An Uncertain Sort of Faith
Title: An Uncertain Sort of Faith
Author: spin_deep
Character/Pairing: Lily Luna Potter/Teddy Lupin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: about 3,800
Summary: She was in the Defence corridor, of course. Her mind took her there late at night, so why wouldn't her feet, when she gave them the opportunity? She tapped her steady fist against Lupin's door.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: I wrote this while I was supposed to be working on an essay and if it sounds a little angry, that is probably why. I hope you enjoy it regardless. I love knowing what people think of my writing, so please feel free to comment!
She was not drunk. Her housemates were, but then, they were always in some sort of chemical-induced stupor these days - they had finished NEWTS and didn't see much point in staying sober. Lily had refused Firewhiskey and mind-reeling potions, so she didn't have any excuse.
It was barely midnight, and Ris had only just loosened her tie and undone the top button on her school shirt. Lily usually lasted until her best friend had led one or another boy off into the far corner before escaping to their dormitory and casting a silencing charm around her bed. Then she'd lay awake for a few hours feeling guilty for how Ris was choosing to get over Hugo.
That night she couldn't listen to Ris rattle off pro-con lists about the few blokes she hadn't slept with yet. She didn't feel like watching Reed Zabini chug bottles of beer in ten seconds flat and she really wasn't interested in feeling William Flint's dry hands fumbling at her waist because Salazar that bastard needed to learn to fuck off. She didn't want to go sit in her bed and feel sad for the way her seventh year had played out because self-pity sucked and it was unbecoming, anyway.
She didn't bother going for her father's old invisibility cloak. If anyone caught her, she'd get two nights of detention and a few points from Slytherin, but no one would care. No one cared about much anymore; it was almost the end.
Her Oxfords scuffed on the stones as she walked up the steps from the dungeon, her hand tugged at the waist of her skirt, pulling it to cling above her hipbones. She un-tucked her shirt as she walked and she undid her tie, allowing it to hang around her neck like a skinny-skinny unfashionable scarf.
She was in the Defence corridor, of course. Her mind took her there late at night, so why wouldn't her feet, when she gave them the opportunity? She tapped her steady fist against Lupin's door. She wouldn't have knocked if the light had been on. She had hoped that she could unlock on the door and sneak inside, peek at Lupin's personal papers and give herself a higher mark and punish Hugo and that Ravenclaw bint - Jade Thomas or whoever - with lower ones.
But then the door swung open and Lupin blinked at her in tired surprise. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top and his tie was gone. His hair was a warm brown colour and it was very, very messy. He had a red mark on his nose where the bridge of his spectacles had dug in.
"Miss Potter?" His surprise did not affect the distant way he had been speaking to her since he took the job at Hogwarts two years before. He glanced at his watch when she didn't answer and said, "It's midnight. What're you doing here?"
Merlin, she hated him. She hated how old he was and how attractive he was and how he had once snogged Victoire like she was the only thing in this world that mattered to him and how that had changed abruptly and how he had fallen out of the family circle when Vic and he had split. She hated him hated him hated him for the way he had looked at her when he had walked into that first class and saw her sitting in the back row, dressed in Slytherin green and silver and playing a game of tic-tac-toe with Ris on the back of Nott's hand. He had judged her and found her lacking. She knew it from the way his eyes always skipped over hers when he called roll, and the way his hands fisted on the desk when he had to tell her off for talking in class - he never minded with the others. Even Hugo. The bastard.
"Miss Potter?" he repeated.
"Slytherin sucks," she said. He raised his eyebrows.
"I thought you rather liked it." The bizarreness of this conversation was apparent in the wrinkle of his nose and the twist to his mouth, but Lily didn't let that bother her.
"I did." She thought that maybe her feelings could be a metaphor or an analogy or whatever. "I did. But you know when you feel like you're a part of something, and then all of a sudden everything is exactly the same except that you're somehow on the outside of it all? That's how I feel about Slytherin." She hoped her eyes were telling him everything he was supposed to read into that.
He chuckled, but it was a nervous sound. "So? Would you like me to speak to the headmaster and have him re-sort you?"
Lily sighed. "Clearly no. I'll finish it out as a Slytherin, thanks."
"Why did you come here, Lily?"
He had used her name. That was progress. "I was trying to make a point," she told him. "But if you're too obtuse to notice it, then maybe it's not worth my time."
"I noticed it." He rubbed the back of his neck and seemed to realise that his shirt was unbuttoned. He pushed the buttons back through the holes, but he missed one and it ended up crooked. "I was just hoping we could avoid this. We've managed to so far."
"We haven't really managed anything. We haven't actually spoken in seven years."
"Look, Lily," he sighed, "we were friends when we were younger, I know. But sometimes people drift apart. It's not unexpected, especially considering our age difference."
"We didn't drift apart." Lily wished that she were not standing in the corridor. She felt vulnerable there. "You quit the family cold turkey."
"You make it sound like it was my decision," he said. He shook his head. "Vic and I ended and I didn't want to make it more difficult for her by being around. I needed to find my own way eventually, Lily. The breakup just forced me to."
"And then you came back!" Lily's voice came out higher than natural and she gripped her right wrist until her fingernails bit into her skin. "You came back, and you could barely even say 'hi' to me. You don't even acknowledge me in class unless you're absolutely forced to."
"Lily, you're leaving in a week. Can't we just let this be?"
"Don't you miss me?" She sounded pathetic. Oh, Merlin, she sounded so pathetic. Why had she said that?
He hesitated. She kept herself standing still through sheer force of will. A moment longer, though, and she'd have turned, she'd have been down the corridor and back into the heat of the Slytherin common room before he could even breathe the words forming on his tongue.
"I didn't," he said, just before she was about to leave. "At first I might have, a little, but you were so young and I was old enough that I managed to forget about you."
"Oh." She didn't sound hurt, because she had been young. They hadn't really known each other then, not really, because ten year-olds lack depth and twenty year-olds believe that they're deeper than black holes.
"And then I came back and walked into class and there you were and you had grown up. I hadn't really expected you to change, you know? I thought I'd come back and teach you for two years and you'd be exactly the same as you'd been when you were nine, just a little bit bigger and a little bit smarter. But you, Lily." He shook his head. "Merlin, you're dangerous."
"Dangerous," she repeated. No one had ever called her dangerous before. Surprising, yes. Different, sure. Adorable, occasionally (although they usually got cursed for it). But dangerous? Never.
"Yes. Don't you get it yet?" He looked a little undone, with his hair messy like that and his shirt buttoned wrong.
"Get what?"
She was surprised when his hands sprung out and gripped her shoulders. It was rough and unexpected and she barely kept herself from pulling away. His hands didn't feel the way she'd imagined them to in the middle of the night. They felt bigger and less tender.
Lily pressed her hands against Lupin's shoulders to keep from crashing into him. The rush of the whole thing felt awkward but then he had his lips pressed to hers and she didn't care how uncomfortable it was because she had wanted this.
His arms were around her and she wrapped her legs around his waist and he took them inside his office, kicking his door shut behind him so adroitly that Lily thought he might have done this before with somebody else but Merlin it didn't matter because this finally felt good and different, different than it had ever felt with anyone else, and it was better because of that. He set her on his desk and pulled away for a moment and neither of them said what they were thinking because the things they were thinking would have ended it with jagged words full of accusation and hurt and guilt.
Instead she breathed, "More," and he gave in because fuck, he wanted it too.
He wanted it until they were finished and then he looked at her for a long, silent moment, while she tugged her clothing straight and knotted her tie around her neck and tucked her hair back into a braid. He looked at her and he regretted her, she could see it in the way his eyes were locked on her face, not drifting down to see what he had just had, but looking at her eyes to see whether he had taken something.
He must have decided that he had. "Lily," he sounded apologetic.
"Lupin." She leaned down to look under his desk. She had lost an earring.
"Merlin, Lily, I didn't mean to - that was really - I'm not - that wasn't - I'm sorry."
"About what?" Somehow it had ended up by the far leg of the desk and she couldn't quite reach it. She tugged her wand from the waistband of her skirt and muttered, "Accio earring." It skidded back into her hand and she sat cross-legged on the floor as she slid it back through the hole.
"Lily," he begged. "I never wanted to hurt you."
"Hurt me?" She laughed and it sounded real. "What makes you think you've hurt me?"
"You didn't come here for sex," he told her.
"No," she admitted. "I came here to change my mark and Hugo's and that bitch Jade's. But sex is fine, too."
"Change your...? You didn't know I was in?"
She shook her head. "I sort of just ended up here."
"But..." he shook his head. "Merlin, Lily, this is wrong. It's very, very wrong."
She shrugged. "No one'll ever know."
"That's not the point."
She stood and walked to the door, only turning to face him when she reached it. "Stop feeling guilty," she ordered. "Guilt is stupid and pointless and you've done nothing wrong." She grinned at him and he felt dirty.
"Lily," he began.
"See you," she said, like they'd just had midnight tea or something.
"Lily," he said, "don't come back."
"Sure," she replied, like she meant it.
But she was there again, the next night.
It took him longer to answer her knock. When he did, he looked resigned. "Go to bed, Lily."
She pushed past him and leaned against his desk. She stretched her legs out in front of her and straightened the hem of her skirt.
He turned to look at her, still standing with the door open. "Please," he said. "Go back to Slytherin."
"You know," she began, "I just came up here to see if you wanted any coffee. I was going to make some for myself, but it seemed stupid to drink coffee alone on a Sunday night."
"Don't you have any friends?" He sounded frustrated.
"They're all busy." Never mind that Ris was pissed at her for no reason and that Lily and Hugo hadn't spoken in thirty-seven days, give or take an hour.
"It can't happen again, Lily. Never again."
"What?" She conjured a coffee tray and began spooning grounds into the carafe. "I don't think we've ever had coffee before. We've had tea, of course, but I promise I won't pull out my stuffed dragons and crups this time. I've grown up a little."
He hesitated by the door for another moment. "Just coffee?"
"Just coffee."
He came to sit at his desk; Lily sat at one of the chairs across from him and they stared at each other over the paper-strewn mess while they waited.
Teddy finally said, "So, how'd NEWTS go?"
Lily shrugged. "Fine. They're over and I'm pretty sure I passed everything."
"You definitely passed Defence," Teddy told her, forgetting for a moment that it was awkward between them. "You're among the best in your year."
Lily shook her head. "Only because Hugo always helped me. We weren't talking before NEWTS so I might not've done as well."
"Why?" he asked, ignoring the fact that she had been cheating in his class for two years.
"He slept with Jade Thomas - from Ravenclaw? - while he was still dating Ris."
"That sucks."
Lily nodded. "She's gone sort of insane since." Lily poured the coffee into a cup for him and for herself.
"How d'you mean?"
"She's just been more reckless than usual," Lily evaded. "I didn't come here to complain to you. I'm sorry."
"Hey." He reached out and tucked some hair behind her ear. His hand drifted down to trace her cheekbone and her jaw-line and then she leaned forward and he drew her closer and kissed her.
Later, before she left to go back to Slytherin, she told him, "By the way, coffee means sex, in my world."
"Good to know," he told her as she shut the door behind her. "Bloody good to know." He heard her laugh in the corridor.
She came back, again and again, and he gave up the pretence of rejecting her. "Why deny it?" she asked him on the third night, and he began repeating that question during the daylight hours when his guilt made him consider turning her away.
On the next Saturday, a week after it began, she didn't come. He tried not to be anxious, but he couldn't help it; he wondered whether she had gotten caught in the corridor, whether one of the stricter professors had sentenced her to detentions her last two nights at Hogwarts, whether they'd poured Veritaserum down her throat (and yeah it was irrational but hell, he was scared).
He began a faux-nonchalant walk down to the dungeons. He heard shouting and stopped after he'd made three of the seven turns necessary to get to the main staircase.
"Fuck, Lily, talk to me!" That was Hugo.
"Don't speak to him, Potter." That must have been Ris, although the girl had rarely spoken in class.
"She's not your toy, Parkinson," Hugo said. "She doesn't have to obey you."
"Oh, but she did, didn't she? She's on my side, Weasley." The hate lacing their voices made his stomach twist.
"Merlin," Lily shouted, "would you both stop?" He heard the quick slap of running feet against the stone floor and he was just about to duck behind a tapestry when she collided with him. "Fuck," she hissed, rubbing her nose and looking up at him. "Oh, it's you."
He wanted to take her by the hand and lead her away but then he realised that her friends had followed her and were standing in the corridor, staring at him in the dim torchlight.
"Professor Lupin?" Hugo said. "We were just - "
"You're seventh years." Teddy waved his hand. "I don't care enough to punish you for being out after curfew. For fighting in the corridors, though..." Lily had stepped away from him. She stood to his left, so he was between her and Ris and Hugo.
"We weren't fighting," Ris informed him. "We were having a discussion."
"Sounded a bit loud," he told her. "And I don't think Miss Potter appreciated it."
"Lily," Hugo ignored him. "Lily, please look at me. I am sorry. I want to talk to you."
"I don't fucking care, Hugo." Lily looked at him and he wished she hadn't. Her eyes were bright and angry, and her lips were curled in disgust. "You shouldn't be apologising to me. You should be apologising to Ris. She's the one you've hurt."
"I don't want your apologies," Ris hurried.
"Fuck," Hugo hissed. "This is all your fault, Parkinson. Why did you have to snog Hunter?"
"What?" Lily turned her eyes on Ris and she backed to the wall, her wand in her hand. "You told me Hugo cheated first."
"I...might have lied."
Ris would have died if Lupin hadn't grabbed onto Lily when she launched herself past him. She struggled against his hands on her upper-arms, but he didn't let go, even though both Hugo and Ris were staring at the way he was touching her, their eyes accusing him of unspeakable things. "Lily," he murmured. "Lily, stop."
"Fucking hell," Lily hurled the words at Ris, but she stopped fighting him. "You bitch." He could feel the way she worked to keep her voice steady in the exhausted press of her spine against his chest. "You lied to me."
"I knew you'd take Hugo's side," Ris confessed, but her eyes weren't on Lily's face, they were on his hands and where her legs touched his and he wondered when she'd accuse them.
"Because he was right and you were wrong!" Lily shouted. "I'm so sorry, Hugo."
Her cousin didn't respond. His eyes followed the same path Ris's had taken.
"You know what's wrong?" Ris's voice was cruel and cutting. "Fucking the professor."
Lily didn't move from where she stood, and he didn't take his hands from her shoulders, although his stillness had everything to do with the fact that he was scared shitless.
"You're not, Lily," Hugo begged. "Even you wouldn't be stupid enough to fuck Lupin."
She shrugged and Lupin's hands fell away from her shoulders. "I wanted something different."
"That's it?" He had found his voice. "That's the only reason? I was 'different'?"
"Oh, looks like we've started a lover's quarrel," Ris muttered to Hugo, but her ex refused to look at her.
"What?" Lily turned to look at him. "Did you want something more, Lupin?"
Somehow he had found himself in the middle of a teenage drama and he was not happy about it but, "Yeah. Yeah, I did."
"What?" Ris laughed. "You wanted a relationship? With Lily Potter? She'll never settle down."
Lily tilted her head as she looked at him. Her eyes were sad. "Ris is right, Lupin. You're shit out of luck when it comes to me."
She stepped away from him. "Come on, Hugo," she said, "Let's get out of here."
Ris followed Lily and Hugo at a distance, and before she turned the corner she glanced at her professor and said, "We won't tell anyone. It probably wasn't your fault, anyway. She's sort of a bitch."
He went back to his office and sat at his desk and decided that he was lucky. He was lucky that they were leaving Hogwarts and he was lucky that it hadn't gone on any longer. If it had, one of them may have gotten hurt.
:::
He should have expected her. But then, it had been exactly a month since that night in the corridor, and it hadn't even lasted a full week, so maybe it was okay that when someone knocked at the door to his flat that evening in June he didn't immediately think of Lily. But he didn't immediately think of Yvonne, either, and he had been seeing her for two weeks so maybe there was something wrong with him.
He opened the door to find her standing in the corridor looking like she had a month and a week before, except she was wearing leggings and an oversized tee-shirt with the words "Venice University" embroidered on it rather than her Hogwarts uniform.
"Miss Potter," maybe if he acted like that week had never happened she wouldn't know that he had ever cared.
"Teddy," and Merlin how could his name on her lips unman him so much?
He stepped aside because he couldn't resist the look in her blue-grey eyes and he closed the door behind her because he wanted her to stay.
"I'm a bitch." She dropped her leather handbag by the door and leaned down to untie the laces on her ankle boots. "I really am, but I only said what I said that night because Hugo and Ris were there."
"Yeah?"
"You wanted more with me?"
"Yeah." Coherent thoughts were unattainable and multi-syllable words were a useless dream.
"Do you still?"
She had just toed off one shoe but he didn't care. She was standing in his flat and he could kiss her if he wanted to.
So he did. Fuck the consequences.
Author: spin_deep
Character/Pairing: Lily Luna Potter/Teddy Lupin
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: about 3,800
Summary: She was in the Defence corridor, of course. Her mind took her there late at night, so why wouldn't her feet, when she gave them the opportunity? She tapped her steady fist against Lupin's door.
Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters herein are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No copyright infringement is intended.
Author's Notes: I wrote this while I was supposed to be working on an essay and if it sounds a little angry, that is probably why. I hope you enjoy it regardless. I love knowing what people think of my writing, so please feel free to comment!
She was not drunk. Her housemates were, but then, they were always in some sort of chemical-induced stupor these days - they had finished NEWTS and didn't see much point in staying sober. Lily had refused Firewhiskey and mind-reeling potions, so she didn't have any excuse.
It was barely midnight, and Ris had only just loosened her tie and undone the top button on her school shirt. Lily usually lasted until her best friend had led one or another boy off into the far corner before escaping to their dormitory and casting a silencing charm around her bed. Then she'd lay awake for a few hours feeling guilty for how Ris was choosing to get over Hugo.
That night she couldn't listen to Ris rattle off pro-con lists about the few blokes she hadn't slept with yet. She didn't feel like watching Reed Zabini chug bottles of beer in ten seconds flat and she really wasn't interested in feeling William Flint's dry hands fumbling at her waist because Salazar that bastard needed to learn to fuck off. She didn't want to go sit in her bed and feel sad for the way her seventh year had played out because self-pity sucked and it was unbecoming, anyway.
She didn't bother going for her father's old invisibility cloak. If anyone caught her, she'd get two nights of detention and a few points from Slytherin, but no one would care. No one cared about much anymore; it was almost the end.
Her Oxfords scuffed on the stones as she walked up the steps from the dungeon, her hand tugged at the waist of her skirt, pulling it to cling above her hipbones. She un-tucked her shirt as she walked and she undid her tie, allowing it to hang around her neck like a skinny-skinny unfashionable scarf.
She was in the Defence corridor, of course. Her mind took her there late at night, so why wouldn't her feet, when she gave them the opportunity? She tapped her steady fist against Lupin's door. She wouldn't have knocked if the light had been on. She had hoped that she could unlock on the door and sneak inside, peek at Lupin's personal papers and give herself a higher mark and punish Hugo and that Ravenclaw bint - Jade Thomas or whoever - with lower ones.
But then the door swung open and Lupin blinked at her in tired surprise. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top and his tie was gone. His hair was a warm brown colour and it was very, very messy. He had a red mark on his nose where the bridge of his spectacles had dug in.
"Miss Potter?" His surprise did not affect the distant way he had been speaking to her since he took the job at Hogwarts two years before. He glanced at his watch when she didn't answer and said, "It's midnight. What're you doing here?"
Merlin, she hated him. She hated how old he was and how attractive he was and how he had once snogged Victoire like she was the only thing in this world that mattered to him and how that had changed abruptly and how he had fallen out of the family circle when Vic and he had split. She hated him hated him hated him for the way he had looked at her when he had walked into that first class and saw her sitting in the back row, dressed in Slytherin green and silver and playing a game of tic-tac-toe with Ris on the back of Nott's hand. He had judged her and found her lacking. She knew it from the way his eyes always skipped over hers when he called roll, and the way his hands fisted on the desk when he had to tell her off for talking in class - he never minded with the others. Even Hugo. The bastard.
"Miss Potter?" he repeated.
"Slytherin sucks," she said. He raised his eyebrows.
"I thought you rather liked it." The bizarreness of this conversation was apparent in the wrinkle of his nose and the twist to his mouth, but Lily didn't let that bother her.
"I did." She thought that maybe her feelings could be a metaphor or an analogy or whatever. "I did. But you know when you feel like you're a part of something, and then all of a sudden everything is exactly the same except that you're somehow on the outside of it all? That's how I feel about Slytherin." She hoped her eyes were telling him everything he was supposed to read into that.
He chuckled, but it was a nervous sound. "So? Would you like me to speak to the headmaster and have him re-sort you?"
Lily sighed. "Clearly no. I'll finish it out as a Slytherin, thanks."
"Why did you come here, Lily?"
He had used her name. That was progress. "I was trying to make a point," she told him. "But if you're too obtuse to notice it, then maybe it's not worth my time."
"I noticed it." He rubbed the back of his neck and seemed to realise that his shirt was unbuttoned. He pushed the buttons back through the holes, but he missed one and it ended up crooked. "I was just hoping we could avoid this. We've managed to so far."
"We haven't really managed anything. We haven't actually spoken in seven years."
"Look, Lily," he sighed, "we were friends when we were younger, I know. But sometimes people drift apart. It's not unexpected, especially considering our age difference."
"We didn't drift apart." Lily wished that she were not standing in the corridor. She felt vulnerable there. "You quit the family cold turkey."
"You make it sound like it was my decision," he said. He shook his head. "Vic and I ended and I didn't want to make it more difficult for her by being around. I needed to find my own way eventually, Lily. The breakup just forced me to."
"And then you came back!" Lily's voice came out higher than natural and she gripped her right wrist until her fingernails bit into her skin. "You came back, and you could barely even say 'hi' to me. You don't even acknowledge me in class unless you're absolutely forced to."
"Lily, you're leaving in a week. Can't we just let this be?"
"Don't you miss me?" She sounded pathetic. Oh, Merlin, she sounded so pathetic. Why had she said that?
He hesitated. She kept herself standing still through sheer force of will. A moment longer, though, and she'd have turned, she'd have been down the corridor and back into the heat of the Slytherin common room before he could even breathe the words forming on his tongue.
"I didn't," he said, just before she was about to leave. "At first I might have, a little, but you were so young and I was old enough that I managed to forget about you."
"Oh." She didn't sound hurt, because she had been young. They hadn't really known each other then, not really, because ten year-olds lack depth and twenty year-olds believe that they're deeper than black holes.
"And then I came back and walked into class and there you were and you had grown up. I hadn't really expected you to change, you know? I thought I'd come back and teach you for two years and you'd be exactly the same as you'd been when you were nine, just a little bit bigger and a little bit smarter. But you, Lily." He shook his head. "Merlin, you're dangerous."
"Dangerous," she repeated. No one had ever called her dangerous before. Surprising, yes. Different, sure. Adorable, occasionally (although they usually got cursed for it). But dangerous? Never.
"Yes. Don't you get it yet?" He looked a little undone, with his hair messy like that and his shirt buttoned wrong.
"Get what?"
She was surprised when his hands sprung out and gripped her shoulders. It was rough and unexpected and she barely kept herself from pulling away. His hands didn't feel the way she'd imagined them to in the middle of the night. They felt bigger and less tender.
Lily pressed her hands against Lupin's shoulders to keep from crashing into him. The rush of the whole thing felt awkward but then he had his lips pressed to hers and she didn't care how uncomfortable it was because she had wanted this.
His arms were around her and she wrapped her legs around his waist and he took them inside his office, kicking his door shut behind him so adroitly that Lily thought he might have done this before with somebody else but Merlin it didn't matter because this finally felt good and different, different than it had ever felt with anyone else, and it was better because of that. He set her on his desk and pulled away for a moment and neither of them said what they were thinking because the things they were thinking would have ended it with jagged words full of accusation and hurt and guilt.
Instead she breathed, "More," and he gave in because fuck, he wanted it too.
He wanted it until they were finished and then he looked at her for a long, silent moment, while she tugged her clothing straight and knotted her tie around her neck and tucked her hair back into a braid. He looked at her and he regretted her, she could see it in the way his eyes were locked on her face, not drifting down to see what he had just had, but looking at her eyes to see whether he had taken something.
He must have decided that he had. "Lily," he sounded apologetic.
"Lupin." She leaned down to look under his desk. She had lost an earring.
"Merlin, Lily, I didn't mean to - that was really - I'm not - that wasn't - I'm sorry."
"About what?" Somehow it had ended up by the far leg of the desk and she couldn't quite reach it. She tugged her wand from the waistband of her skirt and muttered, "Accio earring." It skidded back into her hand and she sat cross-legged on the floor as she slid it back through the hole.
"Lily," he begged. "I never wanted to hurt you."
"Hurt me?" She laughed and it sounded real. "What makes you think you've hurt me?"
"You didn't come here for sex," he told her.
"No," she admitted. "I came here to change my mark and Hugo's and that bitch Jade's. But sex is fine, too."
"Change your...? You didn't know I was in?"
She shook her head. "I sort of just ended up here."
"But..." he shook his head. "Merlin, Lily, this is wrong. It's very, very wrong."
She shrugged. "No one'll ever know."
"That's not the point."
She stood and walked to the door, only turning to face him when she reached it. "Stop feeling guilty," she ordered. "Guilt is stupid and pointless and you've done nothing wrong." She grinned at him and he felt dirty.
"Lily," he began.
"See you," she said, like they'd just had midnight tea or something.
"Lily," he said, "don't come back."
"Sure," she replied, like she meant it.
But she was there again, the next night.
It took him longer to answer her knock. When he did, he looked resigned. "Go to bed, Lily."
She pushed past him and leaned against his desk. She stretched her legs out in front of her and straightened the hem of her skirt.
He turned to look at her, still standing with the door open. "Please," he said. "Go back to Slytherin."
"You know," she began, "I just came up here to see if you wanted any coffee. I was going to make some for myself, but it seemed stupid to drink coffee alone on a Sunday night."
"Don't you have any friends?" He sounded frustrated.
"They're all busy." Never mind that Ris was pissed at her for no reason and that Lily and Hugo hadn't spoken in thirty-seven days, give or take an hour.
"It can't happen again, Lily. Never again."
"What?" She conjured a coffee tray and began spooning grounds into the carafe. "I don't think we've ever had coffee before. We've had tea, of course, but I promise I won't pull out my stuffed dragons and crups this time. I've grown up a little."
He hesitated by the door for another moment. "Just coffee?"
"Just coffee."
He came to sit at his desk; Lily sat at one of the chairs across from him and they stared at each other over the paper-strewn mess while they waited.
Teddy finally said, "So, how'd NEWTS go?"
Lily shrugged. "Fine. They're over and I'm pretty sure I passed everything."
"You definitely passed Defence," Teddy told her, forgetting for a moment that it was awkward between them. "You're among the best in your year."
Lily shook her head. "Only because Hugo always helped me. We weren't talking before NEWTS so I might not've done as well."
"Why?" he asked, ignoring the fact that she had been cheating in his class for two years.
"He slept with Jade Thomas - from Ravenclaw? - while he was still dating Ris."
"That sucks."
Lily nodded. "She's gone sort of insane since." Lily poured the coffee into a cup for him and for herself.
"How d'you mean?"
"She's just been more reckless than usual," Lily evaded. "I didn't come here to complain to you. I'm sorry."
"Hey." He reached out and tucked some hair behind her ear. His hand drifted down to trace her cheekbone and her jaw-line and then she leaned forward and he drew her closer and kissed her.
Later, before she left to go back to Slytherin, she told him, "By the way, coffee means sex, in my world."
"Good to know," he told her as she shut the door behind her. "Bloody good to know." He heard her laugh in the corridor.
She came back, again and again, and he gave up the pretence of rejecting her. "Why deny it?" she asked him on the third night, and he began repeating that question during the daylight hours when his guilt made him consider turning her away.
On the next Saturday, a week after it began, she didn't come. He tried not to be anxious, but he couldn't help it; he wondered whether she had gotten caught in the corridor, whether one of the stricter professors had sentenced her to detentions her last two nights at Hogwarts, whether they'd poured Veritaserum down her throat (and yeah it was irrational but hell, he was scared).
He began a faux-nonchalant walk down to the dungeons. He heard shouting and stopped after he'd made three of the seven turns necessary to get to the main staircase.
"Fuck, Lily, talk to me!" That was Hugo.
"Don't speak to him, Potter." That must have been Ris, although the girl had rarely spoken in class.
"She's not your toy, Parkinson," Hugo said. "She doesn't have to obey you."
"Oh, but she did, didn't she? She's on my side, Weasley." The hate lacing their voices made his stomach twist.
"Merlin," Lily shouted, "would you both stop?" He heard the quick slap of running feet against the stone floor and he was just about to duck behind a tapestry when she collided with him. "Fuck," she hissed, rubbing her nose and looking up at him. "Oh, it's you."
He wanted to take her by the hand and lead her away but then he realised that her friends had followed her and were standing in the corridor, staring at him in the dim torchlight.
"Professor Lupin?" Hugo said. "We were just - "
"You're seventh years." Teddy waved his hand. "I don't care enough to punish you for being out after curfew. For fighting in the corridors, though..." Lily had stepped away from him. She stood to his left, so he was between her and Ris and Hugo.
"We weren't fighting," Ris informed him. "We were having a discussion."
"Sounded a bit loud," he told her. "And I don't think Miss Potter appreciated it."
"Lily," Hugo ignored him. "Lily, please look at me. I am sorry. I want to talk to you."
"I don't fucking care, Hugo." Lily looked at him and he wished she hadn't. Her eyes were bright and angry, and her lips were curled in disgust. "You shouldn't be apologising to me. You should be apologising to Ris. She's the one you've hurt."
"I don't want your apologies," Ris hurried.
"Fuck," Hugo hissed. "This is all your fault, Parkinson. Why did you have to snog Hunter?"
"What?" Lily turned her eyes on Ris and she backed to the wall, her wand in her hand. "You told me Hugo cheated first."
"I...might have lied."
Ris would have died if Lupin hadn't grabbed onto Lily when she launched herself past him. She struggled against his hands on her upper-arms, but he didn't let go, even though both Hugo and Ris were staring at the way he was touching her, their eyes accusing him of unspeakable things. "Lily," he murmured. "Lily, stop."
"Fucking hell," Lily hurled the words at Ris, but she stopped fighting him. "You bitch." He could feel the way she worked to keep her voice steady in the exhausted press of her spine against his chest. "You lied to me."
"I knew you'd take Hugo's side," Ris confessed, but her eyes weren't on Lily's face, they were on his hands and where her legs touched his and he wondered when she'd accuse them.
"Because he was right and you were wrong!" Lily shouted. "I'm so sorry, Hugo."
Her cousin didn't respond. His eyes followed the same path Ris's had taken.
"You know what's wrong?" Ris's voice was cruel and cutting. "Fucking the professor."
Lily didn't move from where she stood, and he didn't take his hands from her shoulders, although his stillness had everything to do with the fact that he was scared shitless.
"You're not, Lily," Hugo begged. "Even you wouldn't be stupid enough to fuck Lupin."
She shrugged and Lupin's hands fell away from her shoulders. "I wanted something different."
"That's it?" He had found his voice. "That's the only reason? I was 'different'?"
"Oh, looks like we've started a lover's quarrel," Ris muttered to Hugo, but her ex refused to look at her.
"What?" Lily turned to look at him. "Did you want something more, Lupin?"
Somehow he had found himself in the middle of a teenage drama and he was not happy about it but, "Yeah. Yeah, I did."
"What?" Ris laughed. "You wanted a relationship? With Lily Potter? She'll never settle down."
Lily tilted her head as she looked at him. Her eyes were sad. "Ris is right, Lupin. You're shit out of luck when it comes to me."
She stepped away from him. "Come on, Hugo," she said, "Let's get out of here."
Ris followed Lily and Hugo at a distance, and before she turned the corner she glanced at her professor and said, "We won't tell anyone. It probably wasn't your fault, anyway. She's sort of a bitch."
He went back to his office and sat at his desk and decided that he was lucky. He was lucky that they were leaving Hogwarts and he was lucky that it hadn't gone on any longer. If it had, one of them may have gotten hurt.
:::
He should have expected her. But then, it had been exactly a month since that night in the corridor, and it hadn't even lasted a full week, so maybe it was okay that when someone knocked at the door to his flat that evening in June he didn't immediately think of Lily. But he didn't immediately think of Yvonne, either, and he had been seeing her for two weeks so maybe there was something wrong with him.
He opened the door to find her standing in the corridor looking like she had a month and a week before, except she was wearing leggings and an oversized tee-shirt with the words "Venice University" embroidered on it rather than her Hogwarts uniform.
"Miss Potter," maybe if he acted like that week had never happened she wouldn't know that he had ever cared.
"Teddy," and Merlin how could his name on her lips unman him so much?
He stepped aside because he couldn't resist the look in her blue-grey eyes and he closed the door behind her because he wanted her to stay.
"I'm a bitch." She dropped her leather handbag by the door and leaned down to untie the laces on her ankle boots. "I really am, but I only said what I said that night because Hugo and Ris were there."
"Yeah?"
"You wanted more with me?"
"Yeah." Coherent thoughts were unattainable and multi-syllable words were a useless dream.
"Do you still?"
She had just toed off one shoe but he didn't care. She was standing in his flat and he could kiss her if he wanted to.
So he did. Fuck the consequences.