A/N: Sheesh. It has been an pretty unforgivable amount of time since I updated this, hasn't it?
This chapter departs a bit from the direction the previous chapters were taking, but I swear there is a method to my madness. This is a RemusHermioneSirius story, after all, not just a HermioneSirius or HermioneRemus.
Anyway, I hope you like it.
And Amy - no matter what you may think, you are still the Golden to my Duo. You are infinitely more talented than you give yourself credit for. I love you and thank you for everything you've done for me, and will do for me in the future.
Chapter Six – The Mirror of Truth
Remus sat alone at a table in the Hog's Head, nursing a pint of ale and trying to make sense of all the thoughts that were running through his head. He didn't know how everything had gotten so turned around. One minute, he had been in a loving, mutually-satisfying relationship, and the next, he was fighting to keep a woman he barely recognized. Hermione had been the woman he had thought he would always be able to count on. She was smart, steady and predictable. While he knew that most of her friends considered that boring, it was the part he loved most about her.
Recently, however, her personality had shifted. Though still the smart, successful woman he knew, she now had an edge to her. An edge that seemed in perpetual search for some type of adventure. Though he was a reasonably certain that she kept most of that spirit confined within the pages of her novels, he could tell that it was only a matter of time before she went looking for something to quench that new-found hunger.
Sirius was the perfect person for that new, adventurous side; a fact that scared Remus to no end.
"Good God, could you have picked a drearier place to meet?"
Remus looked up from his glass to see an impeccably made-up, beautiful blonde slide into the chair across from him, her warm brown eyes surveying the pub with a look of misgiving. She motioned to Aberforth for a glass of ale before turning to look at him, surveying him with an appraising, honest eye.
"Hello, darling. You look like shit," she said candidly.
He gave a bitter chuckle.
"Good to see you too, Amanda," he replied dryly.
She shot a grateful smile to the bar as her pint floated toward her, then turned her attention back to him.
"I see we're in one of those moods, then. Alright, Sulky, what's up? Did Ms. Perfect not go for the whole "please-marry-me-even-though-you're-way-too-good-for-me" thing?" she teased.
Remus had promised himself he wasn't going to cry. He never cried, even when he had very good reasons to do so. But Amanda McKinnon was one of a handful of people who knew him inside and out, and it was that reason and that reason alone that he could not control the tears that started to fall.
Amanda was next to him in a heartbeat.
"Hey now," she whispered, wrapping her arm around his shoulders. "I was only joking. What happened?"
"Everything is falling apart," he said softly. "I don't...I don't even know her anymore."
"Who? Hermione? Remus, you two have been together forever. Who knows her better if not you?"
He gave a deep sigh.
"I don't know. But I can feel everything changing. We had a huge row five minutes after we got engaged. I mean, who does that?"
"You're engaged? Congratulations!"
"I don't even know anymore. I said some stupid stuff and I apologized but...I didn't mean it."
"From my observations, it wouldn't be a marriage if you weren't apologizing for something or other, even if you don't mean it. We women can be oversensitive sometimes."
"That's not it. I'm not wrong. It's just...the last time I felt so strongly about someone, I lost her."
"You're not going to lose Hermione, Remus. She loves you."
"I don't know that."
"She agreed to marry you, didn't she?"
"But she's changed! She used to be this stable, reliable, conservative woman and I loved her for it. Now, it's like...I don't know, like she doesn't want to be that woman anymore."
"Remus, I've never met Hermione Granger, but from what I've heard and from what I've read, she was never that type of woman. Marlene was."
Remus looked up at the woman next to him. Amanda was the very picture of her sister, though perhaps a little less naive than the woman he had once loved. Even with fifteen years between them, Amanda possessed an intellect that had always surprised Remus. She was the mirror of truth he could never escape from; the purveyor of wisdom beyond her years that she had spun into a rather lucrative career as a psycho-analyst at St. Mungo's.
Theirs was a complicated relationship. She had been seven when Marlene had been killed. Her parents had been devastated in spite of disowning Marlene years earlier. They had turned their guilt and self-pity on Amanda, who in turn rebelled and ran away at the age of thirteen. Remembering Remus as the last connection to her sister, she had shown up on his doorstep soon after. Though he had no means to support her, with the help of Dumbledore Remus managed to get her into Beauxbatons and since then he had been both a mentor and a supportive older brother figure to her.
Recently, however, she had played more of the part of the supportive sibling than he.
"Mandy...Hermione has always been..."
"Strong? Self-reliant? Predictable? Remus, think about it. You two got together just a few years after the war. She had spent most of her adolescence under some kind of threat. At that time, she needed routine, peace and quiet. But now...I suppose she's grown tired of it."
"But why does she have to change?"
"People develop, Remus, they don't necessarily change."
"Marlene didn't 'develop.' She just...was."
"Are you asking Hermione to be like Marlene?"
"No, of course not."
"It sounds a little like you are."
"Well...I'm not saying it would be a bad thing if she remained that strong, self-reliant, predictable woman I knew. But Marlene's definitely changed."
"You mean Hermione."
"I...yes. I mean Hermione."
"Remus, are you still in love with my sister?"
Remus paused. There it was. The mirror of truth he couldn't avoid.
"It's just...they're so similar..."
"Is it possible you're attributing some of Marlene's personality traits to Hermione? Is it possible that in the past four years, you've only seen what you wanted to see?"
"No, I...you said it yourself, she needed routine, peace and quiet..."
"Yes. She did. But the war is over, Remus...has been for several years now. Maybe she needs to be that adventurous person again...but under her terms, not the terms of circumstance."
"But she's been acting like she wants to be a heroine in one of her books."
Amanda chuckled.
"Have you read her books closely, Remus? She's already a character in them. Her heroines go on adventures, fight evil and are essentially kick-ass feminist figures. The only difference is that she has transposed her adventures with Harry Potter and turned it into a more...adult franchise."
Remus frowned.
"Are you saying she wants to be with Harry?"
Amanda rolled her eyes.
"No, you idiot. But I think she's getting a little restless. Did you read her latest book? It's the first one that doesn't have some tie-in to the adventures of her youth and even though it's good, it's not as thrilling."
"Sirius is thrilling," Remus mumbled.
"Uh-oh," she said.
"What?"
"Well, dear, you've introduced a new character to the discussion. What does Sirius have to do with Hermione?"
Remus sighed.
"Hermione decided she needed to do research into the male mind and for reasons unbeknownst to me, she focused on Sirius."
"Ah. She must have read that review in the Prophet."
Remus looked at her in annoyance.
"What are you, her number one fan?"
Amanda arched an eyebrow.
"Contrary to what you may think, Remus, you are not the be all and end all of my world. I happen to be a big fan of your fiancée's work as well as an avid reader of the Arts & Leisure section of the Prophet. Besides," she added, moving back to the chair across from him. "I have to keep up with her somehow, since she still doesn't seem to know I exist."
She gave him a meaningful look and he looked at the table, pretending to concentrate on the grain of the wood.
"I haven't figured out a way of explaining you yet," he said.
"Explaining me? You make me sound like a dirty little secret."
"Look, explaining you would mean having to explain Marlene. We've...we've never discussed it further than a few sentences. She doesn't know how much Marlene meant to me. How do I tell her that I was engaged to your sister?"
"What, do you think she'll feel threatened? Marlene's been dead for over twenty years, Remus."
"But there's so much baggage..."
"Remus, she's an extremely intelligent woman. Don't you think she'll find out on her own? Especially if she's talking to Sirius?"
"Sirius has his own baggage where Marlene was concerned, plus...he never knew we were engaged."
"How did he not know?"
"Because he slept with her before I had a chance to tell him."
Amanda blinked.
"He what?" she whispered.
Remus sighed again.
"It wasn't his fault. I forgave him long ago. I don't even think he knows that I knew."
"Wait. Back up. Marlene slept with Sirius? Sirius Black?"
Remus closed his eyes.
"It was the night before she died," he said.
Amanda frowned.
"I thought you two became engaged the night before she died?"
"We did. I seem to have a knack for fucking up my proposals."
Amanda sat back, brow furrowed as she tried to make sense of everything.
"Alright. Explain this to me. How did my sister go from being engaged to you to sleeping with your best friend? And how on earth was it your fault?"
Remus took a long sip of his ale before he spoke.
"The night we became engaged was the night of the full moon. I had planned it that way...so she could see what it would be like. She said she was ready to see but...but when the moment came she got scared. She was terrified, actually. She left and...and she went to Sirius. They had been friends, so it stood to reason, I guess.
"I don't know exactly what happened - though I could imagine - but the next day I went to talk to him, knowing that he would have been the one she would run to. James and Lily were already in hiding so he would have been the only one, you know? As soon as I got there I...I smelled her on him and I could smell his guilt and shame."
He pressed on, wanting to get it all out before his emotions took over again.
"We talked about how she had come to him but before he had a chance to come clean we...we got the owl that said she...that said she was dead and...and I guess I just left it because I knew that I...that I pushed her to him."
He shook his head, trying to stop the new wave of tears that were threatening to spill over, "Unfortunately, not it's just a little bit of history repeating itself.
"So...you think Hermione is going to sleep with Sirius?"
He groaned, running his hand over his face.
"I don't know. Part of me says 'no' but...the night she and I got engaged and then fought, I went for a walk to cool off. When I got home, they were in the library together. I could smell him on her. And the guilt and the shame all over again but the thing is..." He looked into Amanda's eyes. "I don't even know if I cared."
Amanda rolled her eyes once more.
"Of course you care. You wouldn't be such a weepy wreck if you didn't care."
He managed a chuckle.
"God, I don't know. I suppose you're right about Hermione. The girl I knew at Hogwarts was nothing like the woman I ended up falling in love with. I suppose that's why I didn't mind the age gap, or that I had once been her professor, because she seemed so different - so mature. I don't know if I can handle the adventurous, up-for-anything girl from back then. It feels so...wrong. Especially when I know she has the capacity to be the sweet, kind-hearted woman I love."
"Hermione's not Marlene, Remus, no matter how much you wish she was," Amanda said softly.
"I don't want her to be Marlene. I want her to be Hermione."
"Then let her be Hermione."
"What are you talking about?"
"Hear me out," she said. "Hermione is in her early twenties. She has an exceptionally successful talent but very little life experience as an adult that she can draw from. She needs to figure out who she is. She's tried the quiet life. Maybe now she wants to see what excitement feels like...without mortal peril."
"I'm not asking her to become some little housewife who stays at home with a herd of children."
"Maybe not. But a woman with such a large capacity for life like Hermione can't simply be expected to fall into matrimony and comfortable routine without a little bit of experimentation."
Remus glared at her.
"So you're saying I should just...what? Let her 'experiment' with Sirius and hope she comes back to me?"
"Of course not. But you can talk to her. See what she wants. Tell her that you're afraid she'll leave you for Sirius. Be vulnerable. I know you're not good at that," she added quickly when she saw he was about to argue. "But if you want it to work, you need to be honest. That's IF you want it to work," she finished.
He looked at his glass.
"I don't know if I want it to work if she expects me to be like Sirius."
"As much as you expect her to be like Marlene?"
He glared at her again and she sighed.
"Fine. Tell her that too. Tell her you're not Sirius."
"And what if she does leave me for him?"
Amanda sighed.
"Unfortunately, that's the risk you take with full disclosure."
He let out a puff of air.
"I don't know if I'm ready for that."
She put her hand over his.
"It beats the alternative. Going through every day worrying that she's cheating on you will only make things more difficult."
"I know."
"Good. Now," she said, her tone changing to one that sounded less like an analyst and more like a little sister, "Since I'm not charging you for this 'session,' the least you can do is pay for my drink and take me out to a proper dinner like the surrogate big brother you are."
He smiled slightly.
"Deal."
As I said, a bit of a departure, but thanks for reading!
Hope you liked it!