A Historically Accurate Untitled Work with Hidden Meaning

It started when Neville was too afraid to go on his own to ask about the vampire essay. Then Seamus had discovered that Professor Lupin always had deliciously horrid stories about the Dark Creatures in his care, stories that he wouldn't tell in class but was only too happy to share over a cup of tea. But when Dean found out that Professor Lupin loved football, he was hooked.

Professor Lupin had long hands with thin fingers, and privately Dean was convinced that he was an artist. He didn't tell anyone, not even Seamus, but in his head Professor Lupin was a man with a mysterious and exciting past. The skulls that lined his office had come from the headhunters that Professor Lupin had lived and hunted with in Africa. The scars on his face and hands were souvenirs from fierce and heroic battles. Maybe Professor Lupin had been an Auror, and had fought Death Eaters like Dean's dad - his real dad, the one who had passed his magic down to Dean - had done. But most importantly, he was an artist. This, Dean was sure of.

He'd slipped up only once, and mentioned the headhunters to Neville. Within days the castle was abuzz with grisly rumours that Professor Lupin had taken each and every one of those skulls in his office as personal trophies.

Draco Malfoy had spoiled it, of course. He had stood up one day during the Slytherins' class, and called for the real story. Professor Lupin had just laughed and said that most of them (most of them, said with a wiggle of the eyebrows, of course) were gifts from Professor Dumbledore, who hated to see his teachers' rooms lie bare. It didn't matter to Dean. He had been drawing headhunters for weeks by then, and had been planning on giving Professor Lupin his best drawing, and Seamus his second best. Seamus' would be especially gory; Professor Lupin's historically accurate. Hermione helped him find the best books for research, and he thought that maybe he'd make a drawing for her too.

At the end of January, Dean began to sit with Professor Lupin during his free period, when he had no classes, and sometimes just before dinner was to begin. Not every day, of course; he had the idea that Professor Lupin was teaching Harry some sort of spell, and he had seen other students lurking around Professor Lupin's office between classes. But every few days, when Professor Lupin would come to sit outside at his favourite spot underneath the beech tree by the edge of the lake, he would eat enormous amounts of chocolate and grade papers and Dean would drink pumpkin juice and draw and they would barely talk at all and Dean loved it.

Professor Lupin was the best teacher Dean had ever had.

When Dean gave him the drawing of the headhunters, historically accurate and painstakingly inked with Dean's favourite black pen, he had smiled and gone on and on about how beautiful it was, although he didn't say whether he had spent time with that particular tribe. He had used pastels for Seamus'; great violent swatches of colour, carefully warded so that those colours wouldn't migrate to Seamus' hands and from there every surface in their dormitory. Professor Lupin had laughed when Dean had showed him the unfinished piece, and the way his eyes had wrinkled just a little bit at the corners when he smiled made Dean think that maybe he understood all the things that were behind it, the stuff that most people couldn't see when they looked at what he had created for them.

The next time he visited Professor Lupin's office, with Neville, who had lost his assignment once again, his art was in a place of honour between Dean's two favourite skulls, right on the windowsill that had the best light. Professor Lupin never mentioned it, but he smiled more, and Dean thought maybe he liked it better that way.

Seamus had loved his drawing of course, and it had gone above his bed for a week until it was kicked carelessly into his trunk, which was what always happened. Dean had never minded. That week or so when it was right above his pillow, Seamus would gush to everyone about it, about how brilliant Dean was, and would you look at all that blood? Every now and again, Seamus rediscovered some of Dean's presents, deep in the bowels of his trunk, and the stupid grin he'd get on his face made Dean think that maybe Seamus understood too.