A/N: We all knew it couldn't be that easy, right? Huge thank you to lanamarymack for alpha/beta reading this chapter! Please let me know what you thought of chapter fourteen and be on the lookout for chapter fifteen next week!
Pointing her toes to stretch out the soreness in her calves, Hermione was trying to slowly bring herself back into the world of the living. She could bear birds chirping outside and the warmth of the sun's rays on her face. But, more importantly, she could feel the heat and comfort that Remus's body provided to her.
Smiling to herself, she realized that she must have practically rolled on top of him in the night. She opened her brown eyes, hoping to catch a glimpse of his face before he woke up and they finally had to have that hard conversation that they had been putting off for so long.
She blinked the blurry mess from her eyes before gasping in shock. Looking around, she quickly realized that they weren't in the Jarl's great house anymore! They were actually in the library at Grimmauld Place, and fully clothed in the outfits they had worn before being pulled into the book. Hermione turned to see that the fire had gone completely out. She wasn't sure how she and Remus had managed to both sleep on the couch but realized that must have been why she'd ended up on top of him.
Her startle response to waking up back home must have woken up Remus, because when she cautiously lifted her head to look at him, the werewolf was staring down at her with those familiar green eyes.
She offered him a shy smile, prepared to snuggle up against his chest.
To her immense dismay, when they locked eyes, Remus grew uncomfortable. In his struggle to put some distance between them, he pushed her none too gently to the side. He sat up, his large hands pressed to his knees.
Righting herself, Hermione frowned, but moved to sit next to him on the couch. "Good morning, Remus," she said quietly, not wanting to spook him.
Why did everything seem so awkward between them? Yes, they'd been faux married and then had sex in the book, but it had been mind blowing! Hermione had thought that they'd really connected, not just sexually, but emotionally as well. Her frown deepened when he didn't respond to her greeting. She knew that they had to talk about it as it would only seem more embarrassing the longer they waited.
"Listen, could we just talk about…about what happened?" she asked.
Remus immediately stiffened on the couch next to her, his muscles so tight that if he moved an inch Hermione thought he might snap apart. It was setting her on edge but she wanted to talk to him — to finally reveal how she'd been feeling.
Unfortunately, When Remus did decide to talk, it was not at all what she was expecting. "Hermione, what happened in the book was a mistake. I should have never given into you, but you were the only thing that smelled…felt real in that whole world," he said in a rush. "It was overwhelming and I am very sorry that I took advantage of you."
Before his words could even really register in her brain, he was standing from the settee. He stalked off in the direction of the door, not giving her a second glance.
"Remus, wait!" she called after him, not willing to give up on him just yet. "I told you that you weren't taking advantage of me. I wanted to do it."
Her words did not seem to make a difference. His hand began to turn the doorknob.
She stood, ready to chase after him. "Can't we just talk about this like adults? You can't run away from it forever."
He hesitated but didn't turn to face her. "Hermione," he said with a sigh. "I think it's best if we both just try to forget that this ever even happened."
With that, he was out the door, slamming it behind him, leaving Hermione alone in the library. It wasn't a minute later that she heard the front door slam shut as well.
Suddenly, everything seemed awful. Hermione sat back down on the couch, tears coming to her eyes unbidden. Was it possible that she had completely misread Remus? She had been convinced that he…that he might actually want her the same way she wanted him. That he'd give her — them — a chance. Instead, he'd stormed away, disgusted.
Was she so repulsive to him that he couldn't even bear to be near her? She dropped her head to the arm of the couch and felt tears leave her in great, wracking sobs. She couldn't remember a time when she'd cried this hard, but then again, she couldn't remember a time when she felt so completely devastated. Her heart ached.
She heard the door open, but she couldn't even look up. She didn't want to face whoever it was. When an arm wrapped around her, she knew it was Harry. He quietly ushered her from the library, up the stairs and into her own room.
After leaving Grimmauld Place, Remus could think of nowhere to go except for the muggle pub down the road. The same one that he'd been in the night before, when he'd made that awful decision to listen to Sirius and find out what Hermione was reading.
He sat down at the bar and ordered several whiskeys in quick succession. The bartender looked at him with disgust. As he raised his glass to his lips, Remus decided he was pretty disgusted with himself, too. And it was little to do with the fact that it wasn't even noon yet and he was well on his way to being drunk.
He'd known — though he hadn't wanted to acknowledge it — that Hermione Granger was a woman. An adult woman with her own sexual desires. He would smell her lust and it drove him wild with curiosity, fanning his own nearly overwhelming attraction to her. If he had thought it was overwhelming in the regular world, well in the book world it had been unstoppable. He had been powerless against her advances.
And now he was certain that he'd bollocksed up a great friendship all because he couldn't stop thinking with his cock! It had been primal and lovely and he wanted nothing more than to do it again and again and again.
But, when they'd woken up in the library and not in the fantasy world, his logical mind kicked back in.
They couldn't be together. It would ruin her life. Hermione was a kind and intelligent witch with a boundless passion for getting things done. She had so much potential. He, on the other hand, was just a washed up old werewolf — a poor excuse for a partner. Not to mention he was old enough to be her father. He couldn't give her the life that she deserved.
No one would accept them. Sirius might understand, but he couldn't bear to think of the horrified looks on the faces of Harry and Ron when they found out, or the tight-lipped disdain of Molly Weasley.
And that was all assuming Hermione actually wanted to be with him.
He rubbed a hand over his face. Maybe he should leave the country for a few weeks, just while the dust settled.
Remus was startled from his melancholy when he felt a hand clap him roughly on the back. Someone slipped into the open seat next to him.
"Care to explain why you're drunk and Hermione is balling her eyes out?" Sirius asked, wearing a rare serious expression.
Remus frowned. He was not ready for this conversation yet. "Can you please leave me to wallow alone?" he asked bitterly. He knew that it was his fault for just going to the nearest pub rather than apparate far away if he wanted to be left alone. A brief thought flittered through his mind — maybe he'd wanted to be found?
"Remus, you know I can't do that," Sirius answers, knowing his friend far too well. "Can you tell me what happened between you and Hermione?" he gently prodded.
"We were in that blasted book and we had to…" he trailed off, not wanting to say the words out loud. It would make it seem all too real, somehow.
"Make love?" Sirius offered.
Remus opened and shut his mouth several times, trying to formulate an answer. Surely Hermione wouldn't classify it like that.
"We figured out what had happened when you two got pulled into the book. We aren't that dumb, when you put the three of us together," Sirius said, taking pity on him. "Harry was the one to work out that you were going to have sex."
Remus felt her cheeks heating up in embarrassment. He couldn't believe it! He'd been Harry's professor!
Godric, he'd been Hermione's professor. This was certainly not helping.
"Yes, well, when we got out of the book she wanted to talk about it. But there is no point," he said, trying to convince himself as much as Sirius. "I had a moment of weakness and I would like to pretend like it never happened."
Sirius frowned, before taking the full glass out of his hand. He drank what remained of the whiskey in one swallow before making a disgusted face. "Really Moony? Rail whiskey?" he asked, shaking his head before getting back to the topic at hand. "Why do you want to put it behind you? This could be great for you."
Sometimes, Remus didn't understand Sirius's optimism, especially after all that he'd been through. "Great how?" he demanded. "I just fucked her because Moony was overwhelmed by her scent. And now she probably hates me! I've ruined a perfectly lovely friendship all because I couldn't control myself."
"What if everything's not ruined?" Sirius asked. "What if Hermione wants something more?"
Remus practically whined like the wolf he was at the suggestion. "That's even worse, then. I can't give Hermione the life…the relationship that she deserves!" he explained. Merlin, he wished he'd had another drink before starting this heart to heart with Sirius. "No matter how much I'd like to. Besides, it's not as though she would ever want more. I'm just an old, shabby, sad werewolf," he added darkly, before waving the bartender over for another drink.
"Well it sounds to me like the poor witch has had her heart broken, the way that she was crying," Sirius mused. He took the new whiskey from the bartender before Remus could get his hands on it. "Maybe you should let her decide what she wants, instead of just assuming that you know."
Remus swallowed thickly, thinking over Sirius's words, not wanting to agree with him. It felt like he knew what was going to happen if he made himself vulnerable for heartache.
Sirius waited a few beats of silence. "So just to be clear, since you don't think you'll work out a relationship with Hermione, you'd be okay if she started dating someone else?" he mused. "Because Ron mentioned that Oliver Wood had stopped by the shop this week to ask if Hermione was free…"
He barely heard the words 'Oliver Wood' before he started growling. Hermione was his witch — not that dumb Quidditch player's!
Sirius laughed. "Merlin, Remus. You are so transparent! You are interested in Hermione. Don't you want to give it a chance and see where it goes?" he asked.
Remus opened his mouth to argue with his friend again, to deny it, but Sirius cut him off before he could get a word out.
"Okay, so if you don't think that you and Hermione will work out, don't you at least think she deserves to hear your reasoning?"
He thought about it for a moment, before sighing and nodding his head in agreement. "I suppose that's the decent thing to do," he conceded. He stood from his seat at the bar, leaving some muggle money on the counter.
The animagus took one look at his friend's slight sway before chuckling and pulling a small vial out of his leather jacket. "Slow down there, mate. You will definitely need this before you talk with her," he teased.
Remus gladly took the sober-up potion, downing it quickly. Once his head was clear, he headed back to Grimmauld Place. He was dreading the conversation, but he knew it needed to be done.