Dana Diggory is led deeper into the depths of temptation as she forms an unlikely bond with her new Defence Against the Dark Arts professor during a whirlwind of her final year at Hogwarts.
Little does she know that Remus Lupin's growing fondness fo...
THEY SAY THAT IF AUGUST COULD speak, it would tell a thousand tales.
Of sunburn and sweat. The slowly blistering pink skin on one's nose. Freckles. Tons, or none, or even just a few. Ice cold pumpkin juice, ice cold lakes. Ice cream that melted just too fast. Restless humid nights, and even longer days. Scorching suns to bask in for hours on end with summer loves that come and go. Hot tongues, suncream kisses; those that leave stains and others fretfully forgotten, washed away with morning showers and midnight swims. Sweat, sweat, and more sweat. Tears, too.
But Dana hadn't been able to experience much this summer. Not the freckles, not the sun— not even the sting of it's burn. Instead, she was only left with a different kind of sting.
A week had passed since Remus Lupin had left Hogwarts, and his absence felt heavier than ever.
The circling humidity drew Dana's eyelids closed. It must have been the hottest day of the year. Her head rested against the arm of the couch, hair partially sticking to the dampness of her forehead, the rest pushed back by a flimsy pair of headphones. Its cord twisted down her neck and reached the cassette player she had received for her birthday.
It still contained the same album by The Smiths as it had done that day, and Dana flipped it over to reread the handwritten message on the back.
We'll get more tapes soon.
They hadn't. They wouldn't.
The common room was deserted, everybody outside enjoying themselves before returning home for the holidays. It was where Dana ought to have been. And Patrick, and Lilith, and Cedric. But the three of them had wilfully insisted on staying up there in the sun-trap Tower with her whilst she did nothing at all.
Part of Dana wished they would leave her be. Especially Lilith and Cedric, who didn't understand the reason for her misery— who couldn't.
"Still can't wrap my head around it all, wasn't fair he had to quit. Lupin's a good man."
Cedric's voice carried over the opening lines of the next track and Dana instinctively flicked up the volume so that Morrissey's voice drowned them out.
'I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour But heaven knows I'm miserable now...'
"Maybe, but what if he managed to turn someone?" suggested Lilith, sitting up. "I said something bad like this would happen when I found out. Dana will tell you."
