The Stars and Forbidden Cigarettes | Professor Remus Lupin

Persuasion

Even a week after that night in the Great Hall, Reverie is still thinking about it. Her and Lupin's dynamic had cooled considerably over the month of October, but that single night warmed it just enough to get under her skin.

Her (hopefully final) detention was approaching quicker than she would've liked, even though Lupin notified her that he was pushing it back another two weeks, albeit in a very brief, impersonal note.

Miss Reverie Castill,

The detention on Thursday night must be pushed back to the last Tuesday of November.

- Professor Lupin.

The content of the note is exceptionally unfeeling, and since it is informing her of a detention she would rather not have to sit through, she figures that it's better that way. However, after seeing her first name in his script, her heart skips unfamiliarly. The way the R curves, the dot on the i -- it feels so unintentionally intimate that she finds herself pouring over it for an entire minute before she steps back. Why does she care? It's about her detention, for Merlin's sake.

Little does Reverie know that Lupin spent the better part of an hour formulating a perfectly dispassionate sentence -- with no pronouns or mention of her or him -- but writing her name sent a jolt through his quill and up his arm, and he couldn't bring himself to write a new copy.

She picks it up and makes to crumple it, but pauses for a second, before shaking her head but deciding to fold it twice and put it in a pocket in her satchel, for safe-keeping, lest she forget the new date. She knows she won't forget it though -- she knows what else falls on that date -- but, as she walks to Herbology, she can almost swear that she feels it burn her every time her bag bounces back off her thigh, and she let's it distract her. She doesn't bother to move it.

---------------------------------------------------------

On the last Tuesday of November, Reverie approaches Lupin's classroom five minutes before seven. The doors are open, and inside it's empty. She enters anyway, makes her way to her seat, and pulls out Persuasion. She is on the final few chapters, and she figures her detention is the perfect time to finally finish the book. Either way, she couldn't bear to be alone and not know what to do with herself for any longer today.

As the clock chimes outside, Lupin walks out of his office and falters at the sight of Reverie already in her chair. The sound startles her, who thought the room to be empty, and her head jolts up to meet his eyes.

He looks away quickly and clears his throat as he makes his way down the stairs.

"Adopting better habits, I see," he says. She follows him with her eyes.

"I figured there were worse places to be than here. The stomach of a three-headed dog after being eaten alive comes to mind." He steps off the last step, and she smiles when he looks at her. He frowns.

"I'm flattered."

"I'm glad." She looks down at her book, and as he pulls out his chair and sits down, he sees that it's Persuasion and that she's almost finished.

She turns the page to reveal Wentworth's letter to Anne, her absolute favorite part, and she smiles as she swoons. Always hopelessly romantic when it comes to books, she traces the words as she reads them.

"I can listen no longer in silence. I must speak to you by such means as are within my reach. You pierce my soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me not that I am too late, that such precious feelings are gone for ever..."

The first few lines are all it takes: her cold exterior comes down, and she's putty in Jane Austen's hands.

Lupin watches her face glow and knows she's reached the letter, and he smiles to himself as he leans back in his chair, rests his feet on the corner of his desk, and picks up his own book. He feels a question bubble to the surface, and he knows the second he asks, he'll regret it, but any and all restraint he had before her is almost certainly gone now, so he closes his eyes briefly and doesn't look away from his book when he asks, "Wentworth or Darcy?"