A/N: So...my first fic written after the shock that was Half-Blood Prince. Tell me, what did you all think about it? This story DOES contain spoilers as well, and if you didn't get that, I'll pull a Harry. "THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS FIC." One more note before I let you get to reading - this fic does contain Remus Lupin/Hermione Granger romance, so if RL/HG stuff makes you queasy, press that lovely back button. Easy as that.

I hope you all enjoy!

Arms of Grace

Hermione Granger drew in a deep breath, telling herself that it had been nineteen years since she'd first laid eyes on him, and she could not possibly feel the same way about him as she had. Raising her fist, she knocked on the door, though she knew that he knew she was here. She waited a few moments in the chilly wind of an early winter, drawing her cloak tighter around her. The door finally opened and in front of her stood a man with brown hair streaked with grey, behind his eyes a kind of pain that she had expected, and had come here to try and relieve. She wasn't sure if she would succeed, but she had never been one to give up on anything.

"Hello," she said, with all the courage of a Gryffindor facing her past. "May I come in?"

"Of course," said Remus Lupin, stepping aside to allow her in. He closed and locked the door, taking her cloak and hanging it on a peg on the door. "To what do I owe the honor of seeing my prize former student?"

"I wanted to tell you that I'm sorry...about Nymphadora," she said, nearly saying Tonks, for she'd said it for many years even after she and Remus had been married. She hadn't minded, but Hermione felt as though she ought to use her first name around Remus in respect. He nodded, as if expecting it.

"Let's talk in the living room," he said, and she followed him into an adjoining room, both taking a seat on the sofa. "Firstly, do you want anything to drink? Okay, if you're sure. Now, thank you for coming. I guess Molly contacted you?" Hermione nodded. Molly Weasley had sent her a letter, explaining that Nymphadora Tonks had died unexpectedly almost a fortnight ago, and that a postmortem charm performed on her revealed that she had been hit with a spell used much during the war that produced no short-term effects, but if the victim lived afterward, they would die in five to ten years. Tonks, being young, lived out eight years, all without any symptoms, and Remus had held a private funeral for her, retreating from the Wizarding world - not contacting anybody for two months. Finally Molly and Arthur had gone to visit last week, and he had told them everything then.

"Have you had many visitors? You didn't seem surprised I was here to give you my condolences."

"Harry came by three days ago, Friday, and of course Molly and Arthur came by Wednesday. It's good to see you, Hermione, it's been too long. Are you still teaching at Hogwarts?" Hermione smiled slightly, for she thought she'd detected a note of pride for her in his voice.

"I am, and I don't think I can find myself quitting anytime soon. The students are great, and it's good to see them innocent of what all of us had to go through so we couldn't fully enjoy our years there. Harry reckons I'm teaching to try and get the years back of learning I lost there by teaching, and I suppose he's right." Then, without warning or precedented thought, Hermione reached over and grabbed his hand. "Remus, how are you really doing?" He sighed, looking his fifty years more than ever. He kept holding her hand, and it seemed he gripped it a little tighter.

"I think I've accepted it, but there's still some kind of a hope she'll somehow come back, as foolish as that sounds. She was the only woman who ever wanted to be with me for more than a few weeks." Hermione mumbled something, but he didn't hear her. "When we got married, she told me if anything happened to her, she wanted me not to dwell on her as she figured I would do - and it looks like she was right. I'm trying to tell myself even as I think about the concept of having another woman as a wife is wrong, that it's what she would want me to do."

"Well, you must go through a grieving period; we all do when we lose someone we love. You can't be expected just to jump back, no matter what that person told you." Remus smiled sadly, nodding.

"You were always beyond your years, Hermione. I never knew if that was such a good thing," he said, "not because you love to learn so - that's not what I'm talking about. The war is what made you, Harry, and others your age the same. But you of course, you're...well, you're still the brightest witch Hogwarts has ever seen since Rowena Ravenclaw." He shook his head. "I'm sorry, I seem to not be able to stop talking lately. Molly and Arthur told me it was because I'm trying to push the fact that she's dead out of my mind."

"I would have to agree," Hermione said. "I do the same thing, though I tend to ramble all the time, so I suppose I don't count." Remus smiled again. The sorrow was still deep in his eyes, but Hermione was pleased to see him smile at least twice during their meeting, and he was still holding her hand. She couldn't say she didn't feel the familiar heaviness in her chest she'd always gotten around him since her second day in his Defense Against the Dark Arts class; in that same moment she accepted she still had feelings for Remus Lupin even as she had just turned thirty, he must have seen something in her eyes that gave her away, for his smile dropped to a worried frown.

"Is something wrong?"

"No," she said, trying not to sound sad. This was not the time. "I'm sorry, I got to thinking about something else. I think I'll take you up on the offer of a drink. Do you have a butterbeer?"

"Of course," he said, and they went into the kitchen where he pulled out two bottles of butterbeer.

"I have to apologize for not visiting since the war ended," she said, settling back on the couch in the living room. "I feel horrible about not."

"You shouldn't," said Remus, looking bewildered. "Did you think I would be angry with you?"

"No..." Hermione trailed off, not wanting to explain why she hadn't been able to visit or why she thought he would care. She was never one to live on hope, but there was one she'd been clinging to for years, no matter how immature it seemed. Luckily, Remus didn't bring the subject up again, merely taking another drink from his butterbeer.

"Do you know if Harry is still having his dreams?" asked Remus very suddenly.

"I don't know," said Hermione. "He hasn't mentioned them lately, but he might not want me to get worried like I do. You know, once I believed I was in love with Harry." Instantly, she blushed. She had really no clue why she'd brought that up, but Remus didn't look all that surprised.

"You weren't?"

"No," she replied shortly, thinking of how wrong she'd been when she had finally realized whom she loved. "Or rather, I did love him, but only in a sisterly way; I wasn't in love with him. He was nothing more than a best friend to me, and I think now that it would have been a little odd dating someone who was more like a brother. I was only thirteen, anyway, what did I know?"

"Remember what I said about you being beyond your years? You were even back then, so perhaps you aren't wrong; perhaps you were in love with him then. When did you realize you weren't?" When I realized I loved you instead, she thought, but replied instead, "Fifth year."

After a moment's silence, she tentatively said, "Have you ever been in love with anybody before Nymphadora?" He met her eyes and her butterbeer shook as she lifted it to her mouth. She quickly lowered it before he noticed.

"I had a situation similar to yours, really. I thought I was in love with a friend." Hermione stared, instantly thinking of the Marauders. What he said next threw her off even more than the prospect of him being in love with James or Sirius. "I thought I loved Lily Evans at one point," he said, but quickly switched off of Lily. "There was somebody else, too, just before I really got to know Nymphadora, but there was an age difference more than that of even Nymphadora and I, and I forbade myself to think for another minute that I even liked this person for more than a friend."

"Who was that?" she couldn't help asking, and mentally kicked herself. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked, it's none of my business."

"It's okay," he said quietly, searching her eyes for something she didn't know. "I want to ask you a question I nearly asked you earlier, to get it off of my mind, but you don't have to answer." She arched an eyebrow.

"All right, I suppose," she said finally, and he set his empty bottle on the coffee table.

"Why didn't you visit?" Her heart stopped. She knew if she lied he would be able to tell, at this proximity to her eyes - and she had never been that great of a liar, even if it had gotten her away from the wrath of Professor McGonagall when she was eleven. She swallowed, trying to regain her composure and failing. Failure was not something she took lightly, and she could quickly feel the tears prickling in the backs of her eyes.

"Please, don't think any less of me after I tell you," she started, her voice trembling, and Remus nodded in promise. "I have been in love with you since my fifth year, since I realized I didn't love Harry in the way that I do you. All my third year I'd liked you but I'd pushed it away in my mind, thinking that it was just a stupid schoolgirl crush. There was just something different about it though, and the summer before my fifth year, I tried to figure it out, thinking that if you were around I'd come to an answer sooner. It didn't work, but in fact I arrived at the answer in the middle of October, when I hadn't seen you in nearly two months.

"I tried to reason with myself, and trust me - I tried everything, from the 'he's old enough to be my father' deal, all the way to 'he would think I'm just being a stupid teenager if I told him' but nothing worked. Sixth year, when we were in the hospital wing and Nymphadora was pleading with you to listen to her, I knew she was in love with you, and I knew I never could tell you then. I figured after fifteen years, it would just sort of fade away, but I couldn't see you until I knew for sure. I wasn't even sure when I came here, but I knew I had to let you know that I cared for you...I didn't plan to let you know this way." Remus looked thoroughly stunned, and Hermione could see why. Here she was, a thirty-year-old woman confessing her fifteen-year-old (seventeen years if you wanted to get technical) love for him, when only Tonks had ever admitted loving him before.

"I...wow, Hermione. You didn't tell me for fifteen years because you thought I would think you foolish? I can see your reasoning, for telling somebody you love them, especially if they're twenty years your senior, is one of the hardest things one does in life. You made a mistake, though. You thought I would think less of you or your intelligence; that is something I would never do, even when it comes to emotions, which we all know are very rocky - even if you're the brightest witch of Hogwarts since Ravenclaw." Hermione smiled shakily.

"Thank you for being honest with me," Remus continued.

"I'm sorry it was so soon after her death. And I'm sorry for putting my own feelings before visiting two of the best people I know. I just couldn't face Nymphadora, knowing how I felt; it would feel too much like betraying her."

"I think that she would have understood," said Remus quietly. "Just like she understood that I would let my own feelings of guilt come before my happiness with another woman." Hermione hoped she wasn't assuming the wrong thing, but she found herself grasping Remus's hand again before she could stop herself.

"I think your happiness meant a lot to her," she said. "She said what she did knowing this and accepting it; granted, I didn't know her that well, but I can tell. It's the connection of being women." Remus nodded, but stood and walked to the window, while Hermione stayed seated. I should just leave, he needs time to grieve and it's only been nearly two weeks since she died. That's not near long enough for him to get over her death.

"Remus, er...can I ask you a question, before I leave?"

"Of course," he said, turning back to face her. "You shouldn't leave so soon, I feel like I've just begun talking to you. We have a lot of catching up to do."

"I have to, I have an appointment...with...Minerva, I need to talk to her, and she -"

"Hermione, what was your question?" Remus said patiently. She cleared her throat, standing and walking over to him, looking up in his grey-brown eyes.

"I know I said it wasn't any of my business, but I can't accept not knowing something."

"Who was I in love with before Nymphadora?" he interrupted, and she wanted to sink into the floor. At a loss for words, she merely nodded. "Honestly, you couldn't tell?" Hermione's eyes widened, her mind searching for any reason he might be lying or kidding with her, but his eyes betraying the truth - that he was no liar, and he was most definitely not a kidder about anything to that degree. Then, acting purely on first reactions, which was something Hermione Granger did not often do, she put her hands on the sides of his face, and kissed him.

Remus's hands immediately went to her upper arms, as though he were going to push her away instinctively. It seemed as though Tonks's words finally sunk in then, or he realized that Hermione was the solace he needed; either way, his arms relaxed and his hands then gripped her hips, pulling her against him. She thought she felt tears mingle with her skin but she didn't dare pull away to see; she held onto him like it was the war again and there might not be a tomorrow to go to. She didn't want to lose him, not when she had gotten this far. After fifteen years, she was going to pour every emotion she'd ever felt regarding him into this kiss, this one embrace, needing to share her soul with him. His fingers tugged at the hem of her sweater, and she drew back only a centimeter.

"Are you sure you're ready?" she asked, thinking that there was an odd kind of irony to the whole situation; he was the one who was supposed to be asking that, not her.

"If I don't now, I don't know if I ever will be able to let her go. I'm ready, Hermione," he murmured, and she knew better than to ask him again, answering him instead with holding up her arms to allow him to slip her sweater over her head. And as she sank into another kiss with him, she thought she heard Tonks's voice whisper in her ear, "He will be happy with you, Hermione." And she didn't question it.

I'm finding my way back to sanity again

Though I don't really know what I am gonna do when I get there

Take a breath and hold on tight

Spin around one more time

And gracefully fall back to the arms of grace

Cause I am hanging on every word you say and

Even if you don't want to speak tonight

That's alright, alright with me

Cause I want nothing more than

To sit outside Heaven's door and

Listen to you breathing, is where I wanna be

I'm looking past the shadows in my mind into the truth and I'm

Trying to identify the voices in my head

God which one's you

Let me feel one more time what it feels like to feel and

Break these calluses off of me one more time.

FIN

To any Tonks fans out there - I'm sorry I killed her off, but I love Hermione/Remus fics (I have about 30 I've written) and I was very angry at J.K. for writing in Tonks and Lupin ending up together - not that I'm against him having happiness. I like Tonks but not so much as to supporting a Tonks/Lupin relationship () so I'm sorry to Tonks fans!

Side note: I've posted on this site before and I've been writing fanfiction for nearly seven years now, so if you didn't like the story for some reason please don't say that "that's okay because you're new." Sorry, I've had that happen once before (not on this site, thankfully) and it really bugged me, so nothing against any of you. :D If you didn't like the story, okay with me, just don't flame me. And, as always, constructive criticism is more than welcome!

Love always --

Professional Widow