Feelings of What?

The 'Hidden' Romance

Hermione was oblivious about many things, one being the teachers sitting in their chairs. She only laughed at Harry's story and nodded, while laughing harder at Ron's rhetorical joke to Harry's story. He was laughing, listening to Dumbledore's story, as the whole table of the staff was doing, laughing and listening. For a moment, they both looked out over at the room and they caught one another's eyes. Her heart went faster; her heart was too far away to hear but his was beating faster too. They both looked away quickly, trying to rejoin their conversations, but sadly they both couldn't contemplate to what they were originally laughing at and listening to. The thoughts of one another were filling each other like a contagious disease spreading through their body.

The room was filled with laughter, but it was like everything was gone, disappeared and for moments, in their heads, they were in a ball room, dancing around while a crowd watched them and clapped their hands. It was only a dream, a wish, but either way, Remus and Hermione thought and felt it all.

"Harry, that is not true! You can't just say those things and hope for the best! No wonder Snape was so mad at you!" Hermione said as Harry, Ron and she all walked to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

They were talking about what had happened with Harry and Snape in Potions that afternoon. Since it was their last year and they had always hoped that they would be in the same classes together, someone had split them up. Hermione truthfully didn't mind, but Ron was extremely pissed: he liked to look over Hermione's shoulder and see what she was doing better in her potion than his.

Ron rolled his eyes and Harry laughed, along with Hermione's long awaited sigh and the roll of her eyes (Ron had rolled his eyes for a completely different reason.)

They entered the DADA room and found some seats along the side and middle portion of the room, considering it was almost full, the room was. Hermione sat on the side of the room where there was only one chair. She truthfully didn't feel like sitting near the boys. Remus was setting some things up. He looked up briefly to see Hermione unpacking some of her things. Remus smiled and felt red faced and soon he was putting the cage of pixie's on top of the deadly Dragon snake. The pixies were all flying to the top of the cage while the Dragon Snake was trying to figure out how to open his cage and attack the pixies. Hermione looked up and met Remus' eyes, and smiled, nodding her head to the cage and continued to pull out her books. Remus looked over at where she had been nodding her head and quickly moved the cage of pixies under the small table and hit the Dragon snake with a spell that made it hiss and spit. Remus nodded at it and when he looked back, he found that Hermione looked away quickly, her face bright red. He wondered why, but once the bell rang, all thoughts disappeared and instead he asked everyone about the snake while telling them to pass up their homework.

Remus looked at Hermione once more, only to see that she had taken an interest in her homework, trying to find all the pages of it.

Hermione had only hoped that his eyes wouldn't be looking, but after she had been studying him from 'behind', she found that she had better not look at him or else her face would turn red, but sadly, he would occasionally go by her desk, rest his hand on it and she would act like she was taking notes, but all the while, she was looking at his hand, wondering what it felt like, to have it touch her arm, stomach, legs...

She pushed the spontaneous thought away quickly and returned to taking notes and thinking only slightly his hands every time he would walk by.

Remus dismissed his class and turned around, picking up the pile of homework papers they all turned in. He smiled and started towards his office room. This was his free period and next period he would have his last class. But when he heard the familiar calling of his name, he knew that this free period would turn out to be different. Remus turned and smiled, "Hello Hermione. What would you like me to do for you?"

He took note that Hermione looked kind of nervous as she looked at him, and he watched her hand raise up and tuck an already tucked hair strand behind her ear. "Professor Lupin-"
Remus interrupted her, "Hermione, you can call me Remus."

She gave him a baffled look and nodded, starting over again. "Pro- Remus... I was wondering if you needed an aid, or if I could come and help you with grading papers-"
Remus again interrupted her by raising his hand. "When do you have free period? Next period I-"
This time, Hermione interrupted him. "Actually, I have two free periods. This period and next."
Remus and smiled and nodded. "I don't mind if you come for either. Would like some tea upstairs?" Hermione smiled at him and nodded, following him up to his office room, where for the next 3 hours, they spent grading papers, reading, and talking about things that normally would make another much more normal student fall asleep.