Hello hello!

My exams are officially done, so I should have more time to write now ;) I may or may not have written this entire chapter today, and it may or may not have gotten away from me a bit. It's much longer than I suspected it was going to be. Either way, I really, really do hope you all enjoy this chapter! Happy May! The best month ;D

I really do hope you enjoy this chapter, one thing I've wanted to happen for quite a while happens, but I had to wait for the right moment. I think this is that moment!

Please leave a review and let me know what you think ;)

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Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling, and only the story line and any OC's belong to me.

As always for my dears Sable and Lais xxx


Tuesday, April 17th, 1979

Potter Manor

He can still feel the chill and sadness from Azkaban clinging to him, and he must reek of despair, because the moment he enters the house Hermione sweeps him upstairs to her room.

The last fingers of sunlight are reaching towards the sky, bright and vibrant against the dark sky that is creeping in. Hermione lights the candles on her bedside table as soon as they set foot inside the room.

Remus has the good decency to kick off his shoes beside the door—which clicks shut softly as Hermione closes it. Before he can utter a peep, Hermione tugs him towards her bed, and she lets go of him as they reach the foot of it.

Hermione scrunches up her nose in the most adorable way before she crawls onto the bed, stopping by the pillows at the top; the bed squeaks as she sits down, legs outstretched before her, and she pats the bed beside her. No words, no fuss. Just imploring eyes and a tiny smile.

Remus sighs heavily through his nostrils, everything is still heavy and the sound of sizzling flesh echoes in his ears, as do the maniacal screams and claims. There's a disconnect from reality, and it is as if he is watching himself move from outside his body as Remus climbs up onto the bed. Once he reaches Hermione he doesn't hesitate to lie down sideways—his head in Hermione's lap—and shift until he is comfortable.

He almost moans when her fingers caress his scalp and stroke through his hair. There are invisible lines floating and extending from all his appendages, and they are tugging him back into his body, grounding him and it's all slowly melting away. Or at least it gets better with every stroke of Hermione's hand.

"Do you need me to do anything?" Hermione whispers gently, closing some of the distance between them, one of her curls escaping and tickling his forehead before she tucks it behind her ear instinctively; her hand pauses.

"I...I don't want to talk about it, but it's all bubbling up anyways, it's growing and getting bigger and it's going to suffocate me. It's...it's going to strangle me," Remus says softly.

"I can just listen if you want. You don't have to talk about it, but if you want to then I'll be here. I'm not going anywhere," Hermione replies, kissing his temple lightly before straightening up, her fingers resuming their previous movement.

"I thought. I don't know. There was a part of me that thought that a grave error had been made. That Pete...that Pettigrew didn't betray us—" Remus pauses, gathering his thoughts, he doesn't quite know what how to think or feel about any of this, "the wizard I saw in that cell was so irrevocably damaged and broken. I have to wonder if it was Azkaban or if it was our fault—"

"Of course it isn't your fault. Not yours, not James's, not Sirius's," Hermione interjects.

"We should have known that something was wrong, Hermione," Remus murmurs. "Maybe, maybe we could have changed things."

Hermione doesn't say anything, and Remus twists his head to glance quickly at her—she is staring attentively at him—with a thick swallow, he settles back into his prior position.

"I don't know what to do. I imagined how it would go, rolled it around in my mind countless times...but then he, he was so different," Remus says as the image of the fragmented version of the man he once knew warms in his mind.

Remus sits up abruptly, turning to face Hermione, "I thought I would get answers, but I didn't like the answers that I got, and I left with more unanswered questions."

Hermione scoots forward, "sometimes we don't get the answers that we hoped for, and some questions are perpetually unanswered. It sucks massively, it really does. Trust me, I detest unanswered questions, but sometimes there aren't any answers."

Remus's brow puckers, and something that has been at the back of his mind for days wriggles free from the compartment he shoved it in, and it swims furiously to the surface. "Hermione...this may seem random, and out of the blue, but I have something to tell you." Remus reaches forward and takes her hands in his.

Hermione bites her lip, and her brow puckers. Remus can't help but fiddle with his lip ring using his tongue, and his body moves of its own accord, leaning forward and placing a soft peck on Hermione's lips before he sits back.

"I don't really know how to do this. I don't really know what to say, because I could be wrong, but I could feel it, and I didn't know what it was. I think I know, but I'm not sure I know. You know—"

"Remus," Hermione urges gently, raising an eyebrow in concern.

Remus takes a steadying breath, focusing on his chest expanding and contracting, his shoulders rising and falling, feels how his neck cracks slightly as he lets his head fall back. He takes another slow breath. One, two, three. You are making this into a much bigger deal than it is, Remus, he scolds himself internally.

"Remus?"

Remus lowers his chin, and his hazel eyes meet the warm brown orbs he's grown so fond of—they are currently glittering with concern and curiosity, a most interesting combination.

"I think you're my mate."

Hermione snorts.

"Did you just snort?" Remus asks, his mouth agape and rounding as his eyebrows shoot up.

"No...well, yes, but I thought it was something that I didn't already know," Hermione explains, scooting even closer to him.

"What do you mean? 'Something that you didn't already know'. Blimey witch. What does that even mean—"

Hermione swiftly leans forward and silences him with a kiss, when her lips leave his, she moves away just enough to speak, her words brushing against his lips. "I know."

"Or at least I thought that maybe I might be, and I did some reading on it, though there isn't that much material on the subject. I hope that didn't sound dismissive or anything like that. I just thought you were going to tell me something, I don't know, bad?"

Remus leans back just a smidgen so that he can look her in the eye properly, and a large grin grows on his face when he sees how bright red her cheeks are.

"There's the pretty blush I like to see," Remus says lowly, flecks of gold and amber swirl around his hazel orbs.

In one smooth movement, he grips Hermione and flips her onto her back, settling on top of her but not resting his full weight on her, and his smile grows wider when her legs wrap around his waist without a moment's hesitation. Hermione leans up to move her hair—her river of honey brown curls streaming upwards.

Remus props himself up on his forearms that are framing the sides of Hermione's face, avoiding the stray curl here and there that she hadn't managed to move.

"Hermione Granger, I don't hear any aversion to being my mate."

"Of course not, don't be daft. Why wouldn't I love being the mate of the person I lo—" Hermione's eyes widen exponentially, and her cheeks are now beet red as she looks to her right, avoiding eye contact.

"Wait, the person you what?" Remus asks, tongue playing with his tongue ring as his head shifts to his right and he looks Hermione in the eye—the gold and hazel in his orbs blazing brighter and brighter by the second.

Hermione glares at him defiantly, and somehow that only makes this that much more fun.

All thoughts of Peter Pettigrew have melted away, instead he is drowning on the scent of caramel and vanilla—which keeps getting stronger and stronger by the second.

Hermione rubs her thighs together subtlety and Remus hears her heart rate jump and then speed up. All it takes is a moment.

"I love you, Remus Lupin," Hermione murmurs, the obstinate look now gone, softening into a gentle almost dazed expression.

"I love you too, Hermione Granger," Remus says, leaning down to claim her mouth.

The rest of the night was spent murmuring words of love and comfort until they both slipped into a deep and peaceful slumber in each other's arms. It had been a draining day, a trying and tiring day for all of them.


The fire crackles. Warmth permeates every corner and crevice in the room. On a couch in from of the fireplace are four figures, on the far left is a woman with fierce grey eyes and long raven locks whose arms are wrapped firmly around the wizard beside her. Unruly raven locks, glasses, hazel eyes, looking so much like his Father but with a touch of his Mother's slender face. Beside him is his wife, her crimson hair, her bright green eyes that are staring listlessly into the flames. Finally the crimson haired witch's Father-In-Law is on her right, hazel eyes sombre as his thumb strokes up and down the bright green eyed witch's arm, her head on his shoulder, snuggled into his side.

Silence.

There are no words that need to be said, they all sit in silence and comfort each other. It is time for reflection and family. There is nothing to be said that is not present and filling the room—the vociferous emotions clambering away, trying to escape and squirm their way out of the room since they currently occupy every available speck of space possible.

No, no words need to be said. The silence says it all.


The quartet offered to have him join them, but he needed to be alone.

He needs to be alone.

Nothing he does ever seems to do any good.

He sits in the darkness, using his heightened eyesight to gaze mournfully out at the pond.

It's quiet, too quiet.

There's not even a hint of wildlife, which is strange, odd, bizarre. Now that he's noticing the absence of nature's sounds, it's become painfully obvious.

He runs the pad of his thumb across the slightly rough surface of the pebble in his hands, his mouth twisting to the side as he let his thoughts consume him.

With a loud frustrated noise, he hurls the pebble at the pond.

He thinks he's alone in the orchard, but that is clearly not the case as the ginger haired youth and his raven haired companion appear out of the darkness, and then he's not alone anymore.

They don't say anything, just sit on either side of him, pick up a pebble or two of their own, and start to compete quietly for who can throw theirs the farthest.

The ginger boy succeeds in throwing his farther than the other boys, and he makes a low sound of triumph.

A tiny smile brushes across Sirius Black's lips. He's not alone.