It was safe to say that something shifted after that night. And now they were both finding reasons to touch each other, growing more and more brazen in their attempts.
One afternoon they were reading quietly across from each other at the kitchen table. At some point Hermione glanced up, meaning to make a note about a location relating to Voldemort in her notebook—Merlin, she was so tired of taking notes on this terrible man, reading his biographies. Instead she found Remus looking at her; he had, given the way his chin rested steadily against his hand, been looking at her for some time.
She met his gaze with curiosity. Rather than blushing or apologizing or looking away, Remus reached across the table to tuck a piece of her hair behind her ear—that one overgrown wisp which always got in her eyes as she was reading, forever falling forward.
The rough skin of his thumb grazed the soft lobe of her ear, and his hand rested there for an instant—just a moment—where her pulse beat in her neck, as he looked searchingly into her eyes, inscrutably, not smiling, not averting, and yet it was still impossible to know what he was thinking, what his next move would be. Perhaps he did not even know himself.
That was the moment that Ron returned.
Hermione's gaze flew back to Remus; he seemed as surprised as she felt, his hand still frozen beside her face.
"Wh—what—" Ron sputtered. "What's going on here?"
The tent flap, untied, was still moving behind him, undulating in the wind. Hermione had a sudden urge to run through it, to leave the inevitable conflict behind.
Remus stood so abruptly that his book fell from his lap to the floor. Ron regarded him with fresh suspicion, eyes narrowed.
"Why did you come with us, anyway?" he asked. "Is she the real reason?"
Remus put his hands up, as if fruitlessly trying to calm a wild animal.
"Ron," he said evenly. "I'm here to help look for the horcruxes. Same as you."
Ron snorted derisively, his fingers curling into fists.
"Oh yeah, I'd love to hear how touching my girlfriend helps us with that. What do you two do when I'm not here?"
Hermione stood up too. "Nothing, Ron, we don't do anything," she said, trying to calm him. She was, she realized, frightened of him, the unfamiliar anger blazing in his eyes. Hermione could not recall ever being frightened of Ron Weasley.
Ron began to stalk about the tent, making incoherent noises of frustration, violently kicking over a chair in his anger. Hermione exchanged a fleeting gaze with Remus. His expression was predictably unreadable.
"I know this has been a discouraging and unrewarding mission, Ron," he began. "I know it's difficult to find things to feel positively about—"
Ron scoffed. "You don't know the half of it, Lupin. Things have been so—" kick—"bloody—" kick— "easy for you. Don't want a family anymore? Abandon them! Don't want a job anymore? Leave it behind. The thing that I don't get, though, is how you can be so unfeeling about any of it." Ron stalked a few feet closer to Remus, squinting into his former teacher's face. "It's almost… inhuman."
"Ron!" Hermione exclaimed.
Remus had gone white. His fingers, too, were now clenched into fists. As Hermione watched, his hands began to shake. A drop of blood slid from between his fingers. He had dug his nails into his palm so deeply that they had opened a wound. But still he did not speak.
Ron was really furious now, had worked himself up as he was wont to do, past the point of no return.
"You're going to turn her, aren't you? Make her like you. That's why you're here. Werewolf," he spat. "You're just the same as Greyback. You dirty wolves are all the same—"
Remus lurched forward at the same moment that Hermione stepped between them, palms out.
"Ron, please, Ron, you're not yourself," she whispered, tentatively reaching for him with one hand while signaling for Remus to stay back with the other. She searched Ron's frame with her eyes, looking for his wand—was it in his pocket? Did she need to be worried that he would use it against them? He wasn't holding it, but he could be in a split second if he had it on him, and at this point she was no longer sure what he would do.
This was the frightening thing about every witch or wizard having a wand—it could, at any time, become a weapon. It all depended on who was holding it.
Ron spun on his heel and stormed out through the tent flap; she glanced back at Remus, who would not now look at her, and hurried out after Ron, though she noticed a resistance, a feeling that she was doing the wrong thing.
Why should she be making any effort to comfort Ron, after the things he had said? And the ownership he had taken over her had not gone unnoticed either. She was not anybody's girlfriend.
Hermione Granger did not belong to anyone.
She found Ron standing at the edge of the clearing with his arms crossed. He was so close to the border of the enchantments they'd cast that she could see the force field's movement barely an inch from his face.
As she approached him, tramping through the wet leaves, he reached out and pressed experimentally on the enchantment wall; his hand sprang back slightly. She stopped a foot away from him, her chest heaving, waiting to see what he would do.
"I don't want to be here anymore, Hermione," Ron said finally.
Something in her unclenched, and she realized she had been expecting this. Ron's abandonment. It had only been a matter of time.
"What are you saying?" she said evenly.
"I'm saying exactly what it sounds like I'm saying." He turned away from the boundary to face her, wearing an expression she had never seen on him before, his face contorted and his eyes hard.
His voice, when he spoke, was very low, almost a monotone. He was speaking so quietly she had to move closer to hear him properly. A bitter wind nipped at their uncloaked bodies.
"Whatever I thought we were, whatever I thought we were going to be—" He shook his head. "You don't want that. I see that now."
"Ron, I—"
It was true, she realized, as he said it. Maybe she had not yet acknowledged this plainly to herself, but hearing him say it now was so apparent, so obvious that she almost started crying from the relief of it.
No. She did not want to be with Ron Weasley.
He started walking past her again, back toward the tent.
"I'm getting my stuff and then I'm going back to the Burrow," he called over his shoulder. "I can't do this anymore."
She hadn't meant to.
Hours after Ron's departure, Hermione fell asleep outside without performing the requisite warming charms as the sun dipped below the horizon. She'd brought a book with her on watch—this one charting Voldemort's rise to power in the years leading up to the first Wizarding War—but she'd nodded off, uncharacteristically, in the middle of a chapter.
Of course in retrospect she was using the book as a distraction—her avoidant behavior of choice—burying herself in new knowledge so that she didn't have to think about what she already knew, which was that Ron had loved her and she'd tried to love him back but she had failed. Hermione Granger had failed.
She could not read or think her way into being in love, and by failing she had pushed away one of the only people left who cared about her, one of the only people left who still connected her, however tenuously, with Harry—and what was she supposed to do with that?
Sometimes when she looked down at the page Ron's face would appear before her, overlaid onto the words, his last long look before departure, cuing that exquisite but not unfamiliar pang of loneliness, of solitude, of abandonment. For years Ron had been there, and now he was gone, gone the same way that Harry was gone, and now somehow for the first time in her adult life she would have to learn how to be on her own, without either of them.
It wasn't that she couldn't do it. She knew she could, as she'd done everything else that came before. But that didn't make the task any less lonely.
This was what she was thinking about when she slipped into the blessed sea of unconsciousness. She hadn't been sleeping much lately, so now it overcame her quite suddenly: a smooth nothingness, a still sea on which she bobbed, free from all the fears that plagued her conscious hours.
She was not aware of her body again until much later, when she heard someone calling her name, faintly at first, then louder…
Hermione, Hermione, oh god, Hermione, oh god…
She didn't want to leave this gentle state of nothingness. Consciousness seemed dark and cold the closer she came to it, but that persistent calling of her name refused to let her slip back to sleep.
Hermione, Hermione, Hermione…
Was it Harry? Ron?
Hermione!
She felt—or she thought she felt—fingers on her cheek, on her skin. They were warm.
Someone picked her up and ran back to the tent, almost stumbling in his haste as he bore her across the uneven ground. Hermione flitted in and out of consciousness. No, she wasn't cold at all, she decided, but in fact quite warm.
She felt herself being laid down beside a fire; she could hear the crackling of the flames as if from a great distance.
"Hermione, if it's all right, I'm going take your clothes off," came the voice in a worried tone. "I'm going to put a warming salve on your skin—god, you're like ice all over…"
She nodded and he began working quickly. She felt the layers coming off, identified them by the consequent lightness—ah yes, that was the sweater she'd been wearing, there went her pants… In a half-aware docile state she obediently raised her arms and lowered her hips to assist his ministrations; she was so cold and tired and liked the idea of being taken care of. He left her bra and underwear, likely due to his concern for modesty.
A pungent, spicy scent like cinnamon filled the air.
"Merlin, Hermione, your toes are blue," Remus murmured. There was a sound like he was rubbing his hands together, so his fingers would be warmer when he touched her, and then she felt something like a thick lotion being rubbed onto her toes first, then the bottoms of her feet. Warmth began to move through her feet up into her calves, a soft heat that radiated up through her body, though it was accompanied by a vague prickling sensation, as though her insides, too, had begun to thaw.
Remus moved next to her calves, working the numb muscles with his thumbs—gently at first, then steadily increasing pressure. The heat moved up, up, up. She felt as if she was being reawakened after a hundred-year sleep, like in a fairy tale.
"Hermione, I don't know if you can hear me," Remus said softly, "but I'm sorry Ron left. I'm sorry if my behavior has been… confusing. If I've been unhelpful. The truth is, I… I somewhat feel as if all of this is my fault."
He stopped speaking abruptly, as if he had something stuck in his throat, but his fingers kept working, going, kneading the sensitive place around her knees briefly before vanishing for a moment, then coming back with a fresh application of the salve. His skin was warm, his fingers long and supple, ever reaching.
"But it doesn't matter," he continued. "What matters is that you understand that you have to take better care of yourself. I can't… I can't do this alone. Without you. Hermione." He cleared his throat. "And I don't know… it's always seemed so apparent to me, but maybe it doesn't go without saying, so I'll say it. You deserve better than someone who'll leave you, Hermione. That's the truth."
He paused and for a moment there was only the fire crackling in the silence. His hands passed over the space between her legs and began to work her lower abdomen, her stomach, moving up over her ribs with the lightest touch.
The warmth was still spreading, faster than ever now, through her body. Hermione felt awake, alive, burning, hungry, coming back to herself, enough so that she realized, with a tinge of embarrassment, the she was beginning to feel aroused. She felt vulnerable beneath Remus' hands, her breathing shallow; she wondered if her body was beginning to betray her. Whether he might know, too.
Remus seemed to have said everything he wanted to say for the time being. Perhaps he thought he'd said too much, was worried that he'd overstepped. Quiet and focused, his hands continued across the length of her arms and finished with her hands, the last of the chill finally vanishing as he took them into his own, rubbing her fingers carefully, the salve working the remainder of its magic.
She found the strength to open her eyes just in time to see him bring her hands together carefully over her stomach and kiss them softly. His eyes flitted up to hers and he blushed when she met his gaze—a little like a schoolboy, she thought—but he didn't look away.
"How are you feeling?" he asked in a low voice.
Hermione was a little embarrassed by the idea of answering honestly. He'd touched almost every part of her except the part that needed him most. This was what made her brave enough, at last, to put his hand—one of those magic hands—in between her legs, so he would understand what she already knew, had probably known for some time:
She wanted him.
Remus looked at her with gentle surprise, just barely moving his fingers within the spot that she had placed them. The salve seemingly heightened every sensation, which worked to her benefit here, too, as it had everywhere else; just the slight movement of his fingers sent a surge of pleasure throughout her body. She let out an unbridled moan, for once not trying to silence herself.
He moved his fingers again, his eyes never leaving hers, and again she was unable to stifle the sound that he coaxed from her. But she could tell, looking at him, that he liked to hear the noises she made.
Her whole body was positively radiating with desire for him, to a degree that she could not explain. She had not known that it was possible to want someone this much.
"Please," she whispered.
At her invitation he moved at lightning speed, slipping his fingers beneath the waistband of her underwear and tugging so hard that he ripped the seam along the side from top to bottom. Tossing the now useless fabric to the floor, he traced the newly uncovered skin with his fingertips. He seemed deeply intent on bringing more of those moans out of her.
"Hermione," he said, in that same low voice she'd never heard before tonight, his face now lowering between her legs, so she could feel every breath against the most sensitive part of her with each word he spoke, "Hermione, may I…"
Unable to form coherent words, she instead pulled his mouth to her clit, and he buried his tongue in her, licking, sucking, as if he'd been starving for her all this time. She moaned, every pore electric, her entire body tense with desire. She rocked against his face for only a few moments before she began to feel the familiar sensation of pressure that preceded her orgasm.
They had barely done anything and yet here she was already—already—
It was as if she had been on the edge of a cliff for months and now finally succumbed, descending into waves of wild pleasure so extreme that she was left convulsing. He pulled back and watched her, vigorously rubbing her pulsing clit—somehow the waves of pleasure were still coming—how was that even possible?—she had never known an orgasm could last so long.
As she came back to herself, she became aware of his hard cock rubbing softly against her thigh. He wasn't wearing his clothes anymore; he must have climbed into the bed beside her. She wrapped her fingers around him eagerly, looking up into his face, and now it was he who could not contain the moan that her touch elicited.
"Hermione—"
"Please, Remus."
"I don't want to hurt you," he said, weakly. She was moving her hand back and forth along his length and she could see his eyes fluttering closed instinctively from the pleasure of it.
"You won't," she said, and to remind him she took his hand and placed it in between her legs, where she was soaked with both him and herself.
He groaned again, slipping one long finger inside of her, as if he could not resist it. Her eyes closed instinctively; it felt so good, just as she'd imagined. She buried her face in the crook of his neck as he added another finger alongside the first, pumping back and forth inside of her, hitting the right spot with every stroke. But she could still feel him against her thigh, his cock pulsing, unimaginably hard.
"Remus," she whispered. "Remus, please, I want—"
"I want to make you feel good, Hermione," he said earnestly.
"You are," she said, "and you will."
She pulled his body on top of hers, his fingers sliding out as he moved.
"Hermione," he said, his voice breaking, and the sound of his voice uttering her name drove her wild, she had to have him—so she reached both hands around his lower back and pushed the whole delicious length of him inside of her at once.
Remus let loose a guttural moan.
"You're so tight." He cursed quietly. "Give me… give a moment," he said, and he just held himself inside of her, and she was panting for it, she realized, the only other sound in the room was her own breath, desperate little gasps of desire, and then he started moving, in and out—slowly at first, she could tell he was still trying to give her time to adjust to the sheer length and girth of him, but he didn't understand, she had craved this for months now, this was all she'd ever wanted, it was perfect, his cock was perfect, he was perfect…
"Faster," she whimpered, and he obliged.
"Keep going," she breathed. "Just like that."
Every brush of his chest against her nipples delivered a new surge of pleasure. She could not believe that any of it was happening, that she was having sex with him, it felt like a dream, an impossible dream, she was holding her breath now, she had to remember to breathe…
"Say my name again," he whispered as he moved within her. "Say my name, Hermione."
"Remus."
He groaned, his cock harder than ever.
"Hermione, I'm getting close—"
All she wanted in the entire universe at that moment was to make him feel as good as he had made her feel. She wrapped her legs around him, pulling him deeper still.
"Remus," she whispered.
The sound of his name on her tongue seemed to drive him wild; his moans grew more animal still. Finally he reached a point where all of his initial caution and carefulness had been stripped away. He was so overcome by desire; he was fucking her. Hard. Fast. And it felt good.
She remembered to breathe, feeling a surprising but familiar pressure beginning to build. Was she really going to come again—?
"Come for me, Remus," she begged.
"I will, Hermione. I'm close—"
"Please," she whispered, and the look on his face when he did, with a groan, sent her over the edge too, so that their bodies shook with pleasure together, as if they had given themselves over to the same powerful force, and were now allowing themselves to be consumed by it.
He kept his eyes open as he filled her, murmuring her name like a prayer. She never wanted to forget the expression on his face in that moment.
Once he'd finished, Remus was no longer able to hold himself up above her; she sensed this and pulled him down against her, so that their bodies were pressed completely against each other. He rested his head beside hers, tracing gentle, fluttering lines down her arm as they both got their breath back. He was still inside of her; she could still feel the last gentle pulses of his cock as he began to soften.
After a few minutes, she finally managed to open her eyes again and turned her head to find that his were closed.
Hermione gazed up at the ceiling as the madness of her desire finally began to ebb away. Being who she was, she could not help wondering what this would mean for them. And what would happen next.
A/N: Thanks to all of you who are favoriting, following, and reviewing—really appreciate it!
