*Song Recommendation: I'll Follow You Into the Dark (Death Cab for Cutie)*

Outcome

The painless comfort of darkness was draped around her and her dampened senses.

Is this the inbetween? But then why am I so cold?

Chills ran across bared flesh and reawakened the sensitive nerves that lay beneath her now crawling skin.

"Teddy... Cub... My son... Oh, Teddy..." Came a stream of whimpering from near her.

Hermione's eyes snapped open to the new reality around her. Her blood-caked fingers twitched in an attempt to analyze the extent of her injuries but fell limply back to the dust just as quickly as they'd risen from it. Sharp movement sounded behind her as she realized her short-lived exploration must have alerted the self-consoling werewolf to her stirring. Suddenly she felt calloused hands, chilled by the wintered morning, roll her gruffly to face him before checking her pulse with a satisfied huff of tearful relief.

"I'm alive." Remus only nodded sheepishly in response. "You healed me."

"I tried." Hermione's heart rate sped as she recalled her last memories, those of beastly teeth sinking into her throat. Her hands struggled to claw at her neck but were pinned to her chest before she could feel for damage.

"Stay still, Hermione, you're only as healed as I could manage post-moon."

"How did I-"

"I don't know." Remus' eyes glanced to her hands before meeting her gaze with a questioning brow, silently asking if he could release her without further intentions to counteract his meager doctoring. She closed her eyes but nodded in acceptance.

"You were telling me about my-" Frustrated, Remus yanked at his unkempt hair when his voice hiccuped with thick emotion. "My son." The words, though finally uttered, were strangled, and Hermione couldn't help but to reach out for his face, grasping his chin until he met her eyes.

"I've been doing this a long time, Hermione, I have only ever been able to stay marginally aware a few times; in school when Severus came upon my change in the shrieking shack, the moons following James and Lilly's death, that following Sirius' death and- and last night."

Hermione furrowed her brow in confusion. She had witnessed his struggle to tamper down his feral instincts, but she'd also seen him lose.

"I wasn't in control, I just, have the memories." Remus answered to her unvoiced question. "I remember you telling my I had a son... Teddy. I remember my instincts chanting that over and over in my head. 'Son... son... son' and then 'pup... pup... pup. I identified you as an essential being. You were not to be killed because I needed you to get to my pup. Whether I saw you as a tool or a threat, I honestly still do not know, I just knew you needed to be spared."

Hermione's jaw was slack as she took in the information. Her eyes were darting left to right and back again, as though mentally re-reading every book she'd read on Lycanthropy to recall if she'd heard of any such circumstance. Remus wanted to find the humor in it, to find relief in the fact she was still the endearing little academic whose thirst for knowledge overruled even the most terrifying of perils, though he found none.

"I still bit you, Hermione." Her reading eyes froze before flicking up to meet his.

"Oh. I mean, I knew that already but-" Remus cringed at the obvious withdrawal of her spirit.

"I'm so sorry. This is all my fault, I should have done something more. I will never forgive myself... and I know that you don't want to be near me right now, but we're still trapped and I-" The words tumbled over each other as he tried to voice his miserable sympathies, but fell short as all he could do was make to stand and leave her in peace in her little corner.

"Don't!" She shrieked as he turned his back. "Don't leave me, Remus!"

"What?" He frowned with a sinking heart at how childlike she looked, listless on the dusty floor with panicked eyes which bugged at the thought of being left alone. "I'm sorry, I just figured that... you're not safe with me, Hermione, that is abundantly clear."

"I am safe. You are my safety... please don't leave me." It stung Hermione, both in spirit and pride, to beg on a level so reminiscent of how Harry had clung to her just the night before.

There was nothing for it, in Remus' eyes. No matter how revolted he was by his own self and spiraling shame, he would move the mountains for her if she asked, and she had asked him to stay. Her trauma was his fault, his responsibility, and now her needs would be as well.

"I won't leave you." He whispered, shaking his head in disheartened acceptance. "I won't ever leave you, little one."

And with that he shifted gently to slide down under the ragged sheet atop her, paying little mind to her nakedness or how she nuzzled desperately into him. They would need to discuss this further, for as far as Remus knew, Hermione had no recollection of shifting under last night's moon.

For now, let her rest,

He persuaded himself as he allowed his eyes to fall shut and let Hermione's warmth seep into his strained body. Surrendering to her, Remus reciprocated her hold and pulled her gently into himself. The sensation was impossible to identify. Was he her father, a brother, a lover, or a friend? It was all of them at once and yet none. Hermione's words echoed in his mind.

I amsafe. Youare my safety.

And he understood.