When they'd all made it upstairs, the four of them were out of breath, but all smiles. The ridiculousness of the situation had sucked away all traces of concern.
"I cast a stasis spell, so unless you've genuinely got a house full of stuff in there-" Harry said. Ron snorted.
"I haven't," Hermione protested. "Not anymore, anyway. I threw most of it at the Death Eaters in the cafe."
"I'm no longer quite as surprised that we won that," Ron said. "Did I see a tent?"
"The tent makes sense," Harry said. "The Muggle boombox?"
"I will admit to needing to winnow down certain impulsive additions to my bag," Hermione said. "Being able to start from scratch is an unexpected but not wholly unwelcome turn of events."
"Never change, Hermione," Ron said, shaking his head and grinning.
"Woe to anyone who takes you for granted, Hermione," Lupin said with a genuine smile. She couldn't stop herself from smiling back.
"Before I go down and face the music," Hermione said, moving toward the door. "What brings you to our safe house, Professor?" As soon she spoke the words, she could see the drastic effect they had on their recipient. Remus took in a long, ragged breath and scrubbed his large hands over his face.
"First things first," he said, sitting on the edge of a nearby armchair and leaning forward. "Kingsley got everyone out, at the wedding. The Death Eaters have been visiting every household known to be favorable toward Dumbledore, but they've not hurt any people at those places, not yet, at least." This last statement was directed to Ron, who nodded and mouthed a heartfelt 'thank you.' Remus turned to Hermione. "The boys have told me you three were spotted almost immediately once you'd left the wedding," he said. "That's particularly worrisome, considering that they were out here clearly searching for you. That they didn't find you is a clear indication that this location is under Fidelius. They're not going to stop searching here."
"Clear to anyone with a brain, you mean," Harry pointed out.
"Well, yes, but underestimating our enemy-"
Hermione couldn't bear the idea of making Lupin go through exactly why such a thing was a bad idea.
"So we take our tents and supplies and go into hiding," Hermione said firmly. "I'd expected that." She turned toward the door with purpose, already thinking about the things to definitely replace in the bag, and scanning her mental catalogue for items she'd not checked off, yet.
"Hermione," Remus said, reaching out to stop her and failing as she walked past.
"You three can catch me up when I'm done," she said, irritated.
"There's more." He was using his 'professor' voice. Hermione could feel the hysteria bubbling to the surface as she turned around and addressed the three of them.
"Our world has gone sideways, everyone we love is in danger, my best friend is the one chosen by magical fate to fix everything, what more could there be for you to-"
"The Daily Prophet today ran an article claiming that Harry is the one responsible for Albus Dumbledore's death."
"It's not enough that they KILLED him, they need to make ME take the blame for it?!" Harry was furious. "You'd think with the Ministry in his pocket the slimy git would be trying to run Dumbledore's name into the ground instead of mine!"
Harry started stomping around gesticulating wildly, and behind him, Ron rushed to grab anything breakable and set it down against the wall, out of sight.
"That's logic, Harry. They're not logical, never have been," Lupin said sadly. "At any rate, the article's not likely to change any minds, but they are likely to spur a reward for your capture."
"I wish we could lace a stockpile of butterbeer with Harry Potter polyjuice potion," Ron said, punching Harry's shoulder lightly in a sort of tough love comfort gesture. "Can you imagine?"
"If only we could have the ridiculous without the evil, or the incompetence without it bleeding across to both sides," Remus said.
"Sorry, mate," Ron said, instantly contrite.
"No," Remus said, standing. "I didn't mean you, Ron. Not any of you. You're the best of a group of truly good people standing against the turned tide. No," he repeated. "I meant me." He turned away from the three of them and walked sadly over to the bank of windows.
"Remus?" Hermione said, forgetting the importance of getting out of there in the face of his defeated behavior.
"Come on, Ron, let's start on that room. If They know we're in the area, we need to be ready to clear out on zero notice," Harry said.
Hermione couldn't find it in herself to be angry at Harry's instinct to cut and run. It was obvious to all of them that Hermione was the right person to talk sense to Lupin, even if all of their puzzled looks toward each other made clear that no one had any clue what he could be referring to.
When she shut the door behind Harry and Ron, Hermione turned around, crossed her arms, rested her back against the door, and waited.
"Incompetent?" she prompted, keeping her tone light.
"I could make you a list," Remus said, not looking at her. "But I'm sure you'll object to every entry on it."
"Don't worry, I won't insult your list," Hermione told him. "I'll just insult your ability to self-assess."
"Dora left."
Hermione straightened, her mouth open in shock. "Oh no! Remus, what-"
"I just can't stop worrying," Remus said. He walked back toward the center of the room, scrubbing his hands over his face and then through his hair, leaving it tousled and sticking out in odd angles. "No matter how much she reassured me, how much information from books and articles she showed me-thanks for that, by the way, it was very thoughtful-" Hermione nodded, her hand still covering her mouth in disbelief. "I just never trusted that something about me wouldn't somehow snap and ruin everything. She has so much potential, too much life in her to be tied to me. And now… Merlin, she's-she's pregnant, Hermione."
Hermione sank into a chair by the door. She was completely shocked, and it was clear that Remus still was, as well. She struggled to speak some kind of comforting platitude against the enormous lump in her throat. These two precious, kind, brave people! They deserved every happiness, but now both were suffering.
"She left because of the baby, or…?" she forced herself to ask.
"No, she's happy, says she's happy," he said, taking a few steps toward her and then sort of collapsing in a controlled topple against the wall perpendicular to Hermione's chair. "I drove her away with my fears about the baby. All I could hear was the voice of my father, and all the horrible things he'd told me over the years-that my children would all be werewolves, if I ever found anyone not repulsed by me for long enough to have any. I tried to explain why I was worried, but… She was furious. She told me I wasn't trying hard enough to fight off the bad memories, and she was right! I haven't fought hard enough for Dora, or for the baby," Remus said, gasping for breath against a tide of misery that looked ready to overwhelm him. "I didn't fight hard enough for James, I didn't fight hard enough for Sirius-" All at once, he began to cry, taking in great gulping breaths in between clenched teeth as though he had to struggle not to cry out with the pain of it.
Hermione cast a non-verbal Notice Me Not on herself right away, basically tucking herself into her chair and waiting. She could imagine no one with more dignity than Remus Lupin, and felt oddly lucky that it was she who was able to watch over him in the unhappiness of that moment. Once he seemed to be calming down slightly, she ended her spell and conjured up a thick, soft handkerchief and offered it to him. He took it almost absently and stared at it without moving to use it. After a couple more minutes his breathing evened out, though tears still streamed down his face, some finding their way along his scars. When he spoke again, his voice was a bit more steady, but it was a near thing.
"That's why I'm here," he said. "I've failed as a husband right out of the gate, but I won't fail as a father if I can make a difference in this war."
"You have already made a great deal of difference, Remus, even if none of us ever took the time to tell you," Hermione said, putting as much warmth and gratitude in her voice as she could. "Your classes were the first time most of us had ever found value in Defense Against the Dark Arts as a discipline. You were a constant and loving friend to Harry's parents, and you've been fighting against Death Eaters since before we knew what to call them!"
"That's very kind of you, Hermione," Remus said. His voice sounded distant and overly polite, and Hermione knew instinctively that she wouldn't appreciate or agree with whatever he said next.
She was right.
"I intend for my son or daughter to look back on what I've done the same way that Harry looks back on James and Lily with pride," Remus said. He turned his grief wet face toward the ceiling, closing his eyes tightly as if to evict the last of the tears. "Take me with you, let me do the dangerous things, let my sacrifice help bring victory."
Hermione stared at him in shock, but he refused to look over at her. Instead, he straightened his head, his jaw set stubbornly and his hands pulling into fists.
"With all due respect-" she started to say.
"Ah, the Muggle code for 'you're an idiot,'" Remus said with uncharacteristic cruelty.
"Well, you are being an idiot," Hermione said, standing up and walking across the room to the approximate place he seemed to be staring. She knelt down, putting herself in his exact line of sight and resolutely made eye contact. Hermione raised her eyebrows, daring him to look away from her. "James and Lily Potter became casualties of the war because they were deliberately targeted. NOT because they had an argument with someone who loved them and decided to throw their lives away to make a point! You might even say it was their destiny."
"With all due respect, Hermione, you are hardly the person to tell me what is and is not my destiny," Remus said, glaring at her.
The fact that slapping him would prove him wrong made the action incredibly difficult to resist, but she managed to ignore the impulse. Instead, she took a deep breath and modulated her voice back down from infuriated to mildly angry.
"You're defensive. I get it. But if you want to help us, you should help us to help us, not to throw your life away on the off chance people might like you better once you're dead!"
On hearing that, Remus looked away, but it didn't feel like a victory. Hermione stood up and began putting the room back in order. She knew Lupin well enough to guess that he needed some semblance of privacy to back away from the metaphorical precipice he seemed determined to throw himself from.
She'd just finished moving a set of decorative bells (it was strangely comforting to see that Muggles weren't the only ones to collect random useless objects) when she turned around to find him standing silently behind her, very close by. He didn't quite look contrite, but he appeared calmer.
"I want to help. I need to."
"Speaking for myself, seeing you happy would be incredibly helpful," Hermione said. His look of surprise was unexpectedly endearing. "Everything lately has been unrelentingly grim. Knowing people I care about are happy and safe would make it worth it."
"Is there a second option?" Remus said, not without humor.
Hermione set down another knick knack and stepped closer to him, twisting her hands together in front of her to avoid her instinct to reach out. Suddenly, she remembered something from her notes, something that might make a difference to Remus in particular.
"I've done a great deal of research on werewolves," she said. "There is nothing, nothing about it being hereditary. There are werewolf families, Remus, I know you've seen them." He nodded, wincing. "Listen to me, Remus: those children are werewolves, and there's a reason for that, but it's not the reason you think. It's because their parents bite them. They turn their own children into werewolves once the children reach a certain age."
Remus sucked in his breath, eyes wide.
"You would never do that." She said it as a statement, because it simply wasn't a question.
"Never," he breathed.
"It's a barbaric tradition, and the fact that you're clearly horrified tells me everything anyone would need to know about what kind of a father you're going to be," Hermione said, trying her hardest to smooth out any rough, angry edges in her voice. That anger was for the werewolves she was speaking about, not the werewolf she was speaking to. "Knowing that horrible practice happens is your avenue back to your wife. Tell her you were mistaken. Tell her why you were mistaken. She'll understand."
This was a turning point, and the look of relief on his face was so palpable that she forgot to step away from him, forgot that crucial distance lest one of them accidentally touch the other and give her secret away. She'd clearly lit on exactly the misunderstanding that had caused him the most pain, and its removal had given him a hope that shone brightly on his face. Before she could stop him, he reached out and grasped her hand, words of gratitude spilling from his mouth.
His touch was electric. It was at once warm and welcoming, but also exciting, lighting her up inside in a way she'd never experienced. She felt as though up to this point in her life, her magic had always been on the threshold of something, and she hadn't noticed what had been missing until this exact moment. When Remus touched her, the final barrier to perfection dissolved away. All at once she felt safe, powerful, and cherished.
The two of them stood frozen in place for what felt like a long time, each processing the flood of emotions and sensations, but it was the feeling of being cherished, of being loved that broke the spell for her. That was wrong-that was a manufactured emotion, and it was completely misplaced as far as Hermione was concerned. The bowled-over feeling she'd felt faded just as quickly as a burst balloon that had gone spinning in circles away and out of sight.
Now what do I do?!
"Hermione?" Remus's eyes were closed. If she played her reaction perfectly, the explanation she'd thought up just now might work.
"Remus, you're scaring me a little," she said, trying to eradicate any breathlessness from her tone of voice. His touch still affected her like a drug, and it was hard to concentrate, but when she tried to pull away, his grip tightened, and he opened his eyes to stare at her. He looked, in a word, wrecked. Her entire plan hinged on the feeling not seeming to be mutual.
"Did you get hit by some sort of seizure spell?" Hermione asked, avoiding looking at him and instead focusing on trying to get him to let go of her hand.
"Hermione," he repeated. "You didn't feel that?!"
"Well, I'm losing the feeling in my hand, so that part, I feel," she said. Lying to him felt like she was slowly filling herself with bile from her toes on up. It was horrible. "Are you able to let go, or should I try to cast something?"
"Hermione!" Remus said, exasperation and wonder warring in his voice. He was clearly trying to get her to look at him, and in so doing, grabbed Hermione's other hand. It took every single ounce of her concentration and power to school her face into one of frustrated confusion. Remus Lupin belonged with Nymphadora Tonks and their baby. 'This is your responsibility, remember your responsibility.'
"Don't worry, Remus, we'll sort this out," she said, the wooden tone of her voice reminding her of the very big lie she was trying to sell to the person who was now unquestionably her soulmate.
"You genuinely didn't feel that?" Remus said in clear disbelief. He dropped one of her hands, but seemed loathe to release the other.
"Can I throw out a guess?" Hermione asked, still studiously avoiding looking him in the face.
"Please?" he answered. His voice sounded incredibly lost.
"Does this feel anything like the scent you were chasing when you first got here?"
"Actually, yes," he said, suddenly dropping her hand like it was covered in poison. The resulting loss of euphoria sent her mind reeling-it hurt far worse than she'd anticipated. She reminded herself that Remus would be feeling the same way, and that she should keep that in mind when assessing his mood and reactions.
"What… if you don't mind me asking, what did it feel like?"
"Like you're my soulmate, Hermione," Remus said, simply.
She drew on every bit of her skepticism since first suspecting that very possibility, but couched it in a manner that implied they were both in on a very great joke. "Well, that's a load of nonsense, right? So what could it really have been?"
Remus looked almost offended. Almost being the key word, there. The seed of doubt had been sown, and Hermione's job was to make it grow.
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Hermione couldn't sleep.
It had taken a little over ten minutes to convince Remus to believe in her 'theory' of a spell designed specifically for him by Severus Snape. She suggested the spell had successfully latched onto him as soon as he'd entered #12 Grimmauld Place. It was actually one of the best plans she'd ever come up with, ironically. The idea that Snape would devise a spell to confuse and distract two of the most trusted members of the Order of the Phoenix without outright attacking either of them was characteristic of the man. Both she and Lupin were among the Potion Master's least favorite people, and the confusion and disorder the discovery could have sown would probably have fostered resentment and misery in more than just the two most affected parties.
Once the situation had been explained to Harry and Ron, Remus was persuaded to head towards home and concoct the best plan of action to regain the affection and trust of his wife. Hermione fervently hoped that the shock and intensity 'Snape's curse' wouldn't damage the relationship further. After all, she had never intended for the bond to be discovered in the first place, much less during a low period in Remus and Tonks' relationship.
Here's hoping being loved and loving that person in return will help erase the memory of that moment, Hermione thought to herself. Personally, the touch and its aftermath was pretty much all she could think about, to the point where she wished there was a safe and easy way to Obliviate herself. Even then, though, it would probably be suspicious for her cover story if she managed to forget such a blatant 'attack' on herself and Remus.
It felt like her magic ached. That perfect harmony she'd experienced had given her a glimpse of the highest state of magical being, with two people in complete attunement with each other in body, mind, and magic. Except it was a shameful lie! Neither Remus nor Hermione had any shred of romantic attachment for each other, and the entire feeling was magically projected onto them as though they were completely blank slates with no free will of their own! Surely the truth of werewolf soulmates was that the potential for that sort of hypnotic bliss was greatest for those particular people, not that somehow the magic would force it into being.
Surely?
Another of her father's favorite pastimes was playing Devil's Advocate. He'd been firm in his conviction that no opinion was solid unless the person holding that opinion was at least willing to entertain the possibility that they were on the 'wrong' side, or that there was something that could change their mind. At 9:30 PM, Hermione had shut the mental door to Devil's Advocate. Now, at 1:43 AM, she unlocked the door and allowed her mental gravity to pull it open a crack.
Maybe soulmates were so rare that any pair of people who discovered they were bonded simply threw their hands up and accepted fate, no matter what their circumstances had been like beforehand.
Maybe soulmate magic reached out through the cosmos and designated which souls were destined to remain separated by time and space, and which souls were destined for the harmony and bliss she'd glimpsed when Remus had touched her. Maybe that magic was wiser than they were?
Maybe magic didn't have a rhyme or reason when it came to soulmates, and the reward for having your life turned upside down was the intense power, security, and compatibility that happened if you were lucky enough to find each other?
Maybe it was all three.
