I Was Younger Then

Moments With Lupin: Your One Weakness

It was Saturday and Penny was laying on the floor beside the fire in Professor Lupin's office. Being winter, Penny loved sitting by the fire because she was often prone to feeling especially chilly. Her head was on a very well loved pillow that Penny imagined had been embroidered by Lupin's grandmother Squashed beside her head of red hair on the pillow was Lupin. They'd been laying side-by-side like this for most of the day, only moving to reposition themselves to find a more comfortable position to read their books.

After learning that Lupin was interested in Muggle literature, Penny had begged to have a reading day where she would let him read any of the many novels she'd managed to get her hands on over the years and always brought with her to Hogwarts. To Penny's surprise Lupin had agreed with a smile, and on Saturday morning she'd found his desk covered with all sorts of snacks and beverages, and a very comfortable looking reading set up before the fire, complete with a warm fuzzy blanket and more pillows than Penny had ever seen before.

Regardless of the many pillows to choose from, Lupin had still chosen to share Penny's pillow, his large, very warm frame pressed against Penny's, making her very distracted and very warm. At the beginning of the day, Penny had found it exceedingly hard to focus on The Picture of Dorian Gray , finding her mind eagerly wandering to focusing on the much too muscular upper arm pressed against hers and the slow rhythmic breathing of Lupin that told her he was much more entranced by his novel, Frankenstein. It was an arduous battle with herself, one Penny knew she needed to get ahead of, but admittedly, she turned several pages without reading them for fear Lupin would become wise to her.

Compared to herself, Lupin was a very fast reader, meaning he was a long ways ahead of her by the time they paused for lunch, though Penny had put forth real effort to focus on her book.

"You are much too attentive, Penny. I've seen it many times in class," Lupin laughed when Penny pointed this difference out.

"What's that mean?" Penny asked, her eyes narrowing dubiously.

"You're a purist at heart. I remember you quoting the argument of Professor Cox on counter curses and when I looked later, I confirmed you'd recited it word for word," he reminisced, shaking his head in amusement.

"It's his argument!"

"Yes, but you are a bit fastidious, aren't you?"

Not liking where the conversation was going, Penny glowered at her plate. All the dreams of her 13-year old heart were being dashed. She just wanted to look deeply into Lupin's warm brown eyes and quote annoying romantic lines while eating a picnic with the most handsome man she'd ever laid eyes on. Instead, she was to endure his making fun of her because she read too slow.

"I'm just saying, not every word in the sentence matters, it would save you a lot of time and effort to learn to skim and get the general idea--"

"Skim!" Penny said, incredulously. "And fill in the rest with what my own feeble mind would imagine? And what learning would there be in that!"

In her disgust by such a suggestion, Penny had to put her tiny sandwich, which Lupin had cut the crust off and shaped into triangles, down, feeling much too upset to eat.

"Penny, my Penny, you really are an anomaly, aren't you?" he said, affectionately, pouring some more tea into her cup.

The words were the icing on her mortification, causing her to despair even more. She did not want to be an anomaly, she wanted to be as enticing as she thought he was!

"I truly doubt I am the only person who believes in reading thoroughly ," Penny replied, bitterness ripe in her tone.

"Are you accusing me of being a lazy reader?" Lupin complained, tapping his sulking bottom lip.