Entry tags:

! log, 1998-march, character: sirius black, character: susan bones

WHO: Sirius Black & Susan Bones
WHAT: “Extra Lessons”
WHEN: Friday, March 6, 1998
WHERE: Professor Lupin’s Office
RATING: TRIGGER WARNING: Eds, otherwise, mild.
STATUS: Completed in Gdocs.

The last few weeks of Lunch with Lupin had been interesting. There had been good days, but mostly they had been awkward, upsetting, and downright unenjoyable. It had been tiring. She had never argued with a teacher before - raised her voice, gotten bratty, gotten disrespectful. But she had with Professor Lupin, and it had made their actual classes a bit strained. Some days she could hardly look at him, other days when she felt stronger, or when she felt like she had won a battle or something, those were easier.

This day was not like any of those days.

It wasn’t going to be Professor Lupin. It was going to be Professor Black, who she wasn’t quite sure knew of what these lessons really were. Because they were under the guise that she was to be working on her Patronus, which honestly didn’t really need work. So what he might know about her eating habits or what the meetings were really for, she wasn’t sure. And she wasn’t sure how to feel about it, either. Excited, because she could potentially be getting away with a barely-eaten lunch he wouldn’t notice? Or guilty, because she wanted to make Professor Lupin proud? Or both, excited at the idea of really trying to help herself without the careful eye of Lupin watching her?

Or something else entirely? She just didn’t know, and she found herself wandering to Professor Lupin’s office, since that’s where she felt safest and where they had decided to meet just out of habit for her, feeling much like the first time she had to meet with him here for lunch. A bit resentful, a bit excited, guilty, and absolutely wracked with nerves. “Professor Black, sir?” She said as she peeked in, knocking slightly on the half-open door before walking inside. “Sorry if I’m a bit late..” She was, just a tad.

She was hoping maybe he’d been hungry enough to eat before she got here.

---

Sirius usually felt comfortable in Remus's office, because he felt comfortable around Remus, of course. But the night before had been exhausting, as most full moons were. But add to the physical strain was the emotional and mental, brought on by their arguing, and Remus's mood (always worse at the full but every month Sirius hoped to change that and every month he failed), and Sirius felt as hungover himself as though he had been drinking the night before. Which he hadn't. He'd joined Remus as Padfoot and stuck by him, curled together per their usual.

He rubbed his eyes and looked up when Susan knocked. He forced a smile. "Miss Bones," he greeted. "Not at all. The house elves just dropped off our lunches. Take a seat," he said, tiredly, motioning for her to take an open chair. "Bread pudding, even," he said. "My favorite." Well, one of them. He could claim a half dozen or more as his favorite pudding.

"How are you today?" he asked.

---

Bread pudding. Bread. Effing. Pudding. Whatever look Susan had been wearing was completely wiped away, a terrified sort of panic setting in. Bread Pudding. That was too much, too much food and too much fat and how could she even pretend to eat that? This entire set of panic took place in mere seconds, and a faltering half-smile took its place.

Her heart beat audibly and irregularly through her chest.

"Sounds good." She replied, coming up to take a seat. She didn't even want to smell it, she wanted to be as far away from it as possible. "You look nearly as bad as Professor Lupin looked yesterday. Are you two sure it isn't catching?" She asked - not really seriously but still. Sirius Black looked like he hadn't slept in a week all of a sudden, and she figured maybe more questions would keep him from paying attention to her not eating.

---

He scratched the side of his neck and stretched, then sat and arranged his robes so they wouldn't get in the way of his eating. "What would you like to drink?" he asked. "Water, milk, pumpkin juice, tea? Something else entirely?" Sirius was sure he could conjure up whatever struck her fancy. If this weren't a Friday, and he didn't have to teach this afternoon, and if this wasn't a meeting with a student, he would probably be drinking mead. Or something stronger. Bourbon. Hell, vodka even. He didn't care much what the drink would be; he just cared that he couldn't have it.

"Didn't sleep well," he said by way of explanation. That excuse usually worked with students who knew his history well enough. Sirius didn't know if he could count Susan as among that lot. "Sometimes I get nightmares." Not untrue. He did still dream of Azkaban, semi-regularly. Last night, however, he hadn't had a nightmare. He didn't dream as Padfoot.

---

"Water is fine." She said, pulling her legs up to sit cross legged in the chair, as she usually did. It was just more comfortable, as Susan felt very sleight in the over large chair. She almost missed what the Professor was saying entirely as she stared into the bowl of bread pudding.

Why was it bread pudding? Lupin usually got them something simpler, less intimidating. Little cucumber sandwiches and the likes. Was this a test? What if she failed? did she want to fail? Who was testing her this time - was it Lupin, or her disorder? Both? Susan hadn't ever felt more uncomfortable in her life.

Hearing Professor Black, she snapped back up and nodded. "Right. I'm very sorry, Professor Black. I get nightmares, too." She said, trying to make conversation. "Though, undoubtedly, they aren't as terrifying as yours." This was the second longest in person conversation she had ever had with a teacher. She wondered if she was doing it correctly, worry seeping over her. She wrung her hands together quietly in her lap.

---

With a casual wave of his wand, he filled two water goblets and levitated one over to Susan until she took it out of the air. "What sort of nightmares do you usually get?" he asked, figuring that was a good way to deflect his own.

He scooted his chair in and picked up his fork. He was famished. He started to go for his food, which was as simple as little sandwiches -- after seeing it, Sirius had requested something more substantial at least as pudding -- but then looked across at Susan. "Do you -- uh -- need anything else?" he asked, his fork halfway to his mouth.

---

The glass was retrieved and held onto for a moment before she took a sip and set it down when asked about her nightmares. That was a sort of personal question, and Susan wasn’t one to share much of her personal life with anyone. Certainly not teachers. She sort of sat there and thought it over before carefully responding with a rather vague answer. “Oh, the normal sort I suppose.” A small shrug was given as she picked up the fork, which shook as it hovered over the food.

She let it hover there for a bit too long, before she sort of stuck it in the pudding and pushed the food around absentmindedly, grabbing a small piece here and there just to break it up into a smaller piece and return it to the bowl. “No, I’m fine thanks.” Susan set the fork down and took another sip of her water. If she were going to make him not notice her eating habits, she’d have to talk about something, she just didn’t know what. She didn’t speak much with adults, aside from her own family. She went with career talk, it seemed like a safer subject.

“Professor, if you were to choose any profession other than teaching, what would you have chosen?”

---

Sirius ate and watched Susan suspiciously over his desk. He hadn't really talked to Remus at all about the reasoning behind Susan's extra lessons, but it seemed to him that it wasn't just because she wanted more help with DADA. But he had no idea what else it could be. He nodded slowly and wiped his mouth with his napkin then sat back.

"I don't know," he said honestly. Because he didn't. He'd been twenty when he'd been carted off to prison, and from Hogwarts until then, the Order had been his job. There wasn't anything else on the horizon. And teaching? Teaching happened because Remus was here and Minerva offered and because he was bloody good at Transfiguration. "Really, I never gave much thought to a job," he admitted. "Which I know doesn't sound very good, but I was in Azkaban for ten years and didn't have a job before that, so …"

He looked at her. "What are you hoping to do after school ends?"

---

“You never thought of something you wanted to do, when you were little?” She asked, curious now. She knew his life had been upended by the war, then Azkaban, and now he was here. She wondered if he had ever really wondered about another job he might have wanted to do. Susan had had about a hundred ideas of what she wanted to do since she was very small, but it wasn’t until her fourth year that she really had a firm grasp on what she might like to do.

“Oh, I’m studying to get into the Ministry, where I want to work for the Department of Mysteries. Someday, I’d like to be an Unspeakable.” Which was a bizarre choice for just about anyone, considering no one really knew what they did there. But that was part of the reason Susan wanted to work there - she had a real thing for mysteries. Susan pushed her food around a little more, going back for another sip of water.

“And have you been friends with Professor Lupin since you were in school?” Just keep him talking. The more he talked about himself, the less he’d notice about her. That was how it usually worked, anyway.

---

"I'm not really cut out for jobs," he said. Or raised for one. As the Black heir he would have sat on boards and donated money and done things like that. A proper pureblooded Black boy wouldn't have had to work. "I think I told Professor McGonagall once that I wouldn't mind being a cursebreaker and she told me she figured I'd be the type to get locked in some tomb and then laughed so I nixed that."

"Department of Mysteries, huh? Even though you don't know what they do down there? What if it's awful? Or, worse, boring?"

He couldn't imagined being stuck doing something boring every day. Sirius nodded vaguely at her question about Remus. "Since first year, yeah," he said, then finished off a sandwich and brushed his hands off. "Something wrong with your food?" He asked a moment later.

---

“I think you’d have made a fine cursebreaker.” It seemed pretty unfortunate that he would be laughed at for the idea. Professor Black did seem like the type who could have done that well, but then Susan had a very idolized, hero-worship sort of way of looking at all her teachers. They could all always do everything, no wrong could ever be committed.

She nearly laughed when he suggested being an Unspeakable might be boring but managed to stifle that into a weird little sniffly-cough instead. “Sir, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but I highly doubt that being an Unspeakable is going to be boring.” She almost rolled her eyes, too, because the idea was just downright absurd. Unspeakable. BORING! Ha. Susan might have even sassed him, if he weren’t a teacher.

But then he was pointing out her food and asking if there was something wrong because clearly he was noticing that she wasn’t eating it and what was with all these suddenly observant teachers? “No, nothing. I’m just not very hungry.”

---

He tapped his chin a few times and shrugged. "Well, how can you be sure it's not boring? You don't know what they do. No one knows what they do except the Unspeakables. Maybe what they do is so unspeakably boring that they just can't bring themselves to admit it." Sirius leaned in toward her conspiratorially. "What do you think of that?"

He picked up a second sandwich and waved it around a little bit. "How can you not be hungry?" he asked. "I'm always hungry."

---

That was a joke. He was making a joke, and Susan laughed. “Unspeakably boring?” She couldn’t help but laugh again, shaking her head. “Well, that may be true, but there must be something to it or there wouldn’t be people who go into it and never leave, would there? Besides, you know me.” Not that he really did, but he did well enough. “I think I’d quite like reorganizing entire bookshelves in alphabetical order or something like that.” It was true, she probably would.

“I suspect that boys are always hungry.” She replied half-seriously. It seemed like all the guys she knew were always hungry. Her dad, her uncle, Ernie, everyone. Men seemed to think an awful lot about food. “I just had a big breakfast, is all. Still feel a bit full.” She shrugged it off. He didn’t know, he couldn’t know about her food issues, not eating a meal one time in front of Professor Black wasn’t going to raise any alarms for him.

“I’m also just a bit excited, I guess, about working on Patronuses again. Nothing more impressive than a mouse patronus, right?”

---

"Maybe you not only take a vow of secrecy but also a vow to never quit. I'm just saying," Sirius joked again. He couldn't imagine anything more boring than re-organizing bookshelves or alphabetizing them or whatever. It would be the worst.

He shrugged. "I don't know about all boys, but I'm always hungry. After ten years of barely eating, I can't get enough of it." He said it lightly, because he did that, sometimes. Made light of his time in prison. He licked some sauce from his fingers and nodded. "It's not the worst patronus I've ever heard of. Why don't you go on and show it off then?"

---

“Can they do that? Make you vow to never quit?” She asked, raising a brow slightly. Well, now she was just starting to re-think the whole thing. She didn’t want to be stuck to one job forever, did she? Susan thought she might like opportunity to grow, to rise in the ranks and all that. Now she really wished there was an Unspeakable she could talk to, but then, that might not be very helpful. It’s not like they could tell her anything. She pushed her food away, concern all over her face.

“What?” She asked, bringing her attention back to the Professor. “Not the worst? What is the worst, then? I think mice can be quite useful you know. They - “ She paused. None of what she thought they were useful for was actually very useful and thinking it just then made her realize it wasn’t actually positive either. “Alright, I’ll show you.” She stood up and pulled out her wand, trying to get into the right mindset.

“Expecto Patronum…” Basically dust. “Expecto Patronum…” Still dust, but more dense. Finally, her third try, “Expecto Patronum!” There it was - for a brief and fleeting moment the corporeal patronus appeared, skittering around mid-air before teetering out.

----

"I'm sure they can do anything they want," Sirius said. He had no idea how the Department of Mysteries worked -- mysterious and all, of course -- but he suspected they could get away with a lot more than any of the other ministry departments could. Why was he dissuading this girl from trying for a job she was clearly excited about?

He scooped up a big bite of the bread pudding, ate it, then watched her cast her patronus. He sat back and crossed his arms. "Not many people these days bother with patronuses," he said to her after a moment, after the mouse flickered into view. "Any particular reason you're focusing on it?"

---

“I don’t know. I guess I made a dumb choice.” She shrugged. It wouldn’t be the first choice she’d made that was stupid. With how many things she was studying, though, there was bound to be another sort of job she could take anyway. She didn’t quite have the temperament for being an Auror, but her coursework and grades were good enough to be one. Who knew, maybe she would can the whole idea after all. She had been waffling about it, anyway.

“Well, I don’t set the coursework. Professor Lupin is just going over a ton of stuff, you know. Loads of it, we’ve done all kinds of stuff. It was just Patronuses today. And given that you know, we don’t know what Unspeakables do, we thought it was a better idea to kind of do a bit of everything.” Made sense, anyway. It was the sort of thing she had been wanting to do all along, so finding the lie to tell Professor Black about what they were doing was easier than it should have been.

---

"How long have you been taking extra lessons with Professor Lupin?" Sirius asked, because they told each other most everything that happened, the good and the bad. And this was still new to him. He knew that he'd have to talk to Remus about this, once he was feeling better of course. How many students was he offering this extra tutoring to? Remus stretched himself thin as it was, Sirius thought, and he frowned and rubbed his eyes, his exhaustion catching even harder up to him all of a sudden.

---

“Just about two weeks.” She replied. It hadn’t been that long, but it wasn’t just a few days either. It had been two whole weeks since she had gone to his office and gone unconscious, the whole incident that warranted these daily meetings. These once a day meals to see that she at least was eating once. And she had put on a significant enough weight (which she had lost, again) over the last two weeks that she was desperately trying to get out of them. “I don’t think they’ll go for much longer, either.”

---

He frowned. None of that made sense. A short-term bout of extra lessons that covered everything. Short-term lessons that were just about patronuses, he could understand. He'd done that with some of his students, too, when needed. "I'm sure Professor Lupin will keep you coming as long as it takes," he said quickly.

----

“Probably. I just meant, you know, there’s not that much left of term.” Four months, four short months! Susan didn’t even like to think about it. She was trying to cover her tracks here, too, attempting one last patronus that failed miserably because she wasn’t happy. She just wanted to go. Was lunch almost over yet? “It - it’s not so much practice as sort of like, a test or something, you know. Like he picks something and sees if I can just do it, like a challenge. Because that might be something they do when sizing you up for an Unspeakable position.”

---

Sirius knew something fishy was going on with this, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He knew enough about lying and liars to see right through Susan. He just had no idea why. Remus would have to explain it to him. He leaned his elbows on the desk and rubbed his temples hard. "Miss Bones," he said, a little sharper than he meant to. "I'm sorry. I have a headache. Do you need any more water? Or -- something else to eat?" He didn't ask because she wasn't eating; he asked because he had no idea why she wasn't at least eating the bread pudding.

---

She was frustrating him, Susan could tell. It was the same sort of thing Lupin did when he was frustrated with her as well. She sighed and put her wand away, looking around for a moment before shaking her head. “No, no I’m fine, listen. If you have a headache, I can go. We practiced, I think I did well enough. I have revisions to do, you know.” Well he should, he assigned some of them. “And studying to do and there’s a paper due in Potions, so I should really get going anyway.”

---

"Miss Bones," he repeated. "You don't really seem to want to be here, and you were very eager to have me ask Remus to take the day off. Why are you doing these extra lessons?"

---

“Because I needed the help.” She said, but that wouldn’t do would it? Because now she was saying she wanted the day off, eager to go. She pushed some of her hair back, trembling a bit. “It’s not really any of your business anyway.”

---

Now that was pretty much the wrong thing for her to say to him, and he sat up, his face going a bit stony at that insinuation. "I believe you made it my business when you asked me to convince Professor Lupin to take the day off. He was hesitant and asked that I cover your lesson, which tells me that you do need the help. And I promise you, I may not be as skilled with defense as Remus is, but I'm pretty damn good. And I can absolutely cast a patronus."

He waved his wand and said "Expecto Patronum" firmly. A wisp of white and then a wolf took shape. "Now, if we're through with lunch, try again."

---

“I asked for a day off not a substitute.” She spat back, and then abruptly covered her mouth. Susan Bones had never talked back to a teacher like that before, not once. “I’m so sorry.” She said, quietly, but he was casting a rather beautiful wolf patronus and telling her to try again and she nodded. Okay, okay. Happy. Be happy. She could do that, right? She could cast the patronus and they could practice and then it would be all over. And she would have skipped the whole lunch part, wouldn’t she?

And that definitely lifted her spirits. “Expectro Patronum!” She waved her wand, the wisp of smoke coming out strongly but not taking shape. She needed to calm down. “Expecto patronum!” She tried again, the small mouse bursting out from her wand and frantically scurrying across the room. “Can I go now?”

---

"Professor Lupin seemed to think that a day off for you would interrupt your lessons," he said back, more calmly now. He didn't think he'd ever see Susan Bones lose her temper quite like that. He raised an eyebrow.

"Do it again," he said, barely noticing her patronus out of the corner of his eyes. He watched her carefully.

---

“Expect - “ She stammered. She didn’t want to do this, she just wanted to go. She felt her stomach rumble, the smell of the food. She wanted to be sick. “Expect” She fumbled again, taking in a deep breath. She could do this, just, what was it, fifteen, twenty more minutes until lunch was over? She could get through it.

“Expecto Patronum” She flourished her wand, but nothing came out. Not even a wisp. She groaned. “I can’t do this.”

---

He reached out to steady her wand arm, gently. "Susan," he said softly. "It's okay. We can work on this. If getting a patronus is this important to you, we can work on it. I went years without being able to conjure one, so I know it's hard. But you can do it."

---

She almost wanted to tell him. Because he was being so sweet, so kind. After she was so terrible to him, too. She dropped her hand after a moment, sulking a bit. “It is, its important. I just, I can’t do it today. I’m frustrated, and anxious. That’s why I was asking for a day off, I just. Day after day and it doesn’t get any better, I just needed a break. Take my mind off it.”

---

"Now, that's not what you told me," Sirius said carefully. "You said you were so worried about Professor Lupin and his illness that you wanted him to take a day off. Which is it?"

---

“You’re asking so many questions.” She replied, running her hands through her hair again, pushing it out of her face. She was too flustered, she could feel her palms starting to sweat. “It’s neither, I don’t know. It - I - just. “ Susan stuttered again, at a complete loss for words. “It’s just nothing.”

---

"Well, now I'm no therapist but you should know that I'm really messed up and have been pretty much my entire life, which means I can tell when 'nothing' really is 'something.'" He refilled both their water goblets. "I'm fine if you don't want to tell me, but just know that I can tell something's up, all right?"

---

Well, at least they could stop pretending a little bit. She didn’t take the water, despite wanting to, but stood there awkwardly. “These aren’t really lessons.” She said softly, staring down at her hands. “Professor Lupin is helping me with a problem, not school related. I don’t really need help with my Patronus.” She paused, and then said “Well, I do, but that’s not what Professor Lupin is helping me with.” Susan swayed from side to side, tapping her foot a little. She was hardly ever actually still. “But I don’t want to talk about it.”

---

Sirius narrowed his eyes again and then picked up his spoon to finish his bread pudding, which was a little bit colder than he liked it, but that was his own fault." No, that's pretty obvious, Miss Bones," he said. "That you don't want to talk about it. You're not very sublte about that."

---

“I’m usually a master of disguise.” She said with a bit of a laugh. She would have sat back down, but the food, even cold, was sitting there and taunting her. She just stared at it, wishing it were gone. Just one day, one day if she didn’t eat any of it, she could maybe get back to where she was, before these lunches. Or at least start to. “Anyway, seems pointless, to be here working on patronuses if we both know that’s not what it’s about and since I don’t want to talk about it…” She started to head for the door.

---

Sirius stood up. "Sit down, Miss Bones. There's still ten minutes until the next bell, and I told Professor Lupin I'd sit here with you during the lunch hour. Now I know you're not going to tell me why, and I'm sure he won't either. But I'm not breaking a promise I made to him. So we can sit here in silence or you can practice your patronus or you can ask me anything you want or you can read or whatever. But I'm not dismissing you yet."

---

Susan pursed her lips, clenched her fists a little even. “Alright.” She said, walking back over to the chair and pulling it out a bit, away from the desk. She folded her arms across her chest and stared down at the floor. She hadn’t brought her books with her, and felt stupid for not having brought them because then she could have at least done a little work. “Can you at least get rid of the food?” She finally said, after a full minute of absolute silence and staring. “It’s starting to smell funny.”

---

He didn't smell anything amiss. And besides, her bread pudding was sitting there taunting him. "After I eat the bread pudding you didn't touch," Sirius said, reaching across the desk for it and pulling the bowl in against his chest. The closer it is, the easier to enjoy it.

---

If she were a different person, or an outsider looking in, she might find it a bit funny that Professor Lupin was trying to get her to eat every day, and here was Professor Black, eating the food she was supposed to be consuming. But she wasn’t anyone else, she was just Susan, and she felt relieved. “Fine, whatever. Eat it if you want.” She sat back in her seat, trying not to watch him eat, trying not to pay attention to the groaning in her stomach. It had been two weeks since she’d gone this long without food, and her stomach was protesting in earnest.

---

"I can't believe you passed on bread pudding," he mumbled, working his way into it. He paused a moment, glancing at her, then took his wand and gave it a quick heating charm. "Ah, better," he said, the spoon already in his mouth, even as he spoke.

---

“Never really liked it.” She replied, shrugging. She didn’t actually like any food now, not really, so it wasn’t a total lie. But she had liked it a lot before all this, back when she was younger, or in her first four years at Hogwarts. But she hadn’t so much as smelled bread pudding since then. She glanced at the clock. Six more minutes.

---

"You're mad," he said, shaking his head. At least the second helping of bread pudding was making him feel better, slightly less drawn out and tired than he was at the start of their meeting. "So, looking forward to the quidditch match this weekend?" he asked.

---

She was about to say something back like, well you’re a pig - but she didn’t believe that, not in the slightest. Nor was she that kind of girl. Unlike the majority of her peers, she respected her teachers a great deal and was one of the more reserved students of this particularly rambunctious seventh year bunch. “Oh, definitely. I love Quidditch. Can’t fly worth anything, but I love to watch.”

---

"Playing, watching, I love everything about it, too. Should be an exciting match up, Ravenclaw and Slytherin though. The matches when I was in school were intense. My brother played seeker on Slytherin, see, so it was always necessary for me to cheer as loudly as possible for the other team, no matter who it was." Sirius grinned at her over his bowl.

---

She knew a bit about Sirius Black and his brother Regulus. In fact, she probably knew a proper amount more than most of her classmates. She had done all the reading and then some, as she was known to do. Quite a bit like Hermione, but not nearly as bright. “I might be just as biased as everyone else but, as long as its not Slytherin I don’t care which team it is, I’ll be rooting for them. I have a lot of friends in Ravenclaw, though, even if it was against Gryffindor I would probably cheer for Ravenclaw.” Normal conversation. This was nice, this was easy. What was it now? Three, four minutes? Almost done.

---

"Good to have loyalty when it comes to your friends," he said, finishing the last spoon full of pudding and then setting it aside. "You know," he said after a moment's thinking. "I feel bad that I just ate your bread pudding. Do you like chocolate? I know Remus keeps some around here somewhere…" He started opening drawers and poking around, imagining the frown and pursed lips on Remus's face as he snooped around.

---

"I do like my friends." She said with a grin. This was getting easier, right? So close to being done. Then he mentioned chocolate. "Oh, no I - I don't really like chocolate. Besides I already said I'm not hungry." Susan repeated, grabbing the edge of the seat, ready to bolt the second he dismissed her.

---

He blinked. He didn't know of anyone who ever turned down chocolate. "How can you not like chocolate?" he burst out.

---

She jumped a bit at his sudden discontent with her answer and she sort of stared at him, wide eyed for a moment. “I just don’t. Besides, Valentines Day was just a few weeks ago. I got quite sick of all the chocolate pretty quickly is all…”

---

"Uh huh," he said, not believing her and having no idea why he didn't.

---

“Is it time to go yet?” She said, her frustration rising again. Why did it always get so close to the real topic, why did everyone always want to talk about food? She slid closer to the end of the chair, her face set in a serious expression of discontent.

---

"Two minutes," he said, glancing at the clock. Then he said nothing else but just looked at her suspiciously.

---

“Are the two minutes really that necessary?” She replied, eyeing him with just as much suspicion, though she wasn’t sure what she was suspicious about.

---

"Yes."

----

“Whatever.” She dropped her grip and turned away from him, staring at the clock. Tick, tick, tick. She’d never seen time go so bloody slow.

---

He was tempted to keep her there longer but when the bell rang, he had no excuse but to let her go. "Have a good afternoon, Susan," he said. "I'll see you at supper?"

---

“Of course.” Except he wouldn’t, because she wasn’t going. Standing up, she forced a smile at him. “Thanks for all the help, Professor.” And off she went.