hands (professor lupin)✔️

Chapter Seven || Trouble

  The next few days were a dream. My spirits rose and for the first time in a terribly long while, I felt happier than usual.

One day as I was walking down the corridor to Potions, I passed by an auditorium I'd never been in before.

I would have walked past it if I hadn't seen two children, both about thirteen years old, walking into the class and heard one of them say:

"What's Lupin going to conjure up today, I wonder?"

I stopped in my tracks. 

The corridor in front of me led to the place I ought to be, where Snape was teaching me things I ought to know before I graduate.

And yet I disliked Snape ever so much. And I'd missed Lupin's last lesson because he was sick.

It was a question of doing what I wanted to do and what I had to do.

But then, why would I want to attend a third-year class? I already knew everything they were going to talk about. It wasn't right for me to go in there. Besides, I couldn't even talk to Lupin there, he would be teaching. Why did I even get that idea?

If I needed to see him, I just had to tell him. He was my tutor, after all. I didn't have to be sneaking around in other to catch glimpses of him, I thought.

All of the children were almost inside and the last one to enter was closing the door, but then they caught sight of me, indecisive and paranoid, battling the strangests confilicting feelings I'd experienced in years.

- You coming? - the boy asked.

I turned around and saw Lupin walking down the corridor. He was quite a long way away, his head was downcast and he couldn't see me.

A warmth blotted out all reason in my head and I jumped at the door the boy was holding open for me and hurried into the classroom.

The students were standing in the centre of the room. I ducked behind a tall blonde boy and stood there, waiting with the rest.

In front of me, I could see a huge wardrobe with glass doors. Something inside the wardrobe shook it and the class gasped. I peered at it over the tall boy's shoulder and thought to myself:

"That looks like a boggart he's got in there."

"Intriguing, isn't it?" - came Lupin's voice somewhere not far away from me. There was something about his voice, a sort of rasping high-tone melody that I couldn't seem to get used to. I jumped, the same warmth I'd felt in all my interactions with him flowing through my head, my heart beating wildly at the thought he didn't know I was here.

"Would anyone venture a guess as to what is inside?"

"That's a boggart, that is" - came a boy's voice.

"Very good, Mr Thomas," - Lupin responded.

"Now can anyone tell me what a boggart... looks... like?"

"No one knows!" - came a girl's voice right in front of me as a figure I'd not noticed before appeared before me.

"When did she get here?" - came a red haired boy's voice as he looked at her, aghast. She went on.

"Boggarts are shapeshifters. They take the form of whatever creature that particular person fears the most. That's what makes them so -

"So... terrifying, yes, yes, yes - Lupin broke her off, and walked slowly over to the head of the class, but not without glancing at the girl with approval and interest.

 I suddenly felt jealous of the girl, even though she was so much younger than me. I suddenly hated everything about her - the brown hair made up in a bun, the smugness, her voice, her perfectly clean robes... But I overcame myself and mentally punished myself for these thoughts.