"Would you like some coffee, darling?"
Hermione mumbled a "no thanks" to her mother and continued flipping through the Daily Prophet as she'd done every morning the last week, scanning for news about Hogwarts and any staff changes. The morning after McGonagall had caught her with Remus, Hermione hadn't been able to bear facing either one of her professors and had left for home for the Easter holidays before she had the chance to run into them, and also before she could find out if Remus had been fired.
If he had, she expected it would be in the news considering the controversy surrounding his — a werewolf's — appointment at Hogwarts. This morning, however, like the others before, there was no mention of the dismissal or new hiring of a Hogwarts professor. This only left her feeling more anxious than relieved, though, because it didn't necessarily mean Remus hadn't been sacked. Perhaps McGonagall had just succeeded in keeping the news quiet.
Hermione was about to put the paper aside and start on her breakfast when she noticed Fenrir Greyback's name. Apparently he'd been mysteriously attacked in Azkaban last night — the perpetrator, whether fellow inmate or guard, presently unknown — and was currently at St. Mungo's in critical condition.
"Serves him right," Hermione muttered, thinking of the savageries Greyback had committed, all the children — including Remus — he'd infected and marked for life, and the horror she'd felt when she herself had almost become one of his victims, the way her flesh had crawled when he'd called her "delicious girl."
"Are you reading the article on Fenrir Greyback?" Mrs. Granger asked as she joined Hermione at the table, a steaming cup of coffee in hand.
"Yeah. I was just thinking of all that he's done and — wait a minute," Hermione said suddenly, giving her mother with a quizzical look. "How did you know there was an article on Greyback?"
"I subscribed to the Daily Prophet months ago," Mrs. Granger said, patting her own copy of the newspaper, which Hermione hadn't noticed was lying on the table by her mother's plate.
"But why —?"
"I wanted to keep informed on all that's going on in the Wizarding world — not like before when you shared with your father and me only what you thought wouldn't shock us and left out the bits where you and your friends were in mortal danger."
Hermione didn't know what to say. She gave her mother an apologetic smile. Mrs. Granger didn't return it.
Instead, she asked, "Didn't you say one of your professors was a werewolf like Greyback? Professor Lupin, I believe."
"Yes, Professor Lupin is a werewolf, but he's nothing like Greyback," Hermione was quick to explain. "Greyback is savage and wishes to infect as many wizards as he can. Lupin would never want to hurt anyone or pass his affliction on to anybody else. He's very careful about taking his Wolfsbane Potion, which alleviates the symptoms of his lycanthropy and helps him keep his mind when he transforms."
"So he isn't dangerous," her mother said carefully, "or else he wouldn't be allowed to teach at your school?"
"Right."
Mrs. Granger took a sip of her coffee before casually asking, "So how are things going between you and Remus?"
Hermione tensed, eyes darting back to her mother, startled by her abrupt change of subject, which she feared her mother knew wasn't really a change of subject at all. "What?"
"The boy who gave you that rose and heart necklace — how are things going between you two?"
Hermione stared at her mother. Did she know? Had she figured out that the Remus she was in love with, the Remus she'd told her about last summer but had carefully avoided discussing while at home over the Christmas holidays, was Professor Lupin? If she'd been reading the Daily Prophet for months, she likely would have seen Remus mentioned a few times, like when his appointment at Hogwarts had been debated at the start of the school year and when the werewolf attack on Valentine's Day had happened.
"Um . . . still complicated," Hermione said nervously.
"So you're not together?" her mother asked, watching her very closely.
"No. We — we still have some things we need to work out."
"Maybe it would be best for you to wait until after graduation when all the stress of your exams has passed and you have a clear head to think things through carefully."
"Yes. That was the plan."
Hermione was only slightly relieved when her mother dropped her probing gaze and said nothing more about Remus as they ate. She had to suspect something, didn't she? If she did, though, Hermione couldn't imagine that her mother wouldn't say more on the subject. Or maybe she just wasn't sure if what she suspected was true and was hesitant to bring up the matter.
Well, Hermione certainly wasn't about to bring it up either.
As Mrs. Granger finished up her breakfast, she said, "Your father and I were thinking of going to the cinema this evening. What do you say?"
"Oh, I don't know. I have a lot of studying to do."
"You've been working too hard. We've hardly seen you since you've been home. I think a break would do you good."
"Harry's coming over in a little while. I'll take a break then."
To allay her mother's worry, Hermione told her she'd also think about going to the cinema with them later as well. It was true that she'd spent little time the last week doing anything but studying for her N.E.W.T.s., not only because she needed to but also to keep from dwelling too much on what Remus had told her the night McGonagall had caught them together.
She'd been turning it over and over in her mind, and as much as she hated to admit it, she knew he was right when he'd said getting involved with him might make some things difficult for her. And he didn't want to hold her back. He'd only been thinking of her, her well-being and her future, a future she couldn't have with him, a future he refused to have with anyone. He'd warned her that he never planned on marrying and having children because of his lycanthropy. Like she'd told her mother, Remus would never risk passing his affliction to anybody else, especially not to an innocent child.
Hermione felt a sharp pang in her chest at the thought, at what Remus was deprived of, at what he denied himself. She knew he'd be a good father. He was so good with his younger students, kind and fair, great at building up their confidence and well-liked for his quiet sense of humor. And she'd always expected that she'd eventually have kids. But if she were with Remus and that never happened, it wouldn't matter because being with him would be enough. Their love was enough.
Wasn't it?
Wasn't love strong enough to carry them through any obstacle? Wasn't love supposed to conquer all?
Well, their love could have cost Remus the job he loved, his livelihood.
Hermione had thought countless times over the last week to write to him or visit him to apologize and make sure he was okay. She feared, however, that he didn't want to hear from her after what she'd done, especially if she'd indeed gotten him fired, and knew that he would much less want to see her. The full moon had only just passed last night and her presence during these days would have only made matters worse.
Why did she have to affect him this way? It complicated everything. She complicated everything. She remembered the look in Remus's eyes that night in his quarters, like he was terrified of her. He'd told her that he was a danger to her, that he constantly felt like he was on the edge of losing himself when he was with her. But really she was the danger, wasn't she? She was the one who affected him more than anybody else and made him uncomfortable and fearful, terrified of hurting her.
But she knew he wouldn't. It was just his fear getting to him. That night, even though their embrace had been very passionate — beyond passionate, wild — and he'd lacked his usual gentleness (he'd kicked down his bedroom door!), he hadn't hurt her. He wouldn't hurt her.
Or was it foolish of her to believe this, that he wasn't a real danger as he said?
Was it reckless of her not to care even if he were?
Was she naive to think they could be happy together despite the issues they were sure to face?
Remus seemed to think so. But if they loved each other, shouldn't they at least try to be happy together? If they loved each other, shouldn't they give it a shot before giving each other up? If they loved each other . . . shouldn't it be less difficult?
If Remus loved her, why did he make everything so hard and keep pushing her away despite knowing how she felt about all this? Because his fears were stronger than his feelings for her? But if he loved her . . . did he love her?
He'd never explicitly said anything about how he felt for her, not that night in his quarters or the night they'd spent together in the Room of Requirement. The closest thing he'd ever said was that he dreamt about her like she dreamt of him.
But he felt the same as her, didn't he? She thought of the way he'd kissed her and held her that night in the Room of Requirement and wanted to say yes, but then the memory of their conversation after the rose had returned his memories, the exchange that had shattered her heart, replayed in her mind, his words tearing through her like a jagged blade:
"If you have feelings for me —"
"No, Hermione."
"No?"
"No. I'm sorry, Hermione, but I . . . I don't. I'm not the same person I was twenty years ago."
The memory hit her with nearly the same crushing force as when it had happened, and the doubts Hermione thought she'd gotten rid of swarmed in on her, circling like birds of prey, ready to descend upon her —
Hermione batted them away before they could dig their ugly, poisonous talons in her. This was the last thing she needed right now.
She took her dishes to the sink to wash and forced Remus out of her thoughts. She needed to cheer up and get dressed before Harry arrived.
"You're cautious and self-controlled . . . You wouldn't hurt me, Remus. I know you wouldn't . . . I love you . . ."
"You're the tamest, most repressed werewolf I've ever met, which means what you really need is release . . . You're going to break free eventually, whether you want to or not . . ."
Remus opened his eyes to a cloudy night sky. A cold breeze swept over him and he rolled onto his side, seeking Hermione's warmth. But she was no longer beside him. Only cool earth met his touch.
A sudden frightened whimper in the distance, then a muffled sob.
Remus was on his feet at once, glancing around. No one, nothing there. But another whimper made the hair on the back of his neck stand on end.
Where was she?
He followed the feeble sounds of distress toward the Whomping Willow, his heart pounding with a horrible sense of foreboding that heightened with each step he took.
Then he saw her, lying curled up in her red cloak under the thrashing willow tree.
"No, don't!" Hermione cried as he approached. "D-d-don't come n-near me!"
She was hurt, hugging herself protectively beneath the crimson fabric, and her face was smeared with — was it dirt or . . . something else?
"Please, Hermione, let me see."
She sobbed weakly as he gently unwrapped her cloak with shaking hands to find dark stains covering her shredded white dress. There were lacerations across her chest, the work of brutal, razor-sharp claws, and a jagged tear in her thigh —
No . . . it couldn't be. . . . He couldn't have. . . .
But he could taste the metallic tang of blood in his mouth, could feel the stickiness of blood on his hands. It glittered strangely as the clouds shifted and the radiance of the full moon was revealed, showering down upon them like a ghostly spotlight.
Hermione started to shake, convulse, the transformation overcoming her, and he hugged her tightly to him, willing it to stop, to take it back. But he could do nothing as she writhed in his arms, nothing as she screamed, her cries cutting through him more deeply and painfully than Greyback's fangs had sunk into his flesh so many years before. . . .
Remus jolted awake, Hermione's piercing screams still echoing in his ears, though, he realized with another jolt, she was no longer in his arms. He searched frantically for her in the darkness, then jumped to his feet at the noise that erupted somewhere nearby.
He strained his senses, for Hermione, for any sign of danger in the form of Greyback or otherwise. But Remus was no longer at the Whomping Willow. He was in his bedroom at his cottage in the woods.
Another loud banging sound.
It took several frantic heartbeats for Remus to realize someone was knocking at his door, and Hermione — it had only been a dream.
He exhaled a long, shuddering breath and wiped the sweat, the tears, from his face, calling out to his caller that he'd be there in a moment. Pulling on his clothes, he wondered who on earth had come to see him — he rarely got visitors — and why they'd come now, the morning after his transformation when he wasn't in the best state to receive guests. Not morning but afternoon, he realized, judging by the light pouring in through the windows in his living room.
Then, his hand on the doorknob, his heart leapt to his throat as it occurred to him that his visitor could be Hermione — like Little Red Riding Hood traipsing right into the wolf's clutches. The images from his nightmare flashed through his mind: Hermione in the Halloween costume she'd worn in the past, her white dress shredded, her red cloak like a pool of blood around her, and his own hands and mouth smeared with it.
He backed away from the door. He could pretend he wasn't home. But then he remembered he'd already spoken.
Remus willed the images away, telling himself it had only been a dream and it probably wasn't Hermione on the other side of the door anyway. Then, with a steadying breath, he opened the door.
"Harry," he said, a surprising bit of disappointment mingling with his intense relief. "What brings you here?"
"Fancied a chat. Are you busy?"
Remus let him in and gestured for him to take a seat. After Harry declined his offer of a drink, Remus sank into a chair across from him.
"Everything all right?" he asked Harry, concerned by the anger simmering in his eyes.
"I've just been to Hermione's."
Remus tensed. Of course this was about her. He figured this conversation would come sooner or later. Still he hated it had to happen now, that it had to happen at all.
"How is she?" he asked quietly, remembering the expression on her tear-stained face the last time he'd seen her.
"She's been better," Harry replied curtly, and Remus winced inwardly. How much did Harry know? "She's worried about you. She's afraid you might have been sacked. Have you?"
"No, McGonagall only put me on probation. Is Hermione —" he began tentatively, but Harry cut across him.
"Why are you messing her around?"
Harry looked just like James did when he became fiercely protective of his friends, which for some reason made Remus feel more on edge. "I'm not messing her around."
"Then what are you doing?"
He hesitated. "Did she tell you what happened?"
"No, not everything. She didn't want to tell me anything, but I coaxed her into talking a bit. I know enough of what's happened to know you're either a complete idiot or a complete arse."
Remus clenched his jaw. Harry had never spoken to him like this before, and he wasn't sure if he felt more shame or fury.
"She loves you, you know, and I thought you'd be good together. But you're not the man I thought you were," Harry said, and Remus's shame momentarily eclipsed all else. "What you're doing to her, jerking her around like this. . . ." Harry shook his head. "What are you playing at?"
"I'm not . . ." Remus took a breath, trying to suppress his own flare of anger, at Harry, at himself. "Harry, I — I care about Hermione very much. But she and I. . . . It's best that we don't get involved."
"Why? Because you're a werewolf? Well, other werewolves less well off than you have taken a different stance. Some have even married and had families. And their children, by the way, were born without lycanthropy."
A frown tugged on Remus's features as he stared at Harry, puzzled.
"There haven't been many successful long-term studies done on werewolves," Harry began to explain, "because they, unsurprising, tend to be elusive and refuse to be studied. But of all the known instances of werewolves having offspring, none of the children — not one — has been born with lycanthropy. It appears it can only be passed on through bites, not genes."
Remus had never met a werewolf who'd had a child after they'd acquired their affliction — his kind didn't usually breed — so he had no idea if this was true. He'd always assumed a werewolf's child would likely be like his parent, but what Harry said . . . could it be true? "How do you know this?"
"As a favor for Hermione I asked around the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures and got access to all their research on werewolves, research that's relatively new and hasn't yet made it to the textbooks."
Or perhaps that research was purposely kept from the textbooks because no one wanted werewolves to reproduce.
Remus sat back in his chair, unsure what to think of Hermione requesting this information and staggered by the information itself. If this was true . . . well, it didn't change much. Children might not inherit their parent's lycanthropy, but they'd still inherit the stigma.
"Hermione probably won't like that I've told you she's looked into this," Harry said a bit sheepishly, "and she probably won't like that I've come here to talk to you about her. But she's like a sister to me. And you — you're my family too."
Again Remus was overwhelmed by how much Harry reminded him of his old friend.
"I'd like for you both to be happy, Remus, and right now you're not. So if you care about her like you say you do, why not go to her? Why keep pushing her away?"
Remus stared at his young friend, as astonished and perplexed by his attitude toward this as he was by McGonagall's.
"You don't understand. It's not that simple, Harry."
"It doesn't have to be that complicated either."
And those were the words that stuck with Remus after Harry had gone, playing over and over in his mind as he roamed about his cottage searching unsuccessfully for a distraction, agitating him until he was more mixed up than ever. He'd already been a mess mulling over his relationship with Hermione the last few days, warring with himself, going back and forth between what he should do, and his conversation with Harry only added to this madness and tension inside him.
It doesn't have to be that complicated either — as if he had a choice in the matter. As if he himself had willfully crafted the complications pulling him away from Hermione. Remus kicked over a chair in a surge of frustration.
If only it were as easy as Harry believed. If only he didn't have to worry about the danger and stigma he'd bring Hermione, and could just be with her, live out what he imagined late into the night when he was most vulnerable and his thoughts most uninhibited. If only he could give in to his fancies, his wildest dreams, which were really quite ordinary and involved a simple life and perhaps, maybe further down the road, even a pair of bushy-haired children who'd be beautiful and brilliant like her.
His longing for that fantasy, for her, had him feeling like he was about to burst at the seams, and that the dream felt so within reach yet impossible made him want to explode. Feeling too confined in his shabby and stiflingly lonely cottage, Remus burst out the door for some fresh air.
Sunlight streamed through the spring foliage as he stormed through the woods, frightening small creatures away with his elephant-like stomping. Something scurried above him, shaking leaves down upon him, and Remus was reminded of the snowball fight he'd had with Hermione, how she'd cleverly brought down a load of snow on him with a well-aimed shot to the snow-packed tree branches he'd been standing under. He remembered the sound of her laughter as he'd chased after her, the way she'd peered up at him when she'd stumbled into his arms moments later.
Remus shook the leaves from his hair. Hermione shouldn't look at him that way. She deserved better. He was no good for her.
But she refused to believe him, to accept that. She insisted that despite everything, she wanted him, wanted a future with him. She said she loved him.
She loved him.
And he loved her.
And love was precious, not to be forsaken. . . .
Remus was moving before he knew what he was doing, turning in place into nothingness. His mind whirred, trying to catch up with his actions and take control as he was being pressed hard from all directions, but it was his heart that led him, tugging him through the darkness and compression to his destination.
He Apparated onto the street before a house he'd seen only once before, during wartime, when he and Tonks had escorted Hermione from her parent's home to the Burrow for the summer. He didn't care that his sudden appearance out of nowhere startled the Muggles passing him on the sidewalk, he strode right up the walkway to Hermione's door, his heart racing his feet, and rang the doorbell.
Seconds passed. Nothing.
He rang the doorbell again, shifting his weight anxiously while the chime sounded within.
Again nobody answered.
Just as he was about to pound his fist on the door and call out Hermione's name, a voice floated to him from next door.
"Can I help you, sir?"
Remus looked over at the woman in the neighboring garden.
"I'm looking for Hermione Granger," he said, glancing at the nearest window, fearing she might be inside but just didn't want to see him.
"The Grangers aren't home," the neighbor replied, adjusting her floppy hat as she eyed him suspiciously.
His shoulders slumped. "Do you know when they'll be back?"
"Sorry, can't say. I can let them know you dropped by, Mr. . . .?"
"No, that's all right. I'll just call another time."
Remus quickly started back toward the street. He could tell the woman was wary of him and wanted him to leave, and he knew it was because of his sickly and disheveled appearance post-transformation.
Merlin's beard, what had he been thinking coming over looking like this?
What had he been thinking coming here at all? What if one of Hermione's parents had answered the door? What would they have thought of their daughter's professor visiting her at her home, ill and with a half-crazed look in his eyes? What would he have told them? And what if McGonagall found out about this?
Remus silently cursed himself for his rashness and searched for a place he could Apparate home without being seen. He shouldn't have done this. He'd promised McGonagall he'd stay away from Hermione. Even if it pained him how much he missed her, he had to wait.
But he feared that when he was finally able to speak to her again it would be too late.
A/N: I'm so happy I've finally been able to update. I've been having a tough time writing lately, but knowing you're following this story and reading your lovely reviews has motivated me and helped me tremendously. Thank you! I think I'm getting into the flow of writing again, so hopefully updates won't take so long anymore. Fingers crossed!