A Complicated Love Story by snapes_allie

Chapter Two- Lateness, Conversations, Success, and Detention

Alex came to an abrupt stop outside the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom on the third floor. She realized after walking for five minutes, that she was nowhere close to the classroom. She broke into a run to get to the lesson before it was over.

Catching her breath, the red-haired witch opened the wooden door leading into the class, as quietly as she could. Looking around, Alex spotted Professor Lupin at his desk in the front of the room, his head down grading last week’s homework assignment, which, in her case, would now be considered late.

“Erm, sorry I’m late professor,” Alex said timidly, closing the door behind her.

The professor looked up, and a smile formed on his lips. Alex concluded that either he didn’t hear her walk in, or just decided to ignore her, knowing she was on her way to his class. It was at that moment that the class finally noticed her arrival. Though that meant the class didn’t hear her walk in, Alex was still unsure about her favorite professor since he had highly sensitive ears.

“Oh, Alex, there you are!” exclaimed Lupin, “I was beginning to think Professor Snape hexed you or something.” Lupin gave Alex another smile, then continued, “If you would, just take your seat and start reading the next chapter in your text book.”

Alex did as she was told and took her seat next to Harry, while Remus went back to grading papers. After taking her text book out and flipping to the correct page, Alex looked up at the professor. As always, his robes were shabby, and his face made him look older than he really was because of all the scars that inhabited it, his sandy brown hair had flecks of gray in it, and he had bags under his warm brown eyes. All of these things were, unfortunately, the result of being a werewolf ever since he was a child.

After Hermione disappeared, Professor Lupin and Alex became close friends. In the beginning of the school year, the DADA professor told Alex that he was friends with her parents during his own school days. This resulted in Lupin insisting that Alex should call him Remus when they were not in class, or around the other professors. Alex decided that she could trust Remus, after all, he was friends with her parents and they must have trusted him, and she told him about the dream, which she had before Hermione vanished. Remus ensured her that he would not tell the Headmaster about her dream and what happened after she had it.

Then, about half way through October, Remus revealed to Alex his secret of being infected with lycanthrope and his life story of how it affected him. Knowing Remus to be the shy sort, such as herself, Alex figured he must have trusted her deeply in order to reveal this specific secret. Ever since then, the students of Hogwarts School had started a rumor about a love affair between the two, which, of course, in reality, is false. So, it is of no surprise that when Alex came back to the present, she heard Parvati Patil and Lavender Brown giggling because their fellow Gryffindor third year was looking at the professor.

Looking at her scarlet wrist watch, Alex realized exactly how late it was into the class period. She had less than an hour to read the chapter, and the class was an hour and a half long.

Grabbing her homework assignment from her bag and writing a quick note to Remus, Alex stood and made her way to the front desk.

As she neared him, Remus sensed her presence and brought his head up, waiting for her to hand him the parchment. Noticing an extra, smaller piece of parchment, Remus waited until Alex seated herself and the class went back to work before reading it.

Remus,

I need to talk to you after class.

~Allie Kat

Alex watched him read the short note before starting her reading assignment.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

When the class period ended forty-five minutes later, Alex was, once again, staying behind to talk to a teacher instead of following Harry or Ron out the classroom, this time to lunch instead of another class. Remus was standing in the front of the room near his office door, waiting for the room to empty.

Once all of Alex’s classmates left the room, Remus walked into his office, followed closely by Alex. Instead of sitting at his desk, Remus started heading towards the entrance to his living quarters. Usually students weren’t allowed in a teacher’s flat at Hogwarts, but based on the friendship between Remus and Alex, Professor Dumbledore looked past that rule, which had highly upset Snape for some reason unknown to the thirteen year old.

To get to a teacher’s living quarters, a person must go through the teachers’ office and give the password, which the teacher chooses, to a painting. After telling Alex about his lycanthrope and discussing the situation with Professor Dumbledore, who then went to Alex to swear secrecy of Remus’ condition, Remus brought Alex to his flat, but only because she wanted to talk to him and didn’t want people to over hear them. In Alex’s opinion, it was a good thing Remus told her about his lycanthrope because his password, oddly enough, turned out to be ‘werewolf’, which would have caused questions from Alex, which, in return, would have been difficult for Remus to answer.

After Remus gave his password to the correct painting, featuring a talking gray wolf with glowing yellow eyes on a black background and a white full moon in the corner (Dumbledore picked the painting; he thought it was the perfect entrance for the professor’s living quarters), the duo made their way into Remus’ living room.

The living room was decorated with navy blue carpeting, covering the entire floor, and a light shade of navy blue painted on the walls. In the center of the small living room was a couch the shade of a peachy crème color, facing towards the right wall when stepping into the room from the entrance. In front of the couch was a dark mahogany wood coffee table and on the top of the table was a book of defensive spells that was taken from the bookcase on the wall directly across the room, filled mostly with books on any subject a person could think of, including cooking. On either side of the bookcase were dark doors. One door led to the bathroom and the other led to Remus’ bedroom. Alex had yet to need the bathroom during her visits, and had never felt comfortable going into the bedroom, which she avoided every time she visited.

Remus took a seat on one side of the couch. As always, Alex would pick up whichever forgotten book happens to be on the table and stick it in its correct spot on the bookcase. Then, Alex would sit on the other side of the couch, positioning her body to look at Remus. Today Remus decided to lounge sitting up, with his arms on the top of the couch and his head facing Alex.

“So,” Remus began, “what did you want to talk about”

“Well,” Alex started slowly, once again timid, “Snape gave me detention with Madam Pomfrey on Saturday.”

“What did you do to get this detention?” Remus asked, puzzled.

“I fell asleep during his class, and then I screamed when I woke up,” answered Alex.

“Well, why did you scream?” Remus asked, apparently still puzzled by the look on his face.

Sighing, Alex lowered her head, making her long red hair fall in front of her face, before answering, “Because I had the dream again.”

After a few moments of silence, Alex looked up and was surprised to see something other than a question about why she could have had the dream came across his face. His eyes looked glossed over and foggy, like they were unfocused. It looks like he’s remembering a memory, or something along those lines. I wonder what he’s thinking, Alex thought, but she didn’t ask him.

Instead, Remus shook his head and came back to reality.

“Well?” Alex asked, with a bit of pressure in her voice. After a while of getting to know someone she starts to get less shy and more outgoing. She’s always been like that. In an awkward situation she’ll be shy and then, boom, she’s as outgoing as Harry and Ron.

“I don’t know Alex,” Remus finally answered. “I think you should just let things unfold this time.”

“WHAT!” exclaimed Alex angrily, causing her face to turn beet red.

“Hey, don’t yell at me. You asked my opinion and I gave it.” Remus seemed really upset that Alex wasn’t taking him seriously and, seeing as the full moon was getting close, the wolf came out, making his words come out harsh. Instead, Remus started on a new topic. “So,” he began, “how is animagus training coming along?” This question brought Alex’s’ face back to its original state.

When Remus told Alex about his school days as a werewolf, he didn’t fail to tell her how her father, James Potter, and godfather, Sirius Black, were troublemakers and became unregistered animagi to help Remus during the full moon. A werewolf can turn a human into a fellow werewolf, but it cannot turn an animal into a werewolf. Once Alex learned this, she was determined to become an animagus herself, wanting something other than her fathers’ eyes to relate to him with.

The only down side to this was that Remus didn’t know about her father and godfathers’ plans until after they succeeded into becoming their animal. This meaning he didn’t know how to become one, not that he would if he was given the chance. Apparently, her father could turn into a stag and her godfather could turn into a big black dog.

Thus, when Alex took a walk one day out on the lawns near Halloween and noticed a big black dog, she followed it. The dog looked like it recognized her somehow and led her to The Whomping Willow, a violent tree that was planted when Remus started school. The tree, according to Remus, leads to The Shrieking Shack through a tunnel. While at school, Remus used the tunnel to get to the shack for his transformations.

As it turns out, the dog was Sirius Black. After flipping out for a bit and then hearing Sirius’ side of the story of his betrayal to her parents, Alex learned to trust him, realizing that he was wrongly accused. At some point during that visit, Alex told Sirius about her desire to become an animagus. Being the crazy guy that he was, Sirius offered to teach his goddaughter, saying that when Crookshanks, the bowlegged ginger cat that Hermione bought before disappearing, was out looking for Peter Pettigrew, the real criminal that betrayed her parents and an animagus that could turn into a rat, he had nothing to do.

After that confrontation, Alex told Remus everything Sirius had said. It took some time for Remus to believe her, but after a while he came through.

“I think I’m almost finished,” Alex replied. “Sirius thinks I need one more practice session with him, so tomorrow after dinner I’m going for my last training time. I become a lioness,” she added, seeing as she hasn’t told him yet.

“So what’s keeping you from being finished?” Remus inquired, obviously curious.

“Well, the only thing I have to work on, according to Sirius, is becoming a hyper lion cub.” At this Remus looked lost, so Alex elaborated. “It’s for when I’m really happy or hyper.”

“Oh!” exclaimed Remus. As Remus was about to say something else he heard Alex shout out in disbelief. “What?” he asked, clearly surprised at the sudden outburst.

“Crap! I have to go. Otherwise I’m going to be late for Charms class.” And just like that Alex was out the door in a flash, long red hair flying out behind her.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The rest of the day went by in a blur to Alex. She wasn’t late to Charms, which made her happy, and she earned Gryffindor 20 points for being the first to perform the spell. After class, she snuck down to the kitchens for a snack with Fred and George, seeing as she missed lunch. After taking a walk around the grounds and visiting Hagrid for about an hour, Alex made her way back to the castle for dinner. She talked to Harry and Ron about classes, and she even talked to the house ghost, Nearly Headless Nick. After a long dinner and spending time with her friends, Alex made her way up to the third year girls dormitory for a good night’s rest before classes the next morning.

When Alex awoke it was only four thirty. She quietly got up, showered, dressed, and made her way to the common room. Alex was never one to walk the halls early in the morning, and she didn’t want to change that now. In her first year, Alex got stuck in the middle of one of Peeves, the poltergeist, pranks. She had to do a detention, involving her scrubbing the dungeons floor with nothing more than a tooth brush. Ever since then, Alex swore to herself she was never going to walk the halls alone again.

After Alex counted fifteen Gryffindor early risers walk by, she rose to go up to the third year boy’s dormitory. Harry told her that when she wakes that early, once fifteen students walked past her, she could come wake him. He was never happy, but he did promise she wasn’t going to get hexed.

Once Harry showered and dressed, Alex went to Ron’s bed and shook him awake. Scabbers, Ron’s rat and secretly Peter Pettigrew, had to bite Ron to get him to finally wake up. Peter has yet to realize that Alex knew who he was, but she wasn’t too keen on him finding that out. Finally, after half an hour of waiting for Ron, the trio made their way to breakfast. When it was time to get to class, they left.

To Alex, the day went by quickly. During each class all she could think of was meeting up with Sirius to practice one last time. Even in Professor McGonagall’s class, Alex couldn’t concentrate.

At seven in the evening, after going to an early dinner, Alex made her way to the Whomping Willow, and more importantly, to the Shrieking Shack to practice unregistered animagi with a runaway convict.

≤hr≥

In the middle of a dark bedroom, a golden red-orange lioness was jumping around ecstatically. On one side of the room was an unmade four-poster bed; on the other side, a laughing and cheering Sirius Black, doing, what looked to be, a happy dance. In a split-second, the lioness transformed into a thirteen year old witch with long red hair and hazel eyes.

Both occupants of the room looked at each other, and in unison, exclaimed, “Yes!”

“Alex, you actually did it,” yelled Sirius, his long black, untidy hair sticking out all over the place.

“I know!” Alex screamed. “I think I just made history,”

In the blink of an eye, Sirius’ face turned from uncontrollable happiness to confusion. “What do you mean by that?” It was obvious to Alex that her godfather couldn’t see the significance of the situation.

“Well,” Alex began slowly, trying to find the easiest way to say what she needed to say. “Firstly, I’m a Potter, I’ve already made history, and throw in the fact that I’m thirteen and I just learned to be an animagus with the help of my convicted godfather, I’d say I made history.” Alex ended her tirade out of breath. Hermione had this aspect to her where she could give long lectures and still have breath to say more. Quite frankly, Alex envied her at times like these.

During the little speech, Sirius listened intently. At the end, while Alex was catching her breath, Sirius broke out in barks of laughter.

“Oh crap, Sirius I have to go. I need to get some rest before my detention in the morning, and it’ll take me hours to just fall asleep.”

Sirius looked dumbfounded. “Now wait just a minute,” Sirius said, “What did you do to earn a detention?”

“Well I fell asleep in Snape’s class and when I woke up, I screamed,” Alex answer, then as an after though added, “I had the dream again, Sirius.”

“Oh,” was all Sirius said. “Well, then get to the castle, and Alex,” Sirius said as Alex was leaving the room.

“Yeah?”

“Make sure you don’t get caught,” and that was all he said on the issue.

Alex nodded, said goodnight, gave him a peck on the cheek, and left for the castle.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Three hours! That’s how long I have been here, three hours, and I haven’t done much of anything. That was all Alex could think of as she watched the school nurse check on her sleeping patients.

At seven that morning, Alex arrived at the Hospital Wing ready to take inventory and clean bed pans, but there were only two patients and they were both asleep. Surprisingly, the inventory wasn’t needed today. As soon as Alex walked into the wing, Madam Pomfrey told her to just relax until she was needed, which wasn’t that often, seeing as neither patient had woken up yet. When the red-haired witch asked about the inventory, all Madam Pomfrey had to say was, ”It doesn’t need to be done today, Professor Snape gave me all the missing potions and salves that were missing yesterday. I don’t know why he gave you detention for today.” That last part, Alex assumed, was the nurse talking to herself because Alex wasn’t given anytime to answer as she walked away from her detainee.

So as the hours went by, all Alex did was sit on one of the beds and wait, and when a student came in, she went to the storage cabinet and retrieved the appropriate bottle that Madam Pomfrey asked for.

It wasn’t until her detention was almost up that things started getting interesting for Alex. The first of these events was the visit of about ten Slytherin students, all of different years. Someone let loose a bunch of snakes in the Slytherin common room; all of Alex’s bets were on Fred and George. These unfortunate few were the only ones to get bitten before a second year went looking for Professor Snape. Unfortunately, Snape also got bitten and was last to get treated.

Because of the size of the students, Madam Pomfrey taught Alex a spell to rid the poison of snake venom from the puncture wounds of the victim. After demonstrating the spell on one of the students, Draco Malfoy, a fellow third year, and sticking a healing salve on the punctures, Alex and Madam Pomfrey broke up the remaining ten people and set to work. Once Alex was finished healing all the wounds of her fourth patient, third year Pansy Parkinson, she had the spell memorized.

Alex’s last patient was the greasy git himself. “Hello Professor Snape,” Alex said, in as nice of a voice as she could manage. Her whole morning was wasted because of him. “Can you please hold out your arms so I can get the poison out of them?” As Snape rolled his sleeves up and held the holey arms out, Alex saw him wince. Her mood immediately rose higher, and she smiled. Snape saw this and smirked, causing him to wince once again, because he went to fold his arms in front of his chest. This is perfect! First shock and now pain! It’s unbelievable!

“How has your day been, sir?” Alex asked in-between saying rimozione veleno.

“Stop talking, you foolish girl, and finish up!” the professor barked. It was clear to Alex that Professor Snape was not one to take pain very well.

When Alex finished applying the salve, Professor Snape left, and in his place came the headmaster himself.

“Hello Headmaster!” Alex greeted. “What brings you here today?” Madam Pomfrey had left to her office to wait for another patient, while Alex finished up with the Head of Slytherin House.

“Hello Miss Potter. I am actually here to see you. I’m so glad you haven’t left yet,” replied Dumbledore.

“Well Professor, I still have five minutes before my detention is finished.”

“Ah, I see. Well I don’t want to take up to much of your time. Let’s sit,” and as he said this, he pointed his hand to the bed behind Alex.

After sitting, Alex turned her attention to the headmaster once again. “So, what is it you wanted to talk about, sir?” she asked, a little curious, and a little afraid that he might think she had something to do with the snakes.

Smiling, Professor Dumbledore replied, “I just wanted to give you an early Christmas present.” Then, as an after-thought he added, “two, actually.”

“A – a Christmas present, sir?” She couldn’t believe this. Professor Dumbledore had given Harry their fathers’ invisibility cloak during their first year, but he had never given Alex more than house points.

“Yes. The first of which is the directions to a secret room in the castle. It has proven useful to me when I have problems and situations I have to think about. It will turn into a room containing anything you need.” Dumbledore paused to catch some breath, then continued, “This room is called the Room of Requirement. It is located on the seventh floor. All you have to do is walk back and forth in front of a tapestry of trolls wearing tutus and attempting to do ballet.” At this statement Alex laughed. She had to. The tapestry that the headmaster was telling her about was one she passed almost every day. “The next present I am going to give you is this.” He pulled out a golden necklace with an hourglass at the end. It looked just like the one Hermione had before she disappeared. Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall had sent it to her during the summer.

“A time-turner!” Alex gasped.

“Yes. If you remember correctly, and by the look on your face, I would say you do, Miss Granger had one at the end of summer.”

“Why are you giving it to me though? I don’t need it sir. And besides, I highly doubt the Ministry would approve of me having it.”

“Yes, you are correct in thinking that, seeing as they do not know about it. And, to answer your other question, I feel everyone needs something to remind them about someone they love. Your brother looks like your father with your mothers’ eyes, and, until this school year, all you had was the similarities of your looks with your mother and your fathers’ eyes. You have something to remind you that they are always with you. Though the time-turner won’t help Miss Granger come back, I’m sure you will find comfort in it none the less. Just promise me you will wear this nonstop until the day Miss Granger and yourself meet again, or, until the situation calls for you to take it off.”

“I promise, sir.”

The professor handed her the time-turner and stood up. “Good bye Miss Potter.”

Staring at the necklace, Alex nodded her head, indicating that she heard him. Then, doing as she promised, she stuck the necklace on her neck and tucked it in her shirt, keeping it out of view.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

It wasn’t until she was about to go to bed that Alex questioned the answer Professor Dumbledore gave her. There is something going on that I don’t know about. Remus, Snape, and the headmaster all know what that something is, heck, even Sirius knows, but what is it? Then, remembering her conversation with Remus that Thursday, she wondered if that had something to do with it; “Well?” Alex asked, with a bit of pressure in her voice. “I don’t know Alex,” Remus finally answered. “I think you should just let things unfold this time.”

With many unanswered questions flying around inside Alex’s head, she finally fell into a fitful sleep around one in the morning.

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