A/N: A final chapter, with an epilogue (of sorts) tomorrow. A more extensive author's note will follow then, as well. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed thus far! It's so nice to read the comments.
Warning: This chapter, while not overly specific, nevertheless contains mature content.
Disclaimer: JKR's; not mine.
Missed
by: carpetfibers
-eleven-
She is not running away; no one can ever accuse Hermione Granger of running away. A tactical retreat, a planned sojourn- however one might phrase it, this packing of bags and closing of accounts, this covering of furniture and warding of windows: this is not retreat.
She needs distance and separation; time, she has given far too much of. Years of her life now, spent in stasis, stuck stagnant in stupid waiting and hoping. Hermione is too clever for such silliness, too confident for such wilted tiptoeing. She survived war and battles, near starvation and an evil wizard; surely she can survive heartache.
Surely she can survive rejection.
She removes the light bulbs by hand, saving her wand for more practical things. One by one, she unscrews them; one by one, she places them in a clearly labeled box. Her mother once taught her this, to save on electricity and to prevent possible fires. Her cottage is all enchantments and charms, there's no fear of a short circuit or blown fuse here. Still, she removes the bulbs and counts them, repeating her convictions with each turn.
I love him.
I love his son.
He does not want me.
I'm too young to be this tired.
She folds the quilts next, tucking corners and forcing the edges flush. She can't remember where Harry found them, if they were made by hand or machine. The brightly colored squares cheered her in the evenings and warmed her in the winter; one now sits on Teddy's bed. Her heart twists to know that he sleeps with her warmth around him.
It was foolish, she knows, to put herself in that position. She could have made up excuses, reasons- anything, even the truth- to get out of the babysitting rotation. At first, she told herself there was a chance, given time, that Remus might grow fond of her, maybe even start to care beyond his normal diffident formality.
And then after, past the wedding and that awful party, she told herself that it was for Teddy. He was just a baby still, and of the six who volunteered to care for the child during the full moon, she was the one closest in age and feeling to Tonks. They told her, Andromeda and the others, that Teddy needed something resembling his mother. Just for a little while, they told her, just until he was old enough to understand.
Hermione understood a great many things by the time she was four; she understood loss and loneliness. She understood arguments and rejection. She even knew some of the words for them, and her precocious tongue soon named them all. He was old enough now to not need her; it wasn't fair to her heart and soon, she knew, he would not remember much of her at all.
Children's memories are frail and distracted; he might miss her for a while, but soon Teddy would forget.
She is unaware of her tears, of the silent gasps that slip past her lips until, uninvited yet always wanted, Remus is beside her, speaking and recriminating.
"You accused me once of cruelty- what you're doing now is far worse. Running away- leaving behind that poor child! Teddy loves you, he asks about you, worrying that you're sick or ill, hurt or that you hate him. This isn't the Hermione Granger I know."
She bites down on her cheek, the pain of it freeing her from her silence. The guilt is only worsened, but she was always prepared for that. She knew when she first pulled out her trunk that the tightness in her chest, the buzzing near her eyes would only worsen.
"He'll get over it," she says coolly, enjoying for a moment the flash of surprise that sweeps through her former professor's features. "He's a kid, they always get over it."
"What's wrong with you?" He is all puzzlement and frustration; his hands fisting and his breath short.
She wipes her cheeks and matches his gaze. "A very stupid question, Professor. As if you don't know- as if you're ignorant. I love you, you stupid man. I told you that night- I've told you so many times now. I love you, I can't remember when I haven't loved you. And I know that it's not reciprocated, so finally-" She inhales deeply, something freeing in her, something loosening in her stomach. Some awful knot that has twisted and twirled and tormented for so long- it cracks and breaks and finally, she thinks she can breath. "- finally, I'm going to stop."
She doesn't wait for a response, too tired and impatient to finally get on with her life, to finally find something or someone that might be brave enough and love her enough to finally respond. "I know that there was once something, or at least I thought there was- from you. I might not be as old as you, Professor, but I know what it means when a man looks at you and imagines something else. So maybe it was just lust; maybe you're just a dirty old man who saw a young woman with a crush and let his fantasies get away from him.
"Maybe you were just bad at hiding it and I mistook that look, that expression for something more than a quick jerk in the sheets." Hermione savors the callous wording, the blatant boldness of her statements; each sentence hits him squarely. She is grown up and capable of such things now. He steps back with each unaccusing accusation. She doesn't question her lack of timidity; she speaks of things she knows on an academic level, barely tasted anecdotally. Her few attempts at intimacy had taken too much alcohol and too little feeling to pull off.
It had only been sex, those few times in the dark; it had only been an attempt at convincing herself otherwise.
"What? Too close to the mark?" She steps toward him, forcing him to acknowledge her- to say something, to refuse or agree- anything if it meant something other his constant denial, his stubborn refusal to admit to what sat between them. "How did I call you in your dreams, Professor? Was it Professor Lupin while wearing my old uniform? Or did I use your name? After all, you were always insisting on it."
She's crying again and now she notices, hating the weakness of the tears. She's not running away; she's not driving him away. It's all truth and well deserved, she insists. It might sound cruel, it might sound forced- but it's deserved. Even if she is only a wet dream to him, some passing carnal desire, then at least it is something and not this non-existence he insists on.
She watches him, watches as he slowly regains his breathing, as he re-opens his eyes and chases away whatever awful thoughts whisper to him. She flinches when he reaches for her, not fearing a blow but thinking herself deserving all the same. His hands are warm, she realizes as he wipes gently at her cheeks.
"I like the way it sounds, when you say it. I like the way your mouth moves, the way your lips shape the word when you say it. And yes," he pulls her against him, gently as always but with decision.
His fingers move to her hair, his lips close to her ear. She can feel the faint touch of them against her skin as he speaks; she barely follows the words, the nearness of him is too much, after so much distance- after so much waiting. "I dreamt of you. When it was wrong, when I was married and with a child on the way. Even after she died and I tried to bury myself in that awful apartment, I dreamt of you. What your mouth might do on my skin, how you'd feel against my fingers. If you'd cry my name when you came- if you'd shudder and moan, how your skin might flush. I imagined myself inside you, and each time, it was good, it was good."
She tries to pull away; Hermione wanted this- but not this. Not this truth. She did not think it possible, not truly. This is worse, so much worse. Better to have been ignored- to have been thought a silly little girl than this! But he is stronger, and he does not let her go.
"I dreamt other things, too. Softer and dearer things; I imagined you reading in our kitchen. I imagined waking you with breakfast in bed, picnics in some unknown park. Walks with Teddy after the rain, your hand in mine. Another child, even. One with your hair and your smile, always with more of you than me. I dreamt of holidays and full supper tables, the sound of a shower in the morning, and a quiet read when it stormed. So much mundanity in what I dreamed- you called me cruel, Hermione. My dreams were crueler."
Hermione cannot breath and when she strikes at him, when she hits his chest and kicks with her feet, it's to escape. She is running away because it is too much, this too late confession. After so long- after so many nights and days convinced that she was weak and silly, so very stupid and wrong. And he had dreamt it, too; he had imagined it, too. These things she carries in her heart- these cruel pictures she treasures as hope.
"Hermione, Hermione- please, listen. You should leave, you should get away. It's not fair or right to expect you to stay with me. I'm not a good man; I'm weak and selfish. I've already been the ruin of one woman, and I can't do the same to you. But you have to know, you were never ignored- you were never not noticed.
"I've always noticed."
She draws on his robes, hating the color of them, hating the awful grayness of them. She pulls him down to her, down to her gaze. She wants him to see, she wants him to understand. She kisses him and she thinks, This is only fair.
-eleven-
Remus tries to not think of how it feels to have her this close against him, to have the heady scent of her skin and hair fill his breath. He memorizes the feel of it, the texture of her form and warmth; he knows that his dreams of her will only worsen, only deepen. No guilt attaches itself in that realization; she knows now, after all. She knows the truth of it.
How awful and good it felt to hear her say the words he most feared. How free it made him to know that he needn't hide it. Her anger and her desperate disgust; he had feared them for so long, and now, with it all in the sunshine open, he can breath again.
He tells her all of it, each terrible detail uncoiling the heaviness in his chest and heart. Now she knows; now she can truly leave. The weakness that brought him to her house, the weakness that allowed his resolve to waiver- now he has no choice. He has ruined it all; he almost smiles, the relief overwhelming.
"I've always noticed."
Her hands tangle themselves against his chest, his robes caught between her fingers. She is pulling on the fabric, dragging him toward her, and with eyes wide and frank with something hard and breaking, she kisses him. There's nothing of softness or warmth in the touch, she nips and bites, dragging her teeth against his lips. He tries to ignore the taste of her, he tries to draw away, but her tongue finds him, nimble and quick, and he's lost then.
He drowns and forgets breath and sun and life; he feels only her, and it's more than dream or fantasy. It's truth and she sighs into his mouth- speaks his name against his lips.
His hands find the edge of her sweater, the stretch of warm skin beneath it. She moans as his fingers tease the cotton of her bra, the soft swell of her breasts. He feels her reach for his trousers and in frustration settle for the hot ache of his erection. He nearly stops at her touch, he nearly pulls away. But she insists with her lips, she insists with the sounds of his name and the panting of her breath.
His hands search and roam, seek and discover. He learns the sound of her voice when he first enters her; he learns the feel of her mouth when she bites into his shoulder, when he stretches her tight walls and clutching dampness. She shudders and trembles, and when he returns to himself, when it's only her on the hard floor, a shaking softness of need and voice, he confesses.
"I'm a liar," he tells her, each thrust desperate and aching. She arches against him, eyes closed and cheeks flushed. "I'm a coward and a cheat."
"Remus," she whispers, her nails sharp on his back. "Remus, I don't ca-"
He doesn't let her finish, he stops her words with his mouth, feeling the tightening of her around him, and it's a swell of darkness and release, a pulsing warmth and heaviness that frees itself from him. She cries against him, a tangle of limb and breath. Remus lifts himself only long enough to take her in, the sight of her beneath him, ruined and smudged and so very lovely in her exhaustion. He lifts her against him, cradling her head and hair, arms and body against his own.
"This is all I am," he tells her. "You deserve more. I'm too selfish to force it now, but what I said before is true. It's not fair-"
"I don't care, you stupid man. I don't care about any of it. Just tell me you love me, say it and I'll stay. I'll come home with you and you'll never get rid of me." She touches his cheeks, combs back his hair. "No more lying, no more self-inflicted guilt. Remus, just tell me."
He considers otherwise, the second of thought exposing a vision of empty years. He could leave her now, claim a physical satisfaction, and spend a lifetime having tasted but never again. He thinks of his curse and his child; he thinks of his dead wife and her knowing eyes. He thinks of Hermione and her clever mouth, her warm heart and her soft voice.
He tries to think of a life without her now; he tries to draw up the strength-
"I love you," he tells her. "I've always loved you."
Remus Lupin is weak; he is not an island, and she gives him such better shores.
-eleven-