The Stars and Forbidden Cigarettes | Professor Remus Lupin

Irreparable Break

As McGonagall walks into the room, Reverie apparates from the wardrobe to Hogsmeade. She realizes she hadn't thought far enough ahead, however, when the cold midnight air of late March hits her unexpectedly.

Shivering now, she finds herself having subconsciously apparated into the alley Lupin had dragged her into months before, and she wraps her arms around herself as she makes her way into the barren Hogsmeade streets. There isn't a soul around with whom to share life, streetlights are sparse, and all the windows are dark. Reverie hurries to the One-Eyed Witch Passage.

As she reaches the cellar, however, she looks beyond the Hogsmeade grounds, to the hills on which the Shrieking Shack stands, and sees the moment in which a lingering, faint trace of orange light is extinguished. Something within her drops. She wonders if she should have stayed.

Through the passage and in the tunnels below Hogsmeade and Hogwarts, Reverie finds herself alone with her thoughts once again, and she smells the fire on her sweater, the dust and the whiskey, and she wonders what Lupin is thinking, if he regrets anything, or everything, with McGonagall being so close and with the reality of never being truly alone.

~~~

The next day, Lupin isn't at breakfast, and neither is McGonagall. Oliver talks to her about the Ministry of Magic and the letter, but Reverie nods absentmindedly.

Four more days pass by just the same, with Lupin and McGonagall missing, with March slowly sliding into April, with Oliver speaking enough for the both of them. Reverie's heart aches with the shame of her self-sabotage, the shame of pushing Oliver away, the shame of pining after Lupin, who, by now, has all but abandoned her entirely.

By the fifth night, after Oliver says good night and Reverie has been left without a single word from Lupin, she makes her way out of the portrait hole and to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom.

The oak doors are so familiar to her now, and before, she might've dared to walk in, but tonight, she knocks cautiously. The lock turns nearly instantly, to the point that she wonders if he knew she'd been standing there, and she pushes open the large door. The classroom is dark, but the door to his office is open and Lupin is walking down the steps. Reverie gently closes the door behind her as Lupin reaches the main level and begins walking towards her.

She makes her way into the middle of the classroom, and he stops two tables before her. His eyes are flickering across her face as she sees turmoil in his eyes. She straightens under his gaze. He wonders if she knows what he'll say already.

"Where have you been?" She asks, colder than she intentioned it to sound.

He takes a step closer before stopping. He rubs at his face. Her breathing quickens as she watches his arms flex, remembering the way his hands had felt on her. She hates this.

"I think McGonagall knows, Reverie." Her breathing quickens at his words, but her skin burns at the way he says her name in the dark room. She sees the way his fingers dig into his palm. "We have to stop. I think she knows about..." He gestures between the two of them, "this."

Her back turns rigid. "Did she say anything?"

"No," he says, shaking his head. "No. I just know her. She spoke to me about you. She called all of the professors for a 'refresher on Hogwarts' Policy of Fraternization.'" He looks away from Reverie and towards the open windows and the lake beyond. When he turns back towards her, she's moved a step back.

"Were you ever planning on telling me?" Lupin's face softens at this, but it isn't enough. "If I hadn't come tonight, what would you have done? Just let me figure everything out on my own?"

"Reverie, that isn't it—"

"'Let's leave her in the dark again. She's a smart girl. She can work it out.'" Reverie scoffs. "And McGonagall? Where has she been for the past week?"

"That's irrelevant. We were at the Ministry of Magic. We've taken up a case on Hogwarts' parcel interceptions."

Reverie shakes her head. "And your wolfsbane? I expect you're still out of that too?"

Lupin takes a step forward. A table and a half stands between them. For all she knows, they could be standing on opposite sides of Scotland's largest lake. His chest hurts. "Reverie, stop worrying about me."

Reverie's chest heaves and her eyes sting and burn into him. "I care about you, you asshole."

"You shouldn't."

She laughs a pained laugh before rubbing her face and resting her hand over her mouth, looking at Lupin almost incredulously. "You've managed to get me to tell you things I haven't told anyone. You look at me the way you look at me. You give me books. You leave me notes. You kiss me!" Her voice breaks and she shakes her head. "I want to believe so badly that this wasn't just some perverse game for you. I need to believe that you're better than that."

"Reverie, if McGonagall knows, then it's over. I get fired, you might get expelled just before you graduate, and I can't let that happen." Lupin watches her tense.

"God, I've been such a fool." She shuts her eyes.

"Reverie, you know I'm right. You know this is just as unsustainable now as it was before. If not more so."

She looks back at him, her eyes blazing and sad and confused all at once. She wonders with a jolt if this will be the last time they will ever be alone together. He waits for her to speak, but when she only backs away, it hurts more than anything she could ever have said.

She turns her back to him after a few steps, and he stays motionless, fixed in his spot, watching her leave. Her hand is on the handle now, the oak smooth against her knuckles, the room behind her somehow darker than she found it, and she pauses and turns back to Lupin.

She takes in the sight of him, alone with her in this cavernous classroom, and the lips that had been so hungrily on hers, the eyes that made her blood run and burn through her veins when they stayed on her, the hands that roamed across her body leaving behind trails of fire and heat, the arms that had carried her close to him. He tucks his hands into his pockets, and Reverie brings her eyes up to his.

"I almost wish you were just a coward, Professor. It would hurt less than knowing that you simply don't care at all."

Her words sear through him as she turns away and opens the door, letting it shut loudly behind her. His legs ache to go after her, his hands ache to hold her, but his conscience roots him in place. In the empty stone hallway, the sound of the door echoes deafeningly as Reverie's pulse pounds in her ears.

She doesn't register her own movements until her fingers touch the gleaming water of the Black Lake and she sits down on the cold stone. Only then does she feel herself irreparably broken. Only then does she let a single tear fall.