moony and wood | r. lupin

tutoring (again)

"I know a thing or two about ancient runes."

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾

May 1982

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Evie held her hand out, letting the tiny bowtruckle climb back from Lisa Belby's arm to her own.

"Have they all been returned? One, two, three, four..." she did a quiet count, identifying each bowtruckle on the branch, making sure none were missing.

Evie had been quite familiar with bowtruckles– there was a branch of them on a tree near the cottage at Turtle Shore, and she'd played with them plenty as a young child. Luckily, she'd been able to show the fourth years how remarkable the tiny creatures truly were, compared to their original opinions.

"It looks like they're all here– you all should be good to go. Class dismissed!"

She watched the fourth years as they began packing away notebooks, chatting amongst themselves in the process.

"Thank you, Professor Wood."

"That was a great lesson, don't you think?"

"I think that one bit me."

Evie smiled to herself. She'd only been teaching for a month and a half, and the students had quickly warmed up to her. She'd done a unit on nifflers, and a short one on streelers (which had taken Evie a fair bit of planning– their poisonous shells were problematic when presenting to a class of rowdy fourteen year olds), and had just begun one on bowtruckles two days ago.

"Bye, Professor!"

"Have you started studying for Ancient Runes yet?"

Evie's ears pricked at the words. She had a passion for the course as a student, and it carried through in her adult years.

"Not in the slightest," Malcolm Flaherty answered. "I'm going to fail that bloody class, you know."

Evie turned, about to intervene– but decided against it. She probably shouldn't interfere with her students' other classes, in the case that the other professors should find out.

.

That weekend, Evie was in the library.

She didn't go there often– not nearly as much as when she was a student– but found herself wandering the shelves. She'd come looking for a specific book on unicorns, which was her final unit she would teach to the students; but as she searched, she found various other books that caught her attention, stopping to pore through each one.

"Wait, what's the rune for the number four?"

"Delaney, come on, that's like, basic runology,"

"It's the fwooper, remember? For the four colors it changes to."

"Right. I'm sorry. It's too much at once, I'm getting confused."

Evie rounded the corner, curiosity getting the best of her. She spotted four familiar faces, all of whom were in her third period Care of Magical Creatures class: Harriet Runcorn, Delaney Higgs, Iain Fittle and Malcolm Flaherty.

"Now, how do we translate this entire paragraph?" Malcolm asked. "We need some sort of strategy to make this easier– there's no way we can go back and forth between this and the dictionary for each word."

"Is that Ancient Runes?" Evie stepped forward, unable to help herself.

The four jumped, surprised to see their teacher.

"Professor Wood!" Delaney breathed, blond curls shaking as he let out the gust of air. "Gave me a scare."

"Yeah," Malcolm answered, grimacing. "Hopeless, too."

Evie pursed her lips, thinking. "Do you mind if I... help? I know a thing or two about ancient runes."

The four exchanged surprised looks.

"Really, professor?" Harriet tilted her head, brown eyes crinkling. "I mean, no offense or anything, but... aren't you more of a bowtruckles and kneazles kind of person?"

Evie laughed. "Less so than you'd think. Miss Runcorn."

Less than fifteen minutes later, Evie had taken a seat between Iain and Delaney, the four students' heads peering over her shoulder. She had pulled a copy of Spellman's Syllabary from the library shelves, earning the four students to look at her with confused faces. The book was a requirement for year five Ancient Runes, not year four– but Evie insisted. The book had tricks to rune translation that the rune dictionaries didn't. She retaught them the basics of runology; building a stronger foundation to help them work through the harder questions with better accuracy.

The four students were thoroughly shocked– their professor was much better at translating ancient runes than they realized. Iain had even mumbled something about how she'd make a better Ancient Runes teacher than Care of Magical Creatures.

It was nearly nine when Madam Pince came to their table, instructing them to begin tidying up as the library would soon be closed. Evie was surprised– had three hours passed? Malcolm, Delaney, Iain and Harriet left more than satisfied– they had much more confidence in their ancient rune translating than they had three hours ago.

"Thank you again, Professor." Delaney smiled, his freckles scrunching as he did so.

"Yeah," Harriet agreed. "We really appreciate it."

"Of course," Evie grinned back. "I'm happy I could help."

"Really, Professor," Malcolm remarked. "You're quite excellent at ancient runes. Are you sure you're filling in the right position? Because I think old Murke could use a break–"

Evie lightly hit the boy in the arm, earning a laugh. "Don't say that! You shouldn't be talking ill of your teachers, Flaherty."

Despite her protests, Evie agreed with Malcolm– Professor Murke had taught her Ancient Runes at Hogwarts, and had been teaching the subject for Merlin knows how many years before that. He was becoming old and frail, and his memory had probably degraded considerably since her own school years.

"Get to bed, you four. You need some sleep after spending so long hunched over those books."

"Thank you again, Professor."

"We really needed your help."

"Well, at least, Delaney did."

"Hey!"

Evie laughed. "See you all tomorrow,"

"Bye!"

"Good night!"

She turned, watching as Malcolm gestured for Harriet to go through the Gryffindor portrait hole, trailing after her, leaving Delaney and Iain to walk downstairs, presumably to the Hufflepuff dormitories.

Evie smiled to herself. She felt happy to be in her element– Ancient Runes had always been her best class.

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾