Chapter 6: Vita Mutatur, Non Tollitur*
20 August 1997
12 Grimmauld Place
Pain. So much pain.
Big, great big eyes. Great big golden eyes on fire.
Sharp teeth dripping with blood and saliva.
Getting closer.
Fear.
"Sirius!"
Sirius burst through the door, Remus right on his heels. Crossing the room in two steps, Sirius reached out to still the thrashing sleeper. Hermione tossed violently, her face etched with pain and anguish. Sirius looked back at Remus who stood horrified in the doorway.
"Silencing charm. Now!"
Remus reached for Hermione's wand, which was laying on the vanity. As he turned to cast the charm on the room, Sirius tried to wake Hermione.
"Hermione, hey, hey, Pup, it's me. I'm here. I'm here."
Hermione stopped moving. Suddenly, she arched her back, threw her head back, and cried out Sirius' name again. Her breathing was sharp and her muscles started to spasm. Sirius grabbed her and forced her to sit up, seating himself behind her for stability. He started to brush her hair away from her face, whispering to her all the while. Hermione's cheeks were flushed and sweat had begun to rise on her hairline. Sirius continued to stroke her hair, and slowly Hermione's breathing began to calm.
"I'm here, Pup. You're okay. You're okay. I'm here. I've got you, Pup."
"Sirius?" She whispered now, still urgent but not as pleading. Her eyes, still closed.
"Yeah, I'm here, Pup."
"Sirius, don't let Remus come in here." Remus' heart dropped where he stood in the corner. He and Sirius met eyes. "I don't want him to know I had a nightmare about Moony. I don't want to hurt him. Please, don't let him come in."
Sirius looked at the witch in his arms and back at Remus. With a halfhearted twitch of his lips and a single nod, Remus slipped quietly from the room.
"All right, pup, I won't tell him. I promise. Can you open your eyes for me?"
Hermione opened her eyes and took in her position for the first time. She twisted to look at Sirius, flinching as her shoulder flared up in pain. She hated this.
"Where's your shirt?" she whispered, though a part of her enjoyed the sense of safety the skin-to-skin contact provided.
"Huh, that's not usually a question I get in the middle of the night when a witch is screaming my name in bed." He smiled down at her as she blushed and couldn't help but smile at the marauder. "Come on, Pup. I need to take a look at your shoulder. See what damage you've done."
Sirius moved from behind her, pulling two pillows to take his place. Hermione silently moved her hair to the side to keep out of the way. She looked away from Sirius, not sure she wanted to look at her shoulder. His fingers brushed over the sensitive skin surrounding the bite, causing Hermione to shiver and close her eyes. She heard Sirius move away and then back again, followed by a muttered charm.
Sirius set Hermione's wand on the bedside table as some healing supplies drifted into the room. After a moment, Hermione grimaced at the sting of alcohol on her wound.
"How bad is—Hold on." She sniffed. "Is that firewhiskey?"
"Ogden's finest." Sirius poured some more onto the rag in his hand before taking a swig from the bottle. Hermione's head snapped around and she glared at Sirius.
"And you're using that on me!?"
"You've only reopened the wound, Pup. Nothing life threatening. Thought I'd save the good stuff for direr emergencies, no offence. Honest though, firewhiskey works just as well on wounds, if not better."
"Right, of course, and where did you hear that one from?"
"Mm, some bird back in the 70's."
Hermione laughed before sucking air back through her teeth when Sirius reapplied the cloth. The laughter slowly died from her eyes and the two were silent for a bit as Sirius finished fixing up Hermione's shoulder.
"I wasn't too loud, was I?"
"Nah, I mean you woke me up, but I suppose that's because you were screaming my name. And Remus is still resting from the moon, so when he's out, he's out."
"And Harry and Ron?"
"Well, they're both on the floor above, so I doubt they heard anything."
"Good. The last thing I want to do is worry them."
Sirius looked down at the witch and finished re-bandaging her shoulder, taking another drink from the bottle of firewhiskey before setting is down on the vanity. He turned to face Hermione again.
"Listen, Pup, you need to accept the fact that Harry, Ron, Remus, and I? We're all going to worry about you. There's nothing you can do about it. So maybe it's time you let someone care for you." He stood, crossing the room to open the door and paused, again turning back to the witch. "Remember, pup, if there's anything you need…" He looked at the witch for a while as if studying her face and the way her hair fell, wild from sleep.
"Sirius, would you stay? At least for a while? I just—I don't know if I'll have another nightmare and—"
"Of course." Sirius moved to the armchair beside the bedside table and pulled it closer to her. He sat himself down, wiggling a bit to get comfortable.
"You don't, er, you don't have to sit in the chair," Hermione started, unsure of herself. "The bed is plenty big enough. I don't want you to be uncomfortable."
"Don't worry about me, Pup. Just being a gentleman."
Hermione smiled, readjusted her position, and closed her eyes. She relished in the feeling of safety that seemed to roll off Sirius, instinctively moving an arm out toward him, holding her hand palm up. After a moment, a warm, worn hand filled hers, and she drifted back to sleep.
Sirius was long gone by the time she woke up. Her shoulder was feeling a bit better, but her head was killing her. Something was causing a horrible throbbing.
Groaning, she moved to the bathroom only to just stand there, looking at herself in the mirror. She clenched her eyes shut before rodding resolutely. There was no use hiding from herself. She unwrapped her shoulder and examined the bite. It appeared to have reclosed overnight, and Hermione decided that as long as she didn't do anything strenuous to reopen the wound, it should heal quickly.
She moved this way and that, trying to get different angles of view on the bite. Moony's jaws had completely encompassed her shoulder. Two half-moons formed sadistic smiles reaching from her collarbone to the edge of her shoulder and mirrored on her back. She remembered from previous research on werewolves that these scars would never heal.
"Oh Hermione, I thought I heard someone up. What are you doing in the dark?" The voice, Ron's voice, reverberated through the tiny room and then the bathroom lights switched on.
Two things happened within milliseconds of each other.
First, the bathroom lights flashed on and flooded Hermione's senses. The new lycanthrope was blinded by what she'd usually considered to be weak lighting. Her retinas burned and the throbbing in her head swelled.
Second, she lashed out. Hermione whipped around in search of the light switch, but instead found Ron's body in the way. With a strength she didn't know she had, Hermione shoved Ron into the floor length mirror on the wall. The mirror broke in a few places upon the impact, shards slicing into Ron's cheek.
Ron stepped away in horror as footsteps echoed from the hall, sounding like thunder to Hermione. She found the light switch and finally the lights were off. As Hermione began to regain her vision, she saw a blurry body had joined Ron's.
"Hermione?" It was Harry. Hermione knew even before he spoke, but she wasn't sure how.
As her vision cleared, time seemed to slow. She saw Ron and Harry staring at her, eyes wide. She could hear their heartbeats racing. She could smell their fear. And she could smell blood.
Hermione's eyes snapped to Ron's cheek.
"Ron, I–" She reached out a hand to touch him but stopped herself. "I'm so sorry, Ron. I didn't mean—I didn't mean to hurt you."
Ron reached up to wipe the blood away but only ended up smearing it across his cheek even more. "I know, Hermione. I know."
"Will one of you please get Remus?" She was trying to sound in control, but her voice was growing shakier by the second. She was going to start crying soon. Blinking repeatedly, she looked down at the carpet to avoid the eyes of her two best friends. Then, when she couldn't hold the tears in anymore, Hermione ran to her room.
The tears kept coming. After the nightmare and attacking Ron, Hermione was sure she was losing it. She desperately wished she could turn back time to before this madness began.
The throbbing in her head wouldn't stop and she knew crying would only make it worse, so Hermione focused on her breathing to calm herself down. When she started to relax, she realized that it wasn't her head throbbing but all the noises she could hear. She could hear Remus in his room down the hall, opening and closing drawers. She could hear Sirius in the kitchen, cursing at the lack of variety in breakfast cereal. And she could hear Harry and Ron talking just outside Remus' door.
"Harry, what are we going to do?"
"Remus is going to talk to her, help her. He's been through this before. Hopefully, he's got some ideas."
"But Harry, we're supposed to get the locket this weekend."
"We'll just have to push that back. Hermione is our priority right now. The locket can wait. We know where it is, and it's now going anywhere. At least for a while."
"Harry, I thought—I just thought she was going to be like Remus, a little moody at times, but just the same old Hermione. I-I didn't recognize her back there."
"She's scared, Ron. Remember what Remus said? He said all her senses are the most sensitive they will ever be right now. We just have to do what we always do. Be strong and lean on each other."
27 August 1997
12 Grimmauld Place
For the next week, the entire house revolved around Hermione, which was weirder for her than it was for everyone else. Remus was with her constantly from the moment she woke up to the moment she said goodnight and headed to bed. He had transfigured her a pair of sunglasses and found a pair of Walburga's old earmuffs. Sirius said he could think of nothing better than a muggleborn werewolf wearing his pureblood mother's accessories.
Harry and Ron were more productive than ever before during this time. Hermione often found herself wishing they had shown as much focus during their time at Hogwarts. The boys successfully finished brewing the polyjuice potion and had detailed the plans of the Ministry infiltration, which they all decided would occur in five days' time.
Hermione fell quickly into a rather strange routine.
She would wake up in the morning to Remus cooking breakfast. Sirius had gone out to get more food for the household—without Hermione's knowledge, otherwise she would have protested—so the kitchen was relatively stocked. She was on a strict high-protein diet, which took some getting used to as Hermione had previously preferred salads to steaks, but it seemed her taste buds now preferred red meat.
After breakfast, Hermione and Remus took to the library, pouring over all the information the Black library provided on the topic of werewolves. The two would read in silence before either Hermione asked a question or Remus came across information he thought worthy of sharing. The resulting discussions would dissolve their focus on the texts, and the two would talk for hours.
Being with Remus was easiest for Hermione as he rarely caused her emotions to get away from her. He seemed to always be able to say or do the right thing to keep her calm. But the witch was insistent on getting herself under control. So after lunch and for the rest of the day, Hermione would do just that.
She devised a series of tests to help her control her new abilities. She would spend as much time as she could on each sense, before it became too much for her, necessitating a switch. And then she would test her emotions. Ron had remembered finding a miniature pensieve when the trio had stayed at Grimmauld Place before their fifth year. So Hermione spent her afternoons deep within her memories. In her memories, she was a ghostly bystander and her fits of extreme sadness and anger were safely contained.
In the evenings, Hermione tended to be too exhausted to be useful. She would sit in the kitchen as the boys rotated through. Sometimes she would talk to whoever sat across from her. Sometimes she would read. Sometimes she would sit in silence.
This evening, Hermione sat in the kitchen with a fresh cup of tea while Harry and Ron chatted about quidditch. Hermione focused on tuning them out, calling it her last training exercise of the day. Yet as the two voices of her best friends faded out, two more faded in.
"Remus, it's got to be soon."
"I know, but–"
"No, Remus. It's soon. It has to be."
"Maybe, but it might—"
"Damn it, Moony! It has to be now. Don't you remember?"
"Sit down, Padfoot!
"I know it's time, but we have to be delicate about this. It's more complicated than you think. I have to make sure everything is okay."
"Let me help! I want to help!"
"Padfoot, sit down! Listen, you are helping. Just keep comforting her at night at let me take care of the rest."
Hermione lost focus and the voices of Ron and Harry jumped back in.
So Remus knew about the nightmares. Her emotions tangled together. Should she feel angry with Sirius for telling Remus? Happy because Remus didn't seem too upset? Angry because Remus didn't seem too upset? Something was building and she needed to calm down as quickly as possible. She gulped down some tea and two deep breaths.
When she looked up from her mug, Ron and Harry were staring at her. Their eyes full of emotion, it took Hermione a minute to see what it was. Not pity, not fear, not annoyance. But compassion. And suddenly, the buildup of emotion just slipped from her shoulders. Hermione smiled.
"It's been a long day, boys. I'm going to bed." She left the kitchen and headed to her room.
After brushing her teeth and changing, Hermione climbed into bed, but she didn't lay down. She sat up facing the door and waited. Sure enough fifteen minutes later, Sirius knocked on the door.
He had become part of her routine in a strange way. After Hermione left the group in the kitchen, she would retire to bed. Sirius would wait a while before coming to her room, sometimes five minutes, sometimes not until after she had fallen asleep, but he would be there when she woke up screaming his name. And he would be there to offer comforting words and to brush her hair from her face. And he always stayed in the chair beside the bed, never farther away and never closer. And then he would be gone before she rose for the day.
She hadn't had a nightmare in two days, but she knew he would still come. Just in case.
"Come in."
Sirius pushed open the door and made his way to what Hermione now considered to be his chair.
"Sirius, we need to talk."
"About what, Pup?" Concern laced his voice. "What's going on?"
"I heard you and Remus talking earlier."
"Oh."
"Yeah."
"Well, Hermione you have to understand—"
"No, I do, Sirius."
"You do?"
"Yes, I understand why you told Remus, and you're right. He has a right to know I've been having nightmares about that night. I just wish you had told me first."
"Oh. Yes, no, I mean—I'm sorry I didn't tell you first."
"Thank you."
The two sat in silence for a few minutes.
"Sirius?"
"Yes, Pup?"
"I'm nervous."
"About what?"
"I feel like I'm getting my senses under control, but—I almost feel as if I'm slipping on my emotions. Remus mentioned that he went through waves of intensified emotions, but I figured with him helping me I should be better."
Sirius smiled at the witch. "If there was a N.E.W.T. for lycanthropy, you would get an Outstanding. Don't stress, Pup. You are doing so, so well. From what Remus has told me of his childhood, I think you can expect a few bumps in the road in the days to come, but I know it's nothing you can't handle. Now get some sleep, okay?"
"Alright, Sirius." Hermione turned onto her back and closed her eyes.
"And Hermione?"
"I know, I know. If there's anything I need…"
Hermione soon fell asleep with a smiling Marauder in the chair nearby.
Chapter Title Translation: *Life is Changed, Not Taken Away