Remus Re-erected

Chapter 4. Remus Restricted: The Inability to be Honest.

"Lead me not into temptation; I can find the way myself"
- Rita Mae Brown

***

Albus Dumbledore had wanted to keep Remus's meetings with Severus as secret as possible. As far as Dumbledore was aware, there was no reason for Remus to have to explain his whereabouts to anyone. When Albus mentioned taking extra care to hide their arrangements from Sirius, Remus hadn't been brave enough to point out just how difficult it would be for him. All he could think was that Albus needed him for this role, and it was very important in the war against Voldemort. So Remus had just sat there, nodding and agreeing with Albus's assessment of how badly Sirius would react if he found out the Order was using Severus Snape as a contact.

"Severus is doing this at great personal risk to himself; I'm sure you understand," Albus had explained. "The information that he could provide may prove instrumental. He is not willing to work with any of the others, but he has agreed for you to be his point of contact."

Remus assumed that Severus had picked him because he knew Remus was the type of person who would feel obliged in keeping his secret--especially after Severus had kept Remus's secret about being a werewolf during their last couple of years at Hogwarts. Severus was right.

"I need you to liaise with him," Albus continued, "and I need to be able to guarantee that his safety won't be compromised through us. Can you do this, Remus?"

"Yes."

For such a small word it took a long time--thirteen years--for Remus to fully realise the devastation it had inadvertently triggered.

He had hated keeping secrets, although he had had a lot of practise what with being a werewolf. Some would say that being a werewolf was just an excuse, and that the only reason he had a lot of practise was due to his cowardice, to which Remus would have to ashamedly agree. But it was the fact that he was keeping a secret from Sirius that had really bothered him. Sirius liked honesty. It came so naturally to him, too naturally even; Remus often believed that Sirius's biggest enemy was his own mouth. But in Remus's life, sometimes keeping things quiet seemed to become a necessity--whether just through hiding of facts, or through blatant lying if the occasion warranted it--and the truth was no longer an option.

A downside to keeping secrets is that when someone suspects, they soon become obsessed with finding out exactly what it is that you're hiding. But unfortunately, it's more likely they'll only find out part of the truth, and fill in the gaps themselves. With secrets, comes the risks of exposure; with exposure, comes mistrust. Sirius had mistrusted Remus, to the downfall of Lily, James, Harry, and himself. And it wasn't the only time Remus had been caught out, although the other occasions had had less dire consequences. Three of Remus's four biggest secrets had been exposed to those people he had needed to keep them quiet from. Sirius had found out about his meetings with Severus. Albus had found out Remus had known and concealed from him that Sirius was an Animagus. The general public found out that a werewolf was teaching their children. Only his status as Sirius's lover--ex-lover--had remained relatively private, with just James, Lily, and now Harry, being aware of it.

At times, he had even subconsciously kept secrets from himself. In his sixth year at Hogwarts, he frequently began to feel awkward around his friends. In response to this, he threw himself more and more into his responsibilities as a prefect. At first, he didn't know why he felt like this. Of course, he didn't try to think about why, either. He just backed off from them slightly, hiding behind the prefect persona. He had already admitted to himself that his reasons--however valid they were--for not wanting to date any girls were, in fact, just excuses that he clung to. Girls didn't interest him in that way, but he wasn't about to admit to this to the others. Boys didn't interest him, either, not because he didn't find them attractive, but because he'd never even considered them as an option before.

His first indication of what the real problem was came as an unfamiliar, twisting sensation in the pit of his stomach, always when in the company of Sirius. And whenever Sirius made one of his "I'm bored" announcements, Remus began to get the urge to join in with whatever prank James was pulling to rectify the boredom; even though he knew damn well he should have been the one to speak up and play out his role as prefect. He wanted to be the one to entertain Sirius. Realising that he was actually jealous of James finally prompted Remus to acknowledge what was happening. He was mortified that he was now becoming fixated on his friend. This was the friend who had accepted him as a werewolf all those years ago; the friend who spent so much time learning to become an Animagus to make his life easier around the full moon; the friend who deserved so much better than to have his friendship twisted in that way. So Remus distanced himself even further from Sirius, James, and Peter.

Lily was the one to bring him to his senses. While his friends left him to his life of being a prefect, Lily was there for him when no one else was: no one else could be. This wasn't exactly something Remus could discuss with his friends. After several sessions of badgering Remus and talking him round, Lily finally convinced him that he was overreacting. She had told him that it was silly to give up on his friendship with Sirius just in case Remus's attraction caused him to lose it. She also insisted, several times, that Sirius didn't deserve someone as nice as Remus. Remus silently agreed, albeit for a different reason: he thought Sirius deserved better. Although Remus could never bring himself to admit his feelings to Sirius, he finally began to feel less awkward about spending time with him as a friend.

Remus remembered that this had been around the same time that Lily suddenly seemed to develop a certain amount of tolerance towards James Potter. In hindsight, Remus was positive she had only spent so much time with James, at least initially, because she wanted the opportunity to assess Sirius's views on the matter and to subtly prod him into thinking in the right direction; Remus had already admitted to Lily that he'd never be brave enough to find out whether his friendship with Sirius could be anything more. In the end, of course, it had been Sirius to push things further, after having been prompted by Lily, no doubt. Looking back on those events, Remus realised that they probably never would have become involved at all if Sirius hadn't taken the initiative.

Thinking about the past helped Remus put the present into perspective. Sirius had been his friend, and only his friend, at Hogwarts, and Remus had been able to live without following his instincts--until Sirius decided to make a move on him. Holding himself back now wasn't going to be a problem, either. It didn't matter that he already knew how enjoyable it could be to get that intimate with Harry: the one-night stand wasn't going to be anything else. He was Harry's teacher, and Harry was his student, nothing more. Yes, he had to acknowledge feeling disappointed, but he'd learnt how to deal with that type of emotion a long time ago.

The first day Remus returned to Hogwarts, he didn't see Harry at all. A few students pointed and whispered to each other as he made his way up to Albus's office, which left him wondering whether anyone would disrupt his lessons because they knew he was a werewolf. But his worries were eased slightly when a couple of other students had come up to say a friendly hello. The teachers had been polite enough, some notably more reserved than before. Severus, as expected, had just ignored him.

As Remus approached the stone gargoyle at the entrance to Albus Dumbledore's office, Albus emerged from the stairway with a rather round and petite lady, who reminded Remus of his aunt. Closing the distance between them, he noticed that she even had the same smell of stale mothballs. He grimaced inside, remembering the aunt who had never used his name, preferring to call him "dear", and who never seemed to see him as a person, only someone who could entertain her with interesting information. Still, this wasn't his aunt, he told himself; this was a fellow teacher.

She gave him a warm smile as Albus introduced him, then she took Remus's right hand in both of hers and shook it enthusiastically.

"Hello, dear," she began, her voice sounding frail but determined. "I must say I'm quite excited to meet you. I've never met a werewolf before, you see. And I must admit, to look at you I never would have guessed."

Albus gave Remus a look that seemed to be a mixture of both sympathy and amusement.

"Now, if you will both excuse me, I must be getting along," Albus said while she continued to shake Remus's hand. "I'll leave you two to discuss lesson plans."

They spent the next hour or so going over what Professor Mawkish had intended to cover for the rest of the year. Occasionally, she would point out topics that she thought Remus would be particularly suited to help on. Like his aunt, she did have a tendency to call Remus "dear", which for the moment, he convinced himself was quite endearing, but he knew that somewhere along the line it was bound to become highly annoying. She was also a very curious individual, who wasn't afraid of asking questions--very blunt questions at times--all the while, being oblivious to how personal those queries actually were. But he thought she seemed to be a good teacher, and Remus couldn't see any problems with having to work alongside her.

"So for the fifth years and above, I'd like to introduce non-conventional duelling techniques," Professor Mawkish said as they poured over her teaching notes in the staff room. "I feel they could be important, especially given the current climate."

"Yes, I quite agree. If ever faced with a Death Eater, they could hardly expect that the conventional etiquette of a wizard's duel will be followed."

"Would you consider taking the section on defensive posture and movement, dear? My hips aren't what they used to be, and I wouldn't be able to give an adequate demonstration. I had planned to cover the main principles towards the end of this term, and then go into the details of a couple of the more difficult movements in January. That should give them enough scope to be able to learn the other movements by themselves."

"That should be fine. Is there anything else I need to know before I start classes on Monday?"

"Not that I can... oh, yes." Professor Mawkish seemed to perk up slightly as she remembered. "There is an essay I set last week that I was going to mark myself... but once I heard you would be coming here to assist me, I felt it would make much more sense for you to mark them. I'm sure you are better qualified to do so."

"And what is the essay about?" Remus asked, gathering his notes as he spoke.

"It is a comparison between the mating rituals of Mooncalves and werewolves."

For a brief moment, he stopped, the piece of piece of paper he was holding suspended in mid-air.

"That's a...er, interesting combination."

"Yes, I thought so, too," Professor Mawkish said, looking quite pleased with herself. "It was thanks to Mr. Ron Weasley that the idea came up." Remus's eyes narrowed as she continued to explain. "We were going over the Mooncalf mating practices in class, and he asked--which is something that is quite unusual in itself, Mr. Weasley asking a question; it's usually Miss Granger. Although I must say he has developed an interest in Polyjuice over the past week, as well. Anyway, where was I, dear?"

"You were explaining how you came up with the subject for the essay," Remus said in a slightly strained voice.

"Oh yes, thank you, dear. Yes, Mr. Weasley asked whether Mooncalves were rare. He wondered if, because of the fact they come out only during full moon, they were particularly at risk from werewolf attacks. I told him that I hadn't heard of any Mooncalves being injured or killed in this way; I've always been under the impression that werewolves only ate humans. Have you ever eaten a Mooncalf, dear?"

"Er, no, I can't say that I have."

"Just humans then, dear?"

"No. I haven't eaten any of those, either."

"Oh, really? I must say, I'm very curious. What have you eaten in your werewolf state?"

"Nothing that I'm aware of. I've mostly been kept restrained, one way or another, until recently. Now, I'm able to afford the Wolfsbane Potion."

"How fascinating..." Professor Mawkish stood there staring at him. He felt his skin crawl at the way she was analysing him, as if he were a museum exhibit, and he could feel his patience beginning to run out. She might be intrigued in a nice way, but it was still a bit much to take on his first day back.

"You were telling me about the essays," Remus prompted.

"Oh yes. Well, Mr. Weasley went off on a bit of a tangent from his first question, asking if I knew the mating practices of werewolves and were they studied in the same way as Mooncalves."

Internally, Remus groaned. Poor Harry, he thought. It seemed that Ron was certainly taking any proffered opportunities to have a dig at his friend. Remus smiled politely at Professor Mawkish as she continued, hoping that his teaching appointment would cause Ron to ease off in the future.

"So, instead of getting them to merely summarise the chapter on Mooncalves, I asked them to do a comparative essay. Naturally, when I heard that Professor Dumbledore was hiring a real live werewolf for the position, I thought it best to keep hold of the essays and let you look through them yourself. I'd like to think you'd know a bit more about werewolf mating practices than I do."

Remus was startled when she gave him a sly wink and a quick nudge with her elbow.

"Er, yes... possibly."

"I've had a quick look through a couple of the essays, and I must say it all seems pretty interesting. Perhaps, at some point, you would be kind enough to talk me through the myths and the realities, dear?"

She wasn't being lurid in any way, and Remus found this to be the most disturbing aspect of what she was saying. She genuinely believed this was an acceptable topic of discussion, going into detail about his personal life as if it were no different than talking about the sexual habits of Nifflers. Remus nodded passively, inwardly hoping that she would forget the subject.

"Mr. Weasley, in particular, seems to have done a rather large amount of research on the subject," Professor Mawkish announced, following another tangent in her head. "And this hasn't been copied from Miss Granger, for a change. I'm very impressed with his work."

As he began marking the essays later on that evening, Remus noticed that Ron Weasley had certainly done far more than the bare minimum. He could imagine the grief Harry would have received while they had carried out the research for the essay; it seemed that Ron had included every detail that was contained within the library.

As Remus read through Ron's work, he found that the words "little sod" repeatedly came to mind. Ron had begun with comparisons between wolf and werewolf hierarchies, paying particular attention to same-sex bonding. He then moved onto sexual courtship behaviours observed between werewolves at full moon, and speculations that they tended towards the same courtship patterns in their everyday life. Ron had also discussed an interview with a werewolf who had said he could smell attraction on others when in his werewolf state. At the end of this particular section, Ron had added, It does raise the intriguing question of whether they can smell attraction during the rest of the month. Remus opted not to grant Ron with an answer.

Harry's essay, on the other hand, included very little information from the library. That which it did include was only used to illustrate the limitations of the library texts, and therefore, why he wasn't able to make any generalisations that could be assumed as fact. Remus smiled as he read Harry's concluding lines.

Although there are several books in the library on the subject of werewolves, most of them are out of date and have been written from a biased point of view. Most of all, they fail to take into account the human aspect of the werewolf, which surely should take precedence given that they are in their werewolf form only during the full moon.

Remus barely resisted the temptation to grade Harry's essay with an O and Ron's with a D.

Once he had finished marking the first two essays, Remus set to work on the rest of them, cringing at some of the assumptions made, but also thankful that Harry's essay had helped give him a few ideas of neutral comments he could use. When it came to handing them back in lesson time, Remus made a point of trying to embarrass Ron, having convinced himself that it wasn't being too unprofessional.

"I could tell you've put a lot of work into this essay, Ron. Five points to Gryffindor. But I must admit that I've never known you to be so interested in a subject before... Is there something you wanted to tell me, Ron?" he asked, in mock seriousness. "Anything that I should be worried about?"

Several students had sniggered as Ron spluttered at this, with a look of disgust on his face. And Remus had been pleased to note that Harry had found it particularly amusing.

Over the course of his first two weeks, life soon became quite functional. There were a couple of faces missing from his lessons, but on the whole, most students were still willing to be taught by him. He taught, they learned, he marked essays, and he artfully avoided the persistent questions and contributions from Ron--all guaranteed to be concerning Polyjuice potion, age difference, morality, or anything else Ron could relate to the kiss and the particular lesson at hand. It seemed that Remus's hopes of Ron easing up on Harry had not been realised.

Remus felt it a little unnerving, at first, to teach someone he was attracted to. The school robes weren't helping, either; when Remus had attended Hogwarts as a student, he had developed a bit of a fetish for them, thanks to Sirius. Even so, Remus didn't have any worries about the situation; it wasn't as if anyone was going to find out his private fantasies. There had been a couple of occasions in class when Remus's mouth had automatically gone dry and his hands slightly sweaty as Harry, without realising it, had done something arousing, like suck on the end of a quill, deep in thought. But Remus had been able to work around his little reactions without it being a problem, and later on in the privacy of his own rooms, he'd let himself indulge in fantasising about whatever Harry had been doing.

Harry's behaviour had surprised him. Remus had assumed they would be able to spend some time talking, as they did in Harry's third year, but Harry now seemed to be avoiding him. Even in lessons, Harry never asked questions, volunteered answers, or volunteered for demonstrations. He could only assume that Harry now felt awkward, after what had happened, and Remus couldn't help feeling a bit saddened that he was missing out on Harry's company because of that.

Only once did he get to have an actual conversation with Harry outside of lessons, and that had felt stilted. It had occurred as Remus was hastily making an exit from Hogwarts for the November full moon. It had been a quick exit because Professor Mawkish had remembered the werewolf essay, and she had hopes of pinning him down for half an hour before he left. In his enthusiasm to avoid her, Remus ended up crashing into Harry, sending him and his books flying.

"I'm sorry, Harry," Remus said as he helped the winded Harry to his feet. "Are you all right?"

"I could think of worse people to be knocked over by," Harry said with a smirk. "Are you going back for the full moon?"

"Yes. I'll be returning to Hogwarts in two weeks time," Remus replied, letting himself enjoy the feeling of being alone in Harry's company. "Harry, are you okay? I've noticed that you've been avoiding me, since I've been teaching."

"I thought it would be easier if we didn't talk like we used to the last time you taught here; that's why I've been avoiding you. I assumed you were doing the same thing."

"Perhaps you're right, Harry. It probably would be for the best."

With Harry's books now all safely stowed back inside his bag, Remus realised that they were ready to go their own ways.

"Harry, would you... I... er.... You'd be welcome to walk with me down to the gates," Remus offered. "I don't see any harm in that."

Harry gave another smile, triggering a pleasant memory for Remus of the feel of those lips against his own, and they turned to walk through the giant oak front doors. As they wandered slowly away from the castle, Remus battered down the urge to do anything inappropriate to his student.

"It's not too confusing to have two teachers for your Defence lessons is it?" Remus asked, playing the part of a responsible teacher by trying to keep the conversation in a neutral territory.

"I haven't had any problems so far," Harry confirmed. With a grin, he added, "At least, not with the teachers; it's Ron who's been driving me up the wall!"

"Yes, I've noticed he's still amusing himself at your expense."

"And yours, now."

"I dare say I could do with a Defence Against the Students class. Ron's certainly keeping me on my toes, though I'm sure he doesn't appreciate just how much. At least he's been relatively subtle about it."

"Yeah, I suppose he could be worse. Still, I wouldn't say no to having a two week break from him, though!"

"I doubt it'll be any more peaceful back at Grimmauld Place, not with Tonks, Fred and George coming over." Remus pulled a face at the thought of it. "Tonks isn't too much trouble: I have something with which I can retaliate. But whenever I see Fred and George, they never let up; they've even taken to calling me Casanova!"

"Casanova? So he wasn't a Muggle, then?"

"No, he was a wizard. One who happened to be a quite knowledgeable about love potions."

They were now drawing closer to the gate, and both of them had slowed their steps even further.

"I won't write," Harry said, his face showing how disgruntled he felt about this. "It'll only give Ron more ammunition."

Remus gave him a sympathetic look. "Fred and George certainly have a lot to answer for," he sighed. "I wish things didn't have to go this way, Harry; Albus offering my job back was the last thing I expected."

"I know. I'm disappointed it had to turn out like this, too. I'll be all right. Though, it is a bit hard at times." Harry winced as they both acknowledged the unintended double meaning. "Sorry, bad choice of words."

"Harry, do you want me to get someone else to take you at Christmas?" Remus asked, suddenly realising just how difficult it might be, now, for him and Harry to share the same room.

"Isn't it going to look a bit odd, if you suddenly change the arrangements?"

Remus nodded, knowing that Harry was right. Whatever happened, Remus told himself, they'd be able to cope, he was sure of it.

The two-week break passed all too quickly for Remus. He had had a couple of jobs for the Order to fit in, as well as lesson planning and essay marking, which all kept him occupied. When he returned to Hogwarts, he was soon immersing himself in his teaching duties once more, and with all that was going on, Remus let himself become distracted from any further thoughts of the Christmas break. It wasn't until his last lesson with the sixth years, shortly before the December full moon, that he found himself considering the subject of escorting Harry again.

"Professor Mawkish has requested that I cover defensive posture and movement with you, as she feels unable to demonstrate the moves adequately," Remus informed the class. "Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that any duels you may be involved in will be carried out in what could be described as a dignified manner. You should be well aware by now of the threat that we are currently living under. And with this in mind, both Professor Mawkish and I believe it will be prudent for you to learn techniques that enable a wizard to concentrate on casting any necessary spells, rather than trying to keep his or her balance. Your textbooks cover several different moves, but for the moment, I intend to focus only on a couple of them to give you an idea of how they can help. We can go through more of them next term. Please turn to page two hundred and seventy-five."

Remus waited patiently until the sound of shuffling pages subsided.

"The main movement we are covering is the second one down the page. As you can see, it involves casting a spell in one direction, followed by a twist and an immediate casting in the opposite direction. Fairly simple, but it is all too easy for legs to become tangled up when you are under pressure and trying to think about casting at more than one opponent. The bottom line is this: the movements of your body must become automatic."

With a flick of his wand, Remus's desk was moved to the back wall. He then placed two chairs on either side of the room.

"Let me demonstrate."

He then proceeded to cast Stunning Spells, one after the other, first on one chair and then turning quickly to cast on the second chair, and then back again. This was done several times before he stopped to face the class, slightly out of breath. He noticed Ron giving Harry a subtle jab in the ribs rather than paying attention, and wondered what he was up to this time.

"Everybody up! Please place all your things--except your wands, of course--at the back of the room. I'll clear the tables."

Remus proceeded to line up the chairs in a row along each side of the room. "Because there are so many of you, you will have to work in pairs: otherwise, we won't have the space. You will each cast first on the chair, then turn and cast on your partner. For safety's sake, I would like you all to cast only the shield charm, Protego--even on the chairs: we don't want to risk anyone getting mixed up. Is there anyone who does not know how to cast this?" He looked around at the sea of faces and was pleased to see that everyone seemed quite happy with the chosen spell.

"Very well." He then ran through the placing of feet and shifting of bodyweight, demonstrating once more, but this time, far more slowly. "Please go ahead, I'll wander amongst you and comment as and when I need to. And please, don't put too much effort into your spell-casting: I'd like to avoid taking anyone to the hospital wing, if possible."

On the whole, Remus was very pleased with their progress. True, there were a couple of errant spells that had to be ducked, and two portraits and one clock became unfortunate casualties, but considering he had originally been worried about the possibility of physical injuries, it was going fairly peacefully. Even when Seamus Finnegan inadvertently set one of the chairs on fire, it didn't cause a huge disturbance, and the fire was quickly extinguished. Remus decided to get Dean Thomas and Seamus to practise without wands after that, leaving Dean feeling much more secure.

Remus wandered around the room, occasionally intervening and helping individuals with the positioning of their legs. He didn't think there'd be any problems to speak of, until he passed Harry.

Harry was having particular problems dictating the movements of his body, and Remus could only assume that it was because they were using different muscles than what Harry would be used to when playing Quidditch. Several times Harry ended up pointing in the wrong direction, or overbalancing halfway through a spell. Remus winced; this was not the best of scenarios he could've imagined to occur, not during a lesson. He had no choice but to intervene.

"Harry, you need to have the left leg placed more centrally underneath your body."

Harry tried to comply with Remus's instruction, but he couldn't get his leg in the right place without tipping forwards. There was nothing for it; Harry was going to have to be positioned. The thought I'm just his teacher was all that Remus allowed through his head as he knelt down on one knee in front of Harry. In the background, he could hear Ron sniggering.

"Support yourself using my shoulders, and I'll move your leg to where it's supposed to be," Remus explained.

He had done this for a few of the other students, this very lesson, and it hadn't been a problem then. He wouldn't let it become a problem now. It was just a leg he was moving... manipulating, just the same as all the other legs he had positioned over the past twenty minutes or so. It didn't matter that this was Harry's leg, or that Remus could clearly remember what it had tasted like when it had been covered with a layer of with Harry's sweat. He wouldn't let it matter, even if he felt as if the room temperature had suddenly risen by a good ten degrees. With the leg now in place, Remus hastily stood up and moved back to put some distance between them, telling Harry to take note of how it felt to be supporting himself in that position.

"That will help you to remember where to place your leg in future," he added before going back to the teacher's desk to take a much-needed drink of water.

To Remus's immense relief, Harry successfully completed a couple of turns.

Remus then moved on to the second movement: casting from a crouched position, and then turning to cast whilst standing, and vice versa. Unfortunately, the time that Remus took to demonstrate this move was the length of time needed for Harry to lose the original standing position.

Remus sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose as a couple of inappropriate flashbacks chose that moment to resurface; the last thing he needed was an erection. He walked back to his desk and pretended to shuffle papers for a moment, thinking for a way around that particular aspect of the problem at hand, and wondering if Harry was likely to be affected in the same way. An idea came to him.

"This is taking a little longer than I had anticipated," he announced to the class. "I had planned to cover cloak-use as well, as that can prove to be a hindrance when carrying out these moves, unless you practice. So for the rest of the lesson, we'll combine the two."

Underneath the confines of his cloak, Remus felt a lot more secure knowing that any inappropriate reactions could now be safely hidden. He moved amongst the students once more, helping out here and there and hoping that Harry would be able to get the gist before Remus made it to where he was practising. But Remus's hopes were in vain.

Having an extra layer of clothing might be good for hiding anything that cropped up, but it didn't do anything to dampen Remus's desire, merely the opposite. The school robes that had become a frequent part of his fantasies lately were teasing him mercilessly, and the fact that no one could see his hands underneath Harry's cloak as he positioned the leg again left him desperately fighting the urge to touch Harry in a way that was far more intimate than it should be. Now resigned to the inevitable swelling that was occurring, Remus instead tried to concentrate solely on his breathing, in an attempt to keep it resembling something at least vaguely normal to the other students.

With Harry re-positioned and, finally, seeming to have sorted out his balance, Remus went back to his desk with a sigh of relief that the lesson was nearly over.

"Professor," Hermione called out, stopping him in his tracks.

"Yes," he replied, only turning halfway so that the front of his cloak didn't gape open.

"I'm still having problems visualising the second move. Please could you demonstrate it once more, without the cloak?"

Ignoring the sensation of blood draining from his face, Remus took a brief moment to collect himself, to slow his suddenly racing heartbeat, and to improvise an excuse.

"I'm sorry, Hermione, but I was just about to wind the lesson up. If you want to stay afterwards, I could go through it with you then," Remus suggested, hoping that his reaction to Harry wouldn't still be a problem at that point. She was looking at him in an odd manner, and he wondered why this would be a problem for her. "You have a break after this lesson, do you not?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

"That's enough then, everyone," he called out to the rest of the class. "Please collect your things. Between now and when I return next term, I'd like you all to practise what we've covered this lesson. Also, you need to pick out two further moves in the books, ones that you think I will teach you next term. Write an essay describing them, the circumstances in which they could be useful, and why they are potentially more useful than the others."

The class filed out of the room, leaving Hermione and Remus alone, and Remus feeling rather self-conscious. He was relieved that he no longer had anything to hide under his cloak, but he couldn't help noticing that she was gazing at him a little too intensely as he folded the cloak up and placed it on the back of a chair. He gave out a silent prayer that she wouldn't want to discuss the kiss with him.

A moment later, he had slipped back into his teacher's role and began the requested demonstration, feeling very relieved that Hermione was sticking to the subject at hand. He failed to understand why Hermione felt she needed another demonstration when she seemed to have been doing so well throughout the lesson. As he expected, when it came to Hermione going through the movements, she managed to complete it perfectly on her first try. When they had finished, she gave a quick thank you and hurried out of the room after her friends.

Remus sat down heavily at this desk, resting his face in his hands, berating himself over his own lack of self-control. He hoped that next term's lesson on the same subject would be easier, now that Harry had managed the basics, and he told himself that he should just put it out of his mind. Just as he had successfully put escorting Harry at the end of term out of his mind, he realised. Remus muttered another prayer to whoever would listen, Please let Giles have a spare twin room this time.