A/N: Wahoo! My very first author's note for this story. -Cheers Wildly- I'm a shameless Hermione/Remus shipper and proud of it, so of course I love that I'm going to be adding to the pool of fics about this oh so perfect pair. Hope you all have as much fun reading it as I have had while planning and writing it.
Disclaimer - Anything you recognize doesn't belong to me, otherwise you wouldn't recognize it then would you. Also I would like to point out the fact that I have a terrible memory therefore if you see something that is very similar to another fic. that you've read it is possible that I've read the story that had whatever it is that you've seen and had it stick in my mind even after I've forgotten that actual story. Ok now that all that is done with, ON WITH THE STORY!
~ Chapter 1 ~
Hermione slammed the door behind her and whirled around while simultaneously casting an extremely complicated serious of locking, silencing, and warding spells, the words of the spells spilling harsh and broken from her mouth but still somehow managing to work. She then cast a one way window spell on the door, letting her see out but still looking like plain wood on the outside, the same as her silencing spell.
She let her body collapse on the bed and buried her head under her favorite pillow, stead fastedly ignoring Ron's incessant voice and pounding on the door.
"I really wish that he would just GO AWAY! Ugh, of course he does have a right to be angry I suppose, since /he/ hasn't really done anything, but still he has no right to follow me and demand an explanation when I am so obviously distraught…He /is/ my boyfriend though, so I really should be nicer, it's not his fault that I'm in such a pissy mood. I'll have to make up something to explain why I went off on him without any apparent reason though."
Hermione scoffed as the next thought occurred to her, "I could just imply that it was /that/ time of month and he'll leave off the trail right quick, yeah, that's what I'll do."
Satisfied that she had a plan in mind she rolled over onto her back and stared up at the ceiling and thanked the Gods above that Ginny hadn't been in the room, otherwise she never would have heard the end of it. Suddenly aware of the quiet she glanced at the door and saw that Harry had finally gotten Ron to calm down and was apparently attempting to get him to go back down stairs. She caught the sound of her name and climbed off the bed to move closer to the door.
"They're talking about me! Must not know that I can hear them, well I guess it's not technically eavesdropping then, after all they're saying it right outside my door, they really should know me better by now." Hermione knelt down next to the door and focused in on what they were saying.
"… Just saying Harry, I don't know what I've done!" Ron's voice was clear through the door as was his exasperated tone.
"Well mate, you know how girls are." Harry said as he placed a comforting hand on Ron's shoulder.
"Yeah well, Hermione's not like any other girl, I swear if I didn't like her as much as I do then I wouldn't put up with all this shit." Hermione sighed to herself, feeling twice as bad about blowing up at Ron.
"I'm sure that Hermione had a good reason for what she did, even if it isn't apparent to us mere males." Harry snickered at his own joke but sobered quickly at the cloudy expression on Ron's face.
"Look mate, what I'm about to tell you goes no further alright?" At Harry's quick nod he continued, "You know all that stuff that I told you Hermione and I were doing?"
"Yeah?" Harry looked confusedly at Ron as his face suddenly turned a dark shade of red and he rubbed the back of his neck nervously, "Well you see we haven't actually done any of what I told you we'd done, we've barely even snogged much less shagged…"
Now Harry was turning red as well, "Oh, why'd you tell me that you had then?" If it was possible Hermione would say that Ron managed to turn an even darker shade.
"Well it's just that you kept going on and on about how far you and Katie Bell had gone before you came here that I just didn't want to look pathetic, plus you know, Fred and George were there and they would never have let me live it down had I admitted the truth!"
Harry chuckled at the thought of the torment the twins would have put Ron through before looking thoughtful, "But why haven't you done anything yet?"
Hermione was shocked at the angry tone her boyfriends voice took as he answered, "Because she doesn't want to, it's never the right bloody time. You want to know what I think, I'm really starting to think that she's frigid, I mean she just doesn't act bloody interested in anything physical and I know it's not me, Lavender never had any problem…."
She choked back a sob and immediately shut down both charms before miserably making her way back to the bed. Curling up into a fetal position she tried to futilely shut down her thoughts as well.
"Does he really think that? How can he think that! I'm not frigid! Just because I didn't jump his bloody bones the first chance I got doesn't mean anything!" Hermione punched the pillow beside her angrily and just let the tears fall, she knew that she wasn't frigid, she really did like Ron, it was just that every time she thought about doing anything or even kissed her boyfriend lately thoughts of Him would intrude and she just didn't think that it was fair to Ron to be thinking of another man while she was with him.
You see Hermione had a crush on someone else, she had started out the beginning of her second year /knowing/ that Ron Weasley was going to be her future, schoolgirl crush on Lockheart aside, her thoughts never once wavered. And despite the fact that Ron never once looked at her like that her heart stayed firm on it's course, helped along because it all seemed so very right and everyone else seemed to think so as well.
That was until her third year when she made the acquaintance of one Remus J. Lupin. Hermione was in love, never mind that he was literally old enough to be her dad. Ron remained persistant in her mind but her heart had been conquered before she could even realize it. In fact she wouldn't understand the feelings she had for her kindly professor until much later because they were so very different from the way she had felt about Lockheart or even how she felt about Ron. No she just thought of it as an intense intellectual respect, and after she found out his secret, a sort of motherly need to protect him. This self deception continued through the years, though the war and through her romance with Ron until earlier this week when she had seen Him walk in, his beautiful caring hands wrapped around those of Nymphadora Tonks and she had suddenly wanted to tear the other woman's eyes out for touching the Man that she loved.
The thought had shocked Hermione to no end and she had been forced to sit herself down and carefully examine what she had thought to be platonic feelings for the werewolf. What she had found both surprised her and then made sense with consideration. She had realized that she had always loved Remus, ever since he protected them on the Train third year, she had only gone on with Ron because she, like everyone else, had thought that they belonged together when the truth was that her heart had been stolen by the older man before she had ever really had the chance to give it to Ron.
Of course she had tried to repress these feelings, telling herself that nothing good would come of pining for the older man when they were both in the relationships that they, and everyone else, expected them to be in, not to mention the fact that he would /never/ feel that way about her.
She even did a pretty decent job of ignoring them, though she had subconsciously begun to draw away from Ron, now understanding the feeling of wrongness that she had always kept pushed deep, deep down when she kissed him. All of that had been shattered barely ten minutes earlier however when she and Ron had walked into the kitchen to catch the older couple snogging.
She could still see the image in her minds eye. Remus had had Tonks pressed firmly up against the kitchen counter and had been passionately ravishing her mouth. Tonks had started when the two teenagers had walked in but stopped trying to get Remus' attention when he had growled low in his throat and rocked his hips against hers.
Hermione had had two things happen at once to her, she felt her knickers drench at the sound he made while at the same time wanting nothing more then to rip the purple haired witch from his arms and beat her senseless. Afraid that she wouldn't be able to stop herself and to also escape from the heartbreaking scene she had grabbed Ron's hand and fled the kitchen.
She had been well on her way to the library when he had stopped her at the bottom of the staircase and pulled her flush against his chest. Absentmindedly she had waited for him to explain stopping when he had grabbed her chin and kissed her, sliding his tongue into her mouth without so much as a by your leave. She had pulled back in complete shock and demanded exactly what the hell he thought he was doing.
"Well love I thought that since the 'chaperones' were busy we might have a little fun of our own, I mean seeing them going at it like that was nasty but I'm sure we can work it out, what do you say?"
Obviously this had not gone well with Hermione, it was too much, what with everything else and she had completely lost her temper and blown up at Ron. The result being her locked in her room and Ron calling her frigid, a fact that while not true, she really couldn't blame Ron for thinking.
"I'm such a bloody idiot, why in the seven hells am I mooning of Remus fucking Lupin when I'm lucky to have the loving boyfriend that I do?" Hermione banged her head back against the pillows. "That's it, I refuse to, after I leave this room I'm going to be the best girlfriend that Ron has ever seen, I'll show him that I'm tons better then Lavender sodding Brown!"
Firm with her resolution and determination Hermione banished any inappropriate thoughts of the werewolf from her mind, strode resolutely to the door, opened it, intent on finding Ron right quick and showing him just who was frigid, when she walked right into something hard.
Shocked she fell on her ass and looked right up into the surprised blue eyes of Remus Lupin.
"Well Damn!"
