hands (professor lupin)✔️

Chapter Fifteen || Problems

I couldn't pretend Lupin's words hadn't stung me.

For a moment there I was almost absolutely sure I heard actual living proof that he found me attractive. But the next moment my mind, ecstatic and lively at first, was already completely blank and tired and even a little ashamed of what I'd thought about.

Lupin? Fancy me?

 I smiled at the thought. Then I had to put a hand over my face because I let out a dry sob. 

The next day after I heard these words was in a blur. I had worked myself into a frenzy and felt as if all my sorrows could be drowned in formulas and spells. Ruby and I had barely exchanged two words - and as I sat looking into my Potions textbook in class, I suddenly realised I missed Harry, Ron and Hermione.

Strange how easily you get attached to people, even when you don't know them so well.

I found Hermione in the library after class. She looked up and beamed at me.

- Hullo Lennie, - she said, making room for me near her. - How've you been?

- Strange, I guess, - I said. - I don't know. Life is just... confusing.

Hermione's smile faded. She had definitely not expected me to open up to her. Well, to be honest, neither did I.

- Do you want to talk? - she said, quietly.

***

Hermione wasn't called clever for nothing. It took me less than twenty minutes before I began talking about Lupin and it took Hermione less than five seconds to interrupt: 

- Do you by any chance - have any feelings for him?

Somehow it felt as if everyone suddenly became skilled in Occlumency the second they heard me talk.

It was foolish to deny it and I told Hermione everything - strangely revelling in the possibility of opening up to another girl.

How strange it was to remind myself that I had once felt jealous of her.

When I had finished talking - and she had finished asking just the right questions - she looked up at me and said:

- Well. He does act strangely...all in all... I don't think your case is hopeless. But I wouldn't quote me on that. What do I know about relationships?

It was the last thing I was expecting to hear, and a good one at that - but me being me, overworked, hungry and fed up, I burst into tears. 

Hermione and I sat in her dormitory till late into the evening. We tried talking of other things, but Hermione would always steal a glance every now and then to see if I wasn't near tears. 

Somehow, I was grateful to her. For being so fussy and smart and sometimes overprotective, even if I was so much older than her. Or maybe I wasn't. Maybe, deep inside, I was still feeling thirteen and life simply hadn't caught up with me yet.

I knew one thing - I had badly missed having a girl friend.

***

My feelings for Lupin, set ablaze by some stupid words he'd mumbled into his hand on a cold evening when we were alone in his study, weren't the only problem I had to face. 

Hagrid, the Hogwarts groundkeeper, and a close friend of the trio, sent Hermione a letter saying that his Hippogriff, Buckbeak, was to be executed. Despite the enormous pile of work I had to do and the preparation for my exams, I joined Hermione in her quest to save the poor creature. 

We pored over law books, wrote letters to anyone who, as we thought, could help. Sometimes I would find Hermione asleep in the library and have to drag her, mumbling and dizzy up to the dormitory, because she was too heavy for me to carry.