"So my father and my son
As you end what she's begun
You'll lie patient by her side
With roses red come lilies white"

Bear's Den (Above the Clouds of Pompeii)

Wash Out

There was a shift in the bed. Ron had come home.

"Ronald," Hermione scolded. "Where have you been?" She glanced at the clock on her night stand. "It's past 2 a.m."

Ron rolled over and nuzzled he nose into her hair, his breath smelled of vodka and gin.

"God you smell." She whispered before inching away from him to the other side of the bed.

"Mione… I missed you." Ron followed her and draped an arm around her.

She shoved the arm away and stood up from the bed. "you're drunk!"

"I can let loose every once in a while, can't I?" He responded, grinning from ear to ear. He stumbled to match her stature, while suggestively wiggling his eye brows. "You should join me."

"Ronald! You need to keep your distance!" She whipped out her wand.

His eyes widened, "aww don't be like this Mione." He walked up to her until the tip of her wand was flush with his chest.

"For goodness sakes Ronald! Go to bed." Ginny had slipped into the room.

"Ginny…" the smile held on Ron's face had fallen.

After a moment of the siblings' stare down Ron spoke through his teeth: "fine." He retreated back to the bed, huffing as he sat down.

"Good" Ginny noted, still irritated. "Now hush up, both of you." She eyed Hermione as well as her brother. "We are trying to sleep."

Hermione was shocked. "Ginny, can't you see what is going on here?" She asked.

Ginny's expression had yet to falter. "What I see, Hermione, is you two at each other again. Honestly, you two are adults now. Time to start acting like it." Her voice was cold and uncaring in pitch.

Hermione turned tail and exited the room, pushing past Ginny as she did so. She was livid at Ron, but also Ginny. She was supposed to be her best friend. They always confided in each other. Previously, Hermione would always tell Ginny about Ron's character flaws, and she would agree. Without argument.

Stiles was laying in his makeshift bed, leaning on a pile of pillows and buried under a dense mixture of books and blankets, when Hermione stomped into the room. He looked up at her and saw the distress on her face. "You ok?" He asked her.

"UH!" She huffed, walking over to him and sitting down in the mess next to him, crossing her arms in frustration. "I can't stand them! it's like I don't matter at'toll!"

Stiles closed the rather large volume in his lap and ran his hand through his mess of hair. "Do you want to get out of here?"

She boiled in her anger for a little while more before making eye contact with him and nodding.

The Café she brought him too was all but deserted. Luckily there was a 24-hour place so close to the flat. It was a small hole-in-the-wall place sandwiched between Olivander's and a small cloak boutique. At first glance it would have been easily missed, if it wasn't for shiny copper lettering spelling out "Old Andy's" Stiles himself may have walked right past.

Hermione had yet to say anything. She sat lost in her cup of tea, growing cold by the second as she neglected to raise the cup to her lips. The anger in her had yet to ease, a million past scenarios bubbling in her mind.

Stiles on the other hand wanted to speak. But had yet to find a subject that may denture Hermione form her trance. A thousand things went through his head in turn.

"I'm sorry," he offered.

Her gaze slowly matched his. "It's fine. Ronald's pompous, an inconceivable…" she paused to lower her voice. "Arse," she finished.

"Why are you still with him?" this came out a little blunter than Stiles would have liked. He failingly clamped his hand over his mouth the moment the words left his lips.

The corner of Hermione's lip turned upward with a low huff that sounded almost like a chuckle. She continued to curl her legs up into her chest so that she was secure in the soft booth seating they were in. "I seem to be asking myself that very same question lately, more often than not these days." She finally drew the cup up to her lips and took a sip.

He wanted to ask her more about it, but he knew he shouldn't. It felt wrong, knowing that she was in this abusive relationship and not feeling like he was in any sort of place to do anything about it. If this were Scott, Lydia, or even Liam, he would not hesitate to say exactly what he was thinking. Coffee sloshed from his cup as the feeling of uneasiness grew.

"Shit!" he used the long, black, sleeve of his shirt to quickly mop up the spill.

"Still having trouble with that I see." Hermione commented.

He groaned, "only all the time, particularly when in feeling off."

"They are getting smaller though, these episodes, it's a good thing." Hermione was happy that at least something in her life was going right. This meant that Stiles wasn't a lost cause. And at least for the moment, there was a light at the end of this depressing tunnel.

The two of them really had not had the chance up until now to have a conversation outside of magic. Surely they would have something to talk about; after all, they were both 'Muggle borns'. They should have something in common.

"How did you get to be friends with a werewolf?" it was a pondering question she had held in the back of her mind since she met Stiles. Werewolves don't just wonder into a muggle populated area. None the less become integrated into that society.

Stiles snorted. Not in the way one would while laughing, but in the sense you would at how unbelievable what you are about to say is. "Scott and I have been friends sense we were like 6. Our dads worked for the same police department." Hermione nodded, following his every word. "When we were 16 there was this body, well half a body, found in the nature preserve in town. He wasn't a wolf then, but the night we were out snooping around, as my dad says, he got bit by an Alpha." The story continued; how they figured out that the body was in fact the Alpha's niece. How they befriended Derek Hale. The kanima, the Alpha pack, the Darach… he did leave out the part about being possessed by the nogitsune though. He did bring up his ex-girlfriend and her mother being this B.A. coyote, even if her intentions were all but good.

Hermione had stopped to confirm points in the story. More like the lineage of things. "So Peter had a child with this – Desert Wolf – and you found her… you dated her?"

"Oi, yeah… for a while. Until you told me about all this." He gestured around the room, more meaning the magical community and less the shabby café.

"You broke up with her the day before we left. Didn't you." Her eyes became very judgy at that moment.

"… yeah… I didn't want her to wait for me."

"Or you just didn't want anything holding you back." She corrected.

And that was exactly what he had done too. There was this whole other world out here that he never imagined. And he was a part of it.

"Pretty shitty I guess," he hung his head low.

"Or respectful, she's free now to do what she wants." Hermione pointed out.

"I just hope she's ok."

"Hey… Stiles." She took her hand and rested it on his across the table. "I really am sorry that you had to find out about yourself so late. The world has been messed up for a while. I'm sorry your friends were dragged into it as well."

His glare matched hers in and instant. "How do you figure?"

"Well your friends are part of the magical community as well, though there are a few who would view them below witches and wizards, they are still just as important. It's all connected, they fell into your world, not the other way around."

This statement his Stiles like a brick wall. He hadn't seen it before now. Werewolves, Werecoyotes, Daraks, Kitsunes… they were all a part of this magical world. A world that was his to begin with. His mind was runny a hundred miles a second. Both of their cups smashed and shattered, the lights flickered on and off until there was a loud "pop" and then a black out.

"Hey what's going on?", "The power… it when out!"

"Oops?" Stiles offered.

"Sorry everyone." Hermione retrieved her wand from her pocket and said a spell. In an instant, the lights were back on. "You ok?"

"Yeah… I'm fine. That was… I don't know what that was." Stiles confessed, dropping to the floor to pick up the broken cup pieces.

"You were excited, I think." She smiled, kneeling down with him. "You know you can just leave this here… the owner will use a spell to clean it up."

He got an idea, and he too took out his wand from his jean pocket. "Teach me." He said.