Author's Note: A short few notes;

For one thing, everyone should go read The Sinews of Thy Heart by Amarielle. It is a far far better fic she writes than I have ever written, and I very much fear that once you've read it, you won't ever come back. It's a chance I'm afraid I have to take.

Also, we're obviously all aware that TDH is released on Saturday. I will not be posting the first chapter of the sequel to this story until I have read all of TDH, and I will not be getting my copy on the day it is released, as no doubt many of you will be. I need a special large-print copy and it will take me at least a week before I can read the thing. There will, therefore, be at least a week of delays before I continue.

The third thing is, I will continue. Obviously this ending seems not only abrupt, but unsatisfactory. That is because…well, it's hardly the end.

Thank you for your patience, your eloquent and thoughtful reviews, and your own excellent writing.

See you in a week or so!

Menolly

Chapter Fourteen: Meant You No Harm

Remus Lupin picked his shattered, shaking form up from the hall carpeting as the long-awaited morning light streamed in through the upstairs windows. For a long, blissful moment, he was completely confused, his mind blank of any of the disastrous occurrences of the night before.

Then his thankfully human forearm brushed against a stray lock of Hermione's hair, and he glanced down to find her lying senseless, pinned beneath his naked, outstretched legs. There was a shallow, though angry-looking red gash across her cheek, and her mouth was partially open, head lolling back against the carpet. Something in Lupin's stomach turned over, and the girl before his eyes turned into a disturbing red and white blur, as he turned his head and wretched violently over the edge of the top stair.

Only when he'd finished expelling his insides was he able to regain any semblance of clearheadedness. He ran one finger over the curve of Hermione's cheek, and was relieved beyond belief when he felt the puffs of her breath against his searching hand.

You Beast, screamed Nymphadora Tonks, larger-than-life in the back of his roiling brain. You beast, you beast, you beast, you beast, you beast, you beast…

Vaguely, he was aware of a pounding noise coming from behind him, in the direction of Mrs. Granger's bedroom. He didn't even think to go and examine the source. Any thought of facing that hospitable and understanding woman in the face of this destruction that he had created was absolutely unthinkable.

As if in a dream, Lupin rolled off of Hermione, and reached down to gather her still-limp body into his arms. He passed with her into the bedroom that they'd shared the night before, however briefly, and laid her down gently on the bed. As he did so, he checked to see if there were any other wounds or signs of savagery on her body. There was nothing that he could see.

The bedroom, on the other hand, showed countless indications of having been brutalized. The door was mostly in pieces, very little of it still hanging in the door frame. The curtains that had failed to screen them from the moon were tattered and lying around the bed on the floor. One of the shelves of books that had been standing across the room from them had fallen to the floor, and all of the volumes that had been on its shelves were scattered in colorful heaps. Among them, Lupin saw the unmistakable cover of Paolini's masterwork on memory.

As if spurred by that recognition, all of the memories of what had passed the night before sprang back into Lupin's consciousness. The heat rose in his frame as he experienced again every subtlety of Hermione's touch, of the way her body had moved against him, and of how gentle and soft her skin had been against his seeking lips. She had been clumsy at times, and he had found it a charming nuance. When she had seemed more careful, more experienced, he had marveled at the delicacy of her lovemaking. Now that same delicate girl was sprawled, dazed, on the bed where he'd taken her the night before.

Yes, thought Lupin, masterfully suppressing the urge to puke a second time. He'd taken her, because that really was exactly how it had been. He, not only an older man, but her experienced protector, had taken advantage of her when she'd come in to check on the results of his research. How could she have refused him? No doubt what he'd taken for gentleness had been timidity and terror in the face of his insistence.

But no, something in his mind insisted. No, that wasn't right. That couldn't be right. She loves me, Lupin told himself, and she wanted me. She wanted to be with me, she wants to be with me now. I'm allowed to believe that. She promised me that it was true.

Hermione made a sort of squeaking sound in her sleep, and Lupin, relieved to hear anything come out of her after her ordeal, leaned over her to see if she was waking. The marks on her cheek glared up accusatorily at him. She loves you, they seemed to say, and look at what you made of that. Look what happens when you get so comfortable that you forget what a beast you are?

He recoiled from her, and slid off the bed, seating himself on the floor in front of it. How could it have happened? He had made her promises too, promises t take care of her, and of her safety. Angrily, Lupin kicked out with one foot, sending one of the books on the floor crashing into the nearby wall. Paolini's book was still lying on the floor before him. Picking it up, he turned it over listlessly in one hand, finding that he couldn't care less about the mystery of the Ministry any longer. None of it really mattered in the face of his new knowledge. He couldn't stay here anymore. The moment was over, the game was up. Who was he to care about someone else's problems, or, for that matter, for the entire wizarding world? He was going to leave her, and he would never be able to come back, not after this.

Hermione scrunched her legs up to her chest in a protective gesture, and Lupin winced. What would she think when she found herself injured in the morning, her bedroom destroyed, and him gone without a word? She'd tell him to stay, he knew, and she'd promise him that it didn't matter. He could hear her now, reasoning with him on what course of action to take next. She'd tell him that they could go away together, and protect the world from him in some secret hiding place full of love and wolfsbane muffins. It made him smile.

"But you've got to understand," he whispered to the sleeping girl. "It can't be, Hermione. We'll never win. You can't defeat this in me, not with all the love and cleverness in the world."

Hermione said nothing, but Lupin imagined the hurt look on her face, and how desperately she would search for him when he was gone. He was going to break her heart, as well as her curtains. Good job, Remus. Excellent foresight. He buried his face in his hands and wept.

The trick, wrote Musetta Paolini, is to catch the loose ends, so that the witch or wizard in question never knows how much he or she has lost or missed out on.

Lupin, now clad in his torn pair of trousers of the day before, was reading deeply into the chapter of the book on which Hermione had commented about the static quality of truth. The girl in question was still asleep on the bed, and he was taking great pains to keep out of her line of sight, so that if she chanced to wake up suddenly, she wouldn't engage him in any sort of sudden argument which he was admittedly totally unprepared for.

See the memory in your mind's eye as well as they can see it in theirs, continued Paolini. It is a very tricky job, but certainly doable. Some people share memories so strong that they can both understand deeply what the other must have been seeing or feeling at the time. Though few of us are subject to that kind of rapport, those that are have amazing power over their partner. The uses of modification magic, in such cases, are simply endless.

Retrieving his wand from his previously discarded robes, he strode over to Hermione's side, and paused as he held it above her head. The tears had ceased, and he was dry eyed and stony-faced as he regarded the girl that he loved with a resigned horror of the spirit that he had not quite managed to quell.

Gently, he leaned down, and kissed her ear with surprisingly steady lips. He started to say "I love you," but stopped, feeling stupid, and hypocritical. Incapable of speech, he shook his head, and then tried to imagine what moment had started their downward spiral into unsafe affections.

He could see very clearly in his mind's eye the day that he had gone to rescue Hermione from the menacing Death Eaters in Hogsmeade. Picturing that scene as carefully and meticulously as he could, he waited a moment, and then pointed his wand at Hermione's curly head, and whispered "Claudo Recordatio."

Hermione blinked. Lupin held his breath. She lay still again, apparently unfazed by the spell.

Lupin tried hard to remember Paolini's words to the letter. The memory must be encased in a complexity of spells, the book had said. A cheaply made memory-lock is easy for the bearer of the memory to break by his or herself. A well-made one can only be broken by a trained Legilimens, if then.

Lupin moved on to the second memory, of moving in with her to his home, and of confining her against her will in his basement. From there, h e went on to think of the conversation with Kingsley in the mirror, and of the necessity of their leaving to return to Hermione's own home. He imagined meeting her mother at the door, exploring the house, first entering Hermione's bedroom. Finally, he had to add the parts which included the attack by the Death Eaters on Hermione's house, and the horrible Cruciatus curse which he had been so afraid would cost him her life.

It was then that the painful recollections began. Lupin carefully and methodically forced his mind to work through every step of her courtship of him, of the way that she'd promised him that it didn't matter that he was old, or dangerous, or her Professor. Shed kissed him in a way that he didn't think he would ever be kissed again, and she'd flooded his whole being with feelings of love and understanding that werewolves and others of their outcast kind never began to dream of.

From that point on, the remembering became easier. More than once, Lupin found himself moved almost to tears by the things that crossed his mind as he tried to pin down Hermione's experiences with him over the past several weeks, and yet, the more he thought about them, the less horrible they became. He had to force himself to think of the dangerous things, and the bad moments, as well as the good. Everything that came naturally to mind seemed to be beautiful.

When he'd worked through every occurrence in his mind, up until the point when he'd awoken beside her bleeding form this very morning, Lupin spoke the incantation a second time. "Claudo Recordatio," he said, attempting the firm and commanding voice recommended by Musetta Paolini. "Claudo Recordatio, Somnio Absorbeo."

Violet sparks drifted from his wand on to Hermione's temples. They coated her forehead for a moment, and she glowed with a disturbing purple light. Almost immediately, however, the light was gone, and the sparks faded into nothingness. Hermione slept on, apparently obvious to the entire matter.

Lupin swallowed hard, as he ran his hand over the place on her head where the magical shimmers had just been. No doubt, he found himself thinking, Hermione herself would have been excellent at this spell. I wonder if she'll ever find out how very easy and uncomplicated it actually is to do magic of this kind. She'd probably laugh.

He laid his cheek against hers, and took one long, lingering breath of her sleeping smell, before plucking at his courage, and turning for the door.

You'll never remember, he thought blankly, and I'll never forget. Odd, isn't it, and ironic how each extreme might be equally painful to one of us.

"She won't remember anything," he said to Mrs. Granger, as he stood by the fireplace several minutes later. He'd released both parents from their bedroom to find Mr. Granger in too great a state of shock to engage in any serious conversation. Only Mrs. Granger had seemed able to listen calmly, and to take in both the news that she'd been entertaining a dangerous werewolf in her house, but that her daughter had just suffered a terribly severe magical brain injury…with Lupin's help. "I thought," he continued helplessly, "that it would be better if she didn't remember. It will only hurt her if she wants…to try to come looking for me. I wanted to avoid that. I…would rather she never understand."

"I don't imagine she ever will," said Mrs. Granger, rather coldly. "You seem to have taken care of any danger of that."

"I'm sorry," he said, feeling stupid. "I'm really…terribly sorry, Mrs. Granger. I didn't…"

"Of course you didn't mean for any of it to happen," blurted Mrs. Granger, sighing in some exasperation. "Good god, do you really think that I'd be standing here talking to you if I thought that you'd deliberately taken advantage of and then attacked my daughter?"

Lupin stared at her. Mrs. Granger shook her head sadly.

"No, Professor," she murmured, "I don't believe she's the only one who's been damaged by the incident. And what exactly do you expect me to tell her?"

"What ever you think is best," muttered Lupin. "Tell her…tell her she had an amazing summer, that you took her to a hundred wonderful places, and that she suffered a bit of a concussion when coming back from France, and that therefore she can't remember. She'll have no reason not to believe you. Tell her she was really exceptionally happy."

He took a pinch of floo powder from his pocket, and tossed it into the fireplace, turning his face away from Mrs. Granger so that she couldn't see the anguish that he knew must be at least partially in his voice.

"Well," he heard her say in that same quiet, understanding way, even as he disappeared, "I don't suppose that last bit would be a lie, Professor, now would it?"

Author's Final Word: Oh yes, yes, I know exactly how unhappy you are with me, but that's that. If you want to know how Hermione reacted to the whole situation when she woke up, perhaps I'll publish something on that subject when TDH comes out. Once we know what happens in book seven, we might know what her parents told her as a cover story. If Jo doesn't give us that clue, I'll write a one-shot to make sure that it doesn't remain a mystery.

Thanks again,