This is an AU fanfiction. Lupin, Sirius, and Fred are all still alive, Ron and Hermione did not end up together, Tonks and Lupin stopped seeing each other after a few dates, and it's set eighteen months after the Battle of Hogwarts, but circa 2016 (i.e they have Netflix and other wonders of the twenty-first century). This is definitely Lupin/Hermione, so get excited. Reviews and comments greatly appreciated.
CHAPTER ONE
"The madness of love is the greatest of heaven's blessings."
- Plato, Phaedrus
Funny how war could make luxuries out of the smallest things, like soap. Ever since Voldemort's demise and the end of years of nerve-shredding, nail-biting, heart-pounding fear - including months on the run - Hermione could never sink into a hot bath with softly scented bubbles without offering up a prayer of thanks to the gods. Ordinary soap from the corner store - surely Shangri-La could not offer more luxury than this. She secretly hoped that she would always feel this way about the ordinary objects of existence, but she knew the astonishment of cleanliness on demand would settle and eventually be slowly buried beneath the dust of time and memory. Still, eighteen months after the final battle, she wasn't anywhere close to taking peace for granted.
Nearly everyone had made it out okay, an astonishing feat by any measure. Fred was in his wheelchair, of course, as the wall that had fallen on him had irrevocably damaged his spine. His running gripe was that everyone could now tell him and George apart, and what was the point of being identical twins if a wall has to go and break THE WHOLE BOTTOM HALF OF YOUR BODY AND RUIN ALL THE FUN, at which point George always pointed out the whole "missing ear" thing and the fact that they'd given up on being identical long ago. Both of them had their good days and bad ones, but they'd had fun installing special levitating spells so Fred could reach the top floor of Weasley's Wizarding Wheezes and were hatching a plan to have fire shoot out from behind Fred's wheelchair whenever he reached top cruising speed, so you could definitely say the Weasley twins had mostly bounced back.
Ginny and Harry had gotten married the past June at The Burrow and were settling down in their tiny flat in Diagon Alley, as much as an Auror-in-training and professional Quidditch player could settle down. Hermione lived a few miles away in Muggle London and they had a standing Wednesday dinner with the three of them, plus Ron, who Hermione was relieved had gone back to being a totally normal friend after months of weirdness while they had been on the run from Voldemort. He was seeing an American expat witch named Melanie who was high up in the Quidditch administrative world and who was an absolute angel with a mouth like a sailor. It could be quite refreshing to hear hallowed British institutions such as the Ministry of Magic described as "so bureaucratic that I honestly would have gouged my eyes out with my own fucking wand if it meant I didn't have to fill out another goddamn form in triplicate." Hermione liked Melanie and wanted her to stick around after her two-year assignment in London was up. Ron seemed to obviously think the same thing.
And of course, they had their big get-togethers every few months at The Burrow, with everyone apparating from all over - Charlie still smelling of the dragon fire and forests of Romania, Bill and Fleur pouring the sand from their cottage out of their shoes in the front yard, Fred and George popping up with treats that everyone knew better than to touch, Sirius grinning from whatever vaguely ne'er-do-well journey he'd been on, Lupin looking as if he was still emerging from his books and research on werewolves for his position at the Ministry, Luna chattering on about the new species they'd recently discovered in Greenland, Tonks nursing minor injuries sustained while on Auror duties, Arthur quizzing Harry about the inner workings of rubber erasers, Molly fussing over each and every one of them. In short, it was warm and chaotic and glorious.
The next of these meetups was tonight, and Hermione was sitting in her closet, debating what to wear. Everything she owned seemed too conservative, or too flashy, or dirty, or no longer fit, or…
Or might not make him notice you, a small voice in her head said.
She pushed that thought away. She was a successful new employee at the Magical Law Enforcement department of the Ministry, former Head Girl, veteran of the Battle of Hogwarts, dammit. She should just wear whatever the hell she wanted and just walk in that room and not fall apart like a schoolgirl with her first crush.
Well, the small voice reminded her, he was one of your first crushes, so this is hardly unexpected.
That train ride, which was only six years ago, but feel like an eternity and a half ago. During lapses in conversation with Ron and Harry on the ride back to Hogwarts, she had studied him, trying to figure out what about him kept drawing her eyes back to him. He wasn't handsome, but he was compelling, with the lines and lean face of a man who had endured life as much as he had lived it. Her relationship with him from that moment on had remained one of fascination tinged with a young girl's crush on a kind, knowledgable man twenty years her senior.
Until this past year.
Hermione couldn't pinpoint the moment the ground had shifted under her when it came to Remus Lupin. When was the first time he brought a slight blush to her cheekbones just by smiling at her? When did she start to catch herself looking at him from across the room, wondering what he was thinking about? When did she start to find excuses to come around to The Burrow just because she knew he would be there?
All she knew is that she was sitting in her closet hoping to find something that screamed "Notice me!" but in an incredibly subtle way, of course.
Glancing at the clock, she decided to just grab a sweater and jeans, as it was already half past. With a last long look in the mirror, she disapparated, leaving the shirts on the hangers swaying slightly in her wake.