Alya Black| Remus lupin

chapter 19

"Did you know I was going to be here?" Remus asked. Alya who was walking silently next to him shook her head.
"Alya i-" remus was interrupted by alya. "I should go check up on neville and h-harry" remus simply nodded, not wanting to make her uncomfortable. Alya walked back, she hadn't expected seeing him there, she wasn't prepared, wasn't ready yet, atleast that's what she told herself. Deep down she missed him dearly, seeing him had comforted her, though she wouldn't admit. She sat with the kids the whole ride to hogwarts, remus not joining after. Being so close to harry yet not being able to tell him anything was truly harder than she expected. Staring too long would come off as weird so she retained herself from doing so. Answering frequent questions from hermione about her post was how she interacted with the kids, the other time had been passed by looking outside the window and thinking, too many things.

"This is one of your tricks isn't it?" Alya crossed her arms, remus standing behind her, dumbledore in front of her.
"Ms black?" Dumbledore raised his eyebrows.
"Having us here, without letting either know. What are you trying to do? Attract sirius so you can catch him or using us as bait so he wont apparently harm anyone?" She flared.
"Professor I really don't think this would work, if not protect them I think he would be more tempted to come here." Remus said. Alya turned to him.
"Protect them from what?! SIRIUS IS INNOCENT i've said it before and i'll say it a hundred times. You really think that he's that beneath to come and harm kids!?. Whatever scheme is going on here, i'll take part in none of if  it's against my brother, i'm here to do my job and that's to assist the children. Call me whenever you're not trying to throw my brother in that shithole" alya said and left, leaving two very amused and shocked men in the room.

Alya was taking a stroll around the castle, it was still too overwhelming. She had never imagined that she'd be back at the place that was her only escape from the hell house. She made a new family here, it saddened her that no one except remus was still here. As she was about to go back to her room she heard a noise. It seemed to be an animal.
She turned the corner and saw the same cat she saw in her compartment, crookshanks. A mouse was under its paws. She picked the cat up, not giving much thought to the rodent and walked towards the gryffindor common room.
This was harder than she expected, she was met with the familiar lady that gaurdes the room.
"Hello miss spriggs" she greeted her.
"Wha- oh alya dear, its so good to see you" she smiled
"Didn't take a second to identify me, did it?" Alya chuckled.
"You were the only one who ever asked me my name, everybody calls me the fat lady instead. I'm so happy to see you be back here. You may enter"
"Good to see you too" alya gave her a smile and a nod and entered the passageway.
The room hadn't changed at all, it was as comfy and delightful as she remembered.
"Can we help you professor?" Two voices chorused together. Alya turned and saw a pair of identical twins. Flaming red hair. Smirks on their faces.
"Thankyou boys, I was looking for miss granger" as if on que a voice shrieked.
"Crookshanks!" Hermione ran down the stairs.
"Couldn't find him after the feast, thankyou professor" Hermione smiled.
"Well I should be off now, its almost curfew and you have classes tomorrow. I'll see you, my doors are always open if you need help." And she turned to leave, stopped and turned back around.
"You two, leave the pranks for tomorrow ok. Everybody can use a good night sleep after the train fiasco, go get some rest" she looked at the twins. Hermione smirked at the flabbergasted expressions the twins held.
"How did you-" one of the twins began in confusion.
"Well I suspect no less from the nephews of fabion and gideon" alya winked and left. Not able to see the amused gasps on the twins faces.
"Blimey, she's good" was what they said.

It was only a few weeks since school started. Alya got more and more students each day, but still in small proportion. Students would come to her for all sorts of problems, school work and personnel. It took timen for them  to open up to her since she was new but people were warming up to her. A few kids were usuals during break time, those who wanted some extra knowledge. These included hermione granger, a hufflepuff named cedric diggory, neville who was happy to have a teacher who didn't scare him and someone he knew, and a couple more kids. Mostly muggleborns.
A fine tuesday morning, alya was making her usual stroll around the castle, classes were going ok which meant no kid would need any help. On her path she came across remus.
"Alya, I was looking for you. Would you mind coming to.class today? We- er.. We are doing boggarts and thought some kids would need some moral support." He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.
"Ofcourse no problem." She nodded. They walked back to the class silently. Alya made up her mind to have a chat with remus soon after, they can't go on forever like this.
The boggart experiment was amusing, neville was the first one. Alya was troubled to see the negative impact snape had on the poor child. Him being his worse fear wasn't a good sign, she encouraged him to face his fear. Seeing snape in grandma clothes was funnier than she expected, she snorted but quickly concealed herself. Remus smiled at that secretly. How they wished sirius and james were there to see snape like this.
Saying the fear on the faces of kids turn into laughter was the highlight. They must be awkward at the moment but alya was nonetheless proud of remus's teaching method and how well he got along with the kids.
After a whole bunch of laughter harry's turn came. Alya felt remus tense next to her, they half expected it to be voldemort but the boggart took the shape of a dementor. Harry froze. It was in a matter of seconds when remus jumped in front of him and a full moon rose up in the room.
Oh no, alya thought. Remus was brave to jump in front of harry but the consequences were scarier to him. His face was white.
Alya quickly took out her wand and casted the spell, the moon turned into a white flower and fell to the ground.
"Class dismissed, you may have a break now" she announced. The kids who have had their turns were happy, those who didn't were dissapounted. She locked the boggart back in the cupboard. And waited until everyone had left.
"You ok Harry?" She asked him.
He nodded and quickly left. She finally looked at remus, who still looked petrified.
It was painful. She wrapped her arms around him.
"Its ok, I've got you"