Lupa | Teddy Lupin

Chapter 15 - The Stones of the Greatly Fallen

Over the weeks, Maddie's recovery to her former self was outstanding. First her grades crawled back up and soon everything seemed to fall into place. It was quite remarkable really. She'd been talking to her friends and Professor Lupin about her thoughts, all who'd willing listened and she was slowly pulled back down to earth. Her anxiety was less frequent and her appetite began to return. When her anxiety did come crawling back, she spoke quickly to her friends who reassured her, distracted her. Of course she did spend some nights thinking and over thinking, but the following morning when she was back to being surrounded by her friends and talking about anything and everything and writing and reading her school work, her worries slipped to the back of her mind.

With her appetite returning, the constant chill that had been following her dissolved and her cheeks began to fill out again. She nearly looked rosy and youthful once more as she slowly began to fit her clothing properly again. Wit returned to her conversations and her amber eyes sparkled more often.

Of course the full moon still came and went and it was as bad as ever, but with more strength in her body and less worry in her mind, less damage came to her. Obviously it wasn't a long term solution, but it was fine for now.

The winter slowly melted into spring and with it came colour and a bit more warmth, which all the students readily embraced.

The first weekend of April something amazing happened. Maddie walked through the Great Hall, at breakfast time, with her head held high and her posture tall and confident. I mean, she didn't feel half as confident as she looked, but it was something.

Teddy grinned from the Hufflepuff table as stares followed the red head through the hall. Teddy felt so proud when she sat down and took a bowl of porridge for herself.

People were, of course, muttering and staring, but no one called a single name with the teachers all perched across the head table. Teddy looked up at his father and caught his eye and smiled. Teddy knew his Maddie was fast returning and he could not be more grateful.

***

The weeks continued and Maddie also continued to improve her physical and mental health. By the time the teachers began talking about exams her grades were top of the year group again.

Suddenly the fourth years were swamped in revision and absurd amounts of practice papers.

"Honestly," Teddy complained one evening in the library, "we're fourth years, we don't have our OWLs for another year." he rubbed his eyes, which were tired and itchy from looking at the pages of textbooks for so long. His hair was light blue and his eyes were the colour of parchment. Maddie shrugged.

"I mean they don't count for anything so it's all just good practice really."

Yup, the old Maddie was definitely back.

Meelee rolled her eyes.

"Easy for you to say, you get 100% in just about everything with no practice at all." She huffed.

"I just revise a lot." Maddie mumbled modestly, not looking up from her ancient runes paper.

They stayed in the library a couple of hours longer before heading to the Great Hall for dinner. When in there Maddie could feel, as always, stares following her around. She'd learned to ignore them now and they'd slowly died down a little.

Maddie and Meelee had just settled down next to Adam when a shout came across the table from some other Gryffindors.

"Oi Pilrick! Come for a bite of tea?" He jaunted. Maddie thought she recognised him as a fifth year with a large, jutting out jaw, but couldn't quite remember his name. He was the vain, attention seeking type, thought himself quite the catch.