A/N: Again, please note that this is a muggle university AU. Based off of an example I had in grammar class last year, admittedly without the cute professor and the flirting.
RLHG
Hermione Granger kept her gaze focused firmly on her writing as she took notes in her grammar class Wednesday morning. It wasn't that Professor Lupin spoke uncommonly quickly or that the information he provided them was particularly difficult, she just couldn't quite bring herself to look at him as he taught.
Remus Lupin wasn't your typical university professor. He was surprisingly young, with gray-speckled sandy hair that was much shaggier than entirely appropriate and a comfortable looking wardrobe that suggested he wasn't paid enough to be able to afford anything better. His eyes were aged, soft in their expressions, and in his three years employed with the university he had never been known to raise his voice to anyone, let alone a student.
None of these things had to do with why Hermione chose him as her guide through the wide world of English Grammar and Literature.
It was because of his hands.
Hermione had seen him frequently at the library during her first two years studying at the university and not a day passed by when his hands didn't seem to be an absolute mess. His palms were a patchwork of callouses and his fingertips were slightly crooked with indentations from long hours clamped around a pen.
More importantly still was that his hands were covered in ink, assumedly from the aforementioned time spent abusing pens. Time after time, whenever Hermione saw him anywhere, on or off campus, his hands were ink splattered
Before Hermione knew anything of his work in the field language, she knew that she needed to take a class with him. It was a personal philosophy of hers that she could trust someone whose hands were as completely frazzled as her own. A strange belief, but it hadn't lead her astray yet.
Drawing herself out of her personal reverie of her professor's hands, Hermione returned her focus back to not paying attention to him. The lecture— of course she paid attention, but she did her best to not acknowledge the speaker of the material.
It was mid-October and the six weeks she formally knew Remus Lupin changed many of her perspectives about him. Due mostly in part by the fact that she kept dreaming about him. Nothing scandalous, mind you, just that he was a prominent feature in them
A typical dream of the two of them consisted of a walk through the woods, autumn leaves crunching under their feet, soft streams of sunlight filtering down between the trees, and his hand strong and sure in hers. At no point during the dream did she actually see his face, oddly enough. She somehow just new that it was him. Whether it was the feeling of safety she felt by his side in the endless woods or the scent of him that tickled her nose on the breeze, somehow she just knew. Thus her current avoidance of his gaze.
Hermione was more than confident in herself to not do anything rash or embarrassing while she was around him, she respected him far too much for that, but she didn't see a need to add any fuel to fire. It was her goal the last few days to see him as one of her regular professors and not as someone who she could see herself spending a lot of time with. Alone. Preferably naked.
It certainly didn't help the cause to know that he felt similarly about her. She had found out completely by accident. They were both at the library on campus— nothing odd there— and Hermione needed to print her paper on the Battle of Troy. More pages emerged from the printer than she had written and, assuming she had clicked the print button twice due to every page having her name across the top, she grabbed them all. Imagine her surprise when she turned and was stopped by a flustered Professor Lupin, his eyes darting back and forth between the printer and the pages in her hand rapidly enough to make her dizzy. He was a deer in headlights, torn between turning tail and running for the hills or remaining stagnate and reaping what he'd sown.
"H- Hermione?" Her name was released on a cough. "Forgive me, but I believe you have some of what I printed." His already soft-spoken voice grew quieter with each word that passed his lips until Hermione had to struggle to make out the final few words.
"Oh! I'm sorry, Professor Lupin, I had a quick look and must've missed that." She kept her voice even, not at all knowing the reason for her admired professor's distress. She flipped to the back of the pages, not seeing how Remus pulled at his collar or shifted his feet, keeping his eyes firmly planted on the carpet under his shoes. It took Hermione a moment to realize the cause for both her confusion and his discomfort. Her initial assumption was indeed correct— all of the pages did contain her name. The ones she hadn't printed, however, belonged to the short story she had written for her composition class her first year
Her eyes were uncomprehending as she handed half the stack over to her professor, finally taking stock of his loud broadcast of embarrassment. Hermione could feel the waves of his shame bounce off of her and land downtrodden at the feet his eyes were so intensely glued to.
"You could've asked me for a copy, if you wanted." Remus looked up at her, surprise a green blaze in his eyes. "My version has newer edits and a much more fulfilling ending." She passed by him to leave, a tight fit seeing how he was still standing in the doorway. "Let me know if you like it." She left him standing there like a slack-jawed idiot, amazed at what she had implied with her last comment. To a random bystander, sure it was completely innocent. But from his perspective? He was the only who was able to clearly see the look she gave him, the smile that flashed behind her amber eyes. The smallest gleam of mischief that told him that she knew of his feelings. And that she was alright with them.
Now several weeks later, Hermione was still amazed by her audacity. She hadn't spoken to him about it since, and he hadn't made any particular effort to seek her out. If he spent a few more hours in the library or in his office while she was in a classroom across the hall, who was she to comment? But she knew she shouldn't keep him, keep them both, in suspense for much longer. She had needed time to process, after all. It was one thing to innocently admire someone from afar for a few months, but something else entirely to find out that they returned your feelings. To some degree, at least. Hermione wasn't sure what his full intentions were, but she knew now that she was more than ready to explore what he was willing to offer.
Especially if it involved them both together. Alone. Ideally naked.
Hermione had planned on addressing him after Friday's class, leaving the weekend open for him, if he needed the time, to think things over. What she hadn't planned on, however, was for him to make the move before she did. Now. Wednesday morning. During class.
He was lecturing about the differences in word endings— you know -ing, -er, -est— that sort of stuff. Basic things that any respectable university student should know. Being a lover of academics, Professor Lupin was taking the lesson one step further, discussing how and why each ending was used beyond the simple explanation of "Because English."
"When you break it down, much of it has to do with the syllable count." The select few students in the classroom who where actually paying attention to the lesson looked like a light bulb just turned on it their heads. "Yes, it is that easy," Remus laughed in response.
"Think about it— happy, happier, happiest. Fairly simple, yes?" The class nodded their heads in agreement, Hermione keeping her focus on her notes.
"If we continue on— sad, sadder, saddest." He wrote the six words side by side on the chalkboard, counting the syllables in each word. "When considered in terms of the syllable count, it all works out well, as long as the words don't go beyond three syllables." The whole class was staring at him with intrigue, amazed at how he made something as rudimentary as English grammar into something that made actual, semi-logical sense. The whole class except for Hermione. He found himself looking directly at her as he provided his final example.
"Beautiful." The word slipped into the empty void of the classroom, his voice clear and confident. The students were completely unaware of their professor's intentions of the example, and the room remained silent for a beat more until Hermione finally looked up at him, blushing as she met his eyes. Her classmates shifted in the pause, antsy for the end of the class.
"What about beautiful?" Hermione held his gaze, her brain picking up on just exactly what he was saying. His soft eyes continued to bore into hers. Clearly the example was intended for her. Remus broke eye contact long enough to notice the hand of a student in the back of the room who didn't quite understand that the posed question was rhetorical.
"Yes, Christopher?" Remus wished that he had kept contact with Hermione for longer, but the teacher inside of him couldn't help but be pleased with the way the typically quiet student confidently answered the unasked question.
"That's when you have to use words like more and most, yeah?" Christopher slumped back into his chair, pleased that he had spoken clearly and was definitely smarter than the others in the class. His confident expression dropped into a sloppy grin.
"Of course." The professor took a moment to respond, needing to snap out of the connection he had formed with the girl in the front row. "Yes, Chris, that is correct." Eyes flashing to the clock, Remus saw he only had to suffer through another ten minutes before he could speak to Hermione privately.
He ended the lesson by letting the students call out some examples of word/ending combinations that they found ridiculous—not just words like beautifuler, but surprisingly creative words like zombiefiedest and mysteriousest— words that really got the tongue playing with speech patterns. Remus had never expected such a mundane lesson to go so well and was so pleased by the time the bell rang that he almost forgot to be nervous about speaking with Hermione.
She had just shut her bag when he squeezed her name out. "Hermione?" She looked up, shock apparent in her gaze. Evidently she hadn't expected him to speak with her now. "Would you mind accompanying me to my office for a moment?" A few stragglers remained behind, talking about upcoming parties for the weekend, so he added, "I have some questions about your most recent assignment."
"Of course, Professor Lupin." The airheads that had remained filed out the door ahead of them, too oblivious to figure out that the only question their professor could possibly have about the previous assignment would be what kind of pen Hermione used— they had to use five words to summarize the second act of Macbeth; there was hardly any room for confusion on his part.
He lead the way to his office, finding that keeping himself in front of Hermione until they reached the privacy of his office was best for all parties involved— he felt as though he were about to embarrass himself again and would prefer to do so with as little an audience as possible Hermione with the place of honor at the top of the list. Hermione, none the wiser to his actual reasoning, took the opportunity to admire his shoulders as he opened the doors for her and the way his pants pulled tightly across his ass as he took the stairs to the second floor. After all, why should she pass on the opportunity of staring unrestricted at him when it presented itself directly in front of her.
Remus maintained his avoidance of her gaze until he felt the door click shut. "Take a seat, if you'd like." His tone was caring and casual, as though she had just popped by for tea and a chat. And she supposed that she had, in some twisted sort of logic. Hermione sat on the old couch that ran along the short back wall of the small boxed office, dropping her bag at her feet and crossed one leg over the other. Hands folded in her lap, she looked up at her professor, eyes full of intrigue and innocence. He had leaned back on his desk, perched on the front with his legs braced in front of him, his hands holding him steady at his sides. Shaggy hair had fallen into his face, a dusting of shadows crossing over his eyes in the low lamplight. Heaven forbid he had an office with a window in it. His eyes held an uncertainty and hesitancy that Hermione could tell she would have to be the one to dispel.
"Remus." A small smile broke out across his face, subdued to the untrained eye, but it reached his eyes, and Hermione knew that she had said the right thing. "How did you like my story?"
His smile widened and Hermione felt rather pleased with herself— she hadn't screwed up yet.
"I thoroughly enjoyed it. In fact, I'm rather interested in what you had mentioned earlier?" Hermione uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. "I'd very much like it if- " He stumbled for a minute, tripping over what he wanted to say and what he was supposed to say. He chickened out and chose the latter. "If you would be kind enough to give me a copy of the updated version."
Remus watched Hermione lean back on the couch, her face falling just slightly. Wrong thing to say, apparently. He sputtered again, his voice too quiet and his tongue feeling too big for his mouth as he tried to salvage the conversation. "Perhaps it could be delivered and discussed over coffee?"
She visibly perked up at his suggestion, her gaze shifting from his shoes back to his eyes. Right thing— point to Remus.
"Yes. Yes, I'd like that." Her confidence hadn't completely left her, but she was still shy in her answer. Remus found his mind suddenly flying through ideas and emotions, too high in speed and volume for him to sort through.
After a somewhat awkward silence he found his voice, asking "How's Friday afternoon? Around 2 o'clock?" He had a meeting tomorrow and, more importantly, thought that he should do some hunting around to find his backbone and repair his vocal cords before he saw her next. His boyish charm and good-looks would only get him so far; he'd be expected to hold an actual conversation with her if he had any hope of getting her to agree to see him again.
"Friday afternoon sounds perfect." Hermione grabbed her bag and stood, making her way toward the door before either one of them had a chance to say or do something else embarrassing. She turned to face him, one hand on the door handle, when she found the need to shock his pants off. Well, almost off. She leaned over and brushed her lips over his cheek, so light that it could have been a spec of dust landing there and he wouldn't have known the difference. But it wasn't dust, it was her and she had just kissed him. Sort of. Hermione Granger had just sort of kissed him and he could feel his face heat up. An odd combination of embarrassed and proud, he managed out a slightly strangled "Goodbye, Hermione."
She smiled at him, her eyes reflecting the low light so that he could see his own outline glimmer inside them.
"Bye, Remus." She scurried out the door, ending what would have been a brief exchange between two normal, regular people, but had turned out to be a ten minute affair for them. Remus crossed to the couch she had just occupied, collapsed into the worn sofa and grabbed one of the equally worn throw pillows, buried his face into in and let out a massive sigh. He leaned his head against the soft material of the couch, half of his face completely buried between the couch and the pillow, hoping they would suck him in. He could smell her shampoo lingering on the material where her hair had been and he inhaled until he was light-headed. Slumping as deep into the sofa as he could, a goofy, dumbfounded grin took over his entire face. He hadn't completely cocked that up. He had a date. Well, more of a meeting, but still. He had a meeting set up with Hermione Granger for Friday afternoon. For coffee. With her. Them. Together.
His laughter echoed in the small room, shocking him back into reality. He jumped to his feet, feeling much lighter than before, grabbed some books and papers from his desk, and dashed out the door, the click of the lock now a comfort as it has lost its ominous sound. He was late for his next class.
RLHG
A/N: I've had this written for about 10 days and was trying to get it just right by editing it four thousand times. I've reached the point where I'm sick of sitting on it and just want to know what you guys think already.
I hope you enjoyed it. :D Let me know what you thought!