The spell Remus fired missed Hermione by an inch. She wasn't quick enough to dodge his next shot, though, and her legs began to move uncontrollably in a frantic quick step. Luckily, her own spell landed its mark as well. While Remus doubled up, howling with laughter, she had just enough time to lift the Dancing Feet Spell he'd placed on her. She blocked the next jinx he cast as he straightened up, straight-faced once more, and then she shouted, "Obscuro!"
A blindfold appeared over his eyes. Still, he blasted spells her way with startling accuracy considering he couldn't see. She ducked and dodged and deflected them, all the while trying to get in her own shot, until she felt her legs snap together and go rigid — he'd hit her with a Leg-Locker Curse.
He tore off his blindfold as she nearly toppled over. But before he could Disarm her, she sent a large cushion hurtling his way. As he threw himself aside to avoid it, Hermione took her chance.
"Expelliarmus!" she cried, and his wand flew out of his hand.
As she caught it victoriously, cheers erupted from the students in Defense Club. Everyone congratulated her on her big win. This was the first time she'd ever beaten Remus in one of these duels they did at the repeated requests of her classmates.
Remus also congratulated her.
"The student has surpassed the teacher," he said with a smile as they left the Room of Requirement together after the Defense Club meeting was over.
Hermione, however, didn't feel her victory was a true one. "You were going easy on me."
"I wasn't," he told her as they started along the corridor. "You won fair and square, Hermione."
"I didn't. Not really." She had seen Remus duel before, in real battles during the war and for fun and practice with Sirius and Tonks during the summer she'd spent at Grimmauld Place before fifth year. She knew the way Remus dueled with her was different from the way he did with everybody else, even though she had proven herself to be a skilled duelist. "You're still holding back."
He frowned slightly at the accusation in her tone. "I don't think you give yourself enough credit. Or you overestimate my abilities. I wasn't holding back."
Hermione knew, despite what he said, he had been holding back. He always held back. Not just in these duels with her, but in everything. She wondered if he was even aware he did so. She knew this habit of his probably stemmed from his struggles with his lycanthropy and thought it might have become so much a part of his nature he didn't even realize he did it anymore. She also knew, however, that she probably shouldn't be too critical of him for this because hadn't she been holding back just as much as he'd been this year?
"How's Hugh?" she asked, Remus's pallor reminding her that the full moon was only a few days away.
"He's better. He's been experiencing a few mild symptoms, but he's taking everything in stride. He says he's always liked his meat rare anyway."
"And Rosalind?"
"Hugh hasn't heard from her since she left him at St. Mungo's, but he suspects she may have gone back to where she used to live. He plans on going to look for her."
"You think it's foolish of him to want to work things out with her, don't you?" Remus hesitated to respond, which was answer enough for Hermione. "I'm glad he's going to look for her. I think that after what happened Rosalind will be more careful and learn to better control her wolfish impulses, and I'm glad Hugh's not letting that incident or anything else get in the way of him being happy with her. He's willing to take a chance on them. Sometimes you have to let go of your fears and take a risk in order to be happy. You told me that once, remember?"
"Yes. When we were discussing your boy trouble," he said rather stiffly. After a pause, he added, "I'm glad to see you've worked things out with George."
"Are you?" she asked, watching him closely.
"Of course," he replied, his expression hard to read. "You seem happy with him."
"I'm not. With him, I mean. George and I — we're not together. We're only friends. He wasn't the person I was talking about that day."
Remus raised his eyebrows. "So there's another guy?"
"Yes," she said, slowing her steps as her pulse began to quicken. Remus looked like he was about to question her, but instead he turned away, looking straight ahead of them as they walked, a faint crease between his brows. Hermione continued to contemplate him, remembering the advice he had given her. "You told me I should tell him how I feel because he might still have feelings for me too, but . . . I've been afraid. I don't want to be afraid anymore, Remus." She stopped him in the middle of the corridor on impulse, tired of holding back the words that had been on the tip of her tongue since Valentine's Day. Looking him straight in the eye, she said, "The person I was talking about that day. . . . I was talking about —"
"Ah, Remus, you're here."
You've got to be kidding me, Hermione thought to herself as she stepped away from Remus at the sound of Professor Avila's voice.
The Transfiguration teacher was standing in the doorway to her office just down the corridor. The smile she gave Remus twisted into a scowl of disapproval when her gaze shifted to Hermione, a special scowl she reserved just for her. Dealing with Professor Avila's antagonism toward her this year had given Hermione a better understanding of how Harry must have felt dealing with Snape all those years.
"Miss Granger — shouldn't you be in your dormitory? Oh, I forgot, you think yourself above the rules."
"I was just patrolling the corridors, Professor," Hermione explained. "It's one of my duties as Head Girl."
"It's past curfew. No student, not even the Head Girl, is allowed to wander the castle at this hour," Professor Avila replied.
"Hermione was helping me with Defense Club, Olivia," Remus cut in before Hermione could retort. "Our meeting this evening ran a little late, so it's my fault she's out past her curfew. She was just finishing up her patrol and getting to her dormitory."
"Well, I suggest you hurry along, Miss Granger," Professor Avila said dismissively before turning her full attention to Remus. "Thank you for coming, Remus. I don't know what I'd do without your help."
Remus looked confused for a moment, then said, "Oh, yes, the boggart you were telling me about earlier. I suppose I'll check it out now."
"If you don't mind."
"Professor. . ." Hermione started, turning toward Remus.
"I'm sorry, Hermione. I promised Professor Avila I'd help with the boggart. We can talk tomorrow."
Just when she thought she couldn't dislike Professor Avila any more, Hermione watched as Remus disappeared with her into her office. He seemed eager to leave her behind, relieved to escape the conversation they'd been having before the Transfiguration teacher had interrupted them. He was running away from her.
His teenage self had run away from her too, in the past when their friendship had grown warmer and something more had begun to spark between them. Running away seemed to be as much of a habit of his as holding back.
As she walked into her bedroom a few minutes later, Hermione automatically glanced at her nightstand and felt a pang in her chest at the rose's gaping absence. What had happened to it? Why had it disappeared? Had the magic died at last and the rose vanished forever from existence? She couldn't bear the thought.
At least she still had the necklace Remus had given her. As she traced the words engraved on the pendant, she reminded herself that though the younger Remus had run away from her at first, he'd eventually given in to his feelings. Would the older Remus do the same? How could she get him to stop running, at least long enough for her to tell him how she felt?
Remus didn't stay long with Professor Avila after he'd banished the boggart that had taken up residence in the old filing cabinet in her office. She was unusually chatty this evening, but he couldn't keep up with her conversation. All he could think about was what Hermione had been about to tell him before she'd been interrupted.
As he made his way to his quarters, he wondered who Hermione had been referring to when they'd talked about her boy troubles if not George. Could it have been Viktor Krum as he'd initially believed? But somehow he felt certain she hadn't been about to say Krum. . . .
In his bedroom Remus's gaze was drawn to the rose on his bedside table. It was exactly where he'd left it on Valentine's Day. Although it seemed to call to him every time he passed it and every night as he lay in bed, attempting to entice him with its scent, he hadn't touched it since. Tonight, however, his curiosity got the better of him.
He immediately felt its energy, its magic, tickle his fingers when he picked it up. Incredibly, it looked just as fresh as the first night he'd had it, and he wondered exactly what sort of enchantment had been placed upon it and why it smelled like Hermione. He was appreciative of that peculiarity as much as he was cautious. Breathing in her scent gave him the feeling of being close to her without actually being anywhere near her — this was as close as he'd allow himself to get.
He felt guilty even now, indulging in her scent. But he didn't have much choice, really. It affected him differently tonight, more strongly than before. Because of the approaching full moon and his heightened senses, it overwhelmed him, making him feel lightheaded, dazed. His mind became hazy and his body grew heavy, and without the energy to even undress he climbed into bed.
As he settled under the covers a subtle, tingling warmth flowed through him, starting from his fingertips where he was touching the rose and spreading throughout his entire body, soothing him, instilling him with a sense of peace. He was spiraling down toward a place of serenity, drifting off to somewhere between wake and sleep and dreams, when suddenly he was blinded by a flash of light.
He turned away from the glare of the brilliant glow, rolling over in bed, his arm falling across a pillow — only it wasn't really a pillow. He realized this when he hugged it to him and it gasped.
The sound snapped him back to his senses. He was wide awake in an instant, his eyes flying open to darkness and the feel of a womanly figure beside him. For a moment he froze, as did the girl in his arms, the girl with the dangerously tempting scent. . . .
They reacted at the same time: she scrambled away from him, and, sheer panic replacing his serenity from moments before, Remus crashed to the floor in his haste to get away from her. Light flooded the room as he jumped back up to his feet, and his eyes went wide as they met with Hermione's.
"Remus?" She lowered the wand she had pointed at him and blinked in bemusement, looking as utterly shocked by his presence as he was of hers.
"Hermione — what are you doing in — in —" But as he glanced around he realized this unfamiliar space wasn't his bedroom — it was hers. And he had just been in her bed, spooning with her. "Merlin's beard. . . ."
How had this happened? Hadn't he just been in his bedroom? How in Merlin's name had he gotten here? It was physically impossible for him to be in this room at all. All the girls' dormitories were protected by impenetrable magical wards meant to prevent males from entering. He knew this not only because he'd read so in Hogwarts, A History but because James and Sirius had tried everything to sneak into the Gryffindor girls' dormitory for a prank their fifth year. How could he have possibly entered Hermione's dormitory? Last he checked he was still male.
Hermione also looked very aware of that fact as she tugged the hem of her oversized jumper further down her thighs.
"I-I'm terribly sorry, Hermione. I — I don't know how I got in here." Fighting against his every male and wolfish instinct, he backed away from her toward the door, trying his hardest to keep his gaze from slipping down to her bare legs. His hand found the doorknob. "Forgive me — I'll go." But the door wouldn't open. He yanked it again, but it wouldn't budge. He pulled his wand from his pocket and muttered, "Alohomora!" Still, the door remained shut. "What — what's wrong with the door?"
"I don't know," Hermione said, tentatively stepping around the bed toward him. "It was working fine earlier."
The next spell Remus tried was just as ineffective as the first, so he reached for the doorknob again only to find he couldn't touch it anymore. An invisible barrier now blocked his exit.
He stared at the door in bewilderment. What in Merlin's name was going on? Magic was supposed to keep him out of this room, but it seemed like a different sort of magic was now locking him in. This was not good. The full moon was only four days away and he was trapped in this room with the only person who'd ever made him lose control. . . .
He shouldn't think about that. Panicking would do no good. Everything would be fine so long as they didn't touch again and he figured out a way to get out of here.
"Remus — did you drop this?"
He turned to see Hermione picking his rose off the floor, but as she'd bent down something silver had fallen out from where it'd been tucked beneath her sweater, completely diverting his attention.
"Your necklace," he said, feeling a startling jolt of recognition at the sight of the heart pendant. Her hand quickly shot up to cover it. "It's just like. . . ." But how could that be possible? "Hermione, may I see it?"
She hesitated before reaching behind her neck to unclasp it. He took the hauntingly familiar piece of jewelry from her, handling it delicately.
"This — this belonged to my mother," he said in amazement. "I'm certain it's hers. It's the same, the chain, the pendant . . . the inscription. . ." He lightly traced the words that had been etched upon the heart. "My father made this for her. It's the necklace I told you about on Christmas Eve."
The words on the pendant had been taken from one of his mother's favorite quotes by the poet Rumi: Let yourself be silently drawn by the strange pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. His mother had admired that philosophy and taken the words to heart when it came to romance, allowing herself to be silently drawn to his father, despite him being a wizard and belonging to a world much different than the Muggle one she'd known.
Remus had always liked the quote as well. When his mother passed away, his father had let him have the necklace because it held sentiments too dear and too difficult for him to bear if he were to have kept it for himself. In his younger, more naïve days Remus had thought to give the necklace to the woman he'd someday fall in love with, the woman he'd want to marry, in the hope that she'd be able to look past his lycanthropy and love him in return.
How had the necklace come to be in Hermione's possession?
He looked up at her questioningly. "Where did you get this?"
"It — it was a gift."
"From whom?"
Who could have had it all these years it had been lost to him? He'd never forgiven himself for misplacing it. He'd never understood how it could have happened. He was always so careful with his things, especially with his mother's belongings.
But Hermione countered his question with one of her own, returning his attention to the rose in her hands. "Did you get this on Valentine's Day?"
"I did."
"What does it smell like to you?"
The question shook him. "Like a rose," he lied. "Why?"
"Has anything strange happened? Has the rose glowed or something?"
He found that his memory was a bit fuzzy, but he vaguely remembered a flash of light. "Yes. I was in my room before I was here, and I — I felt strange. I got into bed, and then the rose. . . . How did you know it glowed?"
"The rose is magic. I've seen it glow before. This rose — it used to be mine. But I think I sent it to you that night."
"The rose was from you?" he said in astonishment.
"I didn't mean to send it to you, but I. . . ." She stared down at the flower, her brow furrowed in thought. Speaking more to herself than to him, she said, "I was thinking of you, and I wanted you to . . . I wanted to give you . . . and it just disappeared, right out of my hand. And it — it went to you."
She raised her pensive gaze back to his.
"The rose is magic," he repeated, which was about all he understood from what she'd just said. "So it's what sent me here. It's what's keeping the door locked. But why . . . ?"
"I think it wants us to talk," she said slowly. "I — I need to tell you something."
"What is it, Hermione?" he asked when she hesitated. "Does this have anything to do with this necklace? Or is it about the rose?"
"Both. What the rose did, bringing you here . . . something like that has happened to me as well."
"The rose magically transported you somewhere?"
"Yes." She paused. "Back in time."
"You time traveled?" he said incredulously.
She nodded. "The rose sent me back to 1977."
"Merlin's beard . . . when did this happen?" he asked, completely staggered.
"Last summer."
So many questions flooded his mind he didn't know which to ask first. He lowered his gaze to the rose in her hands and eyed it skeptically. "But the rose couldn't have. . . . That kind of magic, the power of time travel, can't be bestowed upon flowers."
"This rose is special. How else do you explain how you came into my dorm when there are spells meant to keep boys out?"
He couldn't. "Where did you get the rose, Hermione?"
"From the garden at the Burrow." Rather shyly, she added, "It's the same rose you gave me on Harry's birthday. Do you remember?"
"I do," he said quietly. He remembered that moment clearly, how she'd caught him as he was leaving the Burrow and had tried to convince him to teach again at Hogwarts this year, how he'd picked a pretty flower for the pretty girl to congratulate her on being named Head Girl. Feeling uncomfortable at the memory for reasons he didn't want to explore at the moment, he broke their eye contact and dropped his gaze to the rose. "But that can't be the same one. That was months ago. This rose looks freshly picked."
"Its magic keeps it looking that way. Its magic also sent me to the past. The night you gave it to me the rose transported me to Hogwarts twenty years ago."
"If you were sent back to 1977 . . . that's when I was a student."
"I know. I sort of met you — the seventeen-year-old you."
"Merlin's beard," he said, his mind reeling. He stared at Hermione, completely stunned by the thought of her meeting his younger self.
"I was stuck there in the past for nearly three months," she revealed. "While Dumbledore was figuring out a way to return me to my proper time, I acted as a transfer student. I became friends with Lily Evans and some of the other Gryffindors, and I also became friends with you. You gave me that necklace for Christmas."
"I gave this to you?"
She nodded, but he was finding all this difficult to digest.
"Hermione . . . that — that can't be. We didn't meet until your third year. I would have remembered if I'd met you before. I never knew of a Hermione Granger while I was a student."
"I told you my name was Jean Wilkins."
Remus was surprised that the name rang a bell. From somewhere deep in the wells of his mind a memory surfaced. It was shortly after the Christmas holiday in his seventh year at Hogwarts and a classmate of his named Darren asked him about a girl named Jean, if she'd transferred to a different school. Remus had asked him who Jean was. Darren had replied, "Jean Wilkins. You know, that girl you're always with," and Remus had regarded him suspiciously, unsure whether he was pulling his leg or not.
Could Darren have been referring to Hermione? The thought was mind-boggling.
"And also," Hermione continued, "Dumbledore placed a Memory Charm on you, and Lily and Sirius and McGongagall, and on everybody else I knew in this time. None of you were allowed to remember me because it might have altered the future I knew, the present we know now."
If this was true, if Hermione had truly traveled back in time and his memories of her had been erased . . . what sort of memories had been taken from him? It was unnerving to learn that three months' worth of his life experience had been wiped from his mind, especially when that experience was centered on Hermione.
Remus searched her face without quite knowing what he was looking for. She peered back at him nervously, which heightened his unease.
Hermione had said they'd been friends, but had his younger self developed feelings for her as well? He'd apparently given her his mother's necklace which strongly indicated that he had. Anxiety gripped him. What exactly had happened between them?
The inability to remember, the obliviousness and uncertainty, unsettled Remus. He needed to know what happened.
"Hermione, can you reverse the spell Dumbledore placed on me? Can you return my memories?"
Hermione's stomach knotted at his request.
"I can't," she said. "That's extremely advanced and delicate magic, way beyond my ability."
"It isn't. You returned your parents' memories of you last summer, you can do the same to me. Please, Hermione. I trust you."
She wished he hadn't said that. The boggart-Remus had told her she'd violated his trust. . . .
"That was different. I only modified my parents' memories," she explained. "I cast a charm on them so that they would believe they were different people and didn't have a daughter, a charm that could be reversed. But Dumbledore Obliviated your memory, and it's impossible to return memories that have been Obliviated, except under extreme mental duress like torture."
"Right," Remus said in disappointment. "I knew that. I — I just wish I could remember."
Hermione bit her lip as she watched him fidget with the necklace he'd given her, frustration plain on his features. Should she just tell him what he couldn't remember? Should she tell him everything that had happened between them? How much should she reveal? How would he react if she told him —
"It's glowing again," Remus said sharply.
Hermione glanced down to see the rose sparking and glimmering in her hands. It felt pleasantly warm against her fingers as the glow grew stronger.
"Let me see, Hermione," Remus said, holding his hand out for the rose. "It might be dangerous."
She shook her head. "It's not dangerous."
She was absolutely certain of this. The rose had only ever tried to help her. Was it trying to help her again now? But she thought she'd ruined its plan by leaving the past to return to her present. Perhaps, though, it had a different plan. Why else would it have brought Remus here and done all that it had tonight? Maybe it had just been waiting for the right time or the right circumstances to reveal more of its magic. But why was it glowing? What was it going to do now?
It had recently granted her wish to give Remus her love by presenting itself, the symbol of her love, to him. And Remus had just wished he could remember what had happened between them in the past. . . .
Instinctively, Hermione knew now what it intended. "I think it — it wants to return your memories."
The rose's glow surged brighter as though confirming what she'd just said, and Remus looked warily between her and the flower. Then, slowly, he extended his hand again.
Hermione hesitated, her heart pounding anxiously. At the forefront of her mind was the boggart-Remus's reaction to the memories and she was terrified of handing the rose over to the real Remus. This sort of fear was comparable to the fear she'd experienced when facing Voldemort and the Death Eaters, when she'd been at the mercy of a deranged Bellatrix Lestrange. Her life had been in peril then; now her heart was at risk.
She felt the cowardly urge to hide it, to refuse him the rose. But she knew she couldn't deny him his memories, especially not now that he knew so much. And if this was the rose's plan . . . shouldn't she trust the rose? Maybe it would be good for Remus to remember. The truth would finally be out and she wouldn't feel guilty about hiding anything from him anymore. And perhaps by remembering what had happened between them in the past he'd realize it didn't matter that he was a werewolf. They could still be together and be happy.
Remembering, however, the way her actions in the past had upset the boggart-Remus, she blurted, "I didn't mean for any of this to happen, Remus."
He frowned slightly but gave a small nod, his outstretched hand still waiting for the rose.
Hermione took a deep breath. Then, with all the Gryffindor courage she had, she handed the rose to Remus.