Tempus Magia

Chapter 24: Cokeworth

Hermione Granger made a grave error during the final battle that resulted in Remus's death. Working as an unspeakable she spends two years working on a spell using powder from time turners to go back to Remus's greatest hour of need. What if Remus's greatest time of need wasn't in *this* war?

Hermione was in the middle of an in-depth conversation with an overly intrigued Severus Snape when she felt two people stumble into her wards. She already knew the wizard was brilliant but being able to talk to him without being an overeager student was... it was a treasured experience.

"Can I have a written list?" she said interrupting him. "As much as I'm enjoying this conversation, we need to cut it short. It seems someone has crossed over the wards I set up earlier."

A wand slid down from Severus' sleeve and Hermione admired the sheer amount of stealth, danger, and coolness he managed to pack in a simple movement. "Grab Cissa and go. I've got this."

Severus hesitated but seeing her determination, he nodded and grabbed Narcissa and fled into the tenement housing. Hermione sunk into the shadows of the trees that surrounded the park they were talking in.

The potion was fascinating but it also had no countercurse and once it was taken it took a minimum of two years to drain itself from the drinker's system. Hermione and Severus agreed that little Draco wouldn't last that long.

The two had been discussing the benefits of a modified obliviation spell that combined with an emotion suppressant mainly used by Mental Health Healers when Hermione felt the apparition. The two made plans to speak the following evening at a muggle cafe in Shoreditch.

The two made the suggestion that perhaps it was time for Narcissa to schedule a visit to a friend or family member for several days until they could come up with a plausible solution. Hermione was wondering if Remus would know anything on suppressant spells when two wizards came bumbling into view.

Hermione almost laughed at James and Sirius being stealthy. She doubled back and crept up behind the two of them. Pulling her hood back, she swiped her leg and sent them both tumbling to the ground.

"Accio," she said sternly. "Had I been a Death Eater, you would both be dead."

James smiled up at her, his glasses cracked. "Hiya, Hermione. You mind making it back home so that my wife and your not-boyfriend stop driving us insane?"

Hermione rolled her eyes and offered them each a hand up, "Oculus Reparo. Get up, you gits. I'm starving. You lot better have dinner."

As it turned out, they did not have dinner. Hermione rolled her eyes and made omelets with spinach and feta for herself, Lily, Sirius, and James. It was a dish that Harry had taught her how to make. Remus was silent the entire dinner, while Lily gushed and raved about Hermione's cooking prowess. Remus didn't like spinach or omelets and she made a mental note that he only liked scrambled eggs and also didn't like cilantro.

After dinner, James and Lily head up to their bedroom and Sirius cleared out mumbling something about tension and the need to drink. Hermione finished clearing up and sat down next to Remus.

"Remus?" he grunted in response. "Will you talk to me?"

Remus inhaled deeply, "What would you like to talk about?"

Hermione frowned and moved closer to him. "You're upset."

"I have no reason to be."

"Why would you say that?"

Remus ran his hand through his hair in frustration. "Your a single free witch and I don't have any say where you go and who you do it with."

Hermione smirked. "Would you?"

"Would I what?"

Hermione reached over him and opened his palm. She pulled out the slip of parchment with her handwriting on it that he had been holding onto like a lifeline all evening. "It was what I wanted to talk to you about. I don't know how much longer I'm going to be here for. If that's okay with you, I would like to get to know you better than just falling asleep with you on the couch every night and stealing all of your sweaters."

Remus looked down at her ensemble. "I noticed that."

Hermione shrugged unapologetically, "I like the way they smell."

"What do they smell like?"

"Old Books, the forest, and chocolate. In essence, you," she said simply. "You still haven't answered me."

Remus sighed. "Honestly, I'm scared. I don't think I'll recover you leaving if we get any closer than we already are."

Hermione carded her fingers through his soft sandy brown hair. "You will. Life will be hard for you, for a long time but it will get better. You'll have a family and you'll have happiness."

"With you?" he asked with so much hope that Hermione's heart broke.

"No," she whispered thinking of Tonks. "But you won't be loved any less. You'll cherish and be cherished in return, Remus."

Hermione felt the tears escape her eyes and cascade down her cheeks. She clenched her eyes shut, wishing she didn't know everything she did. She wished for ignorance and for happiness and full lives for everyone in this house.

She wished that Sirius would never go to prison and that Lily and James would live to raise their son. She wished to hear the howlers Lily would have sent after the troll incident and the massive James would send when his son became the youngest seeker in a century. She didn't know what she wished for Remus and that was why she was crying, now.

Everyone else was so clear cut, but Remus. Remus had been destroyed by being left behind with no one to love him and a cruel judgemental world to shove him in the corner for over a decade. When he had finally begun to live...

Teddy. He had Teddy.

Slender fingers gripped her chin as soft lips caressed her own. Hermione blinked open in surprise. "Remus?"

"How long will we have?"

"I," she whispered breathlessly. "I don't know."

Remus turned in his chair and in one swift movement pulled her into his lap. Her white jeans were stark against his black trousers and she felt it was a reminder of just how much she didn't belong here. She was a white stain on his life, something that couldn't be blotted out because it was irreversible.

"Hermione?" He whispered as her hands traveled up his face, feeling each scar and committing them to memory. When her fingers reached his hairline, she buried them in his softs tufts of hair. Inhaling the smell that made her feel… everything, "Then let's make every moment count, okay?"

He slowly descended his lips on hers, his usual cognac-colored eyes dark and focused on only the heavily breathing witch in his lap. It felt like an eternity until his lips finally reached hers and unlike the quick kiss she had received before, this kiss was as different as day and the night of a full moon.

His lips crushed against hers and for the first time, she forgot where she was and more importantly when she was. She wasn't in Lily's kitchen with the possibility of being walked in on by Sirius. She wasn't in the eighties. She could barely tell you what township she was in.

She did know one thing and that was, Remus.

The kiss started slowly and tenderly as if they were each memorizing every movement of the other. Hermione knew she was. She moaned when his tongue tentatively pushed into his mouth, reminding her that he was just as nervous as she was but wanted it just as much.

While his tongue was exploring her mouth, his slender fingers traced the curves of her arse and lingered as they slipped under her jumper. The soft pads of his palm and their thin compatriots began their achingly slow voyage up her body. He explored her every curve, slope, and her endless scars with his skilled fingers leaving raised goosebumps and shivers in their wake.

Hermione felt like one of his maps in his old room. She felt delicate but treasured and loved. His hands shook when he reached her breast and he released their kiss, Hermione moaning with the loss of contact. Her eyes fluttered open and she found that her jumper had been bunched all the way over her chest. He was gaping at her moderately sized breasts that were hidden beneath her bra as if they held the secrets of the universe buried in her C cup.

She nipped at his neck, bringing him back. "Hermione," he breathed. "You're beautiful."

Hermione blushed and drew him back in for another searing kiss. His hands explored her breasts popping them out of their little cream cupped prisons. His kisses became harder and more fevered and she arched herself into him. When his hands finally left her breasts and reached her neck, he cupped it dominantly and Hermione felt a thrill at having herself completely at his mercy.

His hands massaged her and lingered for a moment or two before traveling up to her jaw and tilting her neck up so he could have more control of their kiss. Arching her back, she ground herself onto him whilst simultaneously crushing herself to him. She needed more. She needed everything he had to give.

Remus broke the kiss panting, "Hermione, we need to slow down."

Hermione pushed off of his lap, his face filling with hurt. She smirked devilishly and pulled herself onto the counter. With one hand back in his hair, she yanked him up by his sweater so he was standing in front of her.

She looked up at his tall form and leaned up to kiss him again. This time it was hurried and frantic. She bit and nipped at her lips and pulled on her hair making her gasp.

She moaned and grabbed the hem of his shirt, pulling it over his head. She was careful not to touch his bandaged wounds as she explored his chest properly. He shivered while placing soft kisses on the side of her neck.

"Remus?"

"Yeah," he whispered just as breathless as she was.

"I want you to pull my shirt over my head. Slowly."

Remus placed shaking hands on her hips. "I… I don't want to do anything we can't come back from. I… Moony wants to mate with you and I'm not ready. I don't know if I have enough self-control to hold back..."

Hermione fingertips made smooth circles around his abs, "Remus, we can stop whenever you feel like it."

He thought about it before tucking his fingers below her sweater and pulling it achingly slowly up her chest. "Merlin, you're beautiful."

Hermione pulled him in between her legs and kissed the juncture between his neck and his shoulder. Remus stuttered above her and moaned when she bit it. "Hermione-"

He pulled her chin to him with one long slim finger and properly snogged her breathless.

Remus began to shudder as she wrapped her legs around him and pressed herself to him. She could feel him struggle to move back but she wanted him closer. Her whole body was encompassed with a need to fill, to complete.

Remus gasped and moaned her name in her neck, collapsing onto her.

"Remus?"

"Fuck."

The damn broke and Hermione burst out giggling. "Did you just curse?"

"Hermione, I am begging you to please please not laugh at me right now."

"Why-" Hermione could feel steady wetness spreading in between her legs. "Oh."

"Fuck," Remus' face was red once again and though Hermione knew it was terribly embarrassing for a man, she found it oddly endearing.

"Remus? It's really-"

"Please don't say it's okay. It will only make it worse."

"What would you like me to say?"

"I have no idea," he whimpered into her neck.

"I'm flattered, to be honest."

"I'm not."

Hermione lifted his head with fingers. She placed sweet gentle kisses on each of the scars on his face. "How about we sneak into the shower and I help clean you up?"

Hermione beamed when his head shot up. "That's… an option?"

Hermione hopped off the stool, intent on making him feel better. He grabbed her arm and pulled her in for a kiss. "Your an angel, Hermione."

Before she could respond, he grabbed her hand and raced up the stairs. They were so enraptured by each other that they were completely oblivious to their three friends who were in the living room waiting for the silencing charm that they had put up to wear out. Lily giggled as they ran past them and up thundered up the stairs, while James and Sirius high-fived.

Much later that evening, after Remus had made Hermione scream out more times than she could count in the shower, they went downstairs for their nightly reading. Everyone was already in their beds or sleeping and the two starved lovers raided the kitchen. They snacked on cheese and crackers with their tea while they read snuggled on the couch together. "Remus, what do you know about suppressant spells?"

Remus closed the book and gave Hermione his full attention. "Are you worried about," he motioned to himself and the moon outside the window.

Hermione kissed him gently and snuggled closer. "No, I'm trying to help a friend. It's where I was earlier tonight. I need to go and meet up again tomorrow night and I was thinking about combining an anger suppressant with a memory charm. I'm hoping to protect a young woman and her unborn son."

Remus nodded in understanding and waved his wand summoning a large black tome. He flipped through several pages until he found one with blood red ink. They read in silence.

"Gemino," Hermione copied the pages she needed and stored them in her new purse. She had started working on a new purse with an undetectable extension charm on it.

Remus was playing with her hair, "Did this help?"

Hermione nodded. "Yes, I really appreciate it, Remus. I know I'm being awfully vague."

"I trust you."

"Because I'm your mate?"

"No, because you stood up to a werewolf when you were utterly pissed and apparated Lily and Harry to safety. You've earned the trust you're given in this house." Hermione blushed. It was weird being constantly praised for something she didn't remember doing.

"Lily, never mentioned where we went."

Remus shrugged, "I believe she said it was somewhere in Muggle London. Hampstead, maybe?" She had gone home? That was risky but given the dates her family was most likely visiting her grandmother. "Is that okay?"

"Yeah, I think. Walk me to bed?" Remus folded the blanket and held her hand as the ascended the stairs. When they reached her door, he looked in longingly. "You know you can stay for the night, right?"

Remus looked torn and Hermione had to remind herself it was the eighties. He cast one backward glance towards James and Lily's room and then took a step towards her. "Just for sleeping."