During certain times in her life, Hermione Granger felt very conflicted. At one moment, she was confident and winsome, with a devil-may-care attitude that translated into her social and working lives. The next moment she might have felt painfully self-conscious; another, alienated from her peers because of her frustrated genius.

Such behaviour was normal, she knew, and it had plagued her during her years at school much like any other teenager, magic or muggle. The sense of ambivalence, however, seemed to have compounded in her post-Hogwarts career. It wasn't that she didn't care about anything; on the contrary, it seemed she cared about everything.

The most recent episode had occurred during the Wimbourne-Holyhead Quidditch match, which she'd attended with Ron, Harry, and their girlfriends. Harry and Ginny were finally dating, after years of furtively admiring each other, and Ron was going out with one of his fellow Flourish and Blotts clerks, a lovely girl named Marjorie. Hermione had nothing against Ginny or Marjorie; she'd never seen her two best friends so happy in recent times. Still, during the match, she suddenly felt a wellspring of jealousy rise up in her, as if someone had turned on a tap or flipped a switch. It was violent but brief; in that moment, she wanted to say a few particularly nasty words to everyone, and perhaps apply a generous right cross to Ron's chin. Almost as soon as it came, however, it had left. She was almost breathless with the intensity of the surge of emotion. Then—switch—she found herself reflecting on the dismal relationship she and her parents shared. They'd never understand her, no matter how hard they tried...she was a freakish daughter, who hadn't lived up to their sensible, pragmatic expectations of normal careers, like a professorship or journalism or dentistry. Why in the world was she thinking about her parents during a quidditch match? she wondered. Again, switch—Hermione was filled with a sense of raw, hollow dread; of what, she could not explain.

She didn't understand herself. All her Hogwarts friendships had remained intact; she, Harry and Ron often went out two or three times a month outside of the Order meetings. She'd come to better know the other members of the Order of the Phoenix as she entered their ranks as an equal, and was considered one of their most valuable assets. No one had abandoned, slighted or abused her.

"I'd suggest you see a psychiatrist, Hermione," Remus Lupin had recommended after hearing her recount her latest incident. "I realize it's not a typical move for a member of the magical community, but you're human, too. It may be a chemical imbalance. Draughts of Peace can only go so far."

Sitting in the psychiatrist's office—she refused to lie down on the leather chaise lounge—she was convinced that nothing and no one was influencing her feeling of total ridiculousness. Hermione gave a rudimentary analysis on what she believed was happening, and the psychiatrist had pursed his lips and imperiously ticked some box on his list. "It's my impression that you're suffering from a fear of rejection from your peers. I think a good exercise would be to ask all your colleagues their opinion of you, both good and bad. I believe you'll find you're very valuable within the workplace. You seem very intelligent, Miss Granger."

Excellent. She'd just dropped 300 pounds for some egghead with a wall full of diplomas to tell her exactly what she knew in her head, but didn't stop the emotions. "Stupid Yank," she had fumed to Remus over a cup of coffee after the first session. "He doesn't understand us at all."

"Doesn't understand magical folk?" Remus asked.

"No, us Brits." She wasn't about to ask her associates their unadulterated opinion on her personality; she was coming across as being neurotic enough with these dramatic mood swings. "It's not something I'm making up, I swear. It's like an invisible hand is guiding all of these shifts in temper. You're the self-professed amateur psychologist of the Order, Remus. Tell me what's wrong."

He paused. "I don't know, Hermione. I'll have to look up some case studies."

"Case studies are an awfully poor method of investigation," Hermione observed. "One can find any person that fits their criteria, as long as they look hard enough."

"Your problem isn't exactly common, though," Remus reminded her gently.

She fell silent. "True."

He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "I'll see what I can research."

Meanwhile, the episodes didn't subside. They increased with alarming frequency and detail; often, Hermione wasn't sure if she really did want to sit down with Severus Snape in a small French café and make idle chatter. How in the world did one make small talk with a former Death Eater—one whose sole aim during her Hogwarts years, it seemed, was to quash any variety investigation she and her two best friends began? Snape still held a good deal of animosity towards the newest recruits to the Order. Hermione suspected it was due to a myriad of reasons. Perhaps Harry and his crowd reminded him too much of James Potter and the rest of the Marauders; or maybe it was due to the fact that he couldn't accept the validity of his former students' suggestions (even though most of them were seasoned adults). Possibly he was irked by the sudden influx of Gryffindors—or, conceivably, he just hadn't forgotten the taunts of 'greasy-haired git'. Whatever the reason, Hermione's left brain screamed against the possibility of sipping Bordeaux with her former professor.

It wasn't outlandish in and of itself, spending time with her ex-professors. Alastor Moody was still as cantankerous and skeptical as ever, though, and didn't care to dally among his juniors. Tonks was the exception; as clumsy and inarticulate as she was, he'd taken a real liking to her, and when he described how far she'd come as an Auror the listener could often detect a bit of a catch in his throat.

The concept of a light lunch of braised fish wasn't so strange with Remus Lupin involved, Hermione conceded. He'd only been their professor for one year, and wasn't their sworn archenemy, so it wasn't nearly as queer an idea. Besides, Lupin was the antithesis of Snape; whereas he was gregarious, Snape was private and standoffish. Always the peacemaker, always looking to do his friends a good turn. Whenever he disappeared for the few days out of the month, he came back wan and haggard, but in high spirits, glad to be back among the Order. Years of stress had etched lines of worry into his brow, but Lupin was still very handsome. Hermione blushed. Yes, that was definitely an episode...admiring a man old enough to be her father.

Besides, they'd been developing a lively intellectual friendship. Remus had always been interested in muggle schools of thought, and had encouraged Hermione to apply at Oxford to conduct graduate studies in sociology. Silly, extraneous feelings like the prior attack would sully their relationship if she confessed them, even if she had no power over their emergence or departure.

"I'm going to conduct a little research on my own, if you haven't found an answer," Hermione told Remus after an Order meeting. "I'm guessing you haven't used the internet in your studies."

"I wouldn't know how," he chuckled. "Although I don't think it's going to do you much good—in my opinion, there's something decidedly magical about your condition."

At home that night, Hermione exhausted the possible word combinations that could even remotely describe her condition. She combed online medical encyclopedias with no luck and was ready to admit Remus was right. Why hadn't she simply gone to One Thousand and One Magical Maladies and Diseases straightaway? As a last, almost absurd resort, she Googled her own name. Maybe there was a disease named after her, and she didn't know it. Granger-itis, or some such nonsense.

To her utter surprise, she was confronted with thousands of hits. "What in the world?" she wondered aloud, taking a sip of Earl Grey. Her name wasn't exactly common, after all. Hermione leaned forward, her nose inches from the screen, as she read some of the search descriptions.

"Hogwarts...Harry—Dumbledore?" What in bloody hell? she thought wildly. Trying to temper her panic with reason, she told herself They're only newspaper articles. There was a lot written about us back when You-Know-Who was still around. But...why would they be on muggle news services?

Hastily, she clicked on the first result, which left her with more questions than she began with. She scanned over the first paragraph:

"Hermione Granger wasn't a typical teenager. For starters, she had bushy brown hair that never did what she wanted. She also had two large front teeth, which she tried to conceal behind a closed-mouth grin. But she was also the best in her class at a very strange school: a school that taught magic. It was called Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

It had the tone of a children's biography—but again, why in the world would it be on the muggle information services? It described Hogwarts almost as a foreign institution, something that needed to be explained. Every magical child knew about Hogwarts—well, except the muggle-borns, but why would their parents be providing their children with her biography in the first place?

Compulsively, she sifted through the myriad of web pages, but the final straw was a photograph posted next to her name. "I don't get it," she whispered. "That's me. That's me when I was eleven."

Hermione was shaking—it was almost like finding out you were world famous and hadn't known up until this point (much like Harry's experience, or so it seemed). She shivered as she considered the possibility that children—muggle children—went to bed with tales of Hermione Granger coursing through their minds.

She couldn't bear this shock alone. Pushing away from her computer, she strode toward her fireplace and the small pot of Floo powder resting on its mantel. Hermione took a handful of powder and flung it onto the smoldering logs already burning on the hearth. "Number fifteen, Wellington Way!" she shouted, then plunged her head into the licking green flames.

It was an altogether familiar but still markedly queer sensation, having your head magically transported to a destination twenty miles away while your body stayed behind. The whirling, nausea-inducing feeling didn't do much for her already frazzled nerves. Gagging, and ignoring the throbbing pain in her temples, she squeezed her eyes shut against the pain and shouted into the quiet of a small, simply-furnished flat. "Remus!"

She realized immediately that there was no need to yell—Remus had dozed off, book in hand, in a wingbacked chair in front of the fire. He started awake, dropping the volume onto the floor. "I'm so sorry," Hermione said sheepishly.

"Eh—oh, Hermione!" he said sleepily, recognizing who it was. "What's the trouble?"

"Well…I, erm," she muttered, feeling singularly embarrassed and overly dramatic for shouting. "I was looking around on the muggle information networks and came across something particularly troubling. I was wondering if you could come over and have a look."

He nodded. "Of course. I'll be over in ten minutes." It was then that Hermione noticed Remus was wearing only a dressing gown and house slippers, and she turned bright red. Muttering some appreciative words, she pulled her head out of the fireplace and back into her own apartment. What had she been thinking? Taking a cursory glance at the mantel clock, she realized it was past one. How could she have been so rash, so unthinking? Distractedly, she began to tidy up the room, stacking magazines and books in small piles into larger piles that she decided looked just as bad, if not worse, than before.

Lupin appeared in her living room not long afterward, wearing the frayed but neat waistcoat and trousers that he practically lived in, a leather-bound volume tucked under his arm. "It's awfully good of you to humor me like this," Hermione confessed. "I had no idea how late it was, and I'm terribly sorry I woke you up."

"It's not a problem, Hermione," he said warmly. "I hadn't been asleep for more than fifteen minutes, really. And I've found something that may be of interest to you." He spoke the words with a twinkle in his eye, almost as if he'd heard an exceptionally funny joke and was bursting to tell it.

"Oh?" Hermione asked.

"Yes. But you first."

All the anxiety she'd temporarily forgotten about came rushing back in one mighty flood. "Right," she said, chewing her lip nervously. She walked over to her desk, situated in the opposite corner of the room. "Pull up a chair. I'm guessing I don't have to explain the internet to you?"

"I've got a rudimentary grasp of the thing," Lupin stated.

"That's enough. Most muggles don't understand exactly how it works, either."

She opened the last window she'd viewed, showing Remus some of the unusual sites she'd found. "I just don't understand why people would write fiction about our lives—that's mostly what it is, fiction. There are entire online communities dedicated just to writing about us. Listen to this: 'Hermione raised her hand timidly; she did not want to let on that, in fact, she was very fearful of being proven wrong by her classmates.' Oh, for heaven's sakes—if anything, I was embarrassed by being in those lower-level classes, because of the sheer volume of wrong answers around me. I don't mean to sound prideful, but that was never one of my concerns at Hogwarts. Some of these are just plain awful…like the ones that constantly feature Harry, Ron and I hot on the trail of the Dark Lord with some mysterious and overly perfect exchange student from America." She scrolled through the list of stories: "In this one I'm love with Harry…this one, Ron…Draco?! And—good lord, there's one about you and me!"

An amused smile tugged at the corners of Lupin's mouth. "Really," he said in wonderment. Then, in a jovial tone, asked "What does it say?"

Hermione, who had turned a violent shade of crimson, closed the window quickly. "What's troubling me," she said, determined to stay focused, "is not just the fact that people are playing games with my private life as well as my friends', and not just because it's out on the muggle information networks. It's the fact that…well, I'm worried that these silly things are actually affecting my life—causing the anomalies in my moods. It's almost as if these authors are…rewriting my life."

The silence that followed only caused Hermione to doubt the validity of her farfetched conclusion. "It's idiotic, I know," she sighed, "but it's the only thing that makes sense in a situation that doesn't make much sense to begin with."

He shook his head. "No, I understand. I might've reached the same conclusion, being in your shoes."

"Remus," Hermione said, taking a breath. "Do you…do you think that maybe this is all made up—we're all rolling around in someone's mind, puppets on strings that can be pulled at whim?"

He propped his feet up in the notch of the L-shaped desk, shoving his hands deep in his waistcoat pockets. "I don't know," he said. "I've often been confused by our reality, but I always assumed that since we were magical, there would always be things we didn't understand—things that didn't make sense. It's a tempting proposition, though," he said, smiling. "Maybe someone can rewrite me—perhaps they'll find a cure for me."

"Don't be facetious," Hermione scolded playfully.

"I'm not," he said quietly, looking down and fiddling with his pocketwatch. When he lifted his gaze, his eyes were misty and faraway. "It would be nice, having a normal childhood."

Hermione felt monstrous. "I didn't mean to make light—"

"No, no, it's fine. I've heard worse." He smiled wistfully. "I really can't imagine what it was like for my parents: having a child they had to shut up for a few days a month, a child so insane I might have killed them." A pause. "Or, when they first found out I'd been bitten. I suppose it was a lot like the muggle diseases from years ago—polio, cancer, leukemia—all hopeless cases. How do you face a seven-year-old who will never recover?"

"Remus, I'm so sorry," Hermione apologized softly. "I never knew."

"I tend not to talk about it. I'm not known for being much of a whiner."

"It's unfair, what you've been through. That's not whining. How did you feel, as a child?"

Lupin shrugged. "It was just something else that alienated me from other children. Being magical, being smart, being a werewolf—three strikes against me, I suppose you could say. Children can alternately be the most and least tolerant of humans. They'll either completely ignore differences in others, or seize upon them and bully unmercifully. Before James and Sirius, books were my friends."

"So that's how you developed the fondness for muggle knowledge," she deduced.

"I read everything," Lupin said fondly. "Fiction, nonfiction, prose and poetry, magic and muggle. If life had dealt me a bad hand in this world, I was going to escape into another. I was Robin Hood, Jean Valjean and the Scarlet Pimpernel all at once."

Hermione smiled. "I read Jane Eyre when I was eight or nine years old, and I've read it at least once a year ever since then. If I ever encountered anyone at school who'd read it as well, and I attempted to discuss it with them, they never really liked it as well as I did. It's an absolute horror trying to get Susan Bones or Parvati Patil to comprehend the nature of Jane and Edward Rochester's relationship." She curled a strand of hair around her finger unthinkingly. "I suppose I identified mostly with Jane, as a girl who's completely alone in the world, isolated from her family, surrounded by people who don't understand her. We're alike, in that respect. Both completely misunderstood." She took a sip of her tea, now cold and bitter. "So, if books were your friends when you were smaller, did you read as much when you went to Hogwarts?"

"Well, no, partly because of the workload. I read less for pleasure, of course, but as you're implying, James, Sirius and Peter diminished my reliance on them."

"How does it feel?" she asked softly. "Being the last of the Marauders, I mean."

"Terrible," he said, tight lipped, and Hermione pursued the topic no further—partially by her own choice, but also because she was filled with a terrible panic at that moment. Her breath quickened, and she wasn't aware until about two seconds later that she'd gripped the desk as she pitched forward violently. Remus gripped her shoulders to prevent her falling forward completely. "Are you all right?" he asked, concerned.

"Yes," she gasped between breaths. "I guess someone wrote something about me feeling panicked."

"May I try something?" he asked.

"Of course," she said, the attack subsiding.

He helped her to her feet and drew his wand out of his waistcoat pocket. "Particulum," he murmured, moving the wand over Hermione from head to toe, and a fine trail of amber dust shot steadily out of its tip, covering her completely. She closed her eyes, expecting the powder to clog her eyes and nose, but strangely enough felt nothing on her skin. Cracking an eyelid, she was astounded to see that she was encased in a clear, weightless casing, which the dust coursed over in tiny streams. "As I suspected," Lupin said, brow furrowed. "It's not psychiatric or viral or anything ordinary. You've got a very rare parasite, a melenkolyte, leeching off your emotions."

"Oh, is that all?" Hermione asked sardonically, her voice shaking. "A very rare parasite? Probably no cure, right?"

Lupin grinned in spite of the situation. "There is a cure. It's not pleasant, though it's safe, and it'll kill the bugger off once and for all. Severus can mix the antidote for you, but it takes two or three days to completely rid the body of its effects. You'll be pretty much unconscious during that time."

"You know, I'd appreciate it if you'd tell me what exactly this thing is," she stated, slightly annoyed with Lupin's flippant attitude. "I don't think you quite understand what I'm going through."

"I think I do," he shot back, uncharacteristically cross. "You're snapping at your friends for no reason, completely against your will. Every fiber of your moral being is screaming against it, but you're imprisoned to something you can't control. I think I understand that rather well, don't you think?"

Sullenly, Hermione realized he was right, but didn't let on. Remus cleared his throat. "To address your concern," he said, his voice even, "the melenkolyte attaches to persons who are being discussed or written about in great volumes. The best way I can describe how it works is by likening it to a muggle radio receiver. It picks up both the negative and positive things that are being said about a person—in this case, you—and influences your emotions. It's in effect creating its own food, as it devours your emotional activity. That's mostly why you feel so drained. It's about like having an emotional tapeworm, I imagine. Napoleon suffered from a melenkolyte during his imprisonment on Elba, and since there was no wizard around to cure him, he died."

"Napoleon was magical?" Hermione exclaimed, astonished.

"Why else would such a small man command so much respect?"

"Then how in the world did he fall to Wellington's troops at the Battle of Waterloo?"

"The magical community wasn't as developed at the time, so Bonaparte wasn't fully aware of his magical capacity," Lupin explained. "Besides, he couldn't just pull out a wand and hex a bunch of muggles into oblivion, could he?"

"But why didn't he just apparate off of Elba and fake his death?" Hermione persisted.

"It's unknown at the moment, but it probably has to do with the melenkolyte infection completely draining what will he had left. The magical community only recently became aware of his abilities, and the topic is still being discussed."

"Fascinating," Hermione breathed, then realized that she'd completely forgotten about her sickness in her academic zeal. She noticed the leather-bound tome Remus had brought with him when he'd Flooed over to her apartment resting on her desk. "What was the book you wanted to show me?"

"I found your condition in the fifth volume of The Encyclopedia of Mediwizardry and Nursing. I thought you'd like to read over the article."

"No thanks. I'd rather read about it after the fact." Hermione said uneasily. "I'm afraid my thirst for knowledge stops here. Thanks anyway."

"That's all right." He turned to leave. "Severus will bring the potion by tomorrow. I'll make personally sure he does."

"No, you won't," Hermione contradicted. "Look at the calendar." The words "full moon" and its accompanying symbol were printed on Monday's date.

"Good Lord, I almost forgot," Lupin said, turning pale. "I guess I'll just owl Severus, then."

"You think I'll get along? On my own, I mean."

He shrugged it off. "You should be fine. I'll have someone sneak in and check on you from time to time, but you probably won't need it." Remus crossed over to the fireplace and took a handful of Floo powder. He hesitated. "You cut your hair," Lupin stated out of the blue, his expression relaxed as he turned around. "I noticed a few days ago, but never came around to telling you how nice it looked."

She blushed. "Thank you," she managed to choke out, her hand smoothing the back of her hair, which stopped at her chin. "You don't think it's too short?"

"No, not at all," he said, genuinely. "It really suits you."

"Thanks. And thank you—for everything. You're too kind."

"No, thank you...for listening to the ramblings of an old man." He tossed the powder gently into the fire, shouted his address, and disappeared in a puff of ash and a roar of flames.

The Potions master swept into Hermione's flat the next day, a morose cloud trailing him as usual, and sullenly dropped off her antidote. "Everyone believes that I am some kind of chemist with nothing better to do than mix up their medications," he sulked. "If it were not so complex, I'd be insulting myself by thinking I couldn't teach you to whip up your own. At least you're not as bad as Potter," he conceded. "How can one not be able to follow printed directions? I shudder to think what damage he can do in the kitchen."

Hermione snorted—it was true, after all—and Severus left before she could ask about any sort of side effects or what to expect. She examined the vial: it was black as coal, and completely opaque. It hardly moved against the cork when she shook it. "Bloody hell," she cried. At least she'd picked up something from hanging around Ron so much during her formative years. "What is it? Pudding?"

She poured herself a glass of water and started to work on the potion. It was the consistency of axle grease and tasted worse, but she managed to choke it down. Hermione sat down on her couch nervously, half-expecting to grow a beard or transform into a toad, but nothing happened. This isn't bad. I can deal with four days of this…maybe it's four days of bad taste in the mouth, she thought.

Slowly, ever so slowly, though, the poison sneaked up on her as it coursed through her body. Hermione realized after only a few minutes that she felt completely weakened, and thought it a good idea to trundle off to bed. Her body refused to cooperate, however, as her legs felt about the consistency of the potion itself; clawing at shelves and chairs she attempted to make it at least as far as her bedroom doorway.

There was a darkness enveloping her now, a darkness that was more frightening than any of the attacks she'd experienced, because at least the attacks were something. The sooty blackness spawned nothingness, and the absolute oblivion held shades of Death in its inky realm. Good God, she thought, almost with complete surrender. So this is the end.

It was only the beginning, however, of a series of flashes from Hermione's past—some she recognized, some she didn't. It was almost like watching a slide show of her life, except with alternate universes thrown into the mix. At this point, she couldn't tell which she had actually experienced and which she'd merely imagined. She could see herself falling and skinning her knee at age four, and her mum kissing away the tears. She'd felt so safe then, being enveloped in a huge hug and knowing everything was all right. Coming face-to-face with the Dark Lord himself. Pilfering Harry's candy when he wasn't looking on board the Hogwarts Express. Being laughed at in primary school because she didn't look or act like the other girls. Getting her first owl and the acceptance letter to Hogwarts—giving her a reason for that difference. Making tea for her parents as they visited her flat. Her bare legs next to Ron's, as they giggled under a towel after a late-night swim in the lake.

Then, smash. A white room. But she was not alone.

Suddenly she realized that everyone was in this room. Not figuratively; every person she'd ever met, every body from every corner of her mind had congregated in this space. There was the lady from Swindon who smelled like fish that Hermione had seen on vacation with her parents when she was six. There was the clerk from Ollivander's who'd sold her first wand. And of course, there was Harry...and Ron...

Remus, she thought, where are you?

Suddenly, he was standing there next to her, his sad eyes communicating a lifetime of hurt and pain that she wanted to understand. She reached out, but couldn't touch his thin overcoat. Remus, help me. Be with me, please.

But now he, and the millions of others, was hurtling away from her, and everything became blurred as she lost her grip and slipped into the insignificance below...

It was morning when she finally awoke. At least, she thought it was morning. Lemony sunlight was streaming in through lace curtains, creating fanciful patterns on the bedspread. Her head felt heavy and throbbed with pain, and her limbs felt roughly the weight of lead. She tried to lift her right hand, but couldn't. Her left was fine…but that right hand…

She rolled her eyes downwards, and realized there was a hand gripping hers. Her eyes had difficulty focusing at first—it was so tiring, doing something so rudimentary—and recognized by the little blond hairs on the knuckles who it belonged to.

"Remus?" she whispered hoarsely. He was sitting on a chair next to her bedside, hunched over onto the bed in slumber; upon hearing his name, he stirred ever so slightly. "Remus," she repeated, and he awoke, looking at her with bleary eyes.

"You're awake," he said, his voice calm and sweet as he withdrew his hand.

"How long have you been here?" Hermione asked.

"Oh, since Wednesday morning," he said, and by his tone he made it seem like no more than a few hours.

"What's today?"

"Friday afternoon. The poison took a little longer to circulate through your system than expected."

She rolled her eyes around the room and realized it was not her bedroom, but a hospital ward. "Am I in St. Mungo's? Why?"

"Severus decided it was a good idea for you to have more supervision during the treatment process. I would have agreed if I wasn't incapacitated at the time." He grinned, as if turning into a werewolf every once and again was a particularly funny and painless process. "He was afraid that he'd mixed the potion a little too strong, and I think he was right. He found you completely unconscious when he went to check on you and brought you here immediately afterward."

"Then why did you stay?" Hermione inquired further, apparently unimpressed that her former Potions professor didn't wish death on her, after all. "I've undoubtedly got a staff of trained Mediwizards and witches to look after me."

He paused, as if searching for the best response. "I thought it would be nice to have a friendly face waiting for you when you awoke."

"I dreamed," she said absently. "I dreamed about a thousand fantastic things while I was asleep. You were there," she stated, sounding almost amazed as the hallucinations floated back to her. "Am I completely well?"

"All things considered, you won't be able to go home for a few days as you regain your strength—"

"No," she interrupted, "I mean, there's nothing else influencing my emotions right now? What I feel is my own?"

"One hundred percent."

"Oh." She'd assumed her current mood was a vestige of the sickness, but now, with it still remaining, it simultaneously thrilled and terrified her. "There's something I've been wondering, Remus—I suppose it was just a batty idea my psychiatrist gave me—"

"Yes?"

"One of the 'cures' he'd suggested to me—I think he was the one that was balmy, after all I've been through—was to ask my friends and colleagues their completely honest opinion of myself." Her heart raced in her chest, like a canary in a cage, thumping against her ribs and almost struggling to escape. "What do you think of me, Remus?"

His eyes dropped to his folded hands. "Well," he said, stalling for time as he thought of an answer. Hermione could see the vein in his gaunt neck begin to pulse faster—was he nervous? "I've always thought you were very intelligent...anyone who's met you before can discern that. You've got more passion about your learning than I could ever muster, though. Of course, you've got courage to spare, being from Gryffindor, but you're also fiercely loyal. You were tested of that when You-Know-Who came back, and you succeeded. The Death Eaters couldn't sway your allegiance to Dumbledore, even when it looked like we'd fail to keep the Dark Lord from power. I think you're kind, and caring, and—you've grown into a beautiful young woman."

Remus' eyes were still downcast, as if he was almost ashamed. Hermione reached out and took one of his hands, stroking the back encouragingly with her thumb. "You don't think it's creepy that your old professor thinks you're attractive, do you?" he asked, meeting her eyes.

"Not in the slightest," she replied. "You wouldn't find it weird to be dating one of your old students, do you?"

He laughed quietly. "I forgot to mention that you were clever," he declared, standing up. "I'm afraid you're just overtired from the treatment. I'll come back a little later—"

"No! Remus, listen to me. Taking the poison was like a gigantic tidal pool of emotions—my anger would ebb as the depression would rush in. I revisited my emotions over the past few years as slowly, one by one, the potion would extricate each of those terrible feelings. However, it left one area of my life untouched...and Remus, if I've ever been sure of anything, it's that I love you."

Her words hung in the air and neither one reacted for a heartbeat. "I know it's stupid," she cried, the words tumbling out in an effort to break free. "You probably were just being courteous when I asked your opinion of me—"

"It's not stupid. I meant everything I said," Lupin said stoutly. He leaned in and gave Hermione a kiss on the top of her head, his stubbly chin brushing against her forehead. He gave her hand a little squeeze. "I guess it's a good start."

Mustering all of her strength, Hermione sat up and leaned forward—without Remus there to catch her, she would have fallen over. Captured in his arms, she whispered, "I think this is a better start," and they shared a kiss that would have turned Jane Eyre bright green with jealousy.