Vixen || Remus Lupin x OC

II

September 1973
Professor Haggle

    "How much trouble did you get in?" Lily asked as her, Mavis, James and Remus sat in the Gryffindor common room after the sorting ceremony.

    "Two weeks detention. Sirius and Pete are doing one of there's now, McGonagall thought it would be best to separate us." Remus replied, eating a chocolate frog.

    "Well, I guess that would teach you four to leave Severus alone." Said Lily, already studying for their upcoming lessons.

    Mavis was sat on an armchair, her favourite in the common room, it was large and the sort of chair you sank into. Pippin was on her lap under James' invisibility cloak and Mavis was using him as a book rest as she read one of her many Magical Creatures books.  She looked up from her book, "Where did you even get that spell from?"

    James smiled, "Remus found it in one of his little books and we thought we should give it some practice, give us some practice."

    "Practice for what, may I ask?" Mavis scoffed, placing her book down momentarily.

    "Well, The Dark Lord, of course." James replied as if that was the only obvious answer. "Dad says the ministry are getting more concerned with him as he's recruiting more followers everyday. I even heard he's-"

    "Right, I'm off to bed I refuse to listen more about this silly Lord." Lily stated and packed up her stuff and went off to bed.

    Mavis had waiting until Lily was out of earshot, "What did you hear about him?"

    "That he's supposedly even getting creatures on his side, giants, dragons, anything he can get his hands on. I overheard Dad telling Mum about it. He thinks we're leading up to a war."

    "A war? What war?" Remus suddenly said, drawing his attention away from the window he was mindlessly gazing out of.

    Mavis briefly looked towards the window, forgetting he was there, "Haven't you been listening? What are you looking at?" She asked, curiously, and walked over to the window he was looking out of.

    "Nothing. Just tired, I'm going to head up now." He said and walked off to bed, Mavis gave James an odd look which he just returned with a shrug.

    The following day, Mavis was up before all the others, which came as a shock to them as Mavis was usually the last one to get up. She had been too excited to sleep any longer as, finally, she'd be able to take Care Of Magical Creatures, the class she had been waiting to take since she was 7 years old and first discovered Newt Scamander. What made matters even better was that is was her first lesson of the day.

    "You seem chipper this morning." Peter said to Mavis as they ate their breakfast with James and Sirius. "Did you finally see a Zoomcalf or whatever those bloody things are called."

    "Mooncalf and no, unfortunately not."

    "Then why do you look like that, it's a bit unsettling, to be honest."

    Lily sat down, grabbing a slice of toast, "Isn't it obvious? You've got Care of Magical Creatures first thing today. I'm surprised all four of you chose it, you don't exactly seem like the caring type."

    "Ouch, Evans. We happen to be very caring men and not all of us chose it, Remus went with Arithmancy." James spoke up, mouth full of cereal.

    Mavis' face scrunched up in disgust, "Shut your mouth when you eat, James. Where is Remus anyways?"

    "In bed, stayed up all night studying." James said quickly, before piling more food in his mouth to avoid anymore questions, Mavis looked away in disgust.

    "Why did you choose Care of Magical Creatures then?" Lily asked.

    "We didn't fancy the other subjects, so we figured we'd just choose Care of Magical Creatures, can't be that difficult. All you have to do is pet the animal, tell it what a good boy it is and give it a treat." Sirius added on.

    "And what do you plan to do when it comes to the actual education? Such as knowing the animals diet, habitats, behaviours?" Lily scoffed as her and Mavis gave knowing looks.

    "Well that's easy, ask Mavis."

    With that both Mavis and Lily stood up and began walking to their first class.

    "You'd think they all shared a brain." Lily said with a slight chuckle.

    Mavis smiled, "I know, they refer to themselves like 'we thought', 'we did', 'we went' it's so funny. The only one who seems to be able to think for himself is Remus."

    Lily laughed before saying, "Right, I have to head off to Arithmancy, I'll see you later, have fun in Care of Magical Creatures."

    "Have fun in Arithmancy." Mavis replied as she went down the hall to look for Marlene and Alice, who went to the library to return some very late books of Marlene's.

    "Sit down, sit down. Wherever you want, I don't care." A woman with dark black hair said as she walked to the front of the class. "What's this?" She picked up a piece of parchment on her desk, "Rubbish." And cast a spell on it which turned the paper to dust.

    She flicked her wand again and handed out sheets of parchment to each student, already with their name and dates on it. "Right then, everyone ready to get started? Good. My name is Professor Haggle. Been working here for, Merlin, how long is it now? Ah- yes, twenty years now, been head of Slytherin house for about 5 years. As the lad before me, blew up- potion gone wrong apparently." Everyone gave each other odd looks. "For the first part of this lesson, as you can see, I've handed out some papers with your names on it an-"

    The door to the classroom suddenly flung open and in stumbled James, Sirius and Peter, their faces covered in ashes.

    "Where the bloody hell have you three been then?" Professor Haggle said as she walked over to the boys, her hair changing from black to red.

    "Is it just me or was her hair black?" Marlene whispered to Mavis.

    "Sorry, sir. We got into a little curfuffle on our way here." Sirius responded and James and Peter wiped their faces onto their white sleeves.

    "Sir?" Her face turned as red as her hair. "You know what, just go sit down, can't be bothered it's only the first day. But if any of you insult me like that again you'll know about it."

    With that, the three boys rushed over to Mavis' table, wiping their faces and each others faces to get the ash off.

    "We-" James began before Mavis cut him off.

    "Not now tell us later."

    After Professor Haggle made her way to the front of the classroom, her hair faded back to black and she began once again, "What was I saying? Oh yes, in front of you is a piece of parchment with your name on it and what I want you all to do is just write down any knowledge of Magical Creatures, anything. And if you don't know anything, well, I guess that's why you're here then isn't it?"

"Start writing then? Kids."