A/N: Thank you so much for your reviews, favorites and follows after last chapter! I honestly can't believe we are already in the second half of this story, but we have a lot more story to tell. I am so glad that you are enjoying their relationship so far! You can follow me over on tumblr (nauticalparamour) where I post sneak peeks, story updates and answer questions.
Please let me know what you thought of chapter twenty-one and be on the lookout for chapter twenty-two in a few days!
Remus had met Hermione outside the pub just like he'd promised he would in the last letter that she had sent. She wasn't entirely sure if Remus would even help her, but she hadn't had anyone else to turn to, and there was a definite shift in their relationship ever since he learned the truth about Theo.
She wiped furiously at the tears on her cheeks while she stood up when she saw her former professor approaching. "Thank you for coming, Remus," she said, letting the older man pull her in for a hug. "I wasn't sure if you'd come."
"Of course," he said, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulders. "Let's have a pint and talk it over before I take you back," he said sternly. "Theo's already been going spare enough, I don't know if he will be able to stand seeing you so upset when you first arrive, too."
Feeling too upset to argue with him at that moment, Hermione agreed, shuffling into the dingy neighborhood pub that had been around the corner from her parents' home longer than the house had been there. She found a seat easily enough, and took the pint that Remus offered her when he came back. Drinking deeply, she doubted that it would do anything to numb the pain that had settled in her heart.
"So, it's done?" Remus asked her, cautiously.
Hermione nodded, unable to say the words out loud.
After Dumbledore's funeral, Remus had pulled her aside to chat about their plans. He had spoken to Theo at length after Fenrir Greyback had fled the castle leaving the young wizard unharmed but confused. Remus promised that he would take the young werewolf in to a safehouse after school ended. There was no way that Theo could return home to his father after Malfoy had seen her with him. They just couldn't trust the other boy not to reveal what he knew about Theo's involvement with Hermione. But, Remus had also warned her that her parents were in danger, simply for being related to her. Hermione gravely nodded, telling Remus that she had been thinking of a plan as the semester had ticked by.
"I'm not Dumbledore, Hermione," Remus had said, sternly, giving her a hard look. "I won't tell you not to do it like Albus would have. You need to do whatever it takes to protect them. They need to be sent away."
The plan to obliviate any memory that they had of her had come slipping out of Hermione's lips while Remus listened on, carefully assessing the merits. "Do you think you can do it?" he had asked her, knowing that the only flaw in the plan was her ability to follow through.
"I'll do it," Hermione had promised, telling him that she would need his help once it was done.
But, now that it was done and her parents had no recollection that they had ever had a daughter to begin with, just the burning desire to move to Australia, Hermione wished that she hadn't been so resolute. It felt nearly soul-crushing to know that she wouldn't see her parents again.
"You made the right decision, Hermione," Remus said gently, taking a sip from his own pint. "I know that it doesn't feel like it right now, but it is."
"How can you be so sure?" she asked, desperate for something to absolve her of her guilt. "I didn't even ask them what they would have wanted. I violated their minds."
"Hermione, this is not the first war that I've been through," Remus reminded her sternly, looking much older than his thirty-six years. "They will not stop at anything to hurt us. I hate to tell you this, but you are even more of a target than you already were because of Theo. Theo believes that Greyback knows that you are his mate and...it's put you in a very precarious position if that's true."
She swallowed thickly, knowing that Remus was right. It was the right decision to send her parents away, but it wouldn't stop her from mourning their loss. And, it was good to know that she had Remus to support her. It was something that she wasn't going to be able to tell Harry or Ron. They just wouldn't understand. She hoped that Theo would understand, too, but she wasn't sure if she was ready to tell him either.
"How has he been?" Hermione asked, staring down at the remnants of the beer in her pint. How had she drank it quite so quickly, she wondered? "Theo?"
Remus smiled at her. "He's been good. I don't think he particularly likes living in the safe house with me, but he's safe at least," he explained to her. "He's very eager to be reunited with you."
Hermione cocked her head to the side. "Is Tonks your mate, Remus?" she asked, a question that had been on her mind, ever since she had seen them fighting together at Hogwarts.
A sappy smile came over his face, and Hermione knew without a doubt that he was desperately in love with Tonks, no matter what he said. "No, she is not my mate. Not every werewolf has one, like I said, and even fewer find theirs," he explained, his voice barely more than a whisper, not wanting to tip off any of the other afternoon patrons to their discussion. "But we were married earlier this summer."
"Congratulations," Hermione said, feeling true joy for her former professor. Meanwhile, her heart skipped a beat with the suggestion that being someone's mate was somehow more significant than being someone's wife. While she couldn't imagine not being with Theo at this point, Hermione really hadn't considered the idea that they might get married at some point in the future. Despite all of their intimacies, they hadn't even discussed the depths of their feelings with one another yet. Hermione knew that she was falling in love with the Slytherin, but, did he feel the same about her?
When they both had finished their drinks, Remus stood. "This is a conversation best had somewhere else," he said, knowing that talk of werewolves and mates was dangerous in a muggle pub. "Do you have everything you need?"
Hermione pressed a hand against the little beaded bag at her hip. "Yes, I've got everything that I need right here," she told him.
Remus took her arm as they walked down the alley behind the pub, before ducking behind the dumpster so that he could side-along them to their destination. Hermione was surprised to see a cheery looking little cabin surrounded by lush evergreen woods. Smoke was billowing out of the chimney, even though it was at the height of the summer.
She walked in behind Remus, longing for a look at her boyfriend for the first time since they had left Hogwarts. Theo was on her before the door was even closed behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, pulling her body flush against his. His lips found hers in a possessive kiss, immediately invading her mouth, pulling her lower lip between his teeth. Hermione moaned into him, having missed being with him.
Theo stumbled them backwards, until she was pressed against the door, reminding her of the first time that they had kissed. She was also reminded, very rudely, that she was standing in her former professor's home. Pulling away from the kiss, she groaned when Theo pressed open mouthed kisses down her jaw and towards her shoulder, sucking at the skin.
Delving her fingers into his hair, Hermione tried to pull him back. "Theo," she croaked, wanting nothing more than to retreat somewhere more private with him. "It's barely been over a week."
"Missed you witch," he said pressing his face against the crook of her shoulder, but making no move to let her go.
"Theo, Remus and Tonks," she said, embarrassed, feeling him press his cock against her belly eagerly. It was far more demonstrative than he typically was.
Remus cleared his throat awkwardly. Hermione opened her eyes and saw that her former professor was doing his best to look anywhere but at the two teenagers in the room. "It's alright, Hermione, it's instinctual," Remus said, awkwardly. "He is just trying to re-establish a bond with you."
After several more tense seconds, Theo finally gave her some space, but kept an arm slung around her waist, tightly. "Sorry, Hermione," he said, sheepishly. "Can't help it."
"It's fine," she said, rubbing her cheek against his chest. "I missed you, too." Being with Theo lifted her spirits massively, and she wondered when he had begun to play such an outsized role in her happiness. She was still sad about her parents, but she knew that she could get through it with her mate at her side.
Turning to Remus, with flaming cheeks, she couldn't stop herself from asking. "I didn't realize that Theo and I had...established a bond yet." Everything they had read up to that point suggested that the act of mating was nothing short of sexual intercourse, and they hadn't reached that bridge yet, owing to the fact that they were unsure of the specifics.
"Well, that would be a mating bond," Remus said, his cheeks probably redder than hers were. "But that doesn't mean that a bond doesn't exist between you. You've still been with each other a lot, and his wolf will have become attached to you anyway. He sees you as pack." Clearing his throat and eager to be out of the awkward conversation, Remus excused himself. "I am going to go let Tonks know that everything went smoothly today."
Theo brought her to sit on one of the shabby little couches. "I know what the mating entails now," he said, not bothering to disguise the lust that he felt for her, his eyes drinking her in heatedly.
"Oh?" Hermione asked, surprised that he'd figured it out on his own. "Did Remus tell you?" she asked, cautiously, thinking that she would just about die from mortification if he had.
Scratching at his scruffy beard, Theo shook his head. "No, but I've been having very vivid and explicit dreams," he said softly, letting his fingers trace along the skin on the inside of her wrist. "I think that my wolf was trying to push me in the right direction. I'll tell you more about it when we go to bed tonight."
"Go to bed?" she asked, feeling a bit stupid. When she agreed to move into the safe house with Remus earlier that summer, she hadn't bothered asking what the sleeping arrangements would be, thinking that the older man would want to prevent Hermione and Theo from getting up to anything that they shouldn't be.
"You'll be sharing with me," Theo said victoriously. "There's only two bedrooms, and it took some arguing, but Lupin finally saw things my way. I should give him a taste of his own medicine."
"Hm?" Hermione asked, unsure of what he was referencing.
"He and the auror put up silencing spells," Theo explained with a grimace. "But it's not quite good enough with my hearing. They go at it all the time."
Smacking him on the arm, Hermione was unable to suppress a gasp. "Theo! I didn't want to know that!"
"I didn't want to know it either," Theo countered, cheekily. "But if I have to live with it, you do, too. Mate," he said, a big goofy grin on his face, so happy to be reunited with her at last. "There is something else, too. The auror is pregnant. But, I'm not saying anything until they realize it themselves."
"That's exciting!" Hermione said, before the reality of it set in. "Oh, actually, it does make things a bit difficult doesn't it?" She wondered how long it would take the new couple to figure out that they had a little one on the way themselves.
"Yes," Theo agreed darkly. "But, it's nothing that they can't handle together." He said it as if he needed to believe it.
Hermione grabbed his hand, giving it a tight squeeze. "Exactly. Together."