mother's voice. 

It was a relief to return to the noise and bustle of the main school on Monday, where he was forced to think about other things, eve', if he had to endure Draco Malfoys taunting. Malfoy was almost beside himself with glee at Gryffindor's defeat. He had finally taken off his bandages, and celebrated having the full use of both arms again by doing spirited imitations of Harry falling off his broom. Malfoy spent much of their next Potions class doing dementor imitations across the dungeon; Ron finally cracked and flung a large, slippery crocodile heart at Malfoy, which hit him in the face and caused Snape to take fifty points from Gryffindor. Amelia had lost five points from Ravenclaw for laughing so hard she fell ut of her seat. 

"If Snape's teaching Defense Against the Dark Arts again, I'm skiving off," said Ron as they headed toward Lupin's classroom after lunch. "Check who's in there, Hermione." 

"Well, that's chivalrous of you, Ron," Amelia mocked. Sharptooth, who was perched on her shoulder snickered. 

Hermione peered around the classroom door. 

"It's okay!"

 Professor Lupin was back at work. It certainly looked as though he had been ill. His old robes were hanging more loosely on him and there were dark shadows beneath his eyes; nevertheless, he smiled at the class as they took their seats, and they burst at once into an explosion of complaints about Snape's behavior while Lupin had been ill. 

"It's not fair, he was only filling in, why should he give us homework?" 

"We don't know anything about werewolves two rolls of parchment!" 

"Did you tell Professor Snape we haven't covered them yet?" Lupin asked, frowning slightly. 

The babble broke out again. 

"Yes, but he said we were really behind he wouldn't listen --" 

"-- two rolls of parchment!"