It wasn't the restart of something, Remus came to find out. It was a goodbye. Hazel went off to the Auror Office, starting her training and racing through the course so fast that Alastor Moody, Kingsley Shacklebolt, and the Longbottoms would request her help on Auror missions before everyone else in her class had even mastered Disillusionment Charms. Remus kept up with her, writing when he could, but it was a few years later when he would find himself on her doorstep.
It had been a whirlwind few days. He'd just visited James, Lily, and baby Harry, leaving a couple of days before Halloween. And then they'd been murdered. The morning after, just as he found out about the Potters, he heard about Sirius. Reportedly Sirius had blown up half of a street, taking out Peter and a dozen Muggles in the process. According to the papers, he was the one who betrayed the Potters, and after a lengthy standoff, he had been lured into custody by "an ambitious young Auror, who will surely be rising in the ranks of Magical Law Enforcement". Her. It had to be her.
That night Remus had shown up on her doorstep, looking worse than he ever had the morning after a full moon. Hazel hadn't said a word, instead pulling him into a hug on her doorstep. He had lost all of his best friends in the span of a day. James had been murdered the night before. Peter was blown to pieces that afternoon. And Sirius was in Azkaban, awaiting charges for the thirteen deaths he'd caused and for helping Voldemort get at the Potters. His best friends, the people he thought would be there for the rest of his life, were all gone. Now he had no one, no one but her and his parents. "They're all gone," he mumbled as both of them started to cry. "I always thought I would be the first. Now they're all gone. Sirius... Sirius was our friend!"
Hazel steered him inside, insisting that he sit down and let her make tea. There was nothing she could do to make it better, and tea was always better than nothing in a crisis, at least according to Aunt Violet. She herself hadn't begun to process any of it until she'd filled out all of the standard Ministry paperwork and left for home. Everyone from Moody to the Minister had insisted on giving her the next day off, saying that she'd better rest up. There were still plenty of Death Eater holdouts that needed to be captured, and they had their work cut out for them even in Voldemort's absence. The weight of the last few days finally hit her when she was in the shower, trying to wash off all of the dirt and dust of the last fifty hours or so. She and Moody had been on a regular patrol the evening of Halloween and they hadn't stopped to rest since.
It was a good thing she was awake. She'd started sobbing in the shower, continuing until she'd collapsed in bed and cried herself into a much-needed nap. She'd just gotten up to make something to eat, numbly moving through the house, when Remus knocked. "Wait." She stepped back, her voice suddenly sour as she turned her wand on him. "Tell me something only the real Remus Lupin would know."
"You were our watch-woman," Remus answered as he sat down in her kitchen. "Whenever there was a full moon, you would get up early to be sure there was no one to see us all coming back through the Whomping Willow. The signal was a shower of blue sparks if there was someone on the grounds. Or… let's see, I gave you this little stuffed wolf when we were together, to keep you company when we were apart for summer. Or… let's see, you still have one of my jumpers. You had it when we had our massive row, and you held onto it. It's yours now, don't worry. Your turn."
He hadn't bothered to draw his wand. If she was really a Death Eater bent on killing him, she would have done it already. At that moment, he honestly wouldn't have minded much. "You got me a wizard's chess set the Christmas of our fourth year, and my queen beat one of James' pawns so badly it flew into the fire. We managed to salvage it, but it was cross with me for all of spring term. If you want another one… I remember telling you once that between all of the scars and all of the freckles, you look like one of the star charts we drew in Astronomy. Do you want sugar in your tea?"
He turned a tinge pink, thinking back to when she'd told him that. It hadn't just been in the middle of a normal conversation... "Thank you. And if you have anything to snack on, that would be great. I haven't been able to stomach much of anything all day."
As she brought the cups over, she noticed something outside. It was a shadow, but in times like these, they couldn't be too careful. So with Remus following close behind her, Hazel checked the door. She exhaled as she realized it really was just a shadow. "Sorry, I'm exhausted." A fresh wave of tears overcame her as she turned back to him. "I've been... Remus... All three of them. And Marlene. And Molly's brothers. And half of the people I work with... And Sev, I still can't - no matter what, I still miss him and -" The words caught in her throat as she thought about him sprinting away from her back at the ball, when she'd first figured out that he'd sold his life to Voldemort. She'd held out hope then, but deep down, she knew it was over.
The two of them sat up talking until they were both too tired to string words together in any way that made sense. Remus camped out on her sofa as Hazel went to bed, taking one last look out over the street before shutting her curtains. If she'd looked hard enough, she would have seen the same shadowy figure that had been watching before. The figure stared longingly at the window until it went dark, the last light in the house turning off late into the night. He waited a little while longer before apparating away. Would she have even bothered answering the door if he knocked, now that all of this was over and it seemed that he was on the losing side? He didn't want to risk knowing. It was better if he didn't know, because then there was no risk of being let down.
Remus only intended to stay with her for a couple of days at most. But a couple of days soon slipped into a week, and that week slipped into the next. The two of them were glad they had the company, glad they had each other to hold onto when they were hit by the reality of Halloween again. For her part, Hazel was glad to have someone to come home to. Remus would have dinner ready, or if she'd stayed late and eaten at the office, he'd be up reading a book, waiting for her. He spent his days working, teaching a handful of different correspondence courses. The owls were incessant, but it paid decently and he didn't have to worry about putting anyone in danger.
It was only when she came home from work late one night, thoroughly exhausted, that he raised something they'd been dancing around for a few days now. "The full moon is tomorrow night," he said, looking up from the sofa. She was well aware. Even now she kept track of the full moons. Those at the office thought it was a great idea, knowing when they had to be on the lookout for werewolves on their missions. But she really did it to remember to write to him afterwards, to check up on him. Hazel hung her keys by the door, listening as she unbuttoned her cloak. "I was planning on apparating to the countryside. Somewhere safe."
"Hmm."
"Would you… mind if I came back in the morning? Or afterwards?"
She sat down beside him, taking his hand. "You can stay here, Rem."
"Hazel -"
"I can put up all of the warding your dad showed me when we were kids," she said, running her thumb over a deep scar on his hand. "And more. If you help me move some stuff out of the spare room tomorrow morning, you can stay in there."
"Do you really want a werewolf in your house? It's not safe. I can just come back afterwards," he reasoned, "if you really want me back."
"You're safer in here than out in the countryside. Besides, it's nice having you here, Rem. And you need someone to look after you in the mornings. Well, you don't need anyone to look after you, but -"
He cut her off with a kiss, bridging the gap between them for a few short seconds. "Sorry, I… I'm sorry, it's not right, I shouldn't -" He stood, but Hazel stood up with him.
Draping her arms over his shoulders, she offered him a small smile. "It's alright, Rem." She was the one to kiss him this time, the two of them falling back onto the sofa.
Remus objected between kisses, but always found himself drawn back to her lips. "We shouldn't… not tonight. I need… I need to rest."
"Then we rest." The verdict was final. Hazel let him lay back on the sofa, lying down beside him. Remus lazily started tracing patterns into her arm as she decided, "Stay here tomorrow night. I'll make sure you're safe."
And that she did. She hadn't seen him transform in ages, but it still pained her to think about. She thought it always would. It hurt to see him in pain, it hurt to see him lashing out at himself, it hurt to know that she couldn't stop him. And it hurt to watch him collapse onto her floor in the morning. Hazel waved her wand, all of the warding coming down at once as she rushed to his side. She propped him up, summoning a bottle of dittany as she closed some of the larger wounds. All he could manage to do was smile up at her gratefully, mouthing a brief "thank you" before closing his eyes, gritting his teeth, and trying to block out the searing pain as she dabbed dittany on some of his injuries.
He didn't protest as she helped him upstairs, depositing him in her own bed before she went to wash up and at least clean the blood out of the mess of a room he'd left behind. He would transform that night too, thoroughly exhausting himself. Again she would stay with him, carrying him upstairs once the largest wounds were closed and the others were patched up.
This time she didn't bother to hop into the shower. She was too tired, too spent to do anything other than fall into bed beside him. Remus smiled as he felt the other side of the mattress grow heavier. When he woke up next, her head was on his shoulder. He couldn't help it. He kissed her temple, whispering a short, "I love you."
"What?" Hazel sat up a bit, trying to hide her surprise. "I... I care about you so much, Rem. But there's a lot that happened since... since we broke up, a whole lifetime of things. I care about you, I really do, but I need more time..."
"I can do that. If you want me to stay," he offered.
Hazel sighed, looking at the ceiling as she admitted what she'd only ever thought to herself. She'd been thinking about it since the second or third day he was there, since she realized he was going to stay. "I... I want you to, Rem. I do. I've missed you. But I... you have to know that part of me still wants him."
Of course. Remus knew exactly who "him" was. He would never be able to forget the agony he'd gone through when he first realized that she was probably starting to fall for one of her best friends. "Are you actually torn between us, or do you want both of us because you can have neither completely?"
"What?"
"An Auror can't have a Death Eater. And you know what I am. I'll always be afraid of it. You made me feel so much more normal at school, but now Dumbledore has me working with the werewolves and I can't even pretend I'm not what I am... you can't have either one of us completely. We don't own ourselves anymore," he explained as Hazel finally turned back to him, all light gone from her face.
"You don't have to stay."
It was his turn to admit a truth he rather not say. "I want to. This is still better than… than anything. And I have nothing left."
"Then do me a favor," she sighed, moving so she could whisper in his ear with a devilish smile. "Do me a favor and fuck me so hard I forget about the jumbled mess you just said. Like we used to do before full moons, but... more. Make sure it hurts. Please." It was the only thing that would seem real. They'd lost too much, tried to shut out too much, so much that she craved some sort of release, some sort of physical parallel to the emotional pain they'd been in for weeks now.
He wanted nothing more than to agree, to beg for pain, to make physical even a fraction of how much he'd broken inside. But he had something else on his mind, something that briefly overcame the straining sensation in his abdomen. "Don't you think that's... using each other?"
"Being a little happier, having someone to come home to, especially in all of this? Is that using each other?" she questioned, raising an eyebrow.
"Perhaps it is, since we know we can never actually fully be together," he reasoned as he pulled her on top of him. "Then again, making each other's lives a bit happier, even temporarily... well, I don't think I quite care if it is or if it isn't."
She nodded, straddling him and leaning in for a kiss. "Then let's forget the rest of the world exists for a bit."
It didn't take long for them to block out the rest of the world, to fall into the desperation that was each other. Some of it was the old comfort of happier times, and some of it was the pain that they both craved. But that afternoon, the rest of the world didn't matter. There was no full moon, no Auror Office or Death Eaters. There was just this, just the two of them. They would both have bruised hip bones, sore public bones, and plenty of marks the next morning, but neither of them cared. As he eagerly ground into her, Remus bit into her shoulder, but his grip suddenly relaxed as he breathed an, "Oh Merlin... fuck, I love you."
She froze for a split second as Remus noticed what had spilled from his mouth again. Moving her hands down from his shoulders, she guided his hips back towards her as if to say "I heard you, just get on with it." A few seconds later he was moaning, reaching down to rub rough circles between her legs, mixing the warm fluids that covered both of them. "Merlin, Rem... ah!"
That was how life was for a while, the two of them settling into a relationship that they both knew wasn't truly their own. They didn't hold anything back, but they also knew that part of their souls rested elsewhere. Hazel had her Auror missions and Remus had his mission to make sure the werewolves weren't following the rogue Death Eaters who were still out there.
As they would lay on the sofa together in the evenings, watching whatever mindless Muggle television they could find, Hazel would lay her head in his lap, letting him play with her hair. He would still smile whenever they curled up in bed together, even though she wasn't totally his. He was happier, and that was all he wanted. But he knew that she still longed to find the man she'd lost to Lord Voldemort years before, even if it was just to be sure he was still alive. He also knew - or at least he highly suspected - that sometimes, in the middle of a moment of passion, she would be picturing him there instead, the man she'd fallen hopelessly in love with.
It was the dreams that gave it away. Remus would lay awake sometimes, Hazel curled into his side as he tried to fall asleep. She would drape her arm over him and whisper something along the lines of, "You need to sleep, Sev." He knew. He'd known from the moment he knocked on her door. But he never told her. If he knew, and he didn't fall blindly for her like he had in their school days, he figured he would be fine. It was like reaching for a favorite childhood stuffed animal for comfort. It may be falling apart, but it was there. And for now, that was all either of them needed.