She still feels the ghosts of his fingers on her arm when a low, reverberating, knocking noise floats into the dark upstairs office from within the classroom. Reverie and Lupin both turn towards the sound, and Lupin walks slowly to the door, opening it and letting the fading candle light of the classroom seep into the room. But when he stops cold in his tracks in the doorframe, Reverie doesn't dare to move from her spot by the fireplace, and her hand moves to her wand.
"Remus, I hate to bother you this late at night. I'm so sorry if I woke you." Reverie recognizes the shaky voice echoing off of the tall stone walls. Lupin's next words confirm it.
"No worries, Minerva — I was the furthest thing from asleep." Reverie burns at his words, but she forces herself to put them out of her mind as she looks around to find a place to hide if McGonagall were to come upstairs. "How can I help you?" His voice is steady.
Reverie hears her moving further into the room. Reverie freezes, but Lupin responds by moving down the stairs.
"Oh Remus, it's more of how I can help you. Severus has just told me that a certain shipment of ingredients that he was expecting to come in today has been held up indefinitely by the Ministry of Magic's postal check, and I'm not sure if it'll pass through in time, or at all for that matter, what with the speed of the incompetents at the Ministry, and he's asked you— well he's asked me to ask you to perhaps hold off on the doses he's given you for recovery for today and tomorrow and the day after in order to ensure you have enough for at least one more cycle." McGonagall finishes breathlessly and, as far as Reverie can tell, worriedly.
Lupin breathes out a heavy breath, sticking his hands in his pockets and looking down at the floor. "I'm not sure if I have that much left. I'll have to check." McGonagall doesn't say anything, and Lupin looks up to see her looking at him half-expectantly. His eyebrow twitches slightly. "I can check now, if you'd like."
"Severus would want to know, I'd expect. You know how he is." McGonagall half-laughs.
"Right." Lupin says drily, turning and walking up the stairs. "And why didn't he come tell me himself?"
"Another one of his quirks, I suppose," McGonagall responds, but when her voice sounds closer than expected, Lupin turns back around halfway up the steps to find McGonagall climbing them after him. He coughs a surprised cough.
"Oh, Minerva, you don't have to climb all the way up here, it'll just be a second."
McGonagall relents, and Lupin climbs two steps at a time to the room as McGonagall stands patiently by the foot of the stairs.
Walking into the room, he finds a wide-eyed Reverie, looking at him questioningly, frozen in place. The room is deafeningly silent, and Lupin rubs a hand over his face and rests it over his mouth in near-disbelief as he searches the office. Reverie watches as his eyes land on a set of flasks behind her, and he walks towards her and she makes to move out of the way when the floorboard creaks. Her eyes shoot up to Lupin's, and he places his hands on her shoulders, beckoning her to stay in place, and nods at her, as if to say "it's ok," before he reaches past her to grab the flasks off the shelf. She doesn't dare to move, she hardly dares to breathe, and his warm hand keeping her in place makes the room even more stifling.
He walks towards the door, opening the first bottle and cursing under his breath as he looks inside. He shuts his eyes as he closes it, and he turns around to glance at Reverie, his eyes unreadable, before he walks out of the room and down the stairs.
"It's not enough," he says, and McGonagall sighs a weak sigh.
"I was worried it wouldn't be. We can go to Severus now, he might have another idea. He was awake just minutes ago, and I'm sure he won't mind given the severity of the situation."
Lupin pauses for a few seconds before he clears his throat. "I'm sorry about this." His words travel clearly up the stairs and to Reverie without fail.
McGonagall turns to him, frowning. "Whatever could you possibly be sorry for?"
Lupin doesn't say anything more. Reverie sinks into the armchair, holding her head in her hands as she listens to them leave and shut the big oak doors behind them.
She waits for two minutes, watching the fire burn to orange embers without Lupin there to revive them, before getting up. She reaches the door when she turns around and takes a scrap of paper from his desk and a pen, and bends down to write two short words.
"Show me."
She places it on his desk before leaving the office. Descending the stairs, she looks around the classroom, seeming somehow lifeless. She feels a foreign sense of anguish as she shuts the big oak doors behind her.
The roaring fire upstairs, reduced to ashes in the grate. The candles adorned carefully throughout the cavernous room, burned through to the end of their wicks. With Reverie gone, darkness drapes with an overwhelming finality over the room. Outside, the storm picks up.
—
The next days pass in a blur, the words exchanged between Lupin and McGonagall circling through Reverie's brain. Lupin doesn't show up to classes or meals for the rest of the week, and even McGonagall, filling in for his absences, is acting more skittish than usual.
Outside, the quick bursts of unseasonable rain quickly turn back to snowfall and do nothing to thaw the snow already blanketing the ground.
Looking out the stained-glass windows of the Gryffindor common room – overlooking the Forbidden Forest and, further in the distance, the lake – only serves to remind Reverie of how long it's been since she's stood by the lake, as well as the last night that she did.
The idea of Lupin relying on a potion, and McGonagall's anxiety at his lack of it, sends Reverie's thoughts into spirals. She can't share any of this with Oliver, and perhaps the fear of questions about her and Lupin is what clouds her brain even more.
Four days after that night, Reverie walks down a corridor after leaving the Great Hall, but, just before she turns a corner, Lupin comes into view and she almost nearly walks into him before slowing at the last second and moving to the side. Her wide eyes lock onto his, and her heart skids and trips over itself. He looks surprised to see her, and she opens her mouth to speak but quickly closes it, unsure of what to say, almost taken aback by seeing him so randomly after days of absence, and he doesn't move towards her, nor does he say anything, but his eyes move down her face and then quickly to the floor as they both hear footsteps turning the same corner. McGonagall appears, and Reverie blinks, stepping back from Lupin.
"Oh hello, Miss Castill." She says, catching her breath, as if she'd been hurrying to catch up. "Lovely starry night, is it not?" Lupin glances up at Reverie at this, and her eyes flit to his before looking back at McGonagall.
"Yes, quite," Reverie says, with what she hopes sounds like warmth, but she doesn't hide the almost imperceptible faltering, a shakiness that only Lupin picks up on.
"Well! I'd love to sit and enjoy it, but your Professor Lupin walks far too quickly for my age." McGonagall places a hand over her heaving chest, and glances at Lupin with a smile before looking out the arched windows, admiring the stars briefly as she calms her breathing.
Reverie burns red at McGonagall saying "your Professor Lupin," and she meets Lupin's eyes to find them already on hers, slightly wide, and his cheeks reddening. Reverie fights a tiny smile, and Lupin forces his hands into his pockets.
"Where has Professor Lupin been this week, if you don't mind me asking?" She turns her eyes towards McGonagall, who turns back towards the two of them. Lupin shuts his eyes briefly before forcing a polite smile.
"That's a question that he would be more suited to answer, since he's here with us now, wouldn't you think, Remus?" She says, looking at Lupin.
"Oh, I've been here and there. Problems with my health, you see," Lupin says, overly lightly.
"Oh. I wish I would've known," Reverie says, tilting her head, with concern and slight indignation towards Lupin.
"Well, there's not much one can do about it I'm afraid," Lupin says, before turning to McGonagall and clasping his hands together. "Should we be going now, then?"
"Oh, yes all right," she says, in her usual shaky tone. "Off to bed, I hope, Miss Castill?"
Reverie drags her eyes away from Lupin and to McGonagall. "Yes, Professor, off to bed," Reverie says. She smiles and watches as McGonagall begins walking ahead, and then turns to find Lupin looking at her, with his hands still in his pockets. The scars along his face are considerably healed now. The lowlight reminds her of that night, but McGonagall is much too near to think like this.
"I'm sorry," he says, stepping forward. The corridor is quiet, save McGonagall's footsteps echoing off the stone walls. He wishes he could get closer.
Reverie shakes her head. "Don't be sorry." Lupin remembers his words from that night and tries a smile but his eyes give away his distress.
"Right," he says, rocks back slightly on his heels, and then begins walking down the corridor behind McGonagall.
"Professor?" She calls after him. Lupin turns around, McGonagall being too far down the corridor to have heard it. She tilts her head. "I have quite a few more questions left, you know."
Lupin smiles, albeit slightly sadly, but he smiles nevertheless. "I know."
McGonagall turns around then from the foot of the hallway, and it's as if the corridor's candlelight around them breaks. "Am I the quick one now, Remus?" She asks, her voice bouncing its way to them off the walls. Reverie turns towards McGonagall's voice and then back to Lupin.
"Duty calls then?" Reverie says, with a small, sad smile.
Lupin glances at McGonagall before looking back at Reverie. They are both acutely aware of McGonagall's eyes on them from the other end of the corridor. His eyes inadvertently flit to her lips so briefly that she convinces herself she's going mental, before clearing his throat. "Have a nice night, Miss Castill."
He sees her smile falter, and she looks down as he turns and walks down the hallway. She folds her arms across her body, as if holding herself together, and she stays in place, watching him walk away from her with his hands still in his pockets in that painfully endearing way that makes her want to scream. He slowly fades into the distant darkness, and he meets McGonagall's silhouette at the corner and, without looking back, turns out of sight.
Alone in the burning light of the corridor, Reverie doesn't go to bed immediately. She slides down the stone wall to the floor and hugs her knees into her chest, watching the night sky through the arches, angry at McGonagall for pointing out the stars and angry at herself that she didn't even notice.
She isn't sure when she turned in that night, but each day after that goes by slowly, and the nights go by without sleep, and by the middle of the next week, Reverie finishes The Count of Monte Cristo with no more underlined phrases and not a single word from Lupin.