Warning! This fic is rated 'R' for a reason. It contains a teacher-student relationship as well as sexual situations so if you are at all uncomfortable please hit the 'back' button now.

I don't know why I wrote this except perhaps because there's no 'R' rated Remus/Minerva fics anywhere (please correct me if I'm wrong). I don't usually write student/teacher stuff and this isn't intended to be squicky. I might continue it or I might leave it as a one shot – I haven't decided yet.

Usual disclaimers apply. This is Young!Minerva fic like everything else I write so don't flame me to tell me she's old. She's not old in my world. Call it AU, call it whatever you like but this is how I interpreted the books.

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Crossing The Line

It's late.

He should be in bed but his three best friends have been teasing him because he won't admit who it is he fancies. He doesn't dare admit it. He knows they'd tease him a hell of a lot more if they knew the truth. So instead he shrugged off their questions and tried to concentrate on his homework… until it got too much and he had to walk away. Now he's skulking along the corridors like a lost soul, hardly caring if Filch catches him.

He hears her giggling from the landing below. He doesn't know it's her, of course. Not because he wouldn't recognise the sound of her voice but because he's never heard her giggling before. Nobody has. She is strict, sensible, stern. Behind her back they half-heartedly insult her but to her face there is only respect. She does not giggle.

So he assumes it's one of his fellow students. For a moment he debates ignoring the noise, taking a different route to avoid her. He knows all the secrets of the castle: hidden staircases, invisible doors. Staying hidden is no problem to him. Didn't he help write the Marauder's Map? For a moment he wishes he'd brought it with him – then he could check to see whose laughter it is that he hears floating up from the darkness below. But he's a final year student and a prefect. Duty wins out and he turns back towards the staircase.

When he sees who it is he stops abruptly. She's dropped her spectacles on the floor and can't seem to pick them up. She's leaning over, her fingers tracing the rug at her feet in search of the familiar square frames that usually perch on her nose. Her hair is half out of it's once-neat bun and now falls lopsidedly over her shoulder. And she's giggling.

"Professor?"

She jerks up, startled then blinks hazily at him a few times.

"Lupin?" she says slowly.

"Here."

He reaches for her glasses, hands them over awkwardly. But all of a sudden her fingers seem to have turned to jelly. She drops them again and her face turns red with embarassment.

"Could you...? I mean, would you...?"

"Of course."

This time he leans towards her, guiding the arms of the spectacles over her ears until they're back in their usual position. He's embarrassed to be this near to her. He's worried she'll notice how aroused he is at being closer to her than he's ever been before. It's one thing to watch her from behind a desk six feet away. It's quite another to be so near he could just as easily be kissing her. He needs to leave now or he'll never be able to look at her again.

But as he turns she calls him back.

"Remus?"

He risks a look at her and she dissolves into giggles again.

"Remus, I can't find my room!" she whispers loudly.

She leans against the wall, clutching her side, still laughing. It occurs to him in that moment that she's drunk. Very drunk. But still in the early stages of drinking where everything seems amusing and the nausea hasn't hit yet.

And he knows where her rooms are. He and Padfoot went to find her once when Peter was ill.

"I'll show you," he tells her. "Come on."

But she doesn't move. Exasperated he grabs her hand and pulls it until she starts to follow him.

"I think I've had too much to drink," she confides conspiratorially as he leads her along the corridor.

"You think so?" he says dryly.

And he feels a sudden rush of affection for her. How many times have he, Padfoot, Prongs and Wormtail sneaked out to Hogsmeade for bottles of butterbeer and then got themselves drunk in the common room? At least they have each other to help them out. She has nobody. There isn't a single member of staff here who isn't at least a dozen years older than her.

She must be lonely.

For some reason that thought makes his heart flip. He concentrates on the carpet, the portraits on the walls – anything not to think about it. Not to get his hopes up. He will take her to her door and then go back to Gryffindor Tower and that will be the end of it. He doubts she'll even remember this tomorrow. But he knows he'll never forget.

She follows him quietly along the passageway and up another flight of stairs until at last they reach the entrance to her suite.

"Thank you," she says fervently. "Promise you won't tell?"

"I promise."

She smiles gratefully at him and reaches out for his hand which she grasps firmly.

"Thank you," she says again.

She's so close to him he can feel the warmth of her breath against his neck. He can smell her: the delicate fragrance of her perfume overlaid by the scent of alcohol. Her cheeks are flushed.

Something inside him snaps. This isn't fair. He's an adolescent male and he's wanted her since she walked into his transfiguration class on the very first day of term. He can't confide his feelings to his friends because they'd never understand. He can't doodle her initials on his exercise books or offer to help her with her homework. His desire for her is hopeless and yet he knows it will never be fulfilled. How can he possibly resist her now when she's stood in front of him like this, showing a side of her personality he's never been privileged to see before?

He closes the gap between them and presses his lips gently against hers.

To his immense surprise she responds. She kisses him back. He hears her moan softly into his mouth and as her lips part he takes advantage of it and deepens the kiss. This is wrong, he knows that. If she was sober he'd have been on his way back to his dormitory with a week of detentions and a very sore cheek by now. She is his teacher. She doesn't know what she's doing and he's taking advantage and this is so very wrong.

But when she releases his hand and circles her arms around his waist he knows he cannot stop.

She staggers slightly and he puts his hands tentatively on her shoulders to steady her. He's waiting for her to realise what's going on and push him away.

But instead she's pulling him closer, exploring every inch of his mouth with her tongue. Her hands roam up and down his back until they find their way under the hem of his shirt and she gasps as she feels his bare skin.

"Oh Remus…"

She giggles again, then falls heavily into his embrace, almost knocking him off his feet with her unexpected weight.

"Promise you won't tell…" she whispers in his ear.

At least she knows who he is.

Her back is against the door now and she fumbles for the handle. Finally the door is open and she's leading him inside.

This is his last chance to turn away.

This is where he really crosses the line.

He follows her through her living room. Her bedroom lies beyond, through a door on the left. She stops once to kiss him again but then leads him through.

Her four poster bed is covered with an emerald bedspread. He doesn't want to think about the implications of what he knows they're about to do so he kisses her again. Tentatively he lifts his hands to her breasts. He's never done this before but he listened carefully when the other boys were talking in the common room. He's eighteen, a year older than the rest of his peers because it was only when Dumbledore got the Headmaster's position that he was permitted to come to Hogwarts. Still, he's less experienced than any of his friends. But he listened carefully, read the magazines that they hid under their beds and now he thinks and hopes he'll get this right. This is his chance: his chance to show her how much he loves her and how much she means to him. This his chance to win her over. Tomorrow doesn't matter: there's only tonight. There's only her.

Her cheeks are flushed as he claims her mouth with his and she's no longer laughing. Instead she fumbles with the buttons of his shirt until at last it's undone and she can push it over his shoulders and down his arm. She kisses his neck, his shoulder. She guides his hands to the zip of her dress and waits expectantly.

He doesn't disappoint her. A moment later her dress is in a heap around her ankles and she stands before him in simple white underwear that does more for him than anything black or red or lacy ever could. She's tugging at his trousers as he pushes her back towards the bed, all the time urging him onwards in her gentle Scottish lilt. This is a different voice from the one he hears in class: softer but yet more urgent, more desperate.

They tumble together onto the bedspread in a tangle of limbs and half discarded clothing.

"Please," she whispers. "I need you…"

He wants to believe it. He wants to believe that she needs him: not the sex but him because she loves him, because she knows he loves her. Because they belong together and it's not his fault that the timing was wrong and that she came to Hogwarts to be his teacher a year before he was old enough to leave and be an adult. She can't be that much older than him. He remembers her as a prefect, giving James and Sirius detention when once she caught them teasing Snape. He barely noticed her then. He was just a kid. He's not a kid now but no one will ever see that as long as he's a student. He's old enough to leave school and marry her but that's not the point.

Tonight, however, he doesn't feel like a student. Tonight he feels like a man.

She's naked beneath him, her skin smooth and creamy. Her hair is fanned across the pillow, her skin flushed with heat. This is not his teacher. This is not the woman who stands behind a desk and lectures him on reverse transformation spells. And he is not the errant pupil in detention yet again for disrupting her class.

He wants to touch every inch of her body, to explore this land so alien and yet so familiar. His instincts and her cries guide him as he moves over her. His skin tingles as he presses against her. These sensations are new to him. He's never so much as kissed a girl until tonight.

She pushes him over and rolls on top of him. Does she know how inexperienced he is? Is she sober enough to even care? She smiles and whispers his name then kisses him.

And then he feels her. Hot. Tight. Wet. Before he can help himself he's thrusting up against her. He hears her calling him, urging him onwards, and he silences her with a kiss. She meets him, arching over him as he drives into her, her tongue duelling with his, her hips bucking against him. Until he can hold back no longer and explodes unstoppably into her, over and over until at last he's spent.

She pulls him close and he rests his head on her breast as he tries to catch his breath.

Tomorrow there's going to be hell to pay because he's crossed the line and things can never go back to how they were.

But tonight there's only her.