Dark Side of the Moon

Chapter Fourteen: The flame is gone, the fire remains

He first saw her again on Monday afternoon, which was the week's first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. Unfortunately, the period was already due to have a guest.

Hermioned walked in with Ginny, clearly studiously looking anywhere but the front of the room, where he was perched against his desk - but, alas, she ended up catching his eye anyways as the girls made their way to their seats. The younger witch blinked hard, visibly flushing, and quickly ducked her head, mumbling an unintelligible response to whatever Ginny had asked her just before. The redhead, not yet noticing the change in her friend's demeanor, continued to chatter as Hermione slowly pulled her parchment, quill, and ink - Remus noticed that the latter was her favorite violet shade, a birthday gift from Molly and Arthur - from her olive-colored satchel. He felt his own cheeks burn, and hoped that his scars and facial hair obscured the fact to his students. As Hermione skimmed her front teeth over her bottom lip, Remus remembered what that peachy flesh tasted like against his own, and Merlin, he had to look away. He didn't like the trigger-thought he'd had immediately upon taking in that image: Again.

Almost as if on cue, a physical embodinment of his guilty conscience, Tonks walked in behind the last of the students, wearing a wide smile and a shock of royal blue hair - likely because, as he uneasily recalled, he'd told her it was a pretty color on her back before they had even begun doing...whatever their entanglement could presently be called. Remus smiled tightly and nodded at her, and Tonks made her way to the front of the classroom through the students seating themselves. "Hullo," she said, lowly, almost huskily, and he felt the blush creeping back up his cheeks. It must've tripled once he spied Hermione over Tonks' shoulder, staring at them.

"All right?" he replied, smiling a little more easily.

"Just here to sit in on my favorite professor," she responded with a small smirk. Remus swallowed. Though Tonks was speaking relatively quietly, Hermione, being in the front row, must've heard that - if not Ginny as well. Hermione looked down at the table, as if thinking...then slowly returned her gaze to Remus', still peeking at her from behind a shock of blue in the foreground.

"You don't have to just sit in. I meant it when I said I think you have a lot of knowledge and experience to impart on these students. Want to do a bit of questions and answers today?"

"I'd be honored, Professor." He winced imperceptibly. She was being far more flirtatious than he'd been hoping, and he could tell Hermione was noticing.

"Lovely. I'll get us started, then." Tonks nodded, but instead of sitting at one of the long tables, she instead plopped down behind Remus' desk, kicking her feet up on an adjacent parchment cabinet. Remus turned back to the class as they began to quiet down from their between-period prattle. "Students, you may have noticed we have a visitor today..."

After a short introduction - most, if not all, of the students easily recognized Tonks as a famous Auror who bravely fought in the Battle of Hogwarts - Tonks spoke of her time under the tutelage of Mad-Eye Moody, how she had become an Auror after finishing her education at Hogwarts, and how that had translated into a position with the Order of the Phoenix. A few of the students whose families had had ties to Voldemort, like Malfoy and Theo Nott, looked somewhat uncomfortable as Tonks had pointedly explained the kinds of tortures the side of good had weathered from the Death Eaters during their time in power. But most of the students listened to Tonks' stories raptly, and once the floor was opened to questions, none of them held back on their brimming curiosity. After all, they had a bona-fide war hero in their midst - one that was a little more exotic than their own Order of the Phoenix-allied professor, whom they'd had plenty of time to get used to since the school year started.

Remus felt guilty for it, but he let his mind wander while Tonks took easy control of the Q&A. He was determined not to look at Hermione, if only not to inadvertantly reveal the stormy contents of his thoughts. But he did let them drift, and in them he replayed, for the umpteenth time, the moments in front of the Mirror of Erised, the moments where everything fell together and then apart again. True to his personality, even his daydreams were deeply thoughtful, and he ruminated over and over on what his feelings for Hermione might really be. Even if Remus wanted to keep lying to himself - and, in truth, he was an impeccable liar when it came to falsehoods aimed at his own conscience - he knew from what Dumbledore had told him years before that the Mirror hadn't lied. It truly had shown him his heart's desire, and that was Hermione...along with a younger, less-afflicted him. He wondered when that had happened, when she had become the subject of his longing. He guessed it was both little by little, and all at once. Like falling asleep. Sometime over that summer, he'd started wanting her, her mind and her character and other things, too, that he dared not think on too often, and it hadn't gone away when he'd awoken from that sun-dappled dream and returned to Hogwarts.