open the button on her jeans and were now lowering the zipper. "Please Remus."
Remus looked up and took his hands off her at the note in her voice. "Of course I'll stop if you want me to stop, May," he said, all playfulness dropped now.
Mairead reached for him and he followed the tugging of her arms until they were eye level again, concern overtaking the lust in his eyes. "What's wrong, sweet girl?" he murmured, raking a hand through her hair and kissing her temple.
Mairead's mouth sought his and he kissed her gently, his lips whispering over her own. "Please," she breathed. "Take me to bed?" She pulled away and looked entreatingly at him. "Our bed?"
Something in Remus's expression changed. She wasn't entirely sure what it was, but what was quite obvious was that he liked what she had said. A lot.
He stood and guided her to wrap her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his hips, lifting her off the desk and into his arms. He kissed her and turned them on the spot. When he pulled away, Mairead opened her eyes and saw that he had Apparated them to his room - now their room. He walked over to the bed, rested one knee on the mattress, and carefully lowered her down, gently pressing her back into the bed. "Is this better?" he purred, kissing her just under her ear.
Mairead hummed and arched into his lips. "Thank you," she said quietly.
Remus regarded her with soft eyes. "God, I would do anything for you," he whispered.
Mairead's heart felt like it was at risk of bursting out of her throat. She reached for him and pulled him down on top of her, fumbling around for the buttons on his shirt.
Remus undressed Mairead reverently, like she was a precious gift he wanted to savor every moment of unwrapping. He skated his hands across her body, exposing it with aching slowness, pressing kisses and whispered endearments into her skin as he went.
Mairead had none of his temperance. She tore feverishly at his clothing, desperate for the feeling of his skin against hers. Remus laughed softly at her impatience. Mairead froze, though, when after a particularly insistent tug at his shirt, a button popped off, ricocheted off the headboard with a ping, and disappeared out of sight.
Mairead looked at Remus, mouth and eyes both round with dismay. "Sorry," she said in a tiny voice.
"Oh, no!" Remus lamented. "That was my last button!"
Mairead scrambled to flip herself over in the bed and began searching the bedclothes. "I'll find it!" she said. "I'm sorry! I'll find it!"
She lifted the pillows she had been resting on, looking underneath, and was sweeping a hand across the surface of his bedside table, feeling for the button, when she heard a snort. She twisted back to look at him and saw that he had buried his face in her side, warm air tickling her skin as he laughed.
"Forgive me," he said, still chuckling. "I was only teasing."
Mairead blushed, but couldn't quite bring herself to be annoyed when his eyes were dancing with mirth and affection.
"You gobshite," she said, pulling an angry face at him, which only served to redouble his laughter.
Remus propped himself up on his elbows and brushed her curls away from her face. "You Irish certainly are gullible," he said fondly.
Mairead wrinkled her nose in pretend distaste. "You English certainly are sadistic," she rejoined.
Remus crawled back on top of her and ground his hips into hers. "You know perfectly well that I'm not English; I'm Welsh," he growled, nibbling on her ear as he spoke.
Mairead's voice was quite breathy when she gasped, "You know perfectly well that I don't give a damn."
Despite both his languid pace and the fact that he stopped once to silence the room and perform the Contraceptive Charm, Remus managed to have Mairead completely undressed before she had even managed to undo his belt. He kissed each of her hands sweetly and finished the job himself, smirking at the look of unmitigated ardor on Mairead's face as she stared hungrily at his naked form.
"Ohh, my sweet girl," he hissed beneath his breath, sliding his hands from her thighs, past her hips, up her stomach, over her breasts, to finally slip beneath her shoulders and hold her while he lowered his body to hers.
Mairead whimpered and moaned as Remus took his sweet time enjoying her body, teasing her with kisses that tickled, nibbles that made her arch, and burning glances that took her breath away.
"Please," she whispered, reaching for his hips.
"Patience," Remus murmured, flicking his tongue into the dip in her throat.
Mairead bucked her hips against him. "Remus, please!" she groaned. She reached her hands down, but he caught both hands deftly and held them over her head.
"All in good time," he purred.
"No, all in good now!" she said petulantly, not caring that she was making no sense.
Remus laughed. "Oh, all right," he sighed. He rolled slightly off her and reached a hand down, but Mairead squirmed unhappily.
"No, I want -" She gave him a significant look that she knew he could interpret.
His mouth twitched with amusement. "Someone's in a hurry," he commented, using his fingertips to draw idle patterns on her belly.
Mairead could feel herself blushing, but she was so mad with desire she could barely see, so she said, "You English really are sadistic, you know that?"
Remus threw his head back and laughed. "I'm not trying to torment you, you know," he said.
"Then will you please just - argh!" Mairead reached for him and tried to pull him back on top of her. Remus complied, but still did not do what she wanted him to do.
"It's been a while, May," he said, stroking her hair and watching her as he spoke. "I'm worried there may be some discomfort if I don't get you ready."
"I don't care!" Mairead's voice came out as a throaty sob. "Please, I need you - please!"
Remus's eyes searched hers intently. After several long moments he sighed. "Stop me if it hurts," he said.
Mairead closed her eyes and held her breath, waiting for the intoxicating feeling of fullness. Remus moved slowly and carefully, watching her closely for signs of pain.
Before long, Mairead began whimpering and crying out at the sensations he was expertly creating.
Remus leaned in close and kissed her neck, leaving tiny love bites along her skin and making Mairead keen at the sensation. She had forgotten all about her uncertainty. Her body remembered what Remus liked.
Mairead's cries grew shrill and breathy. She had only just begun to notice Remus's rhythm beginning to roughen when he leaned down and kissed her, hard. "Are you going to come for me, my sweet girl?" he asked in a low voice. "Go on, May. Come for me."
"I - I -" Lights exploded behind Mairead's eyelids. Her back arched off the bed as a loud, broken wail tore out of her throat. She dimly heard Remus moaning deeply, coming seconds behind her, riding out their shared ecstasy.
His movements slowed and came to a stop when the strongest waves passed. Remus carefully lowered himself to rest on top of Mairead and curled his arms around her. He held her firmly in a way she found massively comforting. "Are you all right, May?" he asked gently. She loved the way his voice sounded when he was out of breath.
Mairead wrapped her own arms around Remus's back and mumbled her answer into his chest.
Remus laughed, a short, uncomfortable sound. At first, Mairead thought it was because of the way she had slurred her response to his question, but then he said, "Mairead. I hate to have to point this out to you right now, but you're naked. In bed. With me. We just finished having sex that I very much hope you found to be as spectacular as I did, and I'm rather hoping for a repeat performance later on tonight... Do you think it would be at all possible for you to dispense with the formalities?"
"Huh?" Mairead looked at him in confusion.
"You just said, 'yes, sir.'"
Mairead's eyes widened in horror. Remus did not look pleased. "Oh, God," she muttered. "I - I - I have to go sew my mouth shut now."
She wished the ground would open and suck her into the earth. She wished the bedclothes would come alive and mummify her where she lay. She hid her face in her hands, and could feel the skin on her cheeks burning with mortification. Had she already ruined things? Again? What on God's green earth was the matter with her? Sir?!
To her extreme surprise, she heard Remus laughing. "I really do hope you'll reconsider sewing your mouth shut," he said. "As I'm rather fond of the sound of your voice."
Mairead peeked out from between her fingers. Remus still looked a little troubled, but he was smiling. Cautiously, ready to hide again at any moment, Mairead lowered her hands.
"Are you mad?" she said in a tiny voice.
Remus's smile grew. "No, darling, I'm not mad," he reassured her.
"I'm so sorry!" Mairead cried. "I don't know what's wrong with me! You must think I'm some sort of freakish, pathetic, insane -"
"I think you're lovely and sweet and I am extremely flattered that you have harbored a crush on me all these years," Remus cut her off.
Mairead blinked rapidly in surprise.
Remus sighed. "I won't deny that I am... still working through how I feel about... er... how we met," he said delicately. "But I suppose if we're going to have any real shot at this, I'm going to have to come to grips with the fact that you've had feelings for me rather longer than I had initially understood."
Mairead waited, rolling around in her brain what he had said. A real shot at this? As in, a relationship? A real one?
"And besides," Remus added with a guilty smile, "I'm the one who tried to award you points earlier this evening, so it would be more than a little hypocritical of me to hold you accountable for slipping up."
Mairead laughed awkwardly at the memory.
"Will you forgive me for being such a prat?" Remus asked.
Mairead gazed up at him, feeling her heart swell with emotion. "You're not a prat!" she said. "You're wonderful and perfect and I - I -" She wanted to tell him how much she loved him, but she wasn't sure whether she was allowed to yet. She decided she had already made herself look young and immature enough, and fell silent.
Remus ran a hand through her hair. "Oh, May," he breathed.
He kissed her then. It was wonderful. And perfect.
And she loved him so very much.
Mairead and Remus were... not quite as productive over the next few days as they would have liked to have been. Mairead did her best to keep her mind on their work, she really did. But they had been apart for so long, and she was so happy to be back together with him, that she often found herself becoming distracted by his smile, or his hands, or the sound of his voice.
Of course, it didn't help that Remus could smell arousal on her. More often than not, their lessons imploded around the halfway mark, and they wound up propped against whatever surface was nearest, kissing and whispering, hands seeking a way between layers of clothing, and their lessons ended with a sharp inhale followed by a helpless sigh.
Finally at midweek Remus announced that either they must control themselves or he was going to start inviting Sirius to chaperone their meetings.
"I don't need a chaperone!" Mairead said hotly, putting her hands on her hips and turning her back on him.
"Well, clearly I do," Remus replied, wrapping his arms around her from behind and pulling her earlobe between his teeth.
Mairead's indignant response came out as garbled gibberish. She reached back and ran her fingers through his hair. His hands slid up her stomach to palm her breasts.
"We're supposed to be practicing disarming spells," said Remus, speaking sternly as though he were not the one nibbling her skin.
"Why are you so obsessed with those anyway?" asked Mairead breathlessly, unsure how much longer her knees were going to hold out.
"These? Because they're soft and they're pretty and they're the perfect size," Remus said, reaching up her jumper then.
"Fuck," Mairead hissed, craning her head back to seek his lips. Twisting around, she gave him a hearty push. He landed on the couch, pulling her down with him. "That's not what I meant," she said haughtily, climbing into his lap and shifting her skirt so that she could straddle his legs.
"Oh, I do beg your pardon," said Remus, his eyes alight with mischief. "What, pray tell, am I so obsessed with?" His hands went up her skirt and began tickling her thighs.
"Disarming spells," Mairead muttered, distracted by the task of undoing Remus's belt. It was the brown one whose clasp always gave her trouble.
"I have a -" he broke off into an unintelligible grunt when Mairead finally succeeded in undoing his trousers. His head fell back and she hungrily watched the way his mouth fell open and his facial muscles contracted in pleasure. His chest was heaving.
Remus abruptly removed his hand from Mairead's leg and reached for his wand. "We have to -" he panted, but Mairead interrupted him.
"Already done."
Remus cocked his head slightly. "When?" he asked curiously.
"While you were going on about Summoning Charms," she shrugged.
Remus looked like he was teetering on the edge of making a fuss about her not paying attention, and so she quickly redoubled her efforts. His eyes slid out of focus and his head fell to the back of the couch again.
Mairead smiled a little, satisfied smile to herself. She made to slip off his lap and onto the floor to give him more attention, but he sprang suddenly to life, catching her by the elbows. "That won't be necessary," he said shortly. And pushing his trousers and pants out of the way, he lifted Mairead by the hips and lowered her onto him.
Mairead braced her hands on the back of the couch for leverage, feeling him rest his hands lightly on her sides and carefully match her movements. He was still so very gentle with her. She always got the sense that he was holding back when they made love, like he thought he would break her if he truly relinquished control. She recalled that one, incredible time in her potions lab when he had not been entirely in control of himself. She knew they both had very different feelings about that day, but she secretly hoped that she would get to see that side of him again. With that in mind, she leaned in and suckled on his throat in the way she knew drove him crazy.
Sure enough, Remus's grip on her ribs tightened convulsively, and he moaned gutturally. Mairead felt like a violin string being tightened and tightened.
With a strangled cry, she snapped. Her head swam and she nearly tumbled backwards off the couch. To his everlasting credit, Remus did not laugh at her, but effortlessly caught her and pulled her back into the protective circle of his arms, whispering, "I've got you." He took over then, until his arms tightened around her and he came with her name on his lips.
Mairead lay in Remus's arms, both of them trembling and breathing heavily. Eventually Remus turned his head and began kissing Mairead's hair.
"What were we talking about?" Mairead asked groggily.
"You were informing me that you are not in need of a chaperone," Remus supplied wryly.
"Oh, right." Mairead pulled away enough to look at Remus, but kept her arms around his neck, playing with his downy hair. "You were going to explain to me why you're so obsessed with disarming spells."
Remus cocked an eyebrow. "Are you going to listen this time, or are you going to distract us both again?"
Mairead pulled her lips into her mouth and bit down, looking away shyly. She had rather hoped that Remus might forget that this particular tryst was her doing. "I'm listening," she said meekly.
Remus gingerly shifted her off his lap and they took a moment to fix their clothing. When they were decent again, Remus said, "I have an idea that has been forming in my mind ever since we dueled the night of the full moon."
Mairead blanched at the memory. "I'm really sorry about that night, Remus," she said in a low, ashamed voice. "I... I completely lost my head. I'm so sorry."
Remus gave her a quizzical look. "There's nothing to be sorry for, Mairead," he said.
"Still," said Mairead, "I won't ever do that again, I promise."
"I'm not angry," he said. "And I fervently hope you don't keep your promise never to do what you did again."
Mairead furrowed her brow. "What? Why?" she asked.
Remus raised his eyebrows at her. "Because that was the first duel I've lost in recent memory," he said.
Mairead shook her head. "But..." she said slowly, "No. That didn't count."
"Why didn't it count?"
"Because - because it didn't. I didn't use my wand. I - I kicked you and... stuff."
Remus cocked his head to one side. "Mairead," he said in his teacher voice. "What is the objective of dueling?"
"To render your opponent incapable of continuing their attack," Mairead rattled off. It was automatic, after having repeated it back to him so many times at Hogwarts.
"Then how did that not count as winning the duel?" Remus challenged.
Mairead's mouth opened and shut like she was a beached fish. "Well - y-you weren't really trying," she stammered. "You were going easy on me."
"Not by the end," he countered. "I was trying to end the duel. I could tell your anger was affecting your ability to think, and I was worried you were going to get hurt. By the time I had you backed against the wall I was not holding back."
Mairead's mind was automatically looking for reasons she had not legitimately won the duel. "But... but you weren't expecting it. You weren't prepared. I caught you off-guard."
Remus leaned forward then and took Mairead by both of her shoulders. "I need you to hear me, Mairead," he said in a low voice, staring her straight in the eyes. "You won that duel. It doesn't matter that you were angry. It doesn't matter that it was just for practice. You won a duel against me at full power. I know you're searching for a way to invalidate this, but I need you to hear that."
Mairead mulled this over in silence. "Okay," she said after a silence. "But what's that got to do with Summoning Charms?"
"Don't you see?" Remus was smiling now. "You won the duel because you've found the ultimate workaround." As if he could not contain his emotions sitting down, Remus stood and spoke animatedly while pacing the room. "The long and short of your disability is that you cannot access your defensive branch of magic. And so you learned another form of defense, one that even the most hardened Death Eater - indeed, especially the most hardened Death Eater - won't know the first thing about." Remus stopped in front of her, his face alight with excitement. "Muggle Self-Defense."
Mairead sat up straighter. She watched Remus, transfixed both with exhilaration and with fear at the thought he was shaping in front of her.
"Muggle dueling is considered bad form in wizarding society," continued Remus. "It is frowned upon as crass and dishonorable, something done only by the inexperienced, or those of impure heritage. As a result, it is not taught, particularly among purebloods. You won the duel because you got my wand away from me. And I, like most wizards, haven't the slightest clue how to mount a decent attack without it." Remus became breathless as he concluded, "If you can learn how to disarm people in a duel, Mairead..."
"I might stand a chance," she finished in a hushed voice.
Remus's eyes shone. "More than a chance," he said.
They stared at one another, hope forming like a fragile bubble in the air.
"So... so what now?" asked Mairead.
Remus's mouth twitched. "Now I want you to get up and show me exactly how you kicked my arse the other day."
Inspired by Remus's faith in her, Mairead threw herself into her lessons wholeheartedly. They met every day that she wasn't working and he wasn't guarding the Department of Mysteries or away doing what she had taken to referring to as "spy stuff" for the Order. Mairead had finally scheduled her follow-up dinner with Gus, and met his boyfriend, Laurence. Though it had eaten at her to use her friendship with Gus for her own purposes, Mairead had subtly plied Laurence with alcohol and flattery until he had sung like a phoenix, and now the Order had more information on both the Giddiness Curse and the spell that Dumbledore had taken to calling "The Curse of Erised," as well as what Moody referred to as, "a pretty little list of shiny, pink Death Eaters" to investigate. But while Remus was frequently off spying on these suspected Death Eaters, he still carved out plenty of time to put Mairead through her paces.
Within a week, Mairead could perform the three alternative disarming spells in her sleep. Remus had her practice the spells nonverbally, without her wand, and at various distances from him. The second week, they started incorporating the spells into duels. By the end of the third week, she was battered, bruised, and sore in muscles she didn't even know she had. But she could also successfully disarm Remus in a duel about a quarter of the time. At first, Mairead was discouraged by this estimate, but Remus firmly maintained that she was being too hard on herself.
"Mairead, I couldn't be happier with what you are capable of at this point," he told her. "You are facing me at full-strength and winning a quarter of the time. That is, quite frankly, astounding to me."
Privately, Mairead still held her fears that none of this would matter in a true life-or-death duel, but she put her faith in Remus and her heart into working as hard as she possibly could. They didn't stop at the one hour mark anymore, but often worked long into the night, until Mairead eventually dropped from exhaustion. On those nights, Remus would carry her lovingly to their room - which Mairead had officially moved all of her things into - help her change into her pyjamas, and climb into bed beside her.
Their aggressive training regimen had its advantages and drawbacks. One major drawback that Mairead frequently grumbled about was that Remus worked her so hard that she was often left with no energy at the end of the night for lovemaking. On the other hand, one of the fringe benefits that Mairead and Remus privately agreed was a considerable plus was that their training had attracted the interest of Sirius.
After Harry went back to Hogwarts, Sirius had sunk into a gloomy depression that no one had been able to rouse him from. He had been spending increasing amounts of his time sulking in his room, and when he emerged he was subdued at best, combative at worst. One evening, Mairead privately confided to Remus that she was deeply concerned for their friend.
"I think he's taking the breakout from Azkaban kind of hard," she said. "I think... it might bother him, the way everybody thinks he was involved. The way they think the Death Eaters all rallied around him."
Remus sighed. "I agree," he said softly. "I suspect he initially hoped that the breakout would be the push Fudge needed to admit that Dumbledore wasn't making things up. I think he hoped this would be the first step towards getting his name cleared. But instead..."
"He's just been vilified all over again," Mairead said softly.
"Yes, exactly," said Remus, looking at her thoughtfully. Mairead stared fretfully at the carpet, hurting for her friend. Remus reached out and tipped her head back with a finger under her chin. "He'll be all right," he said firmly. "Sirius is a very strong man. He'll get through this."
A few days later, after a Banishing Spell went off-course, bounced off a mirror, hit Remus in the back, and sent him hurtling into the fireplace with a deafening smash, Sirius burst into the room, drawn, no doubt, by Mairead's panicked shrieking. Once he had returned to consciousness, Remus quickly recovered from his flight, but Mairead was too shaken and tearful to continue, so instead of continuing the lesson, Remus pulled her quivering form into his arms and struck up a conversation with Sirius.
Sirius, it turned out, had been dying of curiosity about their lessons but had not wanted to intrude. It seemed that, while Sirius had been absorbed in his own unhappiness, he had still maintained enough awareness to notice how poorly Mairead's lesson with Tonks had gone off, and had decided that respecting Mairead's privacy was more important than satisfying his curiosity.
Mairead listened to the two men talk from within the safe comfort of Remus's arms and thought about what Sirius had said. She had truly hated having Tonks witness how inept she was. But how much of that experience had been a result of embarrassment due to having someone else in the room with herself and Remus, and how much had been a result of feeling blindsided and ganged up on?
Mairead decided to talk to Remus about it, and when Sirius left the room, Mairead asked Remus what he would think about inviting Sirius to join in on their lessons.
Remus's eyebrows went up. "I was actually thinking of a way to broach that topic with you myself," he admitted. "I know that you had a bad experience working with Tonks, but I do think it would be a good idea for you to get practice dueling other people. Everyone has their own style of dueling, and I don't want you to become so used to going up against me that you lose the ability to adapt to others."
"I wouldn't mind if Sirius came," she said, scratching her chin thoughtfully. "And I mean - it might be good for him. To have something to do, I mean," she added quickly. "I don't mean that I think, like, he needs practice or anything."
Remus smiled. "I know what you mean," he said. "And... I won't lie and say that the thought didn't cross my mind, as well. But I don't want you to agree to this for his sake. Do it for yourself, or don't do it at all."
Mairead decided that she wanted to be the one to invite Sirius. He was elated when she spoke with him. She felt a jab of guilt when it occurred to her that Sirius was probably feeling quite left out of the goings on in his own house - which must have only compounded his feelings of being left out of the Order as a whole. She told herself for his sake that she would not let her own self-consciousness and feelings of inadequacy stop her from including Sirius.
In the end, it was not a concern, though. Sirius turned out to be a fantastic addition to their lessons. He had already learned on his own how to be sensitive to Mairead's feelings when it came to her disability, and she never felt embarrassed or demeaned the way she had when Tonks had worked with her. He was fascinated by the workarounds she and Remus had developed, but he never made Mairead feel like she was a freak, or a circus attraction. Rather, she was surprised to discover that his interest in the creative ways Mairead had found to navigate the magical world as a Partial Squib bolstered her self-esteem. What was more, as Remus had indicated, Sirius had a very different style of dueling from Remus, and Mairead immediately saw the benefits to going up against more than one person.
After several days of facing off against both men, Mairead concluded that, while Remus was far and away the better teacher of the two, Sirius was more fun to duel. He relished teasing and ribbing Mairead as they dueled, which frequently resulted in her laughing while they volleyed spells back and forth. He also seemed to get far more enjoyment out of dueling than Remus did. Sirius's unbridled joy while they were dueling was contagious, and soon the atmosphere inside Grimmauld Place felt lighter than it had in ages.
Mairead could not claim total credit for the boost to Sirius's mood, however. On the last Monday in February, word reached headquarters about an interview that Harry had given to The Quibbler, a tabloid magazine Mairead had always thought of as complete rubbish. In the article, Harry recounted his experience watching You-Know-Who return to his body.
Sirius was elated by his godson's daring. It was all he could talk about all week, and every time someone stopped by Grimmauld Place for any reason, they were waylaid by Sirius, who pulled them into excited conversation about the interview.
For her part, Mairead did her best to reflect Sirius's happiness, but in truth, reading Harry's account of what had happened made her feel like she had been run through with a sword. For the first time, she knew the full story of what had happened to Cedric. All this time, she had wanted to know, thought she needed to know if she was ever to make peace with his death. She had thought that, if she only knew exactly what had happened to him, she would gain closure. But when she read what Harry had said about Cedric's murder - the way he was disposed of like he was a piece of garbage, like he was just in the way, like his life and his spirit and his entire being meant less than nothing - she became so distraught that she brought a panic attack on herself, and had to go hide in a dark, unused room. Remus found her, hours later, and seemed to understand instantly what was going on.
"D-don't tell Sirius!" she sobbed into his shoulder. "Pl-please don't t-tell him. He's s-so h-happy."
Remus hugged her and rocked her and kissed her tear-soaked eyelids, and that evening, he even broke his rule about not sleeping in the same room as Mairead in the week preceding the full moon - he had insisted on Mairead staying in their room while he had been sleeping on a spare bed - and held her close the whole long, restless night.
Remus kept his promise not to tell Sirius, but he stayed very close to Mairead for the rest of the week - even closer than had become his custom - and every time Sirius brought up The Quibbler article when she was around, cleverly found a way to change the subject.
There was nothing Remus could do to protect her on the night of the next Order meeting, however. With the days still short, they had held their lesson earlier in the day, and by the time the meeting began Remus was already far away in Yorkshire, awaiting his transformation. Mairead avoided entering the kitchen for as long as she could, certain that everyone would be talking about Harry's interview. Unfortunately, by the time she slipped into the room, there were few seats left over, forcing her to sit beside Snape.
She sat and picked at her beleaguered cuticles, focusing on the sound of her breath and trying to shut out Sirius, Bill, Tonks, Hestia, and Mundungus talking enthusiastically about Harry's interview. Even Professors Flitwick and Sprout were joining in. Mairead wasn't aware how loudly she'd sighed until she heard a quiet chuckle from beside her.
"It is refreshing to see that someone else finds all this talk of Potter's rash actions tiresome," came Snape's cold voice.
Mairead looked around in surprise. "Oh," she said softly. "Erm, yeah, kind of."
Snape's lip curled. "Perhaps if he spent less time signing autographs and giving interviews he would have the time to devote to actually putting in an effort in Occlumency," he said scornfully. "Instead I find myself wasting time I don't have trying to knock some knowledge into his thick skull."
Mairead bit her lip. She hardly wanted to appear to side with Snape, especially when it came to his markedly low opinion of Harry. She may have been experiencing the fresh pain of having the thin scab that had formed in her heart over Cedric's death ripped off, but she had already learned her lesson about resenting Harry just because he had had the ill fortune to bear witness to the death of her best friend. Instead, she decided to say, "I'm sorry you're so busy."
"Look at him," said Snape, glaring over at Sirius, who seemed to be having a grand time bragging about his beloved godson. "Sitting over there holding court like he owns the place." (He does own the place, Mairead thought to herself.) "He has no idea what it is like to truly put oneself at risk. He has no idea the work his precious, arrogant, pig-headed ward causes me. And yet he sits there -"
Dumbledore arrived them, sparing Mairead having to learn just how Sirius sitting there was offending Snape.
Naturally, the first order of business was the article in The Quibbler. Dumbledore explained that Harry had received a week's worth of detentions from Umbridge for giving the interview, and that The Quibbler had been banned from Hogwarts grounds on pain of expulsion.
"Of course, this has had the happy consequence of everyone at Hogwarts reading the article," Professor Flitwick piped up cheerily, to laughter and scattered applause.
Mairead stared down at the table and traced the grain with her fingertips, wishing more than anything that Remus could be there - or better, that she could be in Yorkshire with him. She released a long breath when the meeting finally moved on to another topic.
Unfortunately, that topic was the Death Eaters' escape from Azkaban. There hadn't been so much as a sighting of them anywhere. Beside her, Snape spoke up and explained that the reason for this was because He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named was hiding the escapees at the Lestranges' country estate, the same place where The Dark Lord himself was hiding. Mairead felt a shiver run across her shoulders at the realization that she was sitting next to someone who had probably very recently been in the same room as her father.
Snape continued to give his report on his meetings with The Dark Lord. It appeared as though Snape was still being kept somewhat at a distance, though he still managed to glean a fair amount even from his lower position in the hierarchy.
"We appreciate your sharing the information you have been able to gather, Severus," Dumbledore said seriously.
"What little information," Sirius added snidely.
Snape's eyes flashed with anger before his face smoothed itself back into a look of impassive superiority. "I am doing my best, headmaster," Snape said, silkily. "It certainly is helpful to hear that all of my work is a boon to the Order, even if it means I am stretched far thinner than other members of the Order, who seem to be content with doing virtually nothing."
Sirius pushed himself straighter in his chair and looked like he was gearing up for a fight, but Dumbledore stepped in smoothly with, "I thank everyone for doing precisely what I have asked of them." To the rest of the group, he added, "Severus has also kindly agreed to teach Harry Occlumency this term, in the hopes that he will be able to shut out the nightmares he has been having."
"'Kind' might be stretching it a bit far," Sirius commented in a would-be mild voice to the ceiling.
Snape eyed Sirius with a nasty look before saying, "Yes, I have been kept quite busy with all of the work I have been doing outside of headquarters. And this is in addition to my full-time position teaching, mind. I have found that I scarcely have time to prepare the materials I need for my lessons."
Mairead's gaze was shooting back and forth across the table, trying to determine the likelihood that a fight was going to break out between the two men in front of Dumbledore and everyone. Before she could speculate any further, though, Dumbledore gave a little frown and said, "This is news to me, Severus. Are you having trouble keeping up with your classes?"
Snape looked a little caught-out, as though he had half-forgotten that the wizard he was speaking to was also his boss. "There is a fair amount of preparatory work that goes into Potions classes," he said, his tone sounding somewhat defensive. "Preparing ingredients and such."
"Ah, well, I'm sure we can find you help there," Dumbledore said cheerfully. "Mairead, you have proven yourself more than capable of handling your potions. Would you be willing to assist Professor Snape with his preparatory classwork?"
Mairead's mouth fell open, unprepared to have been called on in the meeting, and more than a little uncomfortable with the look of boiling resentment that was beginning to seethe on the face of the man next to her. "Erm... sure?" she squeaked. "I mean, if Professor Snape wants my help?"
Snape looked as though he would rather French kiss a dementor than accept the help of a Squib who may or may not have drugged his wine recently, but Dumbledore sat back in his chair and briskly said, "There! Another problem solved with communication and teamwork. Thank you very much, indeed, Mairead. Severus? I will leave it to you to delegate tasks to Mairead."
"Thank you, Headmaster," said Snape sourly.
Privately, Mairead thought that she had never heard a 'thank you' sound so much like a 'fuck you.'
The world was a dark and difficult place. Remus had suffered losses he could never have fathomed, had spent most of his adult life living hand-to-mouth on the edge of a society that did not want him, and he and his compatriots were forced to work from the shadows trying to stop the second rise of a wizard so evil no one even wanted to speak his name. His best friend was all but a prisoner in his own home, the woman he loved lived in fear for her life, and he himself was currently lying face down on the dirt floor of his basement, having just suffered through his second excruciating transformation of the night.
And yet, as Remus painfully got his hands underneath his shoulders and, with great effort, pressed himself up onto his heels, it occurred to him that he was the happiest he had been in decades.
He had definitely pulled a few muscles in his back and legs. His mouth and throat were as dry as if he had swallowed a mouthful of sand. His head throbbed like someone was beating a drum inside his skull.
Remus thought of wrapping his arms around Mairead and burying his face in her hair, and smiled widely.
He winced. His lips were so dry from dehydration that his bottom lip had split when he smiled.
He wondered if Mairead would kiss it better.
These thoughts sustained him on the slow, painful trek up the stairs and into his kitchen. He guzzled down glass after glass of water until his head cleared enough to allow him to Apparate back to Grimmauld Place.
Mairead was waiting for him when he walked in. She looked drowsy, like she had been dozing on her perch on the steps, but she smiled shyly and pushed herself to her feet at the sight of him. Remus pulled her into his arms and sighed at the tension melting out of his shoulders.
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, he thought blissfully, his lips seeking hers out. He didn't even care that he could hear someone coming down the stairs. He pulled Mairead closer and drank her sighs like wine. A clap on his shoulder made him break the kiss.
"Morning, Moony," said Sirius briskly. "How was it?"
"Average," Remus answered, struggling to pull his eyes away from Mairead. She regarded him dreamily, like she was half-asleep, and he was so bewitched he couldn't fully remember how to take a deep breath. Beside him, he heard Sirius snort.
"All right, I'll leave you to your snogging session and get started on breakfast," said Sirius. "But just know that Molly and Arthur spent the night, so you might want to wait to start shagging until you get yourselves someplace more private."
Mairead blinked and looked over at Sirius, breaking the spell she had Remus under. "I already made breakfast," she said. "It's down there keeping warm."
Sirius raised his eyebrows. "How long have you been awake, Gryffindor?"
Mairead looked down and began fussing with the breast pocket of Remus's shirt. She made a noncommittal sound and shrugged one shoulder.
Remus cupped her face in one hand. "Did you get any sleep last night, May?" he asked softly.
Mairead avoided his eyes. In a tiny voice, she said, "I was thinking that m-maybe I could lie down next to you? For a few hours before work, maybe?"
Remus's heart felt like it was melting and seeping down between his ribs. "That would be lovely," he said, leaning forward to kiss her hair. "Why don't you go upstairs now and I'll meet you up there after breakfast?"
Mairead smiled sweetly and nodded. Remus had to remind himself how to relax his fingers so he could let her go. He watched her walk up the stairs, admiring the way her small hand slid up the banister, the way her ratty old t-shirt fell across her shoulder blades.
Sirius clicked his tongue. "You have got it bad, Moony," he commented.
Remus smiled and rolled his eyes, choosing not to comment. He followed Sirius down the stairs to the kitchen, and made a mental note to spend more time getting to know Mairead's shoulder blades.
"How was the meeting?" he asked, noting with displeasure how raspy his voice was.
"Oh, you know," said Sirius, sitting down beside Remus and tilting his chair back. "Umbridge is an ugly old hag, Snape's a walking, talking toerag..."
"And you are preparing to launch a new career in hate poetry, I see," Remus commented dryly, taking a sip of the tea Mairead had prepared for him and sighing with satisfaction.
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you -
"Hey, is Gryffindor doing okay, by the way?" Sirius asked, scooping up a forkful of hash and shoveling it into his mouth. "She seemed kind of off at the meeting last night."
Remus fought a brief, internal battle over whether to keep his promise to Mairead or whether to tell Sirius to knock it off with all The Quibbler talk. Finally, he went with something that was technically true, but not what Sirius was looking for. "She hasn't been sleeping very well lately. She has nightmares almost every night."
Sirius hummed sympathetically through a mouthful of egg. "Well, maybe planning your birthday bash will help take her mind off things."
"My what?"
"Well, it is coming up in just over a week."
"Ugh." Remus rested his elbows on the table and hid his face in his hands. "I missed Mairead's birthday."
"Oh, really? When was it?"
"December," answered Remus glumly, thinking despondently how badly he wished he hadn't been such a damn fool. "We weren't exactly on the best of terms when it came around."
"Ah, well, there's always next year," said Sirius. "And besides, Mairead doesn't exactly seem like the type to enjoy having a huge birthday party."
"And I do?" Remus rejoined.
Sirius shrugged. "Well, strictly speaking she isn't planning a big thing," he admitted. "Just a nice meal, good liquor, giant cake, and a quiet evening with the three of us. But she was asking me last night for gift ideas for you."
Remus sighed. "She shouldn't have to get me anything," he said, though he had to admit he liked very much the sound of what Sirius said she was planning.
Sirius snorted. "She is unlikely to be swayed by your opinion, Moony."
Remus smiled in spite of himself and chuckled. "So what did you suggest?" he asked, taking another sip of tea.
Sirius shrugged casually. "I told her she should buy some sexy lingerie."
Remus choked. His eyes streamed as his lungs tried to displace the large amount of tea he had just inhaled. Sirius clapped him soundly on the back, looking extremely pleased with himself. "Padfoot, you didn't!" he wheezed when he could speak again.
Sirius didn't even look remotely abashed. "Hey, I was just trying to help," he said.
Remus groaned and tugged at his hair. "Poor Mairead," he lamented, imagining her, face the deep scarlet of mortification as she poked helplessly around a sex shop.
"I wouldn't worry about it too much if I were you, Moony," Sirius said, returning to his breakfast without a care in the world. "I highly doubt anything is going to come of my suggestion."
"Oh?" said Remus aggressively. "And why is that?"
"Because," said Sirius. He took a delicate bite off the end of a sausage, the picture of innocence. "When I suggested she buy you lingerie she blinked those great, doe eyes up at me and said, 'They make lingerie for blokes?'"
Remus managed to avoid murdering Sirius for all of breakfast, a feat which was helped by the arrival of Mad-Eye, who had evidently spent the night and was planning to spend most of the day at headquarters monitoring the receivers. Remus grew more tired as the large amounts of food took effect and Sirius and Moody caught him up on the contents of the meeting. He excused himself when he felt himself beginning to nod and slowly took the stairs up to the third floor.
When he walked into his room, he paused, closed his eyes, and inhaled deeply. He loved the fact that the room smelled like Mairead now. More than that, he loved the fact that the room smelled like Mairead and himself together. He felt a prickle of trepidation at this. He knew that the wolf was possessive, and wondered if the reason he loved the way their scents intermingled was because it felt like staking a claim on Mairead.
The thought gave him pause, but when the door swung wider and he saw Mairead curled up on her side in bed, eyes closed and mouth slightly open in sleep, he forgot his worries. He was impressed with himself for having enough self-control to change into pyjamas before joining Mairead in the bed.
She stirred and made a soft sound at the feeling of the bed dipping. Remus curled himself around her back, draping his arm over her and pulling her against his chest. He was nearly asleep when the thought occurred to him that this was the perfect vantage point from which to explore her shoulder blades. Being careful not to wake her, he gently ran his fingers over the places where they poked out of her back. Mairead shivered and made another sound.
Later, then, he thought to himself. And wrapping his arm around her body once again, Remus nestled his face into Mairead's hair and drifted off to the smell of sugar and vanilla growing wild in the forest.
He dreamed he was running through the woods, hand-in-hand with Mairead. She was wearing a beautiful white dress, and her hair looked stunning as it flowed behind her, dappled by the sunbeams that made it through the trees. She looked over at him and smiled. Something glinted on her left hand.
"Remus! Remus!"
Remus heard people calling his name in the distance. He looked at Mairead again and she giggled, pressing the first finger on her free hand to her mouth. When she brought her hand to her mouth, Remus saw that the object catching the light was a ring on her third finger. His heart sang.
"Remus!"
The voices were getting closer.
"Over here," he said, tugging at Mairead's hand. They ran at full tilt down an embankment. Now they were sprinting alongside a babbling brook, whose noise masked their footfall.
"Remus!"
"Here, hide!"
Remus looked over at the note of shrill terror in Mairead's voice. She was no longer smiling or laughing, and her eyes were wide with fear. She pulled him down beside the water, which had now widened into a swiftly-moving river.
"We have to hide," Mairead said urgently. "They're looking for me. We can't let them find us."
Remus whipped his head around, searching for a place that could conceal them. "I think I see a cave over there," he said, rising to a crouch. "Follow me."
He started for the cave, but was stopped by a shrill cry from Mairead. Turning back to her, he saw that she was being pulled into the river. What was more, he saw that he had been wrong: the object glinting on her left hand was not a ring; it was a manacle around her wrist. The other end was in the river, and she was being dragged into the water.
"Help!" she cried, reaching for him with her other hand. "Remus, help me!"
Remus threw himself into the water, searching for the other end of the handcuff, so that he could free Mairead. Taking a deep breath, he dove into the water. He searched the reeds and the pebbles lining the bottom of the riverbed, but he could not find the other end of Mairead's bonds.
He swam back up to take a breath, but when his head broke the surface, he could not find Mairead. He frantically searched the now rapidly-moving river for her, but was buffeted by the water. It was getting difficult to breathe. He had just cleared his eyes after a wave crashed over his head when he saw Mairead's tiny, freckled hand, reaching desperately for him. He threw himself towards her, but she slipped beneath the surface and was gone.
"REMUS!"
Remus awoke with a start and a cry. He was out of breath, tangled in bedsheets, and soaked in sweat. It took him a few seconds to come out of the nightmare and focus on Sirius, who had him by the shoulder and had presently been shaking him.
"W-what is it?" he rasped.
"Where's Mairead?" Sirius asked. The urgent tone in his voice immediately brought Remus to alertness. He looked down at the bed in confusion. He hadn't heard her leave.
"What time is it?" he asked.
The answer came from the doorway. "Four o'clock," said Mad-Eye, who was standing just inside the room.
"She's at work," said Remus, sitting up and rubbing sleep from his eyes. "She works until five today. What's wrong?"
"Where does she work?" asked Moody.
"The library," Remus answered, looking back and forth between Sirius and Moody. Both had identical looks of strain on their faces. "Tell me what's going on."
"The Diagon Alley Library?" Mad-Eye clarified.
"No, the Dulwich Library," said Remus, disentangling himself from the sheets and getting to his feet. "It's a Muggle library."
"Get dressed," said Moody shortly. "Dumbledore's on his way. We need to make a plan to extract her, fast."
Remus reached out and grabbed Sirius by the arm. "Will someone please tell me what's going on!" His voice had risen almost to a shout by the end.
Sirius's jaw tightened. "Mad-Eye was listening to the receivers," he said grimly. "Voldemort's just -" He hesitated, as though marshaling his resources. "Jesus. Moony, he -" Sirius broke off.
"Sirius, what is it?!" Remus demanded, his alarm tripling at Sirius's uncharacteristic bout of speechlessness. Sirius passed a hand over his face, then looked Remus gravely in the eye.
"He's ordered Mairead to be found and killed."
Author's Note: Ugh, I'm sorry for the cliffhanger! I tried to see if I could end the chapter after the Order meeting, but I thought that was a really weak ending to the chapter. I hope you will all forgive me!