The Stars and Forbidden Cigarettes | Professor Remus Lupin

The Train

Reverie Castill walks through the cabins hurriedly, doing her final checks before she can return to the Prefect compartment and finally sit down. She still doesn't understand why she was made Prefect, but concedes that it was McGonagall's doing. Why McGonagall thinks that she "isn't as hard-headed as she makes herself out to be," she'll never know.

Nevertheless, she's here, and she might as well find ways to make herself useful. As smart and top-of-the-class as she was, she never made any lasting friends -- never needed any -- but the loneliness sometimes got to her.

Lost in her thoughts, she almost topples over at the sight of Fred Weasley's signatured red hair suddenly sticking out of the second compartment in the cabin.

"Rev! Hey!" He exclaims, ignoring her shock, "Hope your summer was great! Um, so, Ron lost Scabbers again, his rat. It's gray. We can't leave our cabins yet, so I was hoping you could go look for it? Ron, Harry, and Hermione are still looking for an empty compartment here, but the last time he saw it was when he got on the train on the other end. He says he's sure Scabbers is on the train, so..."

"Yeah, Fred, of course. No problem," Reverie responds. Fred looks grateful as she hurries back down the corridor, towards the complete opposite side of the train. She looks through each compartment, growing increasingly more irritated when she approaches Slytherin's cabin with no sign of Scabbers. Once she gets to the end of the train, she turns around. She's determined to get back before the Trolley Lady makes her way down: getting a Chocolate Frog and Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans and curling up by the window in her empty compartment with the muggle book her grandmother had given her was something she'd been looking forward to all summer. With this thought in mind, the compartments seem to wisp behind her, until finally she finds and picks up Scabbers in the corner of the Prefect cabin and sighs of relief.

"There you are buddy! Let's get you back to Ron so I can get my Chocolate Frogs," she whispers and makes her way back down the train to Fred.

Hurrying through the cabin closest to the Prefects to get to the Gryffindors while looking down to make sure Scabbers doesn't successfully wiggle his way out of her hands, she slams into a wall and drops Scabbers.

"Shit! Scabbers, no!" She whisper-shouts. She watches as Scabbers scurries down the corridor, and realizes that it wasn't a wall that she ran into but a body. The man, scruffy and shabby-looking, barely looks up at her, his green eyes meeting her bewildered ones briefly but surprisingly intensely, as he brushes past. She looks after him.

"Hello? You're not going to help? Or fucking apologize? Asshole!" She calls after him. He keeps his head down and keeps walking, one hand in his brown tweed coat pocket, the other latched onto his briefcase.

"The Ministry is a grand piece of shit," she mutters under her breath and spots Scabbers scurrying back towards the corner of the cabin.

"And what about you, bud! Why can't you be a good rat and stay put!" she says. The man stalls a bit and glances back at her before entering a compartment. Reverie picks up Scabbers, for the second time now, and continues on her way to Fred.

She slows down when she walks into the Gryffindor cabin and stops all the way when she sees Fred in the second compartment. Opening the door with one hand, she watches as his face lights up.

"Thank Merlin! Thanks Rev!" He says.

"Of course, where's Ron?"

"Ron was just looking for compartments in this cabin, but I think it's full so he's probably going back one cabin."

"The one before the Prefects'? I was just in there."

"They went into Ginny's compartment for a bit. I was in there earlier. They probably left right after you passed them."

"Ok, I'll go look. I'll see you later then, at the feast," Reverie says, sliding the door closed.

Keeping a hold on Scabbers, wary of any more mysterious figures suddenly appearing, she finally sees Ron's signature fiery red hair and opens the compartment door.

"Scabbers!" He cries out, grabbing him from Reverie's hand.

Reverie smiles.

"Thank you so, so much, Rev!"

She looks around the cabin, first at Harry, then Hermione, then a figure under the cloak. Reverie frowns.

"Do you know who that is?" She asks.

"We don't know. He was here when we got in a few seconds ago," Hermione answers.

"I think I bumped into him in the corridor. He made me drop Scabbers." At that, Reverie could've sworn she saw his eyebrow twitch, and she wanted to see if it would happen again. "A Ministry asshole, I imagine. No care for the welfare of others." To her dismay, no movement.

All of a sudden, the train halts to a stop. Reverie looks out down the corridor which is growing colder by the moment.

"And that is my cue to leave. Say bye to Scabbers for me, Ron," Reverie says, leaving Harry, Ron, and Hermione, making her way back to her own compartment in the Prefects' cabin, and closing what she hopes to be the last compartment door of the train ride.

She leaves a bout of commotion behind her and somehow ignores the overbearing cold and the great flash of light as she huddles under her own cloak and loses herself in her book and intrusive, annoyed thoughts of green. 

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A/N: Chapter one, done! This chapter was just to show their primary encounter, nothing special, but the chapters to come will have more creative writing about the characters and angst and hatred! Stay tuned, and please feel free to comment if you liked it or if there is something in particular that you would like to see in the story!

DISCLAIMER: All content and characters apart from Reverie Castill belong to J.K. Rowling. However, I do not and will never support her transphobic and offensive comments and behavior.