An American Professor

Erin and Sirius spent the day laughing, talking, and getting to know one another all over again. Eventually, Erin gave in to temptation and had snuggled into Sirius’ arms, a place that she always had found warmth and comfort.

It was about six o’clock and they had just finished up the meal that Dobby had brought for them, when a knock came on her door. Dashing around frantically, Erin sought to cover up the presence of another individual in her room. After shooing Sirius into her bedroom, she calmly answered the door.

“Erin, is everything alright? We missed you at every meal today.”

Poor little Flitwick was standing at her door, the concern obvious on his face. “Filius, I’m fine, thank-you for your concern. I was feeling a bit under the weather, but I’ll be around tomorrow.”

“Well, you do look a little flushed, have you been to see Poppy?”

“Uh, no, it isn’t that serious. I’ll be fine, really, thank you for checking, though. I’ll see you tomorrow. Good night.” Erin shut the door feeling a pang of guilt for having to lie to the sweet little man. It was a sobering thought on an otherwise nice day to realize that should she want to be with Sirius her life would require that she lie to people, even people she cared about, often.

Pushing the thought from her mind, she went into her bedroom to look for Sirius. The sight that greeted her caused her put her hand over her mouth to contain the loud guffaw that was threatening to erupt from within. “What are you doing?”

From his spot on the bed, Sirius waggled his eyebrows at her suggestively, “What does it look like?”

Taking in his leering position on her bed, and the fact that he’d dropped the neck of his robe to reveal his shoulder and was looking at her with half-closed eyes, she fought to get her answer out without laughing. In mock seriousness she answered, “It looks as if you’re having a problem with gender role confusion. You look ridiculous, don’t tell me you thought you were actually going to seduce me like that?”

He pulled his robe up laughing and sitting up on her bed, “Well, sheesh it always works on me, when a gorgeous witch does it.”

Laughing with him, Erin jumped onto the bed, “That’s because you’re a man. I swear, just about anything could turn you on.”

“Oh, is that so?” He asked pulling back slightly, looking a little offended.

“Yes, that’s so. Hmm, do I sense a challenge?”

“Well, it’s just that, you make me out to be some kind of sex monger. I won’t just go to bed with any witch you know.”

“That’s good to know. Now, back to this little challenge.”

Sirius began lazily drawing circles on her arm, “I’m a little confused, and who’s trying to seduce whom?”

“Good question. I have a hard time believing that I wouldn’t be able to seduce you, like that,” she added with a snap of her fingers. “And anyway,” she continued, “after seeing your take on seduction-”

“I was joking around, that wasn’t an actual attempt! I was trying to make you laugh, which, I will remind you, I succeeded at.” Sirius crossed his arms and stared at her indignantly.

“Ok, ok, but do you want to make a bet? We each get an attempt to seduce the other, and the winner,” this was where she faltered, what should the winner get.

“The winner gets to be on top?” Sirius suggested helpfully while wriggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Smacking him in the head with a pillow, Erin laughed, “Mind still in the gutter, I should have known.”

“Hey, no fair hitting me with a pillow,” he called out right before smacking her in the side of the head with another pillow. This started a full out large-scale pillow fight. Laughing and shrieking they pummeled one another with pillows. Soon the pillows were devoid of all their feathers, and they lay side by side watching the feathers drift down from the ceiling both breathing loudly with silly grins on their faces.

Sirius rolled onto his side and began to kiss her face softly. He started with a few light kisses on her temple, before tracing kisses down her jaw to her chin before landing on her lips. Their kiss intensified and Erin rolled onto her side to continue kissing him, before pushing him onto his back and climbing on top of him. Breaking the kiss, she pulled her face from his and whispered into his ear, “Looks like I won.”

“Aggh,” he groaned before rolling her over onto her back sending more feathers into the air, and pressed himself against her, pecking kisses onto her lips in between saying, “Looks. Like. I. Won. After. All.”

Tilting her head back to laugh, Sirius used the vantage point to give her neck sweet kisses. Lowering her head, she put one hand on the back of Sirius’ head and guided his mouth to hers for a deep lingering kiss that made the room feel as if it’d been turned upside down and spun. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

“Ahem.”

Dammit, dammit, dammit. “Dammit,” she muttered.

Sirius had rolled off of her before she knew it and was staring at the intruder. “I’m terribly sorry for interrupting you two,” Dumbledore did indeed look apologetic as well as a little embarrassed, “but I’ve been trying to contact you for half an hour, without any response. Didn’t you hear me calling your names?”

Erin looked guiltily at Sirius and shook her head, Sirius looked back at Dumbledore, “No, sir, neither of us heard you.”

“I suppose that doesn’t matter right now, anyway. Well, Sirius, why don’t you say your good-byes and I’ll meet you in my office to go over your, uh, itineraries.” With that he swept out of the room, but neither one really noticed or cared at that moment, they were too busy staring into one another’s eyes.

“This certainly sucks, doesn’t it?”

Nodding unwilling to break eye contact she whined, “I wanted just a little more time with you.”

“Care for some cheese with that whine?”

“Ugh, that is so overused, Sirius. I wasn’t kidding though. Please be safe, and send word if you can. I always say that and you never do.”

He chuckled in spite of the gloomy circumstance, “I know, I know, I’ll try harder, I promise. I’ll miss you, and I’ll be back as soon as I can. I love you, Erin.”

“I know that. Come back soon.” She could feel her eyes begin to brim with tears.

He pulled her to him in a ferocious hug, “Don’t cry, I’ll be back soon.” Putting his hand under her chin, he lifted her lips to his and kissed her gently and then was gone in a flash.

The next month passed by in a blur for Erin. She spent two days a week with Hagrid and two other days with Trelawney. Snape was unceremoniously avoiding her, wich suited Erin just fine. Despite the warnings given to her by Harry and Ron, Erin had been looking forward to Divination. It wasn’t long before she was wishing she had taken Ancient Runes or Arithmancy, as Trelawney had predicted her untimely death a total of six times in eight classes. The heavily perfumed room was so hot that the minute Erin stepped inside she was dripping with perspiration. She had always had an interest in crystal balls, but quickly gave up on ever seeing anything in hers that Trelawney did not deem a death omen.

Care of Magical Creatures didn’t go much better. As she was his only student, Hagrid felt she needed extra special attention. With Hagrid, extra special attention involved multiple late night trips into the forest. The forest was filled with things Erin didn’t fancy running into during the day, but Hagrid insisted that more creatures came out in the night, and that they should try to see them then.

Meeting up with the centaurs again was nice. Firenze was cordial, but Escobar pretended not to remember her. She talked with Firenze for a few moments about their previous time together before he turned his head skyward and began to comment on the stars. That was the sum total of the pleasant encounters Erin had in the Dark Forest with Hagrid. The class she feared most was their trip to meet the giant spiders.

“Hagrid, I’m sorry, but I do not want to meet up with Aragog and his children. I’ve heard quite enough stories about the giant spiders to last me a lifetime, thank you very much.”

“Aw, Erin, c’mon, hearin’ ain’t thuh same as seein’ it.”

Erin silently agreed with that. Hearing about it had given her a couple of nightmares, seeing it, would definitely provide her with a lifetime of nightmares. Reluctantly she followed Hagrid deeper into the forest, running into him when he stopped dead. “Oomph! Hagrid, how about a little warning next time.”

He grinned down at her and replied, “Wait ‘ere.”

“Ack, no! Don’t leave me by myself! They’ll have eaten me by the time you get back!”

“Fine, c’mon wit me then. Never figured yah fer a wimp afore, Erin.”

“I’m not a wimp,” she snarled. Hagrid didn’t answer, only grunted in reply and trudged thicker into the trees. His wide girth cut quite a path and Erin followed him easily, but not without scouting around as she went. When they finally stopped walking, it was because they had reached Aragog’s home.

Erin immediately stood next to Hagrid, and clung to his arm. Her whole body was shaking with fright, and as a spider approached she gripped Hagrid’s arm to the point where she was certain she had drawn blood and began to whimper.

“Hagrid, my friend, how are you tonight? Who is this that you have brought me?”

“Brought him?” Erin hissed near hysteria.

“Shush,” Hagrid replied before turning to the spider who had spoken, “Aragog, nice tah see yuh. This is ah student a mine. I’m teachin’ ‘er bout magical bein’s like yerself.”

“Brought new blood into the forest, and it’s not even for eating. Hagrid, you know you shouldn’t tempt my poor children. They are quite hungry.”

“Oh, my God, I’m going to die, they are going to eat me,” she mumbled incoherently in a full-blown panic. Erin began looking for an escape route, but spiders had surrounded them. “Oh, dear God, they’re everywhere. Hagrid, we are going to die.” Erin couldn’t tear her eyes from the slowly approaching arachnids. All she could see was their pinchers dripping with something. “That’s it, Hagrid, get us the hell out of here right now, and when I say us, I mean, you’ve got yourself a passenger.” And with that Erin used the muscles she developed from all of her exercise to scramble up onto Hagrid’s back.

“Now, will yeh calm down, Erin. Everything’s fine. Aragog we’ll be leavin’ now, sorry fer thuh trouble.” Hagrid began to walk back the way he’d come, slightly kicking spiders out of his way as he went.

Erin looked back and saw far too many legs giving chase for her taste. Please let me be dreaming, please let me be dreaming, and I’m going to wake up any minute. Squeezing her eyes shut she reopened them only to find that she was still on Hagrid’s back in her living nightmare, and they were still making their way out of the Dark Forest being chased by giant spiders.

“Oh shit, they’re gaining on us! Hagrid, can’t you go any faster?” She shrieked while at the same time ducking down so that she wasn’t smacked in the head by stray branches.

Hagrid didn’t answer, he only grunted, but she thought she heard something about ‘women’ and ‘ridin’ on meh back’.

Pulling out her wand she began to aim at approaching spiders shouting “Stupefy!, Stupefy!” Her spells only worked part of the time partly she figured since she wasn’t concentrating very well, and partly because every time she get a lock on a spider and shoot a spell it seemed the Hagrid would move. It was satisfying to see several spiders fall to the side of the path that Hagrid was following to get them out of the forest.

“Erin, don’t hurt ‘em too badly.”

“Hagrid they’re trying to eat us!” She yelled as she took aim at a spider she felt was far too close for comfort, “Stupefy!” It fell to the side of the path, but another quickly took it’s place, “Stupefy!” she cried again, and again the new spider fell.

After what felt like hours they were out of the forest, and the spiders seemed to have lost interest. Erin jumped down from Hagrid’s back, still shaking, but with the adrenaline pounding in her ears she was able to ask, “Hagrid, from now on can my lessons simply be book learning? Assign me anything, I’ll write fifty scrolls on it, I don’t care, but promise we will NEVER do that again.”

Hagrid nodded and looked very sorrowful. Erin knew she should feel bad, but instead she turned on her heel and ran full speed to the school. Bursting through the front door she continued to run until suddenly it felt as if the world didn’t exist under her feet any longer. She was suddenly falling, falling, falling deep into a black hole full of nothingness, and everything around her went absolutely black.

The first thing Erin saw when she awoke was a vampire peering into her face. “Ahhhhh!” she screamed.

“Ahhhhh!” screamed the vampire, wait no, that wasn’t a vampire, that was Snape.

“Holy shit, Snape, what the hell is going on, what did you do me?” Erin asked bewildered groping around her, trying to focus. She was lying at the bottom of the stairs. Had she fallen? Had he pushed her down the stairs? Why couldn’t she remember anything?

He sneered back at her, “I didn’t do anything to you. Why did you scream at me?”

“I thought you were a vampire. Where am I? What the hell happened?”

“You’re at the bottom of the stairs leading to the dungeon. How should I know what happened to you. I just had just come upon you when you screamed at me.”

Erin’s head was beginning to hurt and she touched the back of it gingerly, it was sticky, pulling her hand back she saw blood. “Aw, dammit, not again,” she said showing her fingers to Snape who looked concerned and then disdainful. “Ooh, better watch it, Sevie, you almost showed human emotion there.”

“Professor Worhli, I would be most obliged if you would shut the hell up. If I weren’t worried about you staining my floor I’d just leave you here, as it is, shut up so I can get you to the hospital wing.” He conjured a stretcher for her, afraid to find out what else may be broken, Erin stayed still as he levitated her onto the stretcher.

Guiding the stretcher down the hall to the Hospital Wing, he deposited her in Pomfrey’s care, and went in search of the Headmaster.

Poppy immediately began to tsk, tsk, at Erin. “Tsk, tsk, what have you done to yourself this time,” and continued not waiting for an answer, “I swear you young people have no regard for your bodies, tsk, tsk.”

Erin chose to ignore her and instead focused on a tiny black dot on the ceiling as Poppy began mending bones. When it became apparent that the spot was not a spot, but was in fact moving, Erin lifted her wand arm and aimed at it crying, “Stupefy!”

The spider fell from the ceiling onto Erin’s bed causing her to jump up onto her newly mended bones to avoid contact with the beast. With a ‘crack, crack’ both legs broke again, as they weren’t yet properly mended and did not deserve the punishment that Erin had bestowed upon them. Erin fell unceremoniously and completely ungracefully to the floor feeling quite a large amount of new pain.

“What in the name of Merlin is going on in here?”

Erin turned her head slightly to see Dumbledore and Snape standing in the doorway. Pomfrey was running about wringing her hands, and cried, “Oh, for goodness sakes, somebody just immobilize her!”

Snape’s face twisted into a sinister smirk as he said, “With pleasure,” and before Erin could attempt escape he aimed his wand and cried, “Petrificus Totalus!” and Erin’s world went numb.