One.
"Thank you so much, Remus. This means so much to Molly and I..." Arthur said as he vigorously shook Remus Lupin's hand.
"It's no trouble at all, none at all," Remus replied, attempting a smile and managing an awkward sort of grimace instead. "It will be good to have some company around here for once."
Arthur attempted a smile but could only manage a look reminiscent of a sullen puppy, sadness etched into the deeper lines of his face. Remus sighed and rested a hand on the man's drooping shoulder. His hair seemed greyer and thinner than Remus had ever seen it, and his eyes looked heavy and bruised from lack of sleep.
"It is not what it once was, Arthur," Remus said quietly. "The Ministry are improving things for us. It is not the death sentence it used to be."
Arthur shook his head and grasped Remus' shoulder in turn to squeeze it gratefully. "You are a good man, Remus. I know she will be safe with you. And we will make sure you are compensated, of course -."
"No, I don't need payment," Remus said firmly. "You and Molly have hosted me often enough, I couldn't -."
"You can," Arthur said, his jaw set as he straightened up. "And you will. Ginny will help around the house too, she's got Molly's talent for that. You'll be well fed."
Remus scoffed, but before he could protest, Molly walked forward with Ginny. Both of them had wet cheeks, though Ginny bowed her head in an attempt to hide her tears from them all.
"Thank you for this, Remus," Molly said in a thick voice. "It means the world to us. Ginny has some money in her trunk -."
"I don't need it," Remus said, holding a hand up to stop her. "Honestly, I don't. I have this place and the money Sirius left me."
"It will make us feel better if you took it, please take it," Molly insisted.
Remus waved a careless hand, but felt guilty for taking their money. They were much better off now most of their children had left the Burrow and Arthur had received a promotion, but he hated to take their money when they were going through this difficult time.
Arthur gave a small, grateful nod to Remus and shook his hand again before turning to his daughter to hug her tightly. He took this as his cue to retreat to the doorway of his cottage and let them say their farewells with some privacy.
After more tears on Molly's side, they finally broke apart and said goodbye, giving profuse thanks to Remus again, until they looked back with a wave to Ginny and disappeared into the trees of the wood beyond his gate.
Ginny kept her head bowed as she came up the path to the doorway, her trunk by her side, which Remus promptly took from her and beckoned her inside. As she stepped past him, a musty, vinegary sort of scent drifted up his nostrils and he could only guess this was the scent of her maker. The cottage was clean and spacious, but sparse. He didn't have many possessions aside from his large collection of books in the living room, and he lived a simple life, preferring to grow his own food or catch it from the nearby forest. It meant he had minimal contact with wizards, witches, and muggles alike.
He led her along the hall and up the bare staircase. It creaked under their weight as they ascended it.
"This is your room," he said as they approached one of the doors at the end of the landing. "There is a bathroom down there, and my room is across from yours if you need anything."
Ginny acknowledged him with a silent nod.
Remus opened the bedroom door and revealed a simple double bed, a small wardrobe, and a table with a small mirror on it. Much like the rest of the house, it was sparsely decorated. It had been the room he occupied whenever he'd come to visit his father.
"It isn't much, but you'll find everything you need here," he said.
"Thank you," she said quietly, her voice hoarse as though she hadn't spoken in a long time.
"You can stay in here as long as you like," he said gently. "Don't feel like you have to be polite and leave your room. The first few months will be difficult, I won't lie... but things will get better as you become used to your condition."
She only nodded and sat down on the end of the bed, turning her pale face towards the window. It looked out into the large vegetable patch at the back of the cottage. Remus remembered her being a bubbly, chatty girl back when she lived at Grimmauld Place, but he understood her silence, her depression. Her shoulders slumped as Arthur's had and Remus decided it was time for her to be alone to process her thoughts without intrusion.
"I'll let you know when dinner is ready," he said as he retreated towards the bedroom door. "Feel free to eat it in here."
She gave a brief nod without looking at him, and he let her be.
The rest of the week passed by in a similar fashion. Ginny spent most of her time in seclusion and Remus did not press her to join him outside of the house. He could not remember much from when he had been bitten as he had been so young, but he could only imagine the sharp, horrifying new reality was not something that could be grasped so easily.
The full moon, however, approached. The celestial bodies cared not for feelings or circumstance, so Remus knew he would need to encroach on her solitude and decided he would try to speak to her that evening when he delivered her dinner to her. For now, he would carry on with his usual routine in the garden.
The cottage Remus lived in had belonged to his father. It was a large, stone house with wisteria creeping over the door, bordered by sweeping fields on one side and woods on the other, and surrounded by a large garden that he tended to daily to provide him with the food he needed. For meat, he would venture into the woods and hunt. It was peaceful, green, and homely enough for him, out of the way of prying, judgemental eyes.
By the afternoon, the sun bore down upon him despite it being a cooler September day, and he was sweating from the effort of chopping wood for the fire that evening. Remus stopped and wiped his brow with his rolled up sleeve, sweeping his hair from his eyes and he took in a deep breath.
That was the first time it hit him.
A sweet, flowery smell seeped into his senses and overcame him and a smile spread across his face as it filled every part of him with a pleasurable warmth so unlike anything he'd ever felt before. Remus released the axe handle, nostrils flaring as he drank in the intoxicating scent once more, and he turned to see Ginny standing some feet away, watching him.
They stared at each other for a moment and Remus slowly came to realise that this beautiful scent was coming from her. The knowledge of this made him suddenly feel self-conscious, standing there looking dishevelled and sweating.
"Why don't you use magic to do that, Professor?" she asked, breaking the silence, though her voice was quiet from disuse.
Remus blinked and glanced down at the chopped wood in the basket beside the stump, giving him time to compose himself and his racing thoughts. "It gives me a sense of purpose," he replied, his voice a little higher than usual. He coughed.
"Oh," she said, not seeming to notice how odd he felt in that moment. "Is that why you hunt in the forest?"
Remus scoffed and smiled. "Yes. Have you been watching me?" he asked.
"Yes," she replied, without embarrassment though Remus was taken aback by her confession. "You don't use magic much... I was just curious."
"That's OK," he said, now becoming acutely aware of her eyes fixed upon him though he couldn't exactly pinpoint why this was making him nervous. He cleared his throat again and decided to take up the axe and busy himself with chopping wood. "You will come to learn that you have new instincts, new urges. Werewolves do perform magic, of course, but we prefer the more natural way of doing things. For example, this..." He gestured to the chopping block and swung the axe down hard.
Remus sensed Ginny moving in closer as a light breeze blew through the garden, rustling the golden leaves and sending a fresh wave of her scent towards him. Remus drew in a deep breath again, finding himself unable to resist the temptation.
She's a virgin.
The thought flitted unbidden across his mind, a thought so unlike his own, a thought that caused a hot, prickling sense of shame to creep into his cheeks.
"Is something wrong, sir?" she asked, frowning as she must have noticed the expression on his face become a little gormless.
Remus forced himself to smile and shook his head. "No, no," he said with a laugh that sounded awfully false to his own ears. "I'm just a little hot."
He saw her eyes drop past his chin and down his partially bared chest, which was dampened with sweat. Then he was surprised to see her quickly avert her gaze as a pink stain spread across her cheeks. Remus briefly wondered if she thought he shouldn't be dressed in such a manner since she was now living with him.
"Well, I would like to make dinner tonight," she said, looking back up at him again, her face now clear of any awkwardness. "If that's OK?"
"Of course," he said, grateful for the change of subject. "I caught a rabbit earlier, but it will need skinning. Do you know how?"
She visibly baulked at this. "Uh, no," she said.
Remus laughed. "Not a problem, I'll do that."
Ginny nodded, a small smile on her lips, and turned to make her way back up the path towards the door, taking with her that inexplicably heady scent. Once she'd disappeared inside, Remus stared down at the split logs, deep in thought, wondering why he could no longer smell the scent of her maker. He'd only ever experienced this once before and that was when he had lived amongst other werewolves for the Order, but this felt different.
Remus shook his head and wrenched the axe out of the stump once more. It didn't matter. Ginny Weasley was nineteen, she was the daughter of his friends, friends who had accepted him and hosted him for dinner countless times, friends who had entrusted him with the safety and care of their only daughter. It didn't matter what the beast smelled on her. He picked up another log and swung the axe down hard.
When he was done, the sun was beginning to drop below the trees, his hair was curled with dampened sweat, and his shirt clung to his back. There were enough logs now to last the entire week. As he carried them back to the cottage, another scent filled his nostrils. Fresh bread, savoury warmth and garlic. The smell alone was enough to make him realise he was starving.
He stopped short as he stepped inside and shut the door. Music issued from the kitchen and he dropped the basket of logs and followed the sound. Inside the kitchen, it appeared Ginny was conducting an orchestra. Wet clothing soared past him and began to hang itself up on the line strung across the kitchen, a broom swept it's way across the hard floor and a mop followed it, pans were bubbling away on the stove.
"What is that?" he asked without preamble, pointing at the bubbling pans, too surprised at what he was seeing. He had never been very good at domestic spells.
She turned to look at him, wand in mid-air with a pinny tied around her small waist, as she sent a bundle of herbs back up to the ceiling where she had hung bunches of them from the rafters. She saw him looking at this, probably in a state of confusion.
"Oh, uh, I'm sorry, I hope you don't mind," she said somewhat sheepishly. "It just made sense to store them that way. That's what that beam is for, you see."
Remus blinked and shook his head. "No... no, it's fine. It's just..." He faltered as he got a better look at the kitchen and saw that she had rearranged everything and, by the looks of it, scourgified everything too. A chequered tablecloth he'd had no idea he owned was laid across the table, a bowl of fruit sat upon it, along with a vase of white hydrangeas. "I see you've been busy," he finished with a small laugh.
"You don't mind, do you?" she asked. "Only it seemed a bit sparse and I didn't have much to do once I'd got that started." She pointed at the stove.
"Ginny, really, it's fine," he said reassuringly. "Now you mention it, it was quite... simple."
"Mum always says a woman's touch is all a bachelor needs," she said with a shrug, and then her face turned scarlet. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean – there's nothing wrong with being - ."
"It's fine, Ginny," he insisted, laughing again. "It is good to see you out of your room. And Molly is, as ever, correct."
"It's just one of her silly sayings," she said, shaking her head and turning her back on him, no doubt to hide her face. She stirred the contents of the saucepan with her wand and said nothing else.
Remus stood beside her, the smell of the dinner drawing him in closer, and he immediately regretted it because it was soon taken over by that sweet, flowery scent emanating off her. Inside, deep inside, he sensed the beast... The wolf seemed to wake from lazy, decades long slumber, and it caused Remus' skin to prickle.
"Professor?" she said, but her voice sounded muffled and distant, like she was in another room. He saw her breathe in a deep breath, her large brown eyes unfocused for a moment as they gazed into his. She shook her head gently as though clearing her vision. "Professor... are you OK?"
Her voice was sharp to his senses again and his throat was dry. She was looking up at him with a confused expression, her brow knitted together as she absentmindedly swirled her wand through the thick mixture in the pan. "Yes, yes, of course. Just tired..." he muttered, stepping back a touch when he realised how close they were to each other, though she seemed to pay it no mind at all.
"I'm not surprised," she said, scoffing.
"Yes..." he replied, though not really hearing but he forced himself to concentrate. "I'll have a shower and skin the rabbit for you when I'm done. Should only be five minutes."
"OK, sir," she replied, looking into the saucepan without further notice of him.
On his way to the shower, Remus dragged a nervous hand through his matted hair and tried to think of a rational reason as to why he was reacting like this to Ginny Weasley. But he knew. Even as the hot water pounded down onto his skin, he knew why. He had enough books on werewolves in his living room to know what this meant...
However, he had made a promise to Molly and Arthur—to care for their daughter and guide her through this change, however long it took. Remus had lived with the beast long enough to learn how to control its baser urges. Yet, he couldn't forget the voice in his head that was his own, but not quite.
She is a virgin.
"Quiet, you fool!" he hissed at himself as steam from the near boiling water swirled about him.
You're weak, too weak for her.
Remus growled uncharacteristically and breathed in deep, calming the blood rushing through him and ceasing the thoughts that threatened to overwhelm him for the wolf thought it was stronger, but decades of evidence proved otherwise...