A/N: I have decided that Remus is definitely my favorite. I might be in love. But don't worry, this is still a Hermione/Sirius story... but we'll see what else happens. I ljust ove Remus. Remus 4 lyfe.
oOo
In the American southwest there is a strange little mammal called an armadillo. Armadillos are peculiar for many reasons, one of course being the plates of dermal bone they wear as armor on their backs, but another being that it is almost impossible for Muggles to not kill an armadillo with their motorized vehicles. Some might even go so far as to say the armadillo wants to get run over. For you see, even if a well meaning Muggle sees an armadillo in the road and aims the tires of their car so that the little creature will fit between them unharmed, armadillos have other plans. Armadillos wait until the exact moment the car's undercarriage is above them and then they jump straight up, hit the bottom of the car and usually roll under a tire and are unfortunately killed all the same.
This instinctual, primal panic felt by the armadillo when being beneath a moving vehicle that causes him to jump with fright is not unlike the flailing alarm that Hermione Granger, Brightest Witch of Her Age, exhibited upon hearing those five cataclysmic words uttered by her favorite -only- werewolf.
"You talk in your sleep."
Pupils dilated, breathing uneven, palms sweaty. What the hell does that mean? Did I talk about Professor Lupin in my sleep? Deflect it, Granger!
"Don't be absurd, Remus, of course I don't talk in my sleep." Stay calm, stay cool, he's probably lying. Why would he lie? Who knows! Males are an enigma wrapped in a mystery. Quick, throw him off his game! "Did you know armadillos can hold their breath for six minutes? Science! Am I right?"
The look of puzzlement now adorning Remus's face was unprecedented. "Ar...armadillos? What in the bloody hell is an armadillo?"
He's off his game! "They're little mammals from America, they have these plates of armor on their backs which are made out of-"
"Hermione."
"Yes, Remus?"
"Shut up."
Hermione began to protest, but Remus quickly reached across the space between them and gently put his hand over her mouth. With a steady gaze he peered into her deep amber orbs and repeated. "You talk in your sleep."
Hermione's brain began flipping through the last three nights she had spent at Grimmauld Place and the dreams that had accompanied them. Nightmares, really. They're always nightmares.
Save for the occasional Dreamless Draught, Hermione had not gotten a full night of sleep in years and the few hours of sleep her turbulent mind did allow her were fraught with mental trials. Some nights Hermione found she was in a tent in the forest shivering under a black sky, some nights she was running from silver faced phantoms around shadowy trees, and some nights- some nights she was on the floor in Malfoy Manor. Alone and cold and wishing she were dead.
The nightmares bled together like inkblots on a page of parchment, ending and beginning in swirls of blackness, impossible to discern one from the other.
However the bigger problem, other than the nightmares themselves, was that Remus was completely correct. As testified by Ron on many occasions, Hermione did in fact talk, mutter, whisper, and scream in her sleep.
But wait...
"Herwuldyuner?" She demanded. Excellent deflection, Granger.
"What?" Remus asked.
Hermione pushed his hand from her face. "I said, how would you know?" Hermione repeated. "How would you know I talk in my sleep? Have you been spying on me?"
Remus rolled his eyes. "Yes, that's it, good job. You've found me out. I sneak into your bedroom every night to watch you sleep. I draw sketches of it and hang them on my ceiling so I can stare at them when I'm alone. They are my secret obsession."
"I wasn't aware you could sketch, Remus. Might I take a peek at your drawings?"
Deflect! Deflect!
"Stop changing the subject, you silly woman." Remus sighed. "No, I don't spy on you. You were loud enough the other night that I'm sure the Muggles next door heard you."
Crapity crap crap.
Deflection failed, move to denial. "I don't talk in my sleep." Hermione insisted. "Now that we have that settled, let's get back to more pertinent matters. I was wondering if you knew these wizards and what information you could give me on any of them." She then picked up a parchment from the floor and began to read out a list of known Death Eaters to Remus.
"Yes, I know who they are, but I think that can wait." Remus pulled the list from Hermione's hands and then insisted again. "You do talk in your sleep."
For Godric's sake, you bloody werewolf, mind your own goddamned business.
Hermione sighed dramatically. "Alright let's say for a moment I do talk in my sleep, how is that even relevant?" She snatched the parchment back and laid it neatly down on the floor again. "I thought you wanted to be helpful? Reach over there and grab me the list of restricted books." Hermione chided, pointing to said list.
Remus grabbed Hermione's hands and took them in his, she tried to pull away but the werewolf's grip was much stronger than hers.
Note to self: work on hand strength.
"Hermione." Remus said very slowly. Deflect, Granger!
"Goodness, Remus, do you moisturize? Your hands are quite soft." Hermione began rubbing circles on Remus's hands with her thumbs. Great. You are indeed the Brightest Witch of Your Age, Granger.
"Yes, I use coconut oil." Remus's voice dripped with sarcasm.
"Oooh! Coconut oil, how exotic, where would one even-"
"Fucking hell, Hermione, would you let me finish?"
"Is coconut oil made from real coconuts, like olive oil, or does it just smell like coconuts?" Hermione brought Remus's hands to her nose to sniff them. Good god, Granger, you're a sodding nutter.
Remus took both of Hermione's cheeks in his hands and pulled her face up to look at him. Green met amber in a spectacular moment of utter stubbornness and locked on each other. The world stilled and Hermione came to the terrifying realization that Remus would not let this go.
"Your hands don't smell like coconuts." Hermione continued.
Remus pushed a wayward curl from her forehead and tucked it behind her ear, but the little bugger bounced back unhindered and Remus gave a small smile.
"I only have one question." Remus stated slowly. "If you just answer this one, I promise to you, I will never ask you another about this whole thing ever again. I will trust everything you and McGonagall say and I will follow you blindly. I promise."
"Why?" Hermione blurted out suddenly. "Why do you trust me at all?"
"I told you, you daft witch, you saved my friends. I owe you a life debt."
"I don't think that's how life debts-"
"I- " He insisted. "-owe you that life debt, Hermione. No one else, you understand?"
Hermione imagined for a moment, if someone else had thrown themselves in front of her Harry to save him. She imagined the feelings of profound failure that it had not been her and inescapable relief that it had been someone.
The curly haired witch nodded. Yes, she understood.
"But I just need this one answer, please." Remus repeated.
Hermione licked her dry lips, her mind an impossible whirl of anxiety, readying herself for The Question.
Maybe it's a silly question, maybe I was talking about the Marauders Map or the invisibility cloak in my sleep. He'd certainly want to find out how I know about those...
"I want to know the sword- what sword was a fake?"
Hermione's stomach dropped out of her body, most probably through the ground itself and into the center of the Earth where it would be consumed by molten lava.
No, the Earth's core is most likely composed of nickel or iron. A solid ball approximately 1220 kilometers in radius...
Hermione Granger was, for lack of a better term, armadillo-ing.
The inner core of the Earth makes up roughly 1% of the planet's total mass, where as the outer core makes up roughly 32%...
And then with appalling clarity, Hermione remembered exactly what she had dreamed of the last two nights.
Knives.
And laughter.
And mansion's full of darkness.
For a moment memories eclipsed reality in a defeaning wave of remembrance.
Until a werewolf spoke and destroyed the darkness.
"Hermione." Remus shook her face gently and her eyes stared up at him, but not wholly seeing. "I'm sorry, but you-you were screaming, love. If you were just talking I would have left you alone, but Sirius wasn't here and you were screaming. For two nights you were screaming. The first night I ran into your room and you were on the bed, thrashing and sweating, pale as the moon. Your screaming was terrible, it was so terrible and you wouldn't wake up- so I held you. You were crying. I-I've never seen anything like it, I was fucking terrified. I didn't know why you wouldn't wake up."
With painstaking effort Hermione reminded herself how to breathe.
"I waited, Hermione, I waited all day yesterday for you to mention it, but you didn't. And then last night it happened again. If Pads hadn't had that trollop"-trollops-"with him I'm sure he would've noticed too. But I was waiting outside your door and as soon as I heard you make a sound, I ran in and silenced the room so he wouldn't hear. And it was the same thing all over again, just like the night before, Hermione. I-I..."
"What did I say, Remus?" Hermione's voice was a strange echo through her ears and she felt oddly detached from it, only distantly aware that she had spoken at all.
Remus swallowed. "You said the sword was a fake. You were screaming and begging and insisting the sword was a fake. And then, Hermione, I-I saw it..."
Confusion pulled Hermione back into herself for a moment. "Saw what?" She asked.
"I didn't mean to, but you were scratching at it, holding it like you were in so much pain. I was worried something was hurting you..." The werewolf trailed off.
"What did you see?" But she already knew.
Then Remus, with such delicate care that Hermione's breath caught in her throat, gently pulled the witch's arms onto her lap and turned them so her wrists and palms faced up. With a tenderness Hermione was not accustomed to, Remus slowly pulled up the sleeve of her jumper, revealing her left forearm.
The word stood out, a scarlet blemish against her chestnut skin, in stark contrast to the immaculate flesh around it. Her left arm, like the left-handed path the woman who had marred it walked, was tainted with hate. It wasn't even really Hermione's arm anymore, it belonged to a night four years ago that she would never stop reliving.
Hermione imagined carving it out.
Or scratching it off.
Or cutting her whole bloody arm off.
Hermione wondered, starring down at the slur hacked into her, if the knife's curse might have seeped through her skin, polluting her very being. Maybe it wasn't Depression or PTSD, maybe it was the darkest sort of magic that tangled her mind and invaded her thoughts. Maybe she was cursed.
Without thinking Hermione ran the index finger of her right hand over the raised wound that would never fully heal, tracing the haphazard letters with meticulous precision.
"Hermione," Remus interrupted the witch's thoughts, his voice pained. "Wh-what...happened?"
"Which question is it, Remus?" The wild eyed witch whispered with more viciousness than she had intended. "Do you want to know about the scar or the sword? You insisted you only needed the answer to one question."
Remus flinched, taken aback by Hermione's sudden hostility and the witch's venom turned sour in her mouth, replaced by guilt.
"Someone..." She picked her words very carefully. "Someone discovered I was a mudblood and they felt everyone who saw me should be made aware."
Remus cringed at her use of the word. "Don't call yourself that." He reached out for her arm as if it were a precious thing and cradled it in both his hands. "Please, don't call yourself that."
"Why not?" Hermione asked, her voice a crazed whisper. "It's what I am, right? I've got dirty magic, polluted by my Muggle parents. I'm sure if you cut me open right now you wouldn't even find blood, I'm sure I would bleed dirty, putrid, muddy water. That's what they thought, Remus, that's what she thought."
"Hermione..." Remus whispered. Hermione saw him grasp for words of comfort and she took pity on him, pulling her arm from his grip. There is no comfort for the war-ravaged.
"You wanted to know what sword, correct? The sword that I was yelling about?" Hermione slid her sleeves down and scooted ever so slightly away from the wizard. "That was your question?"
Remus nodded, his hands frozen in the air where they had been holding Hermione's arm.
"I'm afraid that the answer won't be what you're looking for, it will probably just leave you with more." Hermione folded her hands primly in her lap and straightened her back, sitting as formally as possible.
"I don't care." He was determined. "Tell me what sword, Hermione."
Fine.
"The sword of Gryffindor." Hermione announced with no preamble.
To Hermione's shock, Remus didn't seem as surprised as she had expected, in fact he nodded as if he'd known the answer the whole time and was just waiting to see how she'd respond.
Remus folded his arms across his chest and then asked, "How would you, someone who did not attend Hogwarts, know anything about the sword of Godric Gryffindor?"
Hermione was silent. She had forgotten to come up with an appropriate backstory. Deflect. "You said only one question, Remus."
"A few nights ago," Remus began. "I met a witch who told me she knew I was a werewolf. I didn't know how she knew this, it's not something I make a point to tell anyone, but she knew it any way. And when she told me she knew my deep dark secret, she said it in such a way that did not ask but demanded for my trust. She stood in this house after petrifying me and my mates-"
"Sirius started it."
"And she demanded I trust her. At first, I didn't." Remus admitted and Hermione looked down. "But I do now and don't look away, Hermione, because I do, I do trust you. You've earned my trust and more in a very short time, but what I want, no, really what I need from you is that same trust. I'm not demanding it, but I am asking for it. I'm asking for your trust. I'm asking you to tell me the truth, McGonagall be damned."
Trust him, he says? Trust him, I can't trust anyone. I can't trust anyone with anything even if I wanted to. It'd put him in danger, he'd be at risk. An unnecessary risk and-
"Please, Hermione, trust me."
Trust him...
Hermione took a breath.
"I'matimeandspacetravelingwitchfromtwentyyearsinthefutureofadifferentrealityandsomehowIgotstuckinthis-" Remus slapped a hand over Hermione's mouth.
"Let's try that again, but this time with perhaps a pause or breathe in between words."