What Makes Us

Chapter 21: A Friend

March 2001

"I know," Tonks was saying playfully, laughing. "That's why I took it away from you."

Remus said something, but it was just low enough that Hermione could not tell what it was. But when Hermione glanced up from her position on the sofa, it was just in time to see Remus looping his arms about Tonks' waist and leaning in to kiss her. A familiar, exquisite pain began to pulse in Hermione's chest. She wondered why she'd missed that appointment.

It was Tonks' birthday. Hermione, along with twenty-odd other guests, was at the Lupins' for this reason. She knew most of the faces there, but for a handful of them Tonks felt that introductions were necessary.

"Hermione, this is Josef," Tonks was saying brightly now. "He's my friend from school." Josef was the third such introduction of the night. Hermione looked away from where Remus was making conversation with another of Tonks' friends, and looked at Josef instead.

"Hi," he said.

Hermione nodded, still somewhat distracted. "Sorry, hi. Nice to meet you, Josef."

"So I think that's everyone!" Tonks remarked. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and rescue Frank."

"Everyone?" Hermione asked, a little too late for Tonks to hear.

"She meant for me," Josef smiled. "We've been making the rounds. Do you know everyone here?"

"Oh, no."

Remus was laughing at something Tonks' friend had said. Watching this, suddenly Hermione realised how incredibly rude she was being. She turned to Josef fully, resolving not to seek out Remus for the rest of the evening.

"You were at Hogwarts with Tonks?"

He was a handsome man, tall and dark-haired, although Hermione found she noticed this almost in passing. Despite her best efforts, her attention, for now, remained divided. She was still trying to tune Remus out completely.

"No, not Hogwarts. We were at Koldovstoretz together. During her year abroad," he explained.

"Oh, I see." Now that she listened, she could detect the hint of a foreign accent in the inflection of his words.

"She was a few years above me, but we were good friends somehow nevertheless," Josef laughed. "Bloody good at quidditch, she was."

Hermione found, to her surprise, that when she excused herself for the toilet nearly half an hour later, she had not been thinking of Remus at all.

It felt like betrayal, but she knew it was progress.

But she came across the man himself––Remus––in the study, on her way back to rejoin the party. "Oh, hello," she said, pausing at the doorway. "Is everything alright?"

Remus gave her a faintly embarrassed smile. "Oh, hi. Yes, everything's fine. I just wanted to...I wanted..."

"A break," Hermione smiled back. "I get it." She found she could look at him now with far less clenching in her stomach. Perhaps she would be alright. Perhaps, finally, she was moving on.

"Hermione," said Remus, suddenly. His tone was tentative and a little sheepish. "I know you've told me off for this already, but I just...if I might know?" He gestured vaguely in the direction of his shoulder, and she knew that he meant her scar. It was unlike him to press again, not after she had denied him already; she thought that he must be immensely curious to have asked again. So after a sigh and a pause, she chose careful words.

"Not anyone you know, I'm sure."

"I know much of the werewolf population in this country." He was looking at her almost imploringly. For a moment, a wild moment that passed almost at once, Hermione thought of kissing him, pressing his skin to hers, to feel that long-lost warmth once more in her scar. She shook her head.

"Then what?" she asked, but kindly. "It wouldn't even be the same person here, Remus. He'd be different, not the same person at all."

He. He knew that much now. She thought she saw a flash of trepidation in his eyes, a fear that it had indeed been him, so she quickly turned away from him to examine his desk. "Were you writing just now?"

There was a beat, and then he accepted her choice. "Yes." He picked up the quill he'd laid down. "I think...I've made some progress."

She leaned in to look at the parchment he offered her now. She could smell him from this distance; this closeness; he smelled the same, and for a moment she had to close her eyes, the years spinning by in her mind.

Get a grip, her mind whispered. And be his friend. Be his friend again.

She began to read his neat, familiar handwriting. This Remus still wrote in blue; she'd never noticed that before. She read:

Like many who suffer this condition, I remember a time in my life when I had contemplated ending it all. I still to this day am not certain exactly how I got through it, but I know that I am very glad I did.

Hermione thought of the young Remus, her Remus, and wondered. What had happened differently here that year? Certainly he had not met her. Then what had that year been like for the man who stood before her now?

By the time Hermione rejoined the party, aflush with warm emotion and a joy she tried her best not to feel, she found that the crowd had thinned. How long had passed? She wasn't sure, and felt a sudden wave of guilt and fear, that she had been inappropriate, disappearing from Tonks' party to be with Remus; that she may have hurt Tonks; that her emotions, as far down as she tried to bury them, might be found out...

"Hermione," said someone in a warm, deep voice. "I'm glad to see you're still here."

She turned, surprised, to find Tonks' friend before her. Josef.

"Oh yes," she answered. "Yes, I am."

"I was afraid you'd left. I just wanted to ask if you might be interested in getting together again sometime, perhaps over tea or coffee."

He gave her a warm smile that seemed to hold no expectations. She felt, at once, a rush of something in her belly. Later that night, mulling it over in bed, she recognised it to be interest, and an early sort of affection. She had told him yes, and would be seeing him again the following week.

April 2001

"And you're still seeing each other?"

Tonks appeared truly delighted. Hermione smiled, and shrugged. So they were.

"Yes. He seems nice."

"He is nice," Tonks declared. "Well, he was. Not sure if he's changed significantly since I really spent time with him, but I doubt it. I'm excited, Hermione! I'm excited for you," she beamed, and Hermione felt her heart constrict a little with some unknown emotion.

"Do you want to stay for dinner?"

The words rose to her lips in the moment, unbidden. She had not even had Harry or Ginny or Ron over for dinner yet since she had returned. But now she did feel ready, now that she had said it; she was ready to begin to let go of her self-imposed solitude. She felt a little more secure, now, in this time.

"Sure," said Tonks happily. "Shall I ask Remus, or shall we have a girls' night in?"

"Ask him if you'd like." She found herself able to say this without missing a beat. She was moving on. Finally, she was. She had been gathering her life together again and she was getting there. She was seeing Josef. She was learning to forget.

"Nah," Tonks said happily. "Let's have a girls' night. I want to hear more about you and Josef."

She and Josef––she and Josef. Somehow over these past weeks it was beginning to happen; something was taking shape. Hermione, people would say now, and Josef. They were starting to come together in people's minds, she found herself thinking one day. And in her own mind––there, what? Perhaps there, too.

As the summer months passed, she began to lean into the new relationship, at first slowly, tentatively, and then more comfortably, less carefully. They had not made love yet, and his understanding of this, of her need for something slow, her need to wrestle with time and feel at peace with it once more, further increased her feelings of warmth toward him. For they had spoken about all that she had been through, and she had told him almost everything. He had been calm and understanding; almost as comfortable and comforting as he had been. But she tried not to make these comparisons in her mind––she tried.

Quite apart from Josef, too, apart from matters of the heart, Hermione did feel she was regaining herself. She had thrown herself into her work once again, and the feeling of making discoveries again––together with the knowledge that now she might still have years left of making such advances––played no small part in the feeling that she was altogether now in a much better place.

These days moving forward seemed not merely possible; it seemed inevitable.

A/N: Dear anonymous reviewer––thank you for reading, and I'm glad you're enjoying this story!