Fandom Hypertrophic (Harry Potter, Closed)

[Obuzeti]

Remus glances at himself in the mirror and attempts to smile. The freshest scar over his lip pulls with the motion, reddened and aching, and the motion cuts short reflexively. The older one beneath his jawline doesn't hurt so much, but it itches, and a third on his cheek makes laughter a sore affair at best. All of them, quite recent. Without Black and James to help, his full moons had gone back to their prior violence. But the deal that has brought him back to Hogwarts includes regular doses of Wolfsbane, and that alone will help them heal, most likely.

The war is over with a bang. The Potters and Voldemort achieved a mutual kill; Godric's Hollow is a smoking crater. Sirius is in Azkaban. The Death Eaters are scattered. Dumbledore, looking to regroup, has offered to redeem two of his erstwhile soldiers at once; Snape, by producing a more effective, cheaper version of Wolfsbane, and Lupin, as his useful test subject. The process is expected to take years of testing and development, and in the meantime, he's to be housed at Hogwarts, holding the until-recently cursed position of DADA.

Test subject in two matters, then. Lupin looses a ghoulish chuckle. But then, with the Marauders shattered, it's not like he has much to lose anymore.

He fixes his collar and tie, gives up on trying to make the scars less obvious, and asks the mirror, "Well, am I serviceable at least?"

"Only lightly used, darling," the mirror replies, heavy with sympathy, and Lupin accepts that with a single-shoulder shrug. Clad in his best brown suit - somewhat shabby nonetheless - he opens the door to his room and heads out towards the faculty meet, where the professors make plans for the incoming school year.

The Great Hall has about two dozen professors already when he steps in, and McGonagall spots him as soon as he steps in, bustling over with a maternal grimace. "Good, you're here," she says, hands twitching to readjust his tie - Lupin dodges back with a faint chuckle and upraised hands. "We have about fifteen minutes before we're called to order, and then you'll introduce yourself. Most of us here still remember you, of course, but there's a handful of new professors. You'll see."

Lupin raises his eyebrows. "Charming. Are they - informed?"

"Part of the point of the meeting, Lupin," McGonagall says primly, and marches back off to assault Snape, looking quite dreary in one corner. Lupin shakes his head and scans the crowd.

 

[Halfanelf]

It was a good thing there were pre-term meetings, she decided, glancing up at the overcast sky and hitching up her old, worn guitar case. Otherwise, true to her life story, she would have been late to the feast, and that would just be awkward. Not, she realized with something between a smile and a grimace, that walking late into a staff meeting with all of her new colleagues and effectively her boss wasn't a bit awkward, too. Still, she couldn't help it; it was a long walk, and she just couldn't bring herself to hurry through it. There was too much here, too many memories to walk through, too much of her life, be it only seven years.

Seven years...

The woman currently climbing the hill toward the castle she could see towering in the distance paused as she caught sight of her own reflection in a puddle from the previous evening's storm. The smile faded a little, and she rested the case gently on the ground beside her foot.

In many ways - most ways - they had been the best seven years of her life. She had an abundance of happy memories here, probably the happiest she had. But just as it kept those for her, Hogwarts also kept safe some of the worst. She didn't need a reminder of them, but she got one as she stared at her own eyes. Those hateful things, green, but such a green that they almost seemed to glow at any given time. She was a somewhat self-conscious woman, sometimes easy to fluster, but she wouldn't have called herself vain - if not for those eyes.

Fishing in her pocket, she drew out a pair of glasses and looked down at them. In muggle life, the life she had made for herself since leaving behind the world of magic for what she thought might be forever, these glasses were invaluable. They were enchanted to change the apparent color of her eyes, at least to other people, and she had grown accustomed to wearing them. After all, it was difficult to teach students who were unnerved by just looking at her. She hadn't put them on that morning, though. And now she wondered: should she?

Wasn't that hiding?

Maybe.

But wasn't that best, after everything?

Leiya Lanley ran a hand back through long, black hair and chewed on her lower lip for a moment. She glanced between the spectacles and the castle and back to the puddle, and finally, as she had every day before and fully expected to every day forward, she gave into the queasiness of shame and settled the glasses on her nose before stepping over her reflection to resume her climb toward the school. She had come here for a fresh start, and a fresh start was what she intended to have, no hiccups, no questions, no problems, just the object of strange looks simply because of her quirky personality. She was back, and she would enjoy it.

...Not that it hadn't been a difficult decision. She had been ecstatic to receive that letter from Hogwarts' own eccentric headmaster upon her return to London, but she had hesitated, as if she had no right to come back after what she'd done. And what she hadn't done when war broke out, for James and Lily, Sirius, and...

But she was here. Decades separated her from then, and she was here, in the place she loved most, doing the thing she loved most. Nothing would spoil this.

A smile slowly started to creep back over her face the closer she got to those enormous doors and all the magic within. By the time she got there and paused again, she was grinning. "Hey there, old friend," she murmured, her American accent ringing loud and clear. "Long time no see." She touched a reverent hand to the old stonework and drew a deep breath, then - resisting the urge to hold it - stepped through them and made for the Great Hall. "Let's see if we can't get through this, shall we?"

 

[Obuzeti]

It's easy enough for Remus to refamiliarize himself with most of the professors - there'd been some changes, like Septima stepping up for Arithmancy a couple years ago, or Vector in Astronomy, but Binns, McGonagall, and Flitwick are timeless, as is Dumbledore. The Headmaster himself rises from his seat at the head of the single, large table arranged in the middle of the Great Hall and coughs. "Welcome to another year at Hogwarts! Now, first on the schedule: we have new members, again! Certain holes in the faculty list proved impossible to fill in during the war, but with its cessation, we've finally managed to put together a complete list once more."

His lips curved in a crinkly smile, Dumbledore gestures down at Remus, who offers an ironic little half-bow. "Some of you may remember Remus Lupin, a recent graduate of ours; he'll be stepping into the DADA position for the foreseeable future."

Remus himself feels his smile curdle on his lips a little as Snape glares at him balefully, and more than one of the professors present edges back from him, Septima first and foremost amongst them - but then she'd had a close encounter with Fenrir during the war, one of those nominally neutral Slytherins that had been forced into quartering Death Eater forces, and having Fenrir in your home while you try to sleep is one of the most unpleasant things Lupin can imagine offhand. No one actually comes out and shrieks 'werewolf' but the awareness is here like a bad stink - too many professors aware of the arrangements that had been made for him with the Shack previously, passing stories on.

"Enough of you remember me that a self-introduction would perhaps be redundant," Lupin says into the dreary silence, ignoring how the Great Hall doors creak open behind him. Someone escaping the room, probably. "But my Defense Mastery was completed in the last handful of years, and Dumbledore has been kind enough to let me put it to good use. Hopefully I don't cause too much trouble."

"It's really not all that much different from being a prefect, dear," Sprout replies, breaking the pin-drop quiet with unperturbable bustle. Like McGonagall, she's one of those ancient ladies with class so thick they wear it like armor. "You've done half the job already. Just perhaps encourage slightly less pranks."

Dumbledore's lips twitch. "We can so hope. We also have a second new arrival."

His eyes drift behind Remus, to the entrance of the Hall, and he feels the hairs of his neck stand up a little.

 

[Halfanelf]

Leiya knew she was late, and as such, she tried her very best to be as quiet as humanly possible and nudge the doors open just enough for her to slip in, hopefully unnoticed. Unfortunately, the old wood and iron had other ideas, and she cringed against the creak that masked the voice of someone speaking inside. And by the time she had edged into the room and, with a great deal of trepidation, closed those tattletale doors again, an old, familiar voice was directed toward her.

She stood there for a moment, doe in the headlights, as eyes turned her way at Dumbledore's words. Heat flooded her face, manifesting in a fine pink dusting across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, and in a familiar habit, she reached up to toy with the ends of her hair as a sheepish smile pulled at her lips. She'd been a teacher for a few years, but having the eager faces of children staring back at her was a very different experience from being the center of attention in a room of peers - something she had never liked. Still, the smile was genuine, if nervous.

"Hi," she offered. "I'm really sorry I'm late..."

McGonagall, undoubtedly very familiar with the chronic tardiness of one of her own former students, merely arched one brow, though Leiya could have sworn (maybe optimistically) that there were hints of a well-hidden smile at the corner of pursed lips. Several others around just sat in quiet observation, but her own eyes remained on Dumbledore and the comforting, welcoming smile he offered. She hated eye contact with nearly anyone, for several reasons, but the genuine blue eyes meeting her artificial ones were easier to hold than most.

"Not at all," the old wizard assured her. "Come, come. We're just getting to know each other."

Tucking hair behind her ear, and wondering in some scattered part of her brain why she hadn't had the good sense to put it up that morning, Leiya inched forward a little. She hadn't actually taken much stock of the rest of the faces aside from the headmaster and his deputy, and one unintentional glance at a very sour one belonging to one Severus Snape. Before long, though, she had little choice.

"Another budding graduate, we welcome Miss--"

Before Dumbledore could even get her name out, her foot caught the slightest unevenness in the stone and sent her tripping, only to tumble right into the man she had been about to skirt around with a high-pitched, "Eep!"

 

[Obuzeti]

Remus's eyes close as he recognizes the voice. Musical, lilting, made for singing. Because of course; he exists for the gods to laugh at. He inhales, deeply, and slips his hands into his pockets so no one can notice them fisting, and stares somewhere just over Flitwick's head - easy enough - as he reaches down to slim, pale arms and rights Leiya from where she'd stumbled into him. "On your feet, Leiya - you want to make a better introduction than that," he says. His eyes stay away rather than deal with those green lights, and as soon as he can without seeming rude, his hands stuff back into his pockets; better to hide the faint scarring all over his wrists and fingers. Scar tissue is the surest tell of a werewolf - curse scars are very distinctive and anything short of that a wizard can heal.

" - Miss Leiya Lanley, another former student of ours, taking on the role of a music teacher - sorely missed, after multiple years of choir instruction by enthusiastic volunteers."

Everyone present across the last year grimaces. Enthusiasm is perhaps the best compliment that could be given to last year's. Thus the necessity of Leiya's presence, after the choir's rendition of the school chorus had so offended one of the governors that he'd personally put in the money for it.

"Make sure to introduce yourselves to our newest professors," McGonagall says. "We function as a team at Hogwarts - certainly, we wouldn't manage to hold back the tide of miscreants otherwise," she says, somewhat dryly, to a room at least half full of said former miscreants. Smothered smiles flicker around the room, and even Remus manages half a smile. It's going to be very different working with McGonagall, instead of against her, getting the Marauders out of whatever their latest trouble is.

His lips flatten out.

No, that won't be happening again at all, will it.

Armored with a good, deep breath, he turns his head back to Leiya and gives her an ironic little nod. "I don't suppose you need an introduction, do you?" he notes.