Be Silently Drawn || Remus Lupin & Hermione Granger

Chapter 23

Having Hermione as his assistant proved to be much more helpful than Remus had anticipated. With the large turnout of students ready and eager to practice at last Friday's Defense Club meeting, he would have been in over his head without her. But that first meeting had been a success, and he felt confident he'd get his students to where they needed to be by the end of the year with Hermione's help, and with the help of the Room of Requirement.

The extraordinary room had met the club's needs perfectly, transforming itself into a large space ideal for practicing spells and providing them with valuable resources and supplies. And if they required additional supplies, they simply had to concentrate on what they needed and the room would provide it. He and Hermione had had fun testing this out before the first club meeting, but what they'd both been really drawn to were the hundreds of books on defensive magical tactics that filled the wooden bookcases lining the walls. They'd spent a good deal of time browsing through them and had only stopped when students began to arrive and they'd had to start the meeting.

Remus returned to the Room of Requirement early again this Friday evening to continue exploring its library before the Defense Club was set to meet for the second time. Not knowing where to start, he ran a finger along the spines of the leather-bound tomes and chose a book at random.

He was leafing through the pages of Jinxes for the Jinxed when suddenly and instinctively he straightened up, head cocked, muscles tense: he'd caught a scent — a distinctive, intensely alluring scent. Without turning around, he knew Hermione had entered the room.

He'd become uncomfortably familiar with her scent recently. It had completely caught him off guard the first time he'd noticed it. On the morning of the first day of classes, in the days preceding last month's full moon, he'd detected a dangerously tempting scent through the open door of his office, and, without conscious thought, he'd darted out into the corridor in pursuit of the subject of his desire. The hunt ended moments later when he'd spotted Hermione walking with her friends ahead of him. He'd stopped dead in his tracks, his eyes wide and his face warm upon realizing it was her scent he'd been tracking.

He'd returned to his office, unnerved by how strongly he'd been affected by her and bewildered as to why he'd perceived her scent at all. He wasn't supposed to be hypersensitive to a woman's scent like that, not while he was taking Wolfsbane Potion. The potion was supposed to alleviate the symptoms of his lycanthropy and inhibit the animalistic traits and instincts that typically displayed themselves when the full moon approached, and it usually did just that. It normally worked faultlessly, like a dream — except when it came to Hermione, apparently.

Like he'd done for his first class with the seventh year Gryffindors, Remus had mentally prepared himself today for his reaction to Hermione. He'd always been good at suppressing his wolfish impulses and maintaining his self-control, even when he hadn't had the luxury of Wolfsbane Potion, so he wasn't worried when Hermione joined him by the bookcases now.

"Hi, Remus," she said brightly. "I just overheard a group of fifth years talking about Defense Club and how helpful last week's meeting was. They seemed really excited about it. And everyone seemed to love the duel we did for demonstration."

"I suppose watching your teacher nearly getting bested by his assistant would be rather amusing," he replied good-humoredly.

Hermione grinned. "I know you're still going easy on me, but I've been getting some helpful suggestions all week about what jinxes I should use the next time we duel. Neville and Dean want me to try Tarantallegra on you. For some reason, they really want to see you dance."

Remus laughed. "For everyone else's sake, I hope you don't humor those two. I'm a terrible dancer, even with the Dancing Feet Spell."

"That's not true. I saw you dancing at Bill and Fleur's wedding. You weren't bad at all."