Reading Between The Lines ~ Remus Lupin ~ Book 1

chapter 42

Monday, 25 April 1977

Lena groaned as she waited outside the greenhouse. She was initially pleased that her career advice session with Professor Sprout was during her History of Magic class. Who wouldn't be? They didn't have to hear Binns drone on and on about things that happened centuries before.

But now Lena was worried. What if she missed something important and got behind? What if there was a pop quiz that was being passed out that Binns wouldn't let her retake it and she got a T on it as a result? What if Binn suddenly became interesting?

Of course, those worries were small in comparison to her other fears. She was dreading the career advice session. It wasn't because she was afraid of Sprout. Despite her sweet demeanor she presented, Lena and every other Hufflepuff student knew not to cross Pomona Sprout. Students from other houses wrote her off much too quickly and without any good reason other than she didn't send shivers down your spine unlike other professors. She was a formidable witch even though she didn't always show it. Lena was absolutely certain that Sprout could dispose of a body easily and destroy all the evidence with her vast knowledge of Herbology. But no, Lena was not afraid of Sprout. She was one of the loveliest professors Lena had ever met.

Lena didn't dread the career advice session because it meant she was nearing adulthood, that she would have to work hard for the rest of her life. Lena wasn't scared of hard work. Lena was always working hard. Yes, hard work sometimes overwhelmed her but it never really scared her.

Work was something people had to do and had to accept. Not work in the sense of finding a job and making money. No, it was more work in the sense of trying. Working on your relationships with other people, whether that meant strengthening them or severing them. Working on understanding people better and what they were thinking without the exchange of words. Working on how to become a better person for yourself and others.

No, Lena Pettigrew was not afraid of work.

What Lena was afraid of was the result of this meeting. She believed that the inevitable result of the meeting was that Sprout would tell her that no one would ever hire and that she might as well just stop trying. She didn't like the idea of not being wanted. Who would hire someone who had dyslexia and, as a result, took twice as long to do tasks that weren't even always completed properly? The answer: no one.

Lena wasn't the only one person with those fears. She had often heard her parents whisper about their concerns about Lena finding a job after Hogwarts. They went through numerous career options for her between themselves without telling her. She overheard them of course. The ruled out jobs like Auror and Healer based on her likelihood to achieve the O.W.L.S. and N.E.W.T.S. the positions required. And any job in the Ministry seemed like a poor option. With the amount of paperwork it required, Lena would be drowning in a sea of words she would be unable to decipher. It wasn't like she could work at Gringotts either. She was always mixing up her fives and fours, her threes and eights, her sixes and nines. And she couldn't teach. She knew she would never be about to teach someone well and make them understand concepts that seemed rather useless. She certainly didn't want to be put in the ranks of horrible professors with the likes of Binns. Maybe she'd be able to work as a shopkeeper or something. It wasn't the job her parents envisioned for her, but she'd probably be able to do it.

Lena had never met anyone else with dyslexia in her life. At least she had never met anyone who had told her that they had dyslexia. She didn't know how people like her obtained jobs or maintained their positions. Lena wished she had someone to talk to about it. Lena had once spoken to Peter about her worries about getting a job and how she'd provide for herself. Like always, he cheered her up with his nonchalance of the seriousness of the matter. "You've got three options as I see it. You can marry rich, you can live with me but as my maid of course, or you could become a rockstar. I'm personally rooting for rockstar." "But I can't sing," she remembered saying. "Yeah, but neither can Melody River and she's doing great." His lack of worry washed away her worry for a time. The worry always came back though. She had considered asking Remus about it but she thought against it. While they were in similar positions abouts job prospects after Hogwarts, they were in them for different reasons. Remus was incredibly intelligent and Lena had no doubt that he had the capacity for any job he wanted to do. Just no one would give him one because they were all a bunch of prejudiced gits with no understanding of him or werewolves. Lena, on the other hand, was in the position Remus was in because of her dyslexia. The main difference between Remus and Lena was that Remus' lycanthropy would not affect his ability to perform his job while Lena's dyslexia would.