Harry was already awake when Remus got up to make tea the next morning. At first Hermione heard the soft lull of their voices in the kitchen as she sleepily cuddled deeper into the warmth of Sirius' chest. Sirius kissed her forehead, raking his fingers through her tangled hair from the roots to the ends. She could feel his bare skin against hers beneath the sheets, their legs intertwined.
But then she heard Remus' voice rising, panicked. Something shattered.
Eyes now wide open, she and Sirius jolted upright almost as one, dressing quickly. They were out the door in thirty seconds to find Remus standing stock-still in the kitchen, shards of a mug scattered around his feet, holding the box of tea.
"Remus, I don't understand—" Harry was saying in surprise.
"Remus, don't move, you'll cut yourself," Sirius said, and at the same time Hermione asked, "What's wrong?"
Rather than responding, Remus numbly tilted the box toward the two of them. Hermione immediately understood. The box was depleted; the teabags that Hermione had removed the previous day were all still gone. She inhaled sharply through her nose.
"I don't understand why you're upset," Harry said, clearly lost. "I'm sorry, was I not supposed to have any tea—?"
"No, no, Harry, you're fine," Hermione reassured him as the other two processed. Sirius looked excited, but Remus gloomily stepped over the mess and sank into a chair across from Harry, his head buried in his hands.
"Harry," Hermione continued, taking a seat beside him, "these last few months, here, time was… it was sort of, well, it was frozen for us. Suspended. Every day when we woke up, everything was exactly as it had been the day before. And we weren't aging, Remus wasn't…" she trailed off, her eyes darting to Remus. "He wasn't changing."
"Oh," Harry said, processing this new information. "But time was still passing outside of this place."
"Right. We tried to find an explanation in the books I brought, but we still don't really understand it." Hermione's gaze shifted. "We do know that this cabin belonged to the Peverell family for generations. The best we can tell is that there was some sort of ancient enchantment cast on it. And…" she paused. "I don't know, honestly. Perhaps your return is what broke the spell. I guess it's the only thing that makes sense."
Harry himself was descended from the Peverells, after all. It seemed more than likely that his legacy held the answer.
"We'll be able to leave now," Sirius said gleefully, moving into another chair. He turned to Remus. "Remus, you'll be able to see your son again."
"Hang on—you have a son?" Harry sputtered in surprise.
Remus nodded curtly, as if he did not want to discuss it further, but Harry either missed the cue or didn't care, soldiering ahead.
"I can't believe none of you mentioned this to me," Harry said, his excitement so genuine it made Hermione's heart lift. "Remus, that's wonderful. I'm so happy for you."
"I suppose you should be," Remus said in a listless, flat tone.
"Err…" Harry's eyes darted back to Hermione's in confusion. "But this is a good thing, isn't it? The spell being broken? It means you can all leave. I thought that's what you wanted."
Remus looked stonily out the window. Internally Hermione could understand his disappointment, but she still felt frustrated with Remus for being so difficult in the face of Harry and Sirius' obvious excitement. He couldn't truly have thought that they would stay here forever, the three of them? Their lives were always going to revert at some point. It had only ever been a question of when.
"Harry—" she began, but Harry spoke over her, a new fraught pitch to his voice.
"Remus, what is wrong with you?" he said bluntly.
"Oh, forgive me if I'm not particularly thrilled about the idea of my body being torn apart and knit back together on a monthly basis again," Remus spat suddenly, his voice riddled with uncharacteristic aggression. Hermione wasn't sure that she had ever heard him speak like this before.
"It's not just about you anymore, Remus," Harry said in an equally hard tone. "You have a responsibility to your child now. Your life isn't just your own."
"Oh, what, are you accusing me of being selfish?" Remus said, his voice rising.
"Well, yeah, maybe I am!" Harry retorted hotly, and they glared at each other across the table.
Hermione looked at Sirius; he seemed, for once, to be completely at a loss for words, apparently unaware that his friend had had these feelings until this very moment. That Remus had wanted to stay as much as Sirius had wanted to go.
"I'm not your father, Harry," Remus said harshly.
"I'm well aware of that, Remus, thanks," Harry said.
"Fatherhood's not intuitive for me," Remus continued, as though Harry had not spoken. His gaze returned to the window.
"When Teddy was born, I didn't look into his eyes like James looked into yours and all of a sudden understand my purpose in the world. I didn't have some grand realization that I could do this, that all of my fears and anxieties had been unwarranted, because I'd had the ability to be a good father inside of me all along."
His voice tightened, grew small.
"No, Harry. I looked at Teddy and all I felt was terror. Abject terror. Because I had made this being, he was here because of me, and I understood in that moment how many different ways I could hurt him, how many ways I could fail him—this little boy—and that there was an entire world out there that I couldn't protect him from. I've never—never—been so conscious of my own helplessness."
Harry snorted.
"And you think my dad had a bloody clue what he was doing? A couple years prior to my birth my own mum didn't even like him. I'm sure he was making it up as he went along. Just like any of us."
Harry slammed his hands on the table with renewed vigor just as his voice began to grow soft, startling everyone.
"The point is, Remus, that you owe it to your kid to try. You can't hide away from the world here forever. As much as we'd all like to. You and I—all of us"—he gestured around the table in a loose circle—"We have a responsibility. You owe it to your son to do your damnedest so that he can grow up in a safe world. I want that for him"—Harry swallowed—"and I'm willing to do whatever it takes."
He stared long and hard at Remus.
"The question is, are you?"
They looked at each other for a long moment, eyes blazing—a moment that seemed to Hermione to hold an eternity.
And suddenly Remus lurched to his feet; Harry did, too. For an instant Hermione thought they might fight each other—she almost went for her wand—but instead the two men embraced, and her muscles finally relaxed.
"He would be so proud of you, Remus," Harry said softly, and Hermione was not sure if he was talking about James or Teddy, but in the end it did not seem to matter.
The way that Harry held Remus, gently patting his back as Remus began to cry, struck Hermione as being very fatherly in his own right, and in that moment she could see a whole future unfurling before Harry, one in which he had children of his own and cared for them and loved them and became a good father—even a great one.
Hermione looked at Sirius and saw that his eyes were wet and bright, and she wondered if he had seen it, too.
Later on Harry left to take a much-needed shower and Hermione decamped to the bedroom for a nap. Recent events had left her feeling utterly exhausted; she needed restoration, peace, a moment alone.
But she also suspected that Remus and Sirius needed to have a conversation on their own, just the two of them. And so she was far from surprised when the two of them began to speak into the silence she'd left behind after she closed the bedroom door.
There was the sound of a drink being poured, and Sirius let out a sort of embarrassed chuckle.
"Well, you and I've had an… eventful couple days, Remus, haven't we?"
He sounded uncertain, Hermione thought. Ready to play the whole thing off as a big joke and never speak of it again if that was the direction Remus decided to take.
Remus didn't respond for a moment. Then—
"Sirius, we didn't get the chance to talk about… I didn't know… the other night, you mentioned those—those feelings you'd had. About—" Remus cleared his throat. "About wanting to hurt yourself. And I just—"
"Oh yeah, all that." Sirius sounded distracted. "Don't worry about it, mate. Just being dramatic, you know… typical Black move—"
"Sirius," Remus said forcefully. "Stop it. I need you to know something."
He took a deep, shaking breath.
Hermione imagined Sirius staring at him across the table. Waiting.
"I just—I want you to know that I love you, all right? And I think I've always loved you. Even before I ever knew you. It… it's hard to explain." Remus' voice trembled. "But I… I used to think Greyback had taken something from me. For years I thought that. That when he made me what I am, he'd stolen something from me, something important. But then, I met you that first day, on the Hogwarts Express... Merlin, a whole lifetime ago now—" He laughed, the sound bittersweet. "And I didn't feel that way anymore. I felt like I was exactly who I was supposed to be." He cleared his throat.
"And so, I just want you to know that all these years we've known each other—together or apart, wherever you've been—just knowing you, and knowing you existed, having those memories of you—it changed everything for me. You changed everything. I… I'm so happy just to have known you, Sirius. And last night, and the night before, with Hermione—well, I… it's all I ever wanted."
There was a pause, and then Remus concluded, "I just… needed you to know that."
There was a sniffling sound, and Hermione realized that Sirius was crying again.
"Goddamn it, Moons. Really laying it on thick with the sentimental stuff."
She heard Sirius chuckle through his tears.
"I—yes. All this things you said, I—I feel the same way. I do. I guess I always have."
He laughed again.
"Before the last few days I hadn't cried in years. And I was in bloody Azkaban. This is ridiculous."
There was the scraping sound of chairs being pushed back across the wooden floor.
Hermione imagined that the two men had stood up to hug, to wrap their arms around each other.
She wiped a tear from her own eye, smiling, grateful as ever that she and Remus had decided to come here in the tent on that cold winter night so long ago. For what would their lives have been like if they hadn't?
