Title: Lie Taste So Sweet
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Post-DH, Pre-Epilogue, non-graphic sexual situations, swearing, character death, and just not very nice people.
Summary: Fresh out of a failed relationship, Hermione offers to help a wounded Remus Lupin, recently found alive, and in a month she learns more about the past, love, and the future than she ever cared to know.
Note: Written for the RemusHermione Fic Exchange over on LJ.
Original prompt or request: Aurors Harry & Hermione are out on assignment, where they find a gravely injured Remus in the woods.
I.
It was one of those missions.
"Hold up!"
In and out in a flash, no reason to linger, no complications, no mess.
"Look, I said I was sorry!"
Like sex. Quick, painless, very little mess. Okay, maybe not like sex.
"Will you just stop and talk to me?"
Well, maybe like sex. Certainly messy.
"What's there to say, Harry?" Hermione asked, neither stopping nor slowing her pace.
"Plenty!" Harry called out, finally catching up to her. "Er, I think."
"There really isn't," Hermione said. "Now that Ron and I are no longer together-"
"Thanks for the heads up on that, by the way," Harry said as he rolled his eyes.
"-you can't be friends with us both. It's understandable, and it's fine."
"It's not fine!" Harry said, raising his voice above the comfort level.
It was one of those missions. Routine, by this point. Could be carried out with one hand tied behind your back and a blindfold over your eyes. There were still so many loose Death Eaters with large chips on their shoulders hiding in the shadows. The night just wasn't complete without at least five sightings to be investigated by the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. This particular sighting was extra special, as it was tied in with a possible werewolf sighting. Hermione, needing something to stimulate her now empty social calendar, had been quick to volunteer for this assignment. Harry, apparently wanting to talk, volunteered as well.
Not that either Auror remembered they were on a mission at the moment.
"You've put me in a rather uncomfortable spot," Harry said.
"I've just given you an out," Hermione pointed out, still plunging forward into the woods. The sun had yet to set, so there was still enough light that they didn't need their wands lit.
"I don't want an out," Harry said. "I just… Bloody hell, Min, why'd you have to go and… and…"
"Ruin everything?" Hermione finished, her smile twisted into something that might have been regret.
Harry shook his head, the wording a little too harsh for his taste but somehow it was still fitting.
"I did think it through," Hermione said, her voice softening a little, her pace slowing. "I knew you'd have to choose, and I'm sorry to put you in such a spot. And you're right, I should have told you what was going on, but I didn't want Ron to find out that way, and there are no secrets between the two of you."
"There used to be no secrets between you and me," Harry pointed out, his hand finding hers briefly.
How long had they been alone that last year against Voldemort? Weeks, months? Hermione had never bothered to count; it had been too painful at the time to think of the time spent away from Ron. But, during that time with Harry, while nothing inappropriate had happened, something had happened, and Harry had become the family she had given up. As it turned out, memory charms can be reversed and never fully repaired.
"Why?" Harry asked again. "What happened?"
Hermione met Harry's eyes and wondered, How can this be explained? How do you explain simply falling out of love with someone?
Before she could speak, another voice, from the west, tired and strained and just a little familiar, cried out, "Petrificus Totalus!"
If the spell had a color it would have been black, Hermione idly thought to herself as her arms snapped to her sides and her knees locked together. She briefly saw a look of horror cross Harry's face before she hit the ground, her eyes moving wildly in their sockets as she tried to see her attacker. Harry must have had the attacker in his sight, because he planted himself firmly in front of Hermione's frozen body, and Hermione couldn't see anything but the dirt stained edge of Harry's robes and the pine needles on the ground.
Karma. It had to be. The very first spell she ever cast that had the potential to harm someone, bless Neville Longbottom, now used against her in wake of Hermione harming the two people she cared about most.
Because, really, how does one just fall out of love with someone?
