Part of the Year Long Scavenger Hunt ([E05] Write about a cross-gen pairing that breaks up because of other's opinions) on HPFC.
A Single Word
She was laughing. Her beautiful brown eyes shone with a youthful innocence. Her mouth was set in a half-smile, the one she reserved for her friends. Not even Remus got to see it very often. He watched her from across the room while she, Ron and Harry played a game of Fred and George's invention. Something to do with an Extendable Ear and a puffskein. It was child's play, but then… Hermione was a child.
This Sirius kept reminding him.
She caught his eye. Damn it. He had wanted her to keep playing whatever silly game it was. It was a peaceful sight, watching her laugh. It was like watching snow fall from the sky and settle on your coat. Both had a way of making you realize just how fleeting the action is.
Her smile faded and she stood up, walking away from her friends and towards him.
Remus was leaning against the door frame and Hermione slid into the curve of his body, filling a void he hadn't really realized was there.
"What's wrong?" she asked, pecking his neck with her lips.
"Don't," said Remus, eyeing the rest of the people in the room. Harry and Ron didn't really care enough to look up from their game, but Fred and George, Molly and Arthur were all trying their best not to gaze in their general direction. The only person who was bold enough to look at the pair of them together was Sirius. He had an odd expression on his face, one Remus had never seen before. It was almost a mixture of pity and aversion.
"'Don't'?" Hermione said, her eyebrows drawing together. "What do you mean, 'don't'?"
Remus began to feel the walls closing in on him. He remembered Sirius' words before dinner. She's a child, Remus. A bloody child. Don't let your heart rule your head if your heart needs this. Be a man about it, mate. Be a man, not a child, he meant. Don't allow your wants to overpower necessity, is what he meant. And it was necessary for him to make this choice.
Remus took Hermione's hand and led her into the hallway. Luckily, no one was there, but she stopped dead in the doorway and planted her feet.
"What are you doing?" he asked, tugging on her hand a little harder.
"Why do you want me to go in there?"
"I need to speak with you."
Hermione tugged her hand free of Remus', gripping the left door frame with white knuckles. Tears began to form in the corner of her beautiful eyes, and her lip was quivering.
"Hermione," he said, recognizing the signs but not quite sure he would be able to help her. "This is for the best." No it isn't. "There's a thousand reasons we shouldn't be together." There are a million reasons we shouldn't be apart. "It's best we simply walk away." And by doing so, causing my heart to split in two. "I'm sorry." I'm so fucking sorry.
She stood there at the doorway, inhaling deeply, slowly, thinking it through. Remus reached out to touch her face, but she pushed his hand away.
"Don't," she said, her eyes dark. Hermione brushed past him, walking up the stairs behind him. He didn't look despite the burning desire to follow her every movement with his eyes.
He looked through the doorway, across the room. No one was looking. No one but Sirius, and Sirius' eyes held pity.
Remus slunk back against the hall wall, slid down it until he reached the floor and grabbed fistfuls of his thinning gray hair. He had to be a man. But what the fuck was the point of being something if it meant destroying something else?
He heard a single sob come from upstairs. He looked up as if he would see her, leaning on the edge of the banister with a smile on her face. He saw nothing.
He felt nothing.
He was nothing—
without her.