Chocolate Toast, Remus Lupin

Potions and Pianos

As Avery walked into potions she was not expecting Slughorn to be waiting for her. "Ah, Ms. Dessen. I heard you made prefect, I want you to be on the lookout for my owl."

"Of course professor, I'll be on the lookout every morning," Avery said before walking to a table. Avery of course knew what the letter would be about. Slughorns prized slug club. Professor Slughorns' slug club was nothing special in Avery's mind, she knew that the real reason she was invited was because of her grandmother. Avery didn't mind that her grandma was the minister of magic most of the time, this was one of the times she did mind. She didn't want to go to slughorns little club which was all about bragging about his past students and trying to find the best of the bunch for this year.

Avery watched as her classmates filled the classroom, "Jacob." Avery called the boy over as he walked in.

"Hey, so I was actually going to sit with Estelle." Avery's eyes widened. "If you wanted me to sit with you I can!"

"No, no it's fine. I'm sure Lily will be in this class so I can see if she wants to sit together."

"Okay, thank you, Avery. This could be my in!" Avery smiled as Jacob walked over to the Hufflepuff. Jacob had liked this girl since the end of the fourth year, Avery knew she couldn't hold him back from this. Avery put her head down, trying to focus her mind for the class.

After a minute she lifted her head at the sound of the chair next to her being pulled out. She saw his hands first, then his face. "Are there no other seats Lupin?"

"Sorry, James, Sirius, and Peter are all in muggle studies. Lily's sitting with Marlene and I don't really know anyone else.

"You don't know me either so move."

"Slughorns about to start. I can't now." Avery went to slam her head on the table, planning to put her hand there before she actually hit it. She started moving her hand but something was already there, unable to stop her head in time she hit what was there. Avery lifted her head to look at the boy with a look of disbelief on her face. Remus cleared his throat. "Sorry, force of habit because of Pete."

Avery looked away from Remus and took out her potions textbook and pen. "Now, these seats will be the ones you will sit in for this first semester." Avery groaned internally. "We'll be starting with a small lecture and then moving on to making the potion," Slughorn said standing at the front of the classroom. Slughorn started his lecture on fire-breathing potions, Avery looked around the classroom, half of the students weren't even awake.

Looking toward Remus, Avery saw him taking notes and bouncing his leg. Feeling bored and uninterested Avery opened her potions book to look through and start ahead on changing up the fire-breathing potion recipe. "What are you doing?" Remus asked, watching as Avery scribbled in her textbook.

"Fixing it," Avery whispered back. Remus stopped taking notes and watched Avery, her hair was down and fell in her face every now and then. "Will you stop?" A blush spread on his face and he turned back to watch Slughorn.

About 20 minutes had passed and Slughorn finished his lecture. "Now, take to your textbooks, you have 35 minutes to make the potion and turn in a small vial with your name attached." As soon as Slughorn took a seat at his desk everyone was talking and grabbing the needed ingredients.

Remus walked back to the table as Avery got up to get hers. "I got you some too," Remus said before Avery could leave.

"What?"

"I got double, so you wouldn't have to go up." Avery squinted, looking at Remus before sitting back down and grabbing her half.

"Thanks," Avery said, starting her potion. Remus smiled and started his as well. Every now and then Avery would look over and tell Remus to not do a certain step or to do it differently. In the end, both finished 10 minutes early thanks to Avery's rewrites. "Here you go, Professor," Avery said, handing her vial in.

Remus came up behind Avery, turning his in too. "Ah, you two seem to make a good team, you're free to go after you clean up your station." Avery nodded, going back to her seat to clean up. After finishing, Avery left the classroom and decided to go back to the prefect common room since DADA wasn't for another 30 minutes.

Avery took the time to look around the common room now that no one else was in there. There was the part in front of the fireplace with couches surrounding it. There were five tables around the room for sitting, and one wall had a built-in bookshelf and was filled with books, in the corner closest to the dorm stairs there was a piano and guitar, and on the wall that separated the boy's stairs from the girl's stairs there was the bulletin board with the rules and prefect rounds.

Since no one was in the room Avery took this time to sit down at the piano and play for a couple of minutes. She started playing one of the first songs she learned, smiling slightly at the memory of her and her mother playing.

7-year-old Avery Dessen sat on her mother's lap in the early morning of 1967 watching as her mother played moon river and quietly sang. "Can you teach me?" Avery asked as her mother finished the song.

"Of course," Avery's mother moved Avery's fingers to the correct keys and started to teach her the notes that each finger pushed. Avery smiled along as her mother taught her the basics of playing and how to use both hands at once.

"Do you think I'll be as good as you one day?"

"With lots of practice, you could be even better than me." Avery nodded, determined to impress her mother.

"Now what are you two doing up so early?" Avery's father asked as he walked into the living room.

"Mommy's teaching me to play!" The man laughed and moved to sit next to the pair on the bench.

"Let's hear what you have so far!" Avery nodded and started to play the first couple of keys to moon river. "Amazing! You'll be a pro in no time Ave!" The little girl laughed, hugging her father.

"You play lovely." Avery stopped playing and turned, Sylvia was standing in the entranceway.

"Oh, thank you. What class did you come from?"

"Charms, finished the pre-exam pretty early." Avery nodded, "Well I best be going, just came to grab my history book."

"Ugh, I hate that class, Binns is so boring."

Sylvia laughed, "I have to agree, I love the subject but hate him as a teacher. Maybe I'll take over after I graduate."

"Please do, I'd rather jump off the astronomy tower than have him for the next two years."

Sylvia smiled and shook her head. "I'll see you later Avery, have a good rest of your day." Avery gave her a smile, watching as the head girl went up to her dorm. Checking her watch Avery saw she had about 10 minutes until DADA so she grabbed her bag and started to the classroom.

ahahhaha