This time, Remus was the one ignoring me. Anytime I'd see him in the hallway, he'd avoid eye contact, or only mumble small hello.
"What has gotten into Professor Lupin?" asked Percy. "He's acting so strange."
"I wish I knew." I muttered.
In his next class, he walked around to see our progress on a short in-class paper we were writing, and he completely skimmed over mine.
"You go ahead." I said to the boys after class. "I have a question about something."
Ollie and Percy left, leaving me and Remus.
"Your turn to tell me why you've been ignoring me." I said.
He didn't look at me. "I've just been very busy with work Miss Finnigan."
Ouch. That stung a little.
"Well, Professor-" I said, putting emphasis on the word 'professor'.
His eyes snapped up at that and his gaze met my sharp one.
"I just think it's a little strange that you're ignoring me right after we kissed." I crossed my arms and raised my eyebrows.
His cheeks turned bright red at my remark. "I- I just-"
"You shouldn't have kissed me if you were just going to do this!" I cried. "Talk about playing with my feelings much?"
"Look, Sara." he rubbed his eyes. "I just don't want to hurt you."
"Well, you're hurting me by not communicating!" I said angrily.
"There's a lot on my plate, alright? And it's not just about me being your professor, it's other things-"
"What other things? Let me guess, you have a wife at home? Is that it?" I snarled.
"No! I would never- no." he said firmly. "It's not that. There's no one else. I just- I'm not a good person. I'm a monster."
I blinked with confusion. "You associate being a bad lover a monster?"
"Don't say that, lover sounds strange."
"Well, we're not exactly boyfriend girlfriend are we? I don't know what you want me to call us!"
Why were men so complicated?
"I just, I shouldn't have!" he cried.
"Shouldn't have what?" I said loudly.
"I should never have kissed you!" Remus yelled.
That felt like a blow to my chest. I clenched my jaw and narrowed my eyes.
"I'm just trying to protect you." he said softly, reaching out a hand.
"Don't touch me! I know how you feel. You just thought this was a little game of playing with a stupid seventeen year old who was too gullible to realize it's a game."
"No! It's not like that! It's not a game! I care for you Sara I really do. I'm just doing this for your own good!" He pleaded. "You wouldn't understand!"
"More like for your own good." I snapped, and with that, I stalked out of his classroom. Tears were forming in my eyes, and by the time I got to the Common Room, I felt like I was about to explode from a mixture of anger, tears, and annoyance.
"Goodness, are you alright?" asked Percy, looking at my face.
He was sitting with Ollie, Harry, Ron and Hermione.
I collapsed, and this time I burst into tears.
"Men are stupid!" I cried.
"Ouch." Ollie said.
"Shut up it's true!" I wailed. "All they do is play with your feelings. You tell them how you feel, and then they snog you, and then they pretend it never happened, or they tell you they regretted kissing you! All they care about is themselves! He just wants to protect me my arse! He wants to protect himself!" I heaved out another sob that escaped my chest.
Percy pulled me into a hug as Ollie stood up angrily. "Who do I need to throw a bludger at?"
"I'm not saying!"
"Just tell us." Percy said.
"No."
Hermione looked at me with knowing eyes, her lips pressed in a thin line.
"Perhaps, he really is trying to protect you." she said slowly.
"Do you know who it is?" asked Ron eagerly.
"No." she lied. "But I know Sara is not dumb enough to fall for a boy who says meaningless things. I'm sure he meant everything he said, especially about wanting to protect you."
I wiped the tears from my eyes and calmed down. Soon enough, all the boys went to their dorms and it was just Hermione and I left.
"Hermione, please tell me what you know about Remus." I pleaded.
"I can't." she whispered, avoiding eye contact. "It's not my place to say."
"Okay fine! Be that way then Granger!" i yelled at her angrily.
She looked hurt but in that moment I was too mad at everything to care. I stomped up to my dorm room and collapsed on my bed without getting dressed. I just wanted this year to be over.
~~~~
With Remus and I not speaking to each other, expect professional hellos during class, I tried to focus more on my schoolwork. Exams were a lot more difficult than I thought. We were given difficult spells to display, and needing to identify potions that we had only worked on a small handful of times. My hands were aching from all the written examinations, and my brain was feeling fried from all the information. The examiners were from the Ministry, and were quiet scary, especially when they found out I was trying to become an Auror. I had some sort of exam almost everyday, and Percy and I were pulling all nighter's to quiz each other on facts.
At my last exam, I was so tired, I sat down against the wall right outside of the DADA classroom, and nearly fell asleep.
"Oh Sara," Percy said, his own eyes swollen from lack of sleep, gently taking my arm and pulling me up. "Come one up now. Let's go back to the Common Room."
He and Ollie walked along either side of me.
"We're done!" Ollie cried. "We're free!"
"I just hope I did well." I said, wringing my hands nervously. "Oh now I'll just be thinking about my marks during summer!"
"We did alright." Percy said, thought he didn't look fully convinced.
With exams over now, we still had a few more days left for school since the younger students regular exams were still going on, so I decided to get to the bottom of Remus Lupin's situation. I was tired of Hermione knowing, and not me. I would started obsessively thinking about it all day.
One evening, I was sitting in the Common Room, and I decided to make a list of all the times Remus was ill. I assumed it had something to do with that, because he did get ill often and no one knew why.
I wrote the dates of the times we had Snape substitute our class, and the dates around Christmas too. I scratched my chin with my quill. I groaned as I racked my brains. What was happening on those days? Did they even have any significance?
I racked my brains, thinking of anything that could help. Then it started to click. Full moon.
All those days were full moon days. I marked that down. Then I remembered one of the days I was having tea with Remus, and Snape had brought a smoking goblet, and Remus drank it, I remembered the smell........
"Wolfsbane!" I gasped to myself.
"Hm?" Ollie looked up, from where he was pouring over a quidditch book.
"I have to go!" I cried, stowing my parchment into my robes, and running out towards Remus' office. Of course! Remus was a werewolf. That explained all those absences, the moon necklace, and why he was so afraid of hurting me. And he knew about my bad run in with a werewolf all those years ago. It was all making sense!
I reached Remus' door, and knocked. "Er, Professor? Professor Lupin?" I called. "It's me, Sara Finnigan. Remus?"
I didn't hear anything, so I pushed the door to find it open. No one was in the room. I was disappointed, until I noticed something on the table. It was a map of Hogwarts.
"Woah!" I remembered Fred and George holding this when they were younger, but I had never realized what it ever was. There were names of every single student and professor throughout the castle. I could see a couple of students snogging on the 7th floor corridor. Dumbledore and McGonagall were sitting in Dumbledore's office, probably drinking tea. Fred and George were sneaking around the castle. So that's why they rarely got caught.
But one spot really got my eye. Ron, Harry, Hermione, Remus and Snape were in the Womping Willow, along with a man I didn't know, Peter Pettigrew, and.........
I gasped, stumbling back.
Sirius Black.