The Forest - R.L.

Chapter 54 - The Book

The Great Hall was filled with students, third years and up, trying and failing to organise themselves into a line so that Filch could mark them off the checklist in his grubby hands.

"Line up! Line up! Don't push in!" Professor Slughorn shouted unhelpfully as he wandered along the queue.

From his spot at the Gryffindor table, Remus watched the brouhaha* through his mountain of over-sized sweaters, one hand clutching an open book, and the other mindlessly fiddling with a fabric book mark – a Christmas present from Grace – that currently depicted the full moon. Beside him, a box of tissues with and ever growing pile of used tissues surrounding it.

"Just go without me, seriously, I'll be fine," Remus argued with a sniffle. "I'm probably just going to sleep all afternoon."

"I'll stay, you guys can go," Grace said, looking at the others as she sat down next to him.

Remus let out an exasperated sigh. "Fel, did you not hear what I literally just said!? Go. To. Hogsmeade."

"I've got homework and studying to do. Besides it's too cold anyways, it's still snowing."

Remus rolled his eyes. He knew Grace loved the snow – it was something she'd never been able to experience back in Australia – but he also knew that she was far too stubborn to back down now. She was staying whether he liked it or not.

"Well, Lily's going so I obviously have to," James said, glancing at where the red head stood in line with her Hufflepuff friends.

"Just maybe try and avoid getting punched in the face this time, Prongs," Peter suggested.

"And look, Ely's going too," James added, waggling his eyebrows at Sirius who in turn glared at him. "Have you asked him out yet or what, Pads?"

Sirius' face turned a brilliant shade of pink. "Uh... no, I haven't."

Remus sneezed.

"Well, you'd better get going then," Grace said, before turning to Remus beside her. "And you, sir, need to go to the Hospital Wing."

"I really don't, I'm fine," he argued.

Grace gasped in mock horror. "Did Remus Lupin just... lie to me? Goody-Two-Shoes Lupin, a liar? Just wait until the teachers hear about this! They'll take your prefect for sure. You know, I expected more-"

"Fine! I'll go," Remus huffed with a sniffle.

"Finally. Have fun!" she yelled to the others before wrapping one arm around Remus' back and helping him to get up.

---

"What was in it?" Remus asked suddenly, breaking the comfortable between them. They were sitting on a small bed in the back corner of the Hospital Wing with Grace cross-legged on the top half and Remus curled up on the bottom half, his head resting in Grace's lap as she aimlessly flicked through her herbology text book.

"Remus, context?" Grace reminded him, glancing down. "I literally have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sorry, I only just remembered. That package that you got earlier this week – what was is in it? Frodo accidentally brought it over to the wrong table again."

"Oh, right. It was a book, for my mum, one she ordered through the mail."

Remus nodded slightly. "What's the book?"

"The Wonders of Muggle Science Through the Eyes of a Witch," she answered hesitantly, checking that there was no one else in the Hospital Wing. Using muggle science to study magic was still extremely taboo in the wizarding world and her mother was at risk enough from being a muggle born. She didn't need people knowing she was also delving into the science of magic.

"Muggle science? I didn't know you mum was into muggle science. Your grandparents mustn't've been happy about that."

"They don't know about it."

Whilst her grandparents had very modern views on muggles and muggleborns, they didn't agree with delving into muggle science to better understand magic. When they'd found out that Grace had been taught science at her wizarding primary school, her grandmother had screeched, claiming that it wasn't right to poison their minds with such dangerous information.

Grace thought it highly illogical, but she had noticed that a large amount of the wizarding community seemed to share the same underlying belief: muggle science was primitive and pointless (why study science when you can study magic and do anything you want?) and studying the science of magic was unsafe and ludicrous, even though there didn't seem to be any proper reasoning to back it up.

The science of magic was also a fairly new topic of interest, with very little known about it, however 'magiologists' as they were now calling themselves, all around the world – particularly in Australia where the attitude to muggle science was very different – were constantly learning more.

"Has she your grandmother accepted that there's a war going on yet or...?"

"Nope, still insists on remaining in a state of blissful ignorance," Grace answered, shaking her head. Mary Thorne had also banned any mentions of You-Know-Who or the murders in the news in her house, choosing to instead act as if nothing was wrong.

Again, Grace believed it was incredibly pointless – there was no denying the current state of the wizarding world – but she loved her Grandma too much to constantly fight her over it and she knew that there was no use. She could be incredibly stubborn when she wanted to be.

"Does she just expect it to go away if she ignores it for long enough?"

Grace snorted. "I used to think that. About you."

"What do you-"

"When I figured out I had a crush on you at the end of our third year, I was too chicken to do anything about it so I just ignored it and assumed it would go away."

"Well, that doesn't seemed to have worked very well for you," Remus said with a chuckle, looking up at her and noticed the book she clutched in her left hand. "Are you studying for that Herbology test? Because I have absolutely no idea what we're doing at the moment."

"No one does. Eischeid spent the whole lesson lecturing someone on the correct way to hold a Mandrake, and we weren't even learning about Mandrakes."

"She just loves to prove that she's right, doesn't she?"

"Much like someone else I know," Remus added, smirking up at Grace. "Can you read it aloud for me?"

"Sure, I guess," she replied, moving her arms slightly so that the book was in front of her. "Okay, let's start with Fanged Germaniums. 'A common garden plant that is known to bite or attack if not taken care of. Its fangs are used in many....'"

Not even five minutes later, Remus had fallen asleep, the effects of the upcoming full moon finally taking hold of him.

---

*Yes, this is a word. I stumbled across it whilst pointlessly browsing dictionary.com/thesaurus.com and thought it was so weird I had to find an excuse to use it. It means: "excited public interest, discussion, or the like, as the clamour attending some sensational event; hullabaloo" and I probably haven't used it correctly but oh well. (Unless some of you have actually heard it before?? Idk I most certainly haven't))

The next chapter should hopefully be the last filler before we get into some more action so get excited.

- Grace