Bedknobs and Broomsticks [HP fanfic; BNB Book 1]

Christmas, 1993

The castle was never more cheery, and never more empty, than it was during the Christmas holidays. For the first time since arriving at Hogwarts, Mariah found herself free to wander the castle free of schedule. Madam Pomfrey had had her merely changing bed linens and managing supplies at first, but after a while had conceded to Mariah's skill level and counted her in on the nursing administration to students. There was even a promise in the upcoming year of more active work as far as the medical potions were concerned. But for the holidays, neither Madam Pomfrey nor Mariah was needed on deck at all times, and Poppy had given her leave to spend her days outside of the Hospital Wing.

She had spent most of her time with Remus in his office, as he was catching up on the work he had missed after his most recent full moon. Geoff stopped by a good amount, but was splitting his time between his academic duties and following his daughter around the snowy lawn building snowmen and snowwomen and snowppogriffs in a large snowvillage near the banks of the lake. Two days into the break had Remus looking far healthier than he had, though a bit pale behind the tall stack of papers he still needed to grade.

"I don't envy you," said Mariah, grinning from behind her mug of butterbeer as Remus pulled down another scroll and stretched it on the desk. "What a way to spend your Christmas..."

"It's a small price to pay for employment," he said, squinting at the tiny scrawl. Mariah scooted a second chair closer and propped her feet up.

"Usually I work overtime at Christmas. There's always an odd mashup of prank gifts going wrong and family arguments ending badly, but we've not had anyone come in at all. Except Trelawney, and that was odd. She stopped by to tell us we needed to get a bed ready for Potter."

Remus glanced up. "Why?"

"Dunno. Poppy gave her some excuse, but she told me McGonagall told her that Trelawney's been hounding Harry about dying all year."

Remus snorted, the ghost of a grin flashing across his face. "If there was any safe bet on a student being in danger, Harry would be the one to pick."

"If he doesn't sort out that Dementor problem soon, I might wonder if he won't faint off the roof next," muttered Mariah

"He came to me about that. He wants to learn to protect himself," said Remus.

Mariah raised her eyebrows, taking another swig of butterbeer. "And how are you going to accomplish that?" she asked.

"Not sure yet, but I've got a week to think it over," said Remus.

"That'll be good though, getting to know him," said Mariah, tipping her bottle at him.

Remus didn't nod. "He told me that when the Dementors get near him, and when he faints, he can hear Lily."

Mariah's smile slid off of her face, and there was the sound of trickling liquid as her grip on the bottle went slack and almost tipped completely sideways.

"He can hear her? But how can he hear her?" she asked a bit strongly.

"I think... it's a memory," said Remus, "from when he was a baby."

Mariah sat back in her chair, the bottle forgotten between her fingers. "Fuck..."

Remus got out of his seat and rounded the desk, putting a hand on Mariah's shoulder. She covered it with her own hand.

"I miss her," she said.

"I do too," said Remus.

"I can only imagine what that does to him... no wonder he faints." Mariah sighed. "Remus, why did we fall out like we did? Why did everyone just scatter?"