Fire Whiskey in the Moonlight (Remus Lupin)

Chapter Four: The Professor

After staying up all of last night with Remus and then the dementors on the train, I was utterly exhausted. I decided to skip the Start of Term Feast and go to bed early so that I would be ready for classes tomorrow.

It was nice to be alone in the castle for a bit, almost like I had my own personal welcome back from Hogwarts. I stopped at the Fat Lady's portrait and recited the password Percy had given me when we got off the train. As her portrait swung open I was greeted by the scent of a burning fire, courtesy of the large fireplace in the center of the common room. I took a deep breath in, it was good to be home. Yawning, I climbed the stairs to the girl's dormitories. I smiled as I pulled back the crimson curtains on my large, plush bed and climbed in. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.

***

"Vivian! Come on let's go, I grabbed your class schedule, a bagel, and some mail that got dropped for you. Now get up and throw your clothes on or we are gonna be late!"

I rubbed my tired eyes before looking up to see Katie Cain standing over me.

"What time is it?" I yawned.

"We have ten minutes before class, let's go!"

I jumped up and quickly put on my robes, throwing my hair up into a ponytail and magicking on some makeup. I grabbed my things from Katie, shoving the schedule in my pocket, the bagel in my mouth and tossing the letter in my bedside drawer without looking at it.

"Thanks, Katie, you're a lifesaver!"

"I know," she laughed "Why weren't you at the feast? We all missed you!"

By 'we' she was referring to our friend group which consisted of myself, Katie, Tyler James, and Eric Morgan. Annie popped in occasionally, but she mainly stuck to her Hufflepuff friends during the week, hanging out with us on weekends.

Eric was my very first friend at Hogwarts, we sat in the same boat on our way to the sorting ceremony and were the first two students to be sorted into Gryffindor our year. Eric and Tyler had beds next to each other, as did Katie and I, we all just clicked and pretty soon we were a close-knit group.

Hopefully, that would remain true this year, but it almost certainly wouldn't. Tyler and I dated last year until he became even more of a prick than I had already thought he was and cheated on me with some Ravenclaw girl. We broke up right before summer began.

"One of the dementors on the train came into my compartment, I was pretty exhausted afterward, so I skipped the feast."

"That whole thing is complete rubbish! Dumbledore says that they will be on campus until Sirius Black is caught."

"That is ridiculous! Most of the seventh years can't even cast patronuses, how is anyone in the school supposed to protect themselves from those death-eater wannabes?"

"Maybe the new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher will cover it for everyone because of the circumstances."

"That's assuming he isn't complete rubbish." I sneered.

"He's gotta be better than Lockheart!"

"We'll see soon enough," I said, holding up my crumpled schedule and taking a large bite of my bagel, "According to this we have Defense Against the Dark Arts after Binns."

***

Katie and I strolled out of History of Magic together lazily, before being tackled from behind by Eric.

"Has Binns gotten more boring? Literally didn't think that was possible!" He leaned toward me and planted a hard kiss on my cheek "Morning Feast skipper! We all missed you last night but I gotta say Tyler was especially upset."