CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE DEATHLY HALLOWS.
Author's Note: Well, I know what I said, but I ended up getting a bad case of the summer flu, and an audio book copy of The Deathly Hallows this weekend, so that I had nothing to do but lie there and listen to it. My impressions of that book are totally unimportant, but...sigh. Oh well. Never fear, Remus Lupin fans, all is not lost! I expected this…and have thus planned to thwart it!
This story takes place after the end of the final battle, and before the "nineteen years later" mark at the end of the book. It should, as usual, fit in properly with canon, assuming I don't royally screw up.
Enjoy!
Menolly
Chapter One: The Awful Truth
"Wand, please," said the Ministry official, sighing in an utterly bored way, and holding out his hand. Hermione placed her wand into it, and he gave it a peremptory glance before passing it back to her. "Right then," he continued, "just step this way, won't you. Come along, I've got things to do today."
Their footsteps plunked audibly down the corridor which led to the bored wizard's large corner office. Hermione tried not to feel apprehensive. She hated all of the new Ministry procedures which required her to go through test after test annually, in order to remain working in the Administration of Muggle-Wizard Cooperation. The checks and tests seemed to get stricter every year.
"Sit here," muttered the wizard, shutting his office door with a snap and turning on Hermione. "Put your wand down on the table there" Hermione did so, and he flicked it just far enough across the surface of the table that she wouldn't be able to reach it.
"Excuse me," she asked, before he had a chance to give any further instructions, "but what exactly am I in for this time? I've already been through the Department of Illusions and the Jinx-Proof corridor today. I can't imagine what else you could possibly-!"
"Memory check," interrupted the wizard. "Making sure you're not hiding anything in your head that we wouldn't want to have walking around in the Ministry headquarters. Lean back, please."
Hermione leaned back, defeated. She closed her eyes, and the Ministry wizard placed the fingers of one hand gingerly across her temples. With the other hand, he drew his own wand, and pointed it straight at her forward. She barely had time to get that sick, foreboding sensation in her stomach before the wizard had murmured, "Memoria Rimorum."
She tried not to shudder as the images began to flit through her mind's eye at a sickening rate. It was, she thought ruefully, new way of looking at the idea of having one's whole life flash before one's eyes. There were some things that she desperately did not want to ever have to remember, such as her numerous run-ins with the evils of Lord Voldemort and the Death Eaters, during her years at Hogwarts School. The deaths of some of her closest compatriots; Sirius Black, Cedric Diggory, Albus Dumbledore, Fred Weasley. She could see the horrible slitted face of the Dark Lord himself, cackling and pointing his wand at the stoic figure of her best friend, Harry Potter, during their final climactic battle only four years previously. She wished the Ministry wizard would let her alone. She'd been through enough horror, she didn't want to be reliving it yet again.
"Huh," the wizard was saying, clicking his tongue against his teeth in some perplexity. "Wonder what all that's about…don't suppose you know what this is, do you, Mrs. Weasley?"
"What all what's about? What are you talking about?" Asked Hermione. "Surely you can identify Lord Voldemort just as well as anybody-!"
"I don't mean…the Dark Lord," said the wizard quickly, shuddering slightly. Why, wondered Hermione in annoyance, must everyone still be so afraid of a name that no longer held a single vestige of power? "I mean," continued the wizard, "what's this blockade you've got in your head, here? You've got something boxed off in a corner, and I can't see what it is."
Hermione blinked. The Ministry wizard's face came briefly into view, and he looked just as bemused as she felt. "I haven't an idea," she said. "Are you sure you know what you're doing? Can't we be done here? This is really awful…"
"Got to check this out first," the wizard replied. "Just sit tight a moment, won't you, Mrs. Weasley. I don't think it'll take very long."
Hermione closed her eyes again, and waited as the wizard stalled, apparently trying to decide what exactly he was supposed to do next. She was quite sure that he'd made some sort of stupid mistake, and she steeled herself for the mental pain that she knew she'd experience if he went mucking around in her brain with ill-thought-out spell work.
"Right," he said, more to himself than to her. "Okay then, here we are…hold still."
Before Hermione had a chance even to ask, he had spoken a second incantation. She didn't even manage to hear what the spell was, because, at that moment, her mind filled itself with images with which she was completely unfamiliar, and she lost all thought of anything else that was going on in her world.
She was seventeen years old, lying on a bed, just waking up to a sunny afternoon. Next to her on the floor was crouching a broken man, his tawny hair dappled with silver, his eyes obscured by a pair of shaking, scarred hands.
Then the scene changed, and she was standing next to the staircase in her parents' house, blocking the way of that same man, preventing him from getting past her. She threw her arms around him and leaned her cheek up against his, kissed him hesitantly, then passionately, so that her entire body was wracked with the fervor of a longing and a long-suppressed romantic dream.
Yet again the picture shifted, and she was lying on a bed, pouring over a book written by Musetta Paolini, the older man pensive at her side. As she watched, he leaned over and kissed her, his lips brushing her shoulders and neck until somehow or other, they had rolled over on top of each other on the bad, the book forgotten, discarded, falling to the floor.
"What the hell is this," queried the Ministry wizard, breaking into this disturbing and unfamiliar torrent of supposed memories. "Some sort of former love affair, huh? Guess it got you pretty bad, if you didn't want to remember it so badly that you made yourself seal it away like that. Well, I am sorry. I guess this kind of thing is inevitable when you mess with people's minds."
Hermione couldn't answer him. She could barely cope with the flood of the passions that she now knew were undoubtedly her own. A love like she had never thought to have experienced pervaded her entire being, and then a feeling of confusion, of embarrassment, of passion and of a horrible irresolution flooded her, so that she lost her balance and toppled off of the chair she'd been occupying in the Ministry office.
"Hey," said the wizard, sounding a bit alarmed, "hey, lady, are you all right?"
No, mouthed Hermione, but no sound came out. No, she thought, she was far from all right. She recognized the man in her memories now, and yet she couldn't imagine how he'd gotten there.
It was Remus John Lupin, Harry Potter's loyal protector, father of Teddy Lupin, and dead four years ago in the battle against Voldemort. Hermione knew now, as her mind slowly began to heal itself from the rupture that had been made in her memory, that she would never love anyone in her life that way that she had always loved him. She didn't understand why it was suddenly so important, so obvious, and yet it was as though it had always been a part of her, one that she had been unable to quench, back beyond even her subconscious.
"Mrs. Weasley?" asked the Ministry wizard, now definitely worried.
"Yes," said Hermione blankly. "Yes, I'm sorry. It came as a bit of a shock."
Then, helplessly, she began to cry in earnest.
Several hours later, she apparated into the kitchen of her own home, wincing as the "crack" she made on arrival reverberated through the house.
"Hermione?" Ron's voice drifted down to her from the stairs, followed almost immediately by his person, red-faced and freckly as always. He took her into his arms and kissed the top of her head, before leaning back and pushing her to arm's length, frowning. "You look ruddy awful, Hermione," he said, biting his lip in concern. "Long day? Did they give you a hard time at the Ministry?"
"Yes," murmured Hermione, absently. "Yes, I'm not feeling terribly well…I think I'll go lie down for a spell, Ron. Sorry."
He released her, and she moved past him towards the stairs that led to their bedroom. "Hey," Ron called after her, "I'll just be down here in the library if you want anything. You call me if I can get you anything, okay?"
Hermione didn't answer. She didn't want anything, didn't' want to talk to anyone, especially Ron, not right now. She just needed to sleep, needed to let all of the disturbing images pass completely out of her mind. She was sure that when she woke up again, she would be comfortably refreshed, and free of the all-consuming desperation and passion that had followed her home from the Ministry, along with those confusing new memories. She just needed to lie down…
But it wasn't to be. Before she'd even begun to drift off to sleep, Ron had appeared in the doorway, looking awkward and sympathetic.
"Um, sorry," he said, "I know you're not well, but I forgot to tell you…Neville's sent us an owl. They've just appointed him Herbology teacher up at the school, and he's having a sort of get together…he wanted to know if we could come. I told him we would, but I mean, obviously if you're not up to it I'll just write and tell him we won't be able to make it. Thought I'd ask you first, though.
"Oh, that's wonderful," replied Hermione, trying to force her mind away from Remus Lupin. "Yes, of course we'll go…I'm sure I'll be all right tomorrow, I don't see any reason why we shouldn't go and see him. No, I'd love to see Neville, and I wouldn't mind seeing the rest of the teachers either. It's been years since we've been up to Hogwarts. It'll be a nice little vacation."
"Never thought that I'd call going back to school a 'vacation,' muttered Ron, grinning.
Hermione closed her eyes again. Sleep, her mind screamed. Sleep, don't think anymore.