Be Silently Drawn || Remus Lupin & Hermione Granger

Chapter 21

Remus was making his rounds Tuesday morning, observing his class as they practiced deflecting spells nonverbally. At least, this was the task in theory. Many of his students, however, were unable to practice this vital skill because their partners were having a hard time nonverbally jinxing them. Those who had yet to master the ability to do silent spellwork were screwing up their faces in great concentration and tightly pressing their lips together to resist the temptation to utter the incantation aloud. Some in frustration settled for surreptitiously whispering the jinx under their breath.

In other circumstances, Remus might have been entertained by some of the rather comical attempts he witnessed and the funny faces being pulled by his students in their efforts. But right now he was too distracted by a certain distressing matter.

Hermione looked suddenly nervous when he paused beside her to watch her practice, and the spell she cast somehow ended up missing her partner, Ginny, completely and hitting the portrait behind the redhead instead. The portrait wobbled wickedly and flew off the wall, bumping the back of Ginny's head as it crashed to the floor.

"Oh my goodness!" Hermione exclaimed, her hands shooting up to her mouth. "I'm so sorry, Ginny!"

"Are you all right?" Remus asked the Weasley in concern.

"I'm fine, Professor," she replied, rubbing her head but looking surprisingly amused. "What was that?" she asked Hermione.

"I — I don't know," Hermione said, her face pink and her eyes avoiding his. "I just — I'm sorry. Are you sure you're all right?"

"Yeah, don't worry about it."

With a wave of his wand, Remus returned the portrait to its place and then asked Hermione to try again. "Remember to maintain your focus and keep your wand movement fluid and precise."

She did and performed the spell successfully this time, though a bit tentatively, making it easy for Ginny to repel her jinx with a spoken incantation.

"Nicely done, Ginny, but we're working on nonverbal deflection, you know," Remus reminded her with a faint smile.

She grinned. "Sorry, Professor. I'm working on it."

"That was much better," he added to Hermione, but he knew as well as she did that she was capable of a lot better than that. He'd seen her cast spells nonverbally before, and not just in the classroom but bravely and brilliantly in real battles, in real life-or-death situations. Her only problem right now was her nerves. But why was she so nervous?

As he made his way over to a nearby pair of students, he heard Ginny ask, "What's up with you, Hermione? You were doing great a minute ago."

Remus didn't hear the Head Girl's response but was nevertheless troubled by what he sensed from her.

When he was alone in the room after class, Remus sat at his desk, twirling his wand absentmindedly in his hand as he thought about Hermione and the predicament in which he now found himself. Actually, it was a predicament he himself had foolishly signed up for. He'd known full well before accepting the post that becoming a professor at Hogwarts this particular year would mean putting himself in this position. Even though he'd been aware of the situation for a good while before taking the job, he'd still chosen to return and a small part of him regretted this decision every time he observed Hermione during lessons. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to handle the problem before him appropriately. He wasn't sure how this yearlong struggle would end: would he fail or succeed at getting his students back on track?

Considering the annual change of teacher — some less qualified than others — and the previous year's drastic dropping of the "defense" part of the class and emphasis on the "Dark Arts" bit, it was unsurprising really that the students at Hogwarts were woefully behind in his subject. To his dismay, even Hermione, the top student, appeared to be having some difficulty. She lacked her normal confidence in class and seemed unsure in her abilities whenever he watched her practice. Which was a direct reflection of him and the job he was doing. Though he'd carefully constructed his lesson plans to get his pupils up to par as well as he could, he worried it wasn't enough for the fifth and seventh years who would be taking their O.W.L.s and N.E.W.T.s this year. He simply did not have the class time necessary to prepare his students properly, or at least not as well as he'd like to.