The Burn

                                    

                                          
The next day, it isn't Lupin teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts, but instead Snape, claiming that Lupin has found himself incapable of teaching today. Come dinner, however, Reverie sees Lupin at the table with the rest of the professors in the Great Hall, and despite all of her efforts to keep her eyes off of him, her curiosity is too tantalizing, and she notices he looks paler and weaker. 
                          
She can't help but think that, if she ever hears him speak to her again, it will most definitely not be with the same fervor as the night before. She looks down before she can catch his eye, but she doubts he'd look over at her even if his life depended on it. 
                          
With Saturday comes another storm, and Reverie finds herself tucked away in a corner of the library by a window, working on the essay on werewolves that Snape assigned them for Lupin's class. The rain coats the window, but she can still make out the ripples in the lake and the rolling hills past it, and she wishes that she were outside under the clouds. 
                          
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After an entire day of silence, the Great Hall was impossibly loud. As Reverie walks down the middle, discomfort evident in her face, she isn't thinking when her eyes rise to see Lupin's eyes on her for the first time in days as he sits in his seat at the front table. Suddenly her consciousness returns, but she can't even hear the noise because she's thinking about how his color seems to have returned now that he's looking at her, though his eyes seem tired, and any discomfort in her face has turned into questions, and he seems to notice because he looks at her daringly over his goblet as he drinks but then looks back down to his plate, and suddenly her ears are ringing again once she realizes she's stopped moving. 
                          
Looking down and willing her feet to move, Reverie makes her way over to Oliver, who looks worried. 
                          
"Are you all right?"
                          
"Perfectly fine, why do you ask?" Reverie asks as she swings her leg over the bench. She meets his worried eyes.
                          
Oliver scans her face and shrugs, and he reaches for a bread roll. Reverie looks down at her empty plate, all appetite inexplicably gone. She plays with her fingers below the table until she looks up at Oliver, whose face is stuffed with food. 
                          
"I'm not really hungry. I'll see you in the Common Room later tonight," Reverie says and gets up from her seat. 
                          
Oliver frowns and tries to speak yet can't with the food in his mouth, but before he can get a chance to swallow, Reverie is already halfway to the door.
                          
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Outside the Great Hall, she hears the drizzle of the rain only once she feels it, and she finds that she's in the courtyard, the rain coming down around her. Always one with the rain, though, she makes her way down to the large rock by the lake and sits down. The ripples in the lake are close enough to touch now, and she takes a deep breath. Under the cloud-covered sky, she feels secluded from the weight of the universe and the judgement of the stars, and she convinces herself that the ripples in the lake are only ripples. 
                          
But the drizzle seems to be loud enough to mask footsteps, because when Reverie looks to her side, she's surprised to see Lupin approaching slowly, hands in his pockets, shoulders raised in protection from the rain. She watches him as he gets closer, and he doesn't look at her when he sits down beside her on the rock, instead looking straight ahead. Reverie keeps her eyes on the side of his face, though, and she notices the growing stubble on his cheek and his scar that seems slightly more prominent now, and she can't help but feel the warmth that radiates off of him being so close, even in the rain. 
                          
In his green eyes, Reverie sees the lake's reflection, and she turns her head to look straight ahead as well, but with him being so near, and with hundreds of questions bubbling inside of her, she can barely tell what she's looking at. All she's sure about is the drizzle on her skin and his knee barely touching her own and the strange, burning feeling that courses through her every time his arm brushes hers. 
                          
"I'd say that the rain follows us, but it's really more that we follow the rain," Reverie says in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, but she realizes that it only made it heavier, bringing up that day. Lupin turns his head to look at her then, and she continues looking forward but wonders if he realizes that their arms are entirely pressed against one another now, if he feels her skin burning. 
                          
After a few seconds, he turns his gaze to briefly look at their touching knees and his eyes darken slightly, but then he averts them back towards the lake. He clears his throat slightly. 
                          
"I apologize about the other night," he says. "I shouldn't have yelled at a student, as angering as they may be." 
                          
"I shouldn't have bothered," she whispers.
                          
He nods slightly, and out of the corner of her eye, Reverie sees him reach into his now wet coat pocket and takes out his pack of cigarettes.
                          
She watches as he pulls one out, brings it to his lips, and cups the end as he snaps his fingers to light it. He closes his eyes as he inhales, and when he exhales, the smoke envelopes them in a cocoon, and she surprisingly doesn't hate the smell.
                          
They sit in silence under the dark sky as he breathes out and she breathes in, arm against arm, knee touching knee, neither one cold, neither one speaking, and she pushes aside all of her questions and instead wonders if he feels the warmth -- the burn -- too. But, even if he only came out to dutifully escort her back to the castle like a prisoner, she somehow feels free, because the ripples are just ripples, and the sky is just the sky, and the silence isn't lonesome, not here, not now. 
                          
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A/N: It's been almost 2 months now since the last update, and for that I am so, so sorry! This chapter is shorter, but I finally willed myself to sit down and relax by writing this, and it felt good! Less talking, more feeling in this chapter, and there's more to come... slowly but surely. I hope everyone is doing well! I love reading your comments as motivation, so as always, feel free to comment!