It was like being struck by lightning.
Every nerve in Remus's body was set alight when his lips met Hermione's, only it wasn't pain jolting through him but pleasure, pure all-consuming pleasure that surged more strongly with the small moan she gave of surprise or satisfaction or both. His wolfish impulses went haywire. He was lost, overwhelmed, the wolf reveling as it took command and he completely forgot himself, forgot everything but his fierce hunger for her, his need to claim what was his.
He laid her down, kissing her hard, her skin deliciously soft as his hand ran up her thigh. Everything was sensation and instinct and that sweet, all-consuming pleasure — until Hermione suddenly yelped and pushed him away.
Her hand shot to her mouth and he froze, a flash of fear that was not his own cutting through the lustful haze clouding his mind. He stared down at her, disorientated. Her chest heaving, she examined the fingers she'd touched to her lips, and Remus came hurtling back to his senses when he realized she was checking for blood — he'd bitten her.
"Oh god." He hastily pulled away from her.
"It's okay. You didn't hurt me," she said quickly, but he jerked away from her when she reached for him, his wolfish impulses going haywire again at her touch.
He scrambled off her bed, the fear overcoming him all his own now and adding to the confusion of impulses firing within him. He'd never felt this way before, not even with Hermione. It was as if the effect she had on him had strengthened with the memories the rose had returned to him but everything was muddled. He didn't know if what he was feeling was passion or aggression, sexual desire or a craving for flesh, his instincts or the wolf's, or a combination of the above. All he knew was that these feelings were too intense, too volatile, too dangerous.
He staggered back toward the door. "I'm sorry, Hermione."
"It's okay, Remus," she said, climbing out of bed after him. "I know — the full moon is near."
"I shouldn't be here."
"Remus, wait."
He didn't have a choice. He turned to the door only to find that the rose's magic was still keeping him locked in the room.
With nowhere to go, he turned back to Hermione. She'd stopped short of him, surveying him cautiously from a few feet away. She was sensible to keep her distance. He hadn't just kissed her moments ago, he'd pounced on her. He wondered if she could see on his face the shadow of the wolf he felt thrashing mightily within him, how much he was struggling to hold it back.
And then Vivienne's ominous last words to him came rushing to his mind: You can't keep holding back forever. You can't keep caging yourself. You're going to break free eventually, whether you want to or not. . . .
She was right. He'd lost control with Hermione twice now — three times counting the incident in the D.A.D.A. classroom in the past. He needed to find a way out of here. He looked around frantically, searching the room and his knowledge of magic for a way to escape.
"Remus . . . are you all right?"
He stopped his frantic searching upon seeing Hermione's expression. He was scaring her, acting like the caged animal that he was.
"I'm sorry, Hermione. I'm fine now," he said, relaxing his posture and hiding his panic as best he could. He tried to calm himself by taking deep breaths, but it didn't help much considering he was only inhaling her intoxicating scent. He could do nothing but keep his distance and make sure they didn't touch again. "We should try to figure out a way to get out of here."
She frowned at him slightly. "But we . . . we need to talk about what happened."
"I'm sorry," he said, glancing down at the lip he'd bitten. Why did she have to affect him this way? And why was all this happening now? Why did he have to be locked in this room with her at precisely this time of the month when his emotions and impulses were so difficult to control? "I didn't mean to — to kiss you like that. I lost control."
"Your wolfish impulses . . . that's all that was?"
She had to know as well as he did that that wasn't entirely true, didn't she? After everything that had happened between them in the past, she had to know how he felt about her. His secret, the feelings he'd been so careful to guard as an adult, had been betrayed and divulged by none other than his younger self. He'd revealed his heart to Hermione in the past, and it lay unbearably bare before her now.
And she'd known all along. She'd known all year. She'd known how he felt about her even before he'd become aware of his feelings. Why hadn't she said anything? Why hadn't she told him about any of this? She must have been too embarrassed, too ashamed of what had happened between them.
All of a sudden those times he'd sensed her nervousness around him at the start of the school year made sense. Of course she'd felt awkward. She'd dated her professor.
And he'd dated his student. He looked away from her. "We need to find a way out of here."
"But what about what happened in the past?" she asked tentatively. "Don't — don't you remember?"
The memories were still swirling at the forefront of his mind, too immediate, his emotions still too raw, and he wished he had time to process everything, time alone and not trapped in this room with her. He remembered every moment with her too vividly, as if it had happened yesterday, not twenty years ago. Their very first encounter in his dormitory. . . . Who are you? she'd said — her first words to him. She hadn't known who he was. Her memory must have been modified when she'd been sent to the past. She hadn't known that they knew each other much later in the future. She couldn't have. If she'd known, she would have never allowed anything romantic to happen between them.
She'd hinted to as much herself before she'd handed him the rose and his memories earlier. I didn't mean for any of this to happen, she'd told him. Did that mean she regretted it all and wished they had never gotten together? Is that why she'd never told him about her time travel and their relationship in the past, because she wanted to pretend it had never happened, like she'd wanted to pretend her awkward first encounter with his younger self had never happened?
He didn't blame her.
"Remus?"
"I remember, Hermione," he said as he inwardly cursed his younger self for revealing his feelings for her instead of staying away. "I — I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing. You didn't do anything wrong."
"What happened between us in the past . . . I shouldn't have. . . . We need to find a way out of here."
"Remus, we need to talk about this."
"Please, help me find a way out of here first. It's late. I don't want —"
"You don't want to spend the night in this room alone with me. But you didn't have a problem sleeping with me when you were seventeen."
Remus tensed, something in her tone making him question whether more had happened between them than he remembered. "We — we slept together?"
"So what if we did?" she answered with a hint of defiance, though she was blushing terribly. He, on the other hand, had paled, aghast.
"Hermione — don't you realize how wildly inappropriate this is? You're my student, and I — I'm old enough to be your father."
"We were classmates at the time, peers. We were the same age. Actually, I was a bit older than you. I was eighteen, so technically —"
"Technically you weren't even born yet."
"Only if you think of time in a linear fashion, but it's more complicated than that."
"Yes. I remember that conversation now."
On the Astronomy Tower, the night they'd first kissed, the night he'd complicated everything.
He began to pace like she had that night, running his hand through his hair and over his mouth, his thoughts and feelings in total disarray. He couldn't believe he and Hermione. . . . He couldn't believe she had been his first. He wished he could remember. No — he was grateful he couldn't if he was already struggling with his desires with what he did remember. How was he supposed to teach her in classes after this? He'd never be able to look at her the same way, not now that he knew what she looked like beneath her school uniform, beneath him —
"We didn't sleep together," she said quietly. "I meant it in the literal sense. The last night in your dormitory . . . you know we didn't — we didn't get that far."
"I'm not sure what I know anymore, Hermione."
He'd gone so long with his memory incomplete, with his self incomplete — robbed of experiences he'd thought he'd never be lucky enough to have and his heart torn in a way he'd always felt on a certain level but could never quite explain — who was to say there weren't more missing memories, more pieces of himself that had been ripped away from him?
"I'm s-sorry, Remus."
He stopped pacing upon hearing the tremble in her voice.
"Forgive me, Hermione. I'm not angry at you. This isn't your fault. I — I'm upset with myself."
"You shouldn't be. You didn't know who I was. You didn't know we knew each other in the future."
"Neither did you." But something like guilt crossed her face, making him question his previous assumption. "You didn't know, did you?"
She swallowed. "I — I did."
He stared at her uncomprehendingly. "You mean . . . your memories of the future were unaffected? You knew who I was?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"Then why did you . . . why did you allow all that to happen? Why didn't you put a stop to what was going on between us? Why didn't you stay away?"
"I couldn't. I tried — that's why I ran off after we first kissed, because I thought if you ever found out —"
"If I ever found out. . . ." he repeated, the truth dawning on him. He stared at her incredulously. "You knew the whole time my memory would be Obliviated. You knew I would never remember what happened between us, but you still. . . . And when you returned to the present, you never planned on telling me. You didn't want me to know. You thought I'd never find out about this."
Why would she do that? Why would she date him and then pretend like it had never happened? What was she playing at?
"I didn't know what to do, Remus. I didn't know if I should tell you —"
"You shouldn't have allowed us to become romantically involved in the first place. You should have told me the truth then, Hermione. You should have told me everything."
"Dumbledore forbade me to tell anyone about my time travel. But I wanted to, Remus. I tried to tell you, but you said I should do as Dumbledore said."
He remembered. In the D.A.D.A. classroom, the day he'd been struggling with his wolfish impulses and she'd thought he was upset with her. But I want to tell you, Remus. I have to. I need to make sure things are okay between us, she'd said. He'd told her everything was okay, but. . . .
"I didn't know you were hiding something like this, Hermione. If I had known —" What would he have done? He rubbed his temple, trying to soothe the dull ache in his head triggered by the recovery of his memories. "You should have stayed away."
"I'm sorry, Remus. I was s-so torn after we first kissed, but when I talked to Dumbledore —"
"Dumbledore? Did he know about us?"
"Well — yes."
He didn't know why he was surprised by this. Of course Dumbledore had known. He'd seen them kissing under the mistletoe and he was the one who'd Obliviated his memory after all. He'd known all those years. . . . He'd known when he'd hired him as a professor, and all that time he'd kept it to himself. All those years he had worked for him in the Order of the Phoenix and Dumbledore had never said a word to him about it, had never alluded to anything. . . .
Or perhaps he had. Remus remembered the time he was with the headmaster at the Burrow and they'd been discussing Harry and how fast he'd had to grow up. When they'd seen through the window that Hermione had arrived, Dumbledore said, Speakingof growing up, Miss Granger certainly has. She's become quite a beautiful young woman, hasn't she?
Why had Dumbledore said that? Was the headmaster attempting to determine whether he, the werewolf he'd once hired as her professor, still had feelings for his young student even as a much older adult? Remus shuddered to think what Dumbledore must have thought of him.
And then another memory popped into his mind, a much more recent one. The night of the Valentine's Day dance, when he'd confronted George after catching him with Hermione, George had told him, You can't blame me for not being able to resist a little snogging in a lonely classroom. After all, you did the same with her when you were seventeen.
George knew. He had to know what had happened between him and Hermione in the past — why else would he have said that?
"George Weasley knows too, doesn't he?"
His question startled Hermione and she hesitated before confirming his suspicion.
So she'd told George — why would she do that?
He remembered the laughter that had filled the younger wizard's eyes upon seeing him get so worked up over Hermione the night of the dance. George had known he had feelings for her and he'd purposely taunted him that night. . . .
"Who else knows about this?" he asked.
Tentatively, she revealed, "Harry and Ginny."
She's stunning, isn't she? Ginny had said about Hermione to their group of friends at the dance while looking directly at him and wearing a knowing smile. . . .
Remus couldn't believe it. If Ginny and Harry and George knew, it was almost certain Fred and Ron knew as well. And who else had they told? Who else had known more about his feelings, more about his own past than he had?
"You shouldn't have told them, Hermione, not when I wasn't even aware of any of this. You should have told me."
"I'm sorry, Remus —"
"Why didn't you tell me?" he demanded. "Were you too ashamed of what happened? Were you too embarrassed we'd dated?"
"No, I —"
"You've been acting all year as if nothing had ever happened between us. You completely disregarded my feelings for you. I gave you my mother's necklace, and you — you were lying to me about everything! You were just playing with my emotions."
"No, Remus, I never played with your emotions! I just didn't know what to do. I d-didn't know how to tell you. I didn't know how you felt now, and I was afraid of how you'd react. I was afraid you w-wouldn't understand."
She'd said something like that to him before, when she'd told him about her boy trouble. She'd told him that she'd made some mistakes, that she feared her ex-boyfriend wouldn't understand why she'd done what she'd done, that he wouldn't forgive her. . . .
And he realized now who she'd been talking about that day. She'd said she'd dated the guy in question in the past and that he wasn't a student but a bit older than her. Well, he had dated her in the past, he wasn't a student but her professor, and a bit older than her to say the least — she'd been talking about him.
"I couldn't stay away from you, Remus," she said, eyes begging him to understand. "I couldn't."
And it had plagued her with guilt. She'd told him that she was afraid he wouldn't want to be anywhere near her after what she'd done. She feared he didn't care for her anymore and that he didn't realize she still had feelings for him like she had before —
She still had feelings for him.
She'd just been afraid. But she had feelings for him. . . .
His heart hammered painfully against his chest as she continued.
"I hated not being able to be completely honest with you and having to pretend that nothing had ever happened between us. Because what happened in the past . . . that was all real to me."
It had all been real. He'd felt it, in the way she'd looked at him, all those times they'd kissed, their last night together — she'd been ready to give herself to him that night. She'd almost been his. . . .
"Remus, I —"
"Don't touch me, Hermione," he blurted when she stepped closer, his panic surging at her approach. He felt a pang of guilt as she hastily backed away from him, her eyes glistening with tears. Again he wondered why all this had to be happening now when his impulses were so hard to keep in check.
"I'm sorry, Hermione. I — I don't know what to think right now. This was a lot to take in," he said honestly. The pain in his head had grown piercing. "I think we should get some rest."
"Okay," she whispered.
He glanced around the room as she wiped away her tears.
"I'll sleep in there," he said, indicating the bathroom.
"Don't be ridiculous. I'll make you a bed of blankets right here."
"I'd prefer to sleep in a separate room — as a precaution. Four nights until the full moon."
"You didn't take your potion today."
"I did. The potion just doesn't help me when it comes to you. Your scent — But I don't have to explain, do I? You already know you affect me differently. You've known all along."
He couldn't keep the accusation out of his tone, and he saw a light blush tinge her cheeks before he retreated into the small refuge of solitude the rose had allowed him.
Remus sat against the bathroom door, his head pounding in his hands and a terrible ache in his chest. He knew Hermione was crying in her bedroom. He could feel it, like he'd felt her anguish when she'd told him about her boy trouble. He remembered the sadness that had tainted her features during the couple of weeks prior to that conversation and he realized now that sadness was because of him, because she couldn't be with him.
She had feelings for him. She couldn't stay away.
Like he hadn't been able to stay away from her, in the past and during the last few months. As soon as he'd realized the true nature of his feelings he should have distanced himself from her. But he hadn't. He couldn't. He was too drawn to her. As usual his problem was that he wanted to be around her too much. And that seemed to always lead to trouble for him and danger for her.
Because she brought out the wolf in him and he'd learned all his self-discipline was useless. He was as capable as any other werewolf to lose control when it came to Hermione, and he knew he could never live with himself if he were to ever hurt her in any way — like Rosalind had hurt his friend Hugh. He knew he had to do what he criticized her for not doing and stay away from Hermione.
But what if she didn't want you to stay away? What if she loved you and wanted to be with you? Hermione had asked him on Valentine's Day about the girl he'd hypothetically fallen in love with. But had she been speaking hypothetically, or had she been referring to herself when she'd spoken about that girl's feelings? Love was a strong word, but the thought that she might want to be with him . . . if that were true. . . .
He'd give almost anything to live again the incredible joy he'd felt when they were together, but like he'd told her on Valentine's Day, that just wasn't possible. He'd have to stay away. Because he knew better than his younger, naive self who had still been hopeful that by keeping his lycanthropy a secret he could live a semi-normal and successful life, and who hadn't yet lived the years of poverty and hardship and shame that he had. He knew what Hermione didn't understand or simply didn't want to accept: he was too dangerous. She deserved better.
Bitterness rose within him and he cursed his lycanthropy. He cursed his younger self and what had happened in the past for making everything worse, for making the reality that he couldn't be with Hermione even harder to accept. He cursed the rose because it was what had started all this. It was what had sent Hermione to the past.
This was all the rose's fault.
After a rough, sleepless night, Remus reluctantly joined Hermione in her bedroom the next morning.
"We're still locked in," she informed him as he automatically glanced at the door. "I already checked."
She was holding the rose responsible for this predicament, and he was grateful to also see that she was no longer wearing his old jumper but was fully dressed this morning. Her eyes were puffy from crying, though, and her bottom lip was slightly swollen. He winced and lowered his gaze to the flower in her hands.
"May I see the rose?" he asked.
She nodded. "It's yours now anyhow. It presented itself to you."
Careful to avoid any touching between them, he took the rose she handed over, immediately feeling its magic tickle his fingers. He studied the mysterious flower, trying to understand its power and its reason for meddling with him and Hermione.
She'd told him the night before that it had sent him to her because it wanted them to talk, and he reckoned it would release them once they'd said what they needed to say. Only he dreaded the conversation he knew they had to have. But there was no going around it, no putting it off. The rose had ensured that by locking them in this room together.
"Remus," Hermione started after a short silence, and he could see that unlike himself she was bursting to speak. "I'm sorry," she said earnestly. "I know you're upset with me, and you have every right to be, because of what I did, because I did lie about some things, and I — I violated your trust. But I need you to know . . . I never lied about my feelings."
"Hermione —" he started, his chest tight, but she went on.
"Please, Remus, I need to say this."
He wished she wouldn't — it would only make things harder — but he fell silent again, letting her speak.
She took a breath before continuing. "Being sent to the past — being sent to you . . . I was thrown into a situation that was incredibly difficult for me. I didn't know what to do. But you told me the night we first kissed that we should do what we feel is right with the time we are given. So that's what I did. Even though I worried how you'd react to all this . . . being with you felt right."
Her words wrenched his heart, and he struggled to maintain his resolve because being with her had felt right to him too. . . .
"You once told me that the weeks you were with me were the best of your life. I felt the same way," she said, her voice growing thick. "That's why leaving you was so hard. These past few months have been so hard because all I wanted was for things to be like they were before, but I had to pretend like nothing had happened. I had to keep my distance when all I wanted was to be with you again."
At that moment a flash of blinding light illuminated the room, startling them both. When the glare diminished it revealed that the door that had been locked now stood ajar — the rose had lifted its magic. He was finally free to leave.
But instead of relief Remus felt conflicted.
Hermione glanced anxiously between him and the exit, and though his desire to leave this instant without doing what he needed to do was equal to his desire to just throw caution to the wind and take her in his arms, he did neither. Instead he stayed where he was, steeling himself for what he had to tell her.
"Hermione . . . we can't be together."
Her expression hardly changed. She seemed to have expected him to say that.
"Why not?" she asked calmly.
"Because the rose . . . this is all the rose's doing," he said, glancing down at the flower in his hand. "It's proven it's capable of powerful magic. How do you know its magic hasn't manipulated you and your feelings? How do you know you're not under its influence?"
This she didn't seem to expect and it riled her up.
"I'm not under any influence! I had feelings for you long before you ever gave me that rose!"
His heart swelled with new hope, but he quickly suppressed it because it didn't matter. That changed nothing.
"Why did you give me the rose that night?" she asked.
"You'd just told me you'd been named Head Girl, and I — I just wanted to congratulate you."
It had been an innocent gesture, hadn't it? He'd had no romantic intention. Why, then, had he felt a little thrill followed by a twinge of guilt upon seeing the color that had bloomed in her cheeks as she'd taken the rose he'd offered?
"But what were you thinking?" Hermione pressed. "How did you feel? Because something in that moment, something in that exchange between us, sparked the rose's magic."
"I don't know, Hermione. But it doesn't really matter, does it? What happened in the past doesn't change anything. This isn't 1977 anymore. We can't be together. Things are different. I'm your teacher now and twice your age."
"You're only my teacher for a few more months, and I don't care how old you are! That shouldn't matter. I think that's why the rose sent me to the past in the first place, to realize that those things don't matter. Back then we were free to feel how we truly felt about each other without age or anything else getting in the way. Let's not let that get in the way now! If you have feelings for me —"
"No, Hermione," he said abruptly, taking her aback. Her brow furrowed slightly in confusion. Then dread flickered in her eyes.
"No?" she exhaled.
"No," he forced himself to say again, his throat tight. He hated himself for doing this, but he had to, for her sake. "I'm sorry, Hermione, but I . . . I don't. I'm not the same person I was twenty years ago."
Her breath expelled from her body in a rush as his words hit her. He felt in his own chest the ache that replaced it, stifling the next breath she drew. She slowly shrank away from him, tears filling her eyes, and he wished things could be different, wished he could go to her and hold her and tell her how he really felt. But he held back. He had to.
"I'm sorry. This is my fault," he said, his fist clenching painfully around the rose's stem. "None of this would have happened if I hadn't given you the rose. It — it must be cursed."
"No," she said in a choked whisper, shaking her head. "It isn't cursed, it's pure."
"Its magic is too great, too dangerous. I'll check it again for enchantments and curses, but I think it would be safest to get rid of it."
"No — Remus, please don't —" she said, rushing toward him.
He reacted instinctively. Wary of her touch he drew his wand and the strength of his Shield Charm forced her several steps back, making her stumble into the wall behind her.
A ringing silence filled the room.
Hermione stared at him through the invisible barrier between them, her eyes wide as though he'd just physically struck her. He felt like he had.
"I'm sorry . . ."
Unable to bear the look in her eyes, Remus hurried out of her bedroom. He swiftly crossed her sitting room and pulled open the door leading out to the corridor to find Ginny on the other side, her fist raised, poised to knock. Her eyebrows shot up high on her forehead to see him inside Hermione's dormitory, but he lowered his gaze and moved past her without a word.
He sped down the corridor, not knowing where he was going, just that he had to get away. But he couldn't escape the feel of Hermione's heart shattering in his chest. He couldn't escape the feel of the sobs that seized her body, her pain compounding with his own.
He blundered on, blind to the world around him. All he could see was the look on her face as he'd left — the same look he'd seen before, when he'd found her with the boggart that had taken his shape. Then it suddenly became clear to him exactly what her worst fear truly was, and his stomach churned with guilt as he realized he'd just made it come true.
A/N: This chapter hurt to write, especially after reading your lovely reviews and how excited you were, but this is just the way the story had to go.
The good news is the next couple of chapters will be coming to you faster because I know I've been slow with the updates lately.
Also, this story has been nominated for the Shrieking Shack Society's Mischief Managed Award for Best Time Travel Fic. Thank you so much! If you want to vote and check out the other awesome stories that were nominated, you can go to shriekingshacksociety dot weebly dot com. Voting is open through April 30th.