Challenge: Remus/his subconscious
Challenged: GiantKiller
Due Date: N/A
Notes: Remus Lupin has been gettin' it on in the land of Nod.
Sweet Dreams
Contentment. Arousal. These were things Remus Lupin had not felt for a long time. It had been literally years since he had kissed his way down a girl's belly, supple and smooth. Graceful fingers twined in his gray-shot hair and he darted his tongue into her navel. "Oh, Professor," the girl purred as he nuzzled her fluffy thatch, "Do you give all of your students this special attention?" Remus looked up past high round breasts into the bushy-haloed face of Hermione Granger- and woke with a start.
Panting and unnerved, he looked around. Alone. In the bedroom of his small flat at Hogwarts.
"Cold shower," he declared.
When he emerged shivering from the lavatory, Sirius Black was cursing at a newspaper. "Fudge you idiot, I am going to laugh at your funeral!"
"Anything new?"
"No! That's the problem!" His secret roommate eyed him as he poured tea and added sugar. "What's up?"
"Nothing! Nothing is up! What makes you think something is-" He drank tea.
Sirius cracked a smile. "Well, for one thing, you're jumpy." He buttered a crumpet. Sirius couldn't very well go down to breakfast with the rest of the staff and students, so the House Elves regularly brought meals up. He raised his eyebrows.
Remus sighed. "I had a dream."
"Oh? Who?"
He stared at Sirius and sighed again. "Hermione."
Sirius choked. "Hermione? Hermione Granger? That Hermione?"
"Yes, Padfoot, that Hermione."
"She's young enough to be your daughter!"
"I am aware of that, yes." He dropped his head on the table with a thud. Sirius made the astonishing deduction that this avenue of conversation was causing his friend discomfort and tried to fix the booboo.
"Oh. Well, it probably doesn't mean anything. Just a dream, you know? I mean, you don't have feelings for her, do you?"
"She's my student, and my friend."
"But you don't fancy her."
"Of course not!"
"Good, because if you did that'd be kind of. . ."
Remus groaned.
"How long has it been since you . . . you know?"
"Sirus, I'd really rather not talk about this."
"Right. Okay. Sorry." Pause. "Not since before I . . . got out, right?"
"Sirius, please!"
"Right?"
Sigh. "Not since a while before." He looked up. "What about you? You were in prison for twelve years."
"I had other things on my mind. And I wasn't just sitting around on my tropical vacation. Neither was Buckbeak, tell you the truth." He paused again. "And don't you ever . . .?" He gestured.
Remus stood up. "I have a class to teach."
Remus was able to put the unsettling fantasy out of his mind for the better part of the morning, until Murphy's Law predictably decreed that he should face the fifth years before lunch. He decided it was best to act normally, as if nothing had happened- for indeed nothing had happened- but to be on the safe side he ought to avoid looking at Hermione (which was difficult with her hand in the air half the class) or any of the girls in her year. He was given cause to doubt this strategy when he noticed the entire class giving him concerned looks as they filed out of the room. Remus retreated to his office to collect himself. He ignored the cackling taunts of the caged jabberknoll and buried his head in his hands. He looked up at the creak of the door. It was the deputy headmistress.
"Professor McGonagall?" He asked deferentially.
"Good afternoon, Professor Lupin. Some of your students tell me you've been acting rather oddly this morning. Is everything all right?"
"Oh, no, Professor, everything's fine. I was just a little distracted."
"By a naughty dream?"
"What? How did you know? Did Sirius tell you? Professor McGonagall, I'd really prefer no one else knew about-"
"Please, Remus, call me Minerva." And her robes slid down to her feet. And she wasn't wearing anything under them. And this time Remus was sure he screamed when he woke up.
When he swept back into his apartments Sirius asked him, without looking up from whatever it was he was doing, "Another one? Who was it this time?"
"What on earth are you doing?" Remus gestured at the heaps of parchment scrawled with messy, child-like writing.
"Teaching myself to write left-handed. I'm bored, in case you didn't know. Answer the question."
Remus was pacing. He muttered the name under his breath.
"McGonagall?! Well, you know what they say about older women . . ."
"What do they say?"
"I don't know, that they know what they're doing or something. It's just an expression. Look, stand still." Remus did not comply. "It's not the end of the world. Compared to everything else going on right now it's completely insignificant."
"Not reassuring me."
"Dreams don't mean anything, most of them. Especially this kind. I mean, if you'd dreamt you'd been chased by wolverines into a theatre where everyone had one huge eye in the middle of their foreheads you wouldn't be worried, would you? It's just you're . . ." He waved his hand, "dangly parts telling your brain they're feeling neglected. That's all."
Remus kept pacing.
"Moony, it doesn't mean anything. I had a dream about you once."
Pacing stopped.
"It wasn't like bwey-hey-hey-hey or anything, I kissed you and you kissed back, and it was just a little part of the dream, there was a lot of other weird stuff going on. But you're not alone, all right?"
"When was this?"
'Sixth year, a while after we cracked the Animagus thing. Your transformations weren't so bad and you were actually building a bit of muscle, not all skin and bones anymore. I guess I noticed that."
"You dreamed about me?"
"I dreamed about you."
"I guess I'm flattered."
"Feel better now?"
"A little. Also slightly disturbed."
"Go. Teach students. Sleep soundly tonight."
"Thanks. I think I will."
So that night, when Sirius pushed open the door to his room wearing leather trousers and no shirt, Remus snuggled deeper into his blankets. It was only a dream.
*end*
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