The rest of the week passes by like the previous one, with Lupin never looking at her in class, with Reverie's hand rising and falling dejectedly every class period, with another paper assigned, and with no guidance whatsoever as to what constitutes a good one and why Reverie's was poor. Just looking at him makes her want to scream in annoyance.
On Thursday, Reverie has her third detention with Lupin, and her blood is already boiling when she opens the door and sees him sitting at his desk at the other end of the room. He doesn't look up at her as she walks to her table at the front, not 2 meters from his own desk, and she sits down and slams her DADA textbook on the table. He doesn't flinch and instead continues to read. Reverie pulls out a scroll of parchment and her quill, but she can't write a single word on the paper.
After what feels like ages of reading about Chameleon Ghouls, she looks up at Lupin.
"You know, it would be nice to have a professor who gives his students some indication as to what he's looking for in a good paper."
Lupin raises an eyebrow, glances up at Reverie, and looks back down to his book. Thinking he's reverted to ignoring her, she shakes her head in annoyance and looks back down at her empty paper.
"I found that your essay on werewolves was very illuminating," he says, without looking away from the page he was on.
Reverie's head shoots up then, and she sees he's frowning, as if confused by his book. Then he looks up towards the window.
"'Werewolves, in their wolfish form, lose all sense of right and wrong, forget who they are, would even kill their best friend if the opportunity arises,'' he recites, and Reverie's eyes widen at the implication that he memorized what she wrote.
He continues. "'But, in their period of transformation, under exceptional circumstances, they still have the moral sense to spare those for whom they have strong feelings, strong enough to pervade through the changing. During this period, these strong feelings aren't defined, the fine line between love and hate blurred, but it only lasts until the transformation is complete. Nevertheless, this disproves claims that werewolves suffer a loss of permanent moral sense, irregardless of if they are in human or wolf form.'" Finishing reciting, Lupin turns to face her fully now, as if trying to read her.
Reverie stares back at him, and she notices his eyes look clouded but simultaneously clear as he looks at her. Suddenly, he rises, his eyes only leaving hers to take a paper off of the top of a stack, and he walks around the desk.
Reverie straightens in her seat as he approaches her, her heartbeat confusingly and abnormally erratic, and her eyes are glued to his when he reaches her. He looks down at her and her visible distress, and he places the paper down on the desk.
She looks down at it, and on the top, there is a big, red E for Exceeds Expectations.
"A challenge, Miss Castill. That's what you're good at: challenging norms, challenging opinions, challenging people. That's what was missing before."
Reverie looks up to find him slightly frowning down at her, trying to figure her out. She breaks the silence.
"Emerett Picardy is a relatively easy bloke to challenge, his awful Lupine Lawlessness shit practically begs to be contradicted."
Lupin laughs, genuinely laughs, and nods.
"Language, Miss Castill, but yes, I can't help but agree."
Reverie feigns astonishment. "Professor Lupin, agreeing with me?"
Lupin slightly frowns. "As strongly opinionated as you might be, I fear you may be fighting for the right side, and that makes disagreeing with you terribly unfortunate for me."
"Selfless as ever," she jokes.
As Reverie grins, the clock chimes faintly from outside, and Lupin and Reverie glance at the hourglass on his desk at the same time. Reverie's grin fades slightly, and when Lupin looks back at her, he only sees its ghost faintly lingering on her face. She clears her throat weakly.
"That's time, then," Reverie says.
"Right," he responds, but as she gets up from her chair, Lupin is still beside her desk, and now they are standing barely a hand's length apart.
Her eyes widen, and Lupin's frown fades, and her erratic heart is only speeding up at how close they are, and she's terrified that he might be able to hear it.
In the deafening quiet of the room under the weak candlelight from Lupin's desk, neither of them moves, and Reverie shivers when Lupin's eyes subconsciously travel slowly down her face, landing on her lips, and she feels the burn again when Lupin's eyes darken, but the way he's looking at her now makes the burn travel throughout her entire body, and his eyebrow twitches, confused, and the only thing he hears is her weak breath rising and falling with her chest, and his mind is filled with the intoxicating smell of vanilla and lavender, of her, and he's suddenly astutely aware that if he moves just an inch she'll be close enough to touch.
Everything stills, yet at the same time everything changes, because they've never stood this close before, so close that she smells the cigarettes and chocolate on him, and Lupin knows her mind, he's read it, he's heard its wit, and somehow he wishes he never had, because it would've made it so much easier to bring his eyes back up to her own...
And then as suddenly as it started, he steps back and blinks.
After just a moment, Reverie looks away with eyes that can't possibly get wider towards her textbook, but it takes her a second for her glossy vision to focus on it, and then she frantically puts it in her bag. She turns towards him briefly and waves the paper in her hand.
"Right, well, thank you, for this," she says and brushes past him as quickly as humanly possible and doesn't look back when she opens the large oak doors. She's already halfway down the hallway when the doors slam closed again, and she flinches at the sound in the otherwise silent castle.
Back in his classroom, Lupin is still standing where she left him, staring at Reverie's table with wide eyes, unbelievably confused at what happened and why whatever happened happened with her and what could've possibly possessed him to keep him from moving away sooner. He closes his eyes and shakes his head, and he walks back towards his desk and sits in his chair with his book, determined to distract himself.
However, after scanning an entire page without processing a single word, he slams the book closed, and the sound echoes throughout the empty room, and he finds himself desperate for a cigarette because, once the echo dies down, his ears are flooded with the sound of her breath and how it quickened at their proximity, and he hates himself for it.
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The next week passes by the same as the others, with distance and no direct contact, except for once, when Lupin called on Reverie, and it took her a few seconds to register that he actually did before she gave the correct answer. Other than that, dead silence, and Reverie is somewhat grateful, because her thoughts are already much too confusingly loud.
But suddenly, what used to be relatively simple for Lupin -- ignoring her -- becomes increasingly harder. With every pace down the rows of tables, his nostrils fill with the scent of lavender and vanilla, and his mind is burned with the image of her round eyes looking up at him, hooded, and looking at her just reminds him of these unprompted thoughts, so he guiltily lets himself resent her for his turmoil, and he stays away.
For their final detention, he asks McGonagall to administer it, and for the next month, Reverie and Lupin steer clear of one another.
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As October passes by, the weather becomes more chilly, and Reverie finds that she grows more and more dependent on the trees and rocks by the lake as a refuge. The autumn chill keeps most inside unless the sun is out, so Reverie basks in the quiet of the grounds and the lapping of the lake's small waves as they hit the shore peacefully.
Her and Oliver also often find themselves taking advantage of the emptiness, and every Sunday, they're on their respective brooms, flying around one another in circles, under the guise of learning how to play quidditch.
At night, she finds her way back to the rock, most times during dinner, other times past curfew, and sometimes she wonders if Lupin sees her empty spot in the Great Hall, knows where she is, but figures she isn't worth the bother. And, though she's thankful for the peacefulness of it all, for some otherworldly reason, it hurts more than she'd ever care to admit.
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Nevertheless, this routine that they'd adopted worked perfectly well until October approached its formal end, Hallowe'en.
Reverie knows the Halloween Feast is a staple in the year's festivities, but once Dumbledore stops speaking, she looks to his left and her eyes lock onto Lupin's. After a month of distance and avoided glances, the way his eyes confusingly darken only makes that night feel like yesterday, and as the castle begins to fall away around them, Reverie pulls her gaze away and knows that if there's ever a good time to leave, it would be now.
Reverie looks at Oliver, and by now he knows not to question her small escapades, so he just smiles and forces a roll of bread into her hand, knowing that otherwise she won't eat. She smiles down at him, squeezes his hand in appreciation, and swings her leg over the bench. In the commotion surrounding the end of Dumbledore's speech and the appearance of food, she knows she'll go for the most part unnoticed. And, for the most part is accurate, because Lupin always notices, but for the first time in weeks, he contemplates going after her, and that worries him more than what happens next.
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A/N: Chapter 7! I liked writing this chapter. Nothing ever comes very easy for Rev and Lupin, so there's obviously more to come. I'm also probably going to update again soon (maybe again later this week!) because I'm excited to for the next part.
Also, PS I literally feed off of all of your comments! And we're so close to 1K! Thanks for reading! Much love!