Double Defense

"Call it intuition," she mumbled aloud. Smacking her alarm clock in a very muggle-like way, "but I'm relatively certain today is going to wank."

She rolled out of bed with curses about the ungodliness of the hour flowing freely from her lips. As she hopped into the shower, She couldn't help but to smirk at what her students would say if they saw her like this. The legendary logician behind the Boy Who Lived to Make Things Difficult' defeat of Voldemort. The only Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher to last more than a year in over a decade. Even Hermione Ganger, Order of Merlin (first class) and deputy head of Gryffindor House, felt like shit when she woke up.

She got dressed and looked into the mirror with a sigh, slightly frizzy ringlets falling into her bleary, tired eyes. Â She ran a hand through her hair, getting her fingers caught in a nest of snarls. She cursed again and grabbed her brush.
After much more colorful language that would have been offensive to deities of both the muggle and magical sort, she decided she was ready... or at least, as ready as she was going to get.

Or course, the students wouldn't be arriving for a few more weeks there were still quite a few preparations to be made. After deciding to skip her usual toast and tea in favor of a quick cup of coffee, Hermione made her way to her classroom. 'My classroom... I like the sound of that,' she thought.

She hadn't been quite so quick to admit how much she loved her classes when Dumbledore had first mentioned his wish or her to stay as a permanent member of the Hogwarts staff. "But it's a TRADITION!" she'd said. "Besides, don't you think the students deserve someone more... qualified? I really don't deserve the honors that come with being the one to break this streak."

Dumbledore had chuckled at her and reminded her of her record-high NEWT scores and her hand in the defeat of Voldemort. "Hermione, I would say that you are qualified to be the international chief Minister of Magic, if you really wanted to be. You are most certainly the best person for the job."

Hermione blushed and took the position at that, starting to make her classroom and chambers more permanent in the time that followed shortly after, but she couldn't help thinking that somewhere along the long line of professors that had left over the years, there was one that should have broken the chain before she'd even graduated Hogwarts.

* * * * *

He woke up as the sun was just barely poking through the morning fog. His long-ish hair fell across his eyes, shielding them from the rays of light shining into his window.
Stretching in a decidedly feline matter, with an ironically wolfish expression across his face as he sniffed the air around him, he sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He looked around the bedroom, much too ornately decorated for his personal tastes, and sighed. "This is NOT where I want to be right now."

He pulled on an old, battered sweater of charcoal gray and a pair of muggle jeans before finding his way out the front doors of the Beauxbatons castle.

Remus Lupin wasn't particularly UNHAPPY to be in France, per-se. He'd lived there as a child, up until he'd received the werewolf bite, making the surname fit the already canine-natured boy even better. He'd brought several fond memories of growing up on the French countryside with him to Beauxbatons, but the time he spent with students seemed to drastically alter his perspective. Memories of France and the open fields by the cottage where he used to live turned to thoughts of the world at large as a cruel place filled with people who are born and bred to hate, fear, and brush off anyone 'inferior' to them. He wondered what they'd say if they found out what he truly was.

Of course, he'd never truly given anyone a chance to say what they thought about it since James, Sirius, and... Peter. He shuddered at the thought of Peter. 'May he rot forever in hell.'

But even as Hogwarts' most beloved professor, he'd fled before anyone could say as much as a simple goodbye. Even when he saw Harry, Ron, and Hermione again, they were too busy with the last few battles of the war to have any personal contact and Remus had fled back to Beauxbatons again right after everything had been deemed safe.

And even after three years, he wondered if he should have stayed.

Hogwarts held friends where Beauxbatons was empty, though neither held any family or lovers close by... and there was still the sinking feeling of something terribly important laying forgotten from when he'd left Hogwarts again...

* * * * *

"It is time we did something."

"But vat about everyzing zat 'appened last time? Zat poor Diggory boy... eet vas 'orrible..."

"My dear, Madame Maxime, our two schools were incredibly close in the past. It would be a terrible tragedy indeed to lose the bonds we shared between staff and students. With Durmstrang gone, our two schools need to connect at least a hundred times better than before. Perhaps a Duowizard tournament?"

"But zat vould do no good! Eet vould put our schools against one anuzzer, no?"

Dumbledore sighed thoughtfully. "True... well... perhaps we could find a way to mingle staff and students in a non-competitive way? What do the muggles call it... foreign exchange? Perhaps we could create a program in which both staff and students had a bit of a switch?"

"Oh, zat vould be vonderful! I vill be sure to talk to my staff about eet zis evening at our meeting."

"As will I, my dear lady, and if all goes well, we will have a grand year of inter-school cooperation indeed."

* * * * *

"...Basically, as ze Trivizard tournament vould be eempossible, ve feel eet vould be best to send one of our teachers to work een collaboration vith one at Hogvarts and zey vill send one to us," Madame Maxime explained to the teaching staff, all seated een a circle. "Professor Dumbly-dorr has already spoken vith his staff and has decided to enrich our Astronomy program zis year vith the vorld renowned professor, Sylvia Sinistra." Several members of the staff nodded in approval. "Zey vill, of course, be hiring someone to work there for the year een her place. Now ve have a decision to make on who vill be to Hogvarts..."

Murmurs about not wanting to leave the comforts of Beauxbatons seemed to buzz throughout the room. Remus Lupin paid no mind to the others and raised his hand without a second thought. "I'll go."