The following morning Helene realized she'd yet to properly process the kiss from the night before and she would see Remus again in just an hour and a half.

So in order to refocus and understand what she should, Helene reached into her trunk and fished out her diary, which she regretted having neglected, not writing since she'd been with Remus.

There were many long rants and tales dating back from when Mr. Little had given her the rather large book to be her secret companion. There were also quite a few days which said nothing but "Today it rained. William and Phoenix were rude. Tomorrow is Sunday."

She sighed, thinking that she would have to charm in more parchment as she flipped to one of the empty pages at the back.

Dear Diary,

I'm in England now. I've returned to the safe house by the sea. It hasn't changed a bit except Remus and I are older and Sirius isn't here. So I guess everything's different.

What's more, Remus kissed me last night and now things are going to change even more, although I'm not sure how yet.

The problem is that I don't know what he meant by it, or even what I want him to have meant by it. How am I supposed to talk to the man if I don't know what I want?

Well, and there's the other thing. I'm not sure how much older than me he is, as it seems rude to ask, but I would guess seven to ten years. He definitely was out of Hogwarts when I got there. It maybe wouldn't seem so strange, but he remembers me as a little girl from when he was already a grown man. Things like that can't be easy to forget.

So the kiss was just friendly? Absent-minded?

Ugh, even writing that upsets me.

Of course, I suppose that means that I wanted the kiss to mean something, but what I'm still not really sure. I suppose I'll have to just talk it out with him like the adult I'm supposed to be and see how it goes. That doesn't mean I won't find a way to avoid him as long as possible despite the fact that it can't help anything. After all, it can't hurt anything and the adulthood thing is overrated, as Phoenix always says.

With a sigh she pushed away the book, running her fingers through her messy hair and mussing it up a bit more.

"Shower," she muttered, feeling relieved. "Perfect."

Helene pulled off her clothes and wrapped a towel around her goose-pimpled body as she tiptoed to the bathroom.

Of course, just as she reached out her hand to turn the knob the door swung open and Remus Lupin was standing before her with a towel around his hips and water dripping from his saturated hair down his scarred and incredibly fit chest. Helene swallowed, trying not to stare at his body, but the shock of the situation had kept them both a bit off on their footing.

When she finally managed to force her eyes up to his face she saw him blush about three different shades of red before he cleared his throat and moved so that she was able to get into the bathroom.

"Sorry," Helene gasped.

"No, no, I was just leaving," Remus said quickly. "See you at breakfast!"

"Actually," she spluttered, "I had something to talk with you about." He blinked at her, stunned for several moments. "When we're both properly dressed, of course."

"Of course," he said, his voice shaking a bit, and she knew he knew what she wanted to talk about.

Remus went stiffly down the hall and Helene retreated into the still slightly steamy bathroom and dropped her towel, turning the water on and breathing in the scent of his shampoo.

Her eyes snapped open when she realized what she was doing. This was already getting beyond ridiculous.

Helene opened her own shampoo to mask the scent and got back on the track of what she was supposed to be doing. She poured some of the shampoo into her palm and lathered it into her blonde hair, wondering if it was maybe time to come up with a new cut.

Symbolically, Helene had always cut her hair in some new way when she turned any significant corner, like graduating. Perhaps this would be the right time for another such haircut. After all, it was getting a bit long.

Well, a trim anyway, at the least.

She could still smell his shampoo, though, when she rinsed her own, so she began to condition her hair, taking a deep sniff of the lavender cream.

"Ugh," she moaned. "I need new conditioner."

William had a habit of buying her lavender scented things because he liked the smell. Perhaps it had made the thought of kissing her palatable, knowing she would smell of lavender.

And then it occurred to her - shockingly, for the very first time - that lavender had been Mrs. Little's favorite scent. She'd had rows of the plant in the garden where her children had played, and she herself had often smelled of it. Helene shuddered.

Mrs. Little had had blonde hair, green eyes, and freckles.

William hadn't been in love with himself.

He'd been in love with his mother.

Helene turned the water on a bit hotter and scrubbed herself far more rigorously than usual, and probably well more than was advisable.

Was all of her life in Australia some sort of twisted lie?

No, no, it was just William, but that alone was enough to make her feel sick. No wonder he didn't want her to leave the country. And how funny of him to wait until after his mother had died and Helene was slipping through his fingers to propose.

She had a momentary impulse to burn any pictures of him, but she knew it wouldn't change the feeling of violation she couldn't seem to scrub out of her skin, and she might want those pictures someday, when she was over feeling used.

But no matter what she'd have to sort through later, there was only so much longer Helene would have to put off the issue of Remus, so she rinsed off her skin, turned off the water, and dried off carefully and thoroughly before replacing her towel around her body. Helene crept back to her room, put on clothes, fixed her hair, and dabbed on lip gloss without thinking about it.

"Damn," she muttered, realizing what she had done and deciding that the last thing she wanted was to influence his decisions without him realizing. As she had just discovered, the subconscious could be a very fragile place.

She did her best to wipe off the lip gloss.

With a sigh and one last consideration of her hair (perhaps she would cut it), Helene made her way nervously and steadily down the hall to the kitchen where Remus had already begun to make breakfast.

"Morning," she said cautiously.

"Morning," he replied, a bit startled, nearly dropping his spatula into the fry pan with the eggs. "How...?"

"My shower was fine, thanks," she said with a sheepish smile.

"So," Remus said softly. "You, er, wanted to talk to me about something?"

Helene nodded, pushing William from her mind and trying to focus on the issue at hand. She glanced up into Remus's amber eyes and knew that his vague entry into the conversation was completely intentional. He wanted to see where she was going to take the conversation before he became a fully active participant in the discussion.

"So," Helene began, still trying to weigh her options. "You, erm, kissed me last night."

Remus just looked at her for a long moment, and as she starred expectantly he shifted, reddened slightly, and said, "I suppose I did."

She let out a slow breath, careful not to get too relieved. There was a lot left to say.

"Why?" she asked, trying to find the best way to get him into a position where he had to reveal himself quickly.

Remus blushed a little deeper.

"It…it seemed the right thing to do."

"Why?"

He looked up at her with fearful eyes.

"Did…did it offend you? Was it the wrong thing? I'm terribly sorry if I -"

"Of course it didn't offend me," Helene replied with an amused, exasperated sigh. "I just want to figure out what you meant by it, because I'm honestly rather puzzled. I mean, what was the purpose?"

Remus blinked at her for several moments before he said, "I'm not sure I really understand. Are you of the opinion that I have some kind of agenda? Because when I was your age agenda wasn't a necessary part of kissing a beautiful woman."

Helene swallowed, feeling her breath catch.

She still didn't know what to term how she felt about Remus, but when he called her beautiful, unlike when William had, he meant it. Everything about Remus was honest, and something about the sincerity with which he'd said the words made her insides squirm happily.

"I guess I was just expecting what I'm used to," Helene said honestly, biting her lip nervously.

"You shouldn't be used to it," Remus growled, low in his throat, and she felt her heart speed up. Had he gotten closer, or had he been that close to her all morning? "Have you ever been kissed by someone just because they wanted to kiss you, wanted to feel your lips on theirs, wanted to know if you tasted as good as you looked?"

Helene shook her head, half-aware that his lips were much closer to hers than they'd been moments ago. It was very much in the forefront of her mind that she'd not been fully aware of the previous kiss when it had happened.

Her eyelids fluttered closed and she felt his lips pressed to hers, felt his breath on her lips as he parted his lips slightly.

This was nothing like William's many attempts to kiss her. Helene's hands traced their way along his scarred cheeks to tangle her fingers in his soft, graying hair. She felt his hands at her neck, running his thumbs gently along her skin.

All of those sensations were very nearly distracting from the fact that they had begun to open their mouths, clinking teeth and exploring each other's lips and mouths with a hunger that she didn't know she possessed. She'd laughed at Jake when he'd snog his fiancée in the hall like there was nothing else that mattered.

Now, though, she wanted to keep this feeling no matter what happened. She curled her fingers even tighter in his hair and Remus moaned into her mouth, pulling her a bit closer. Helene had more or less forgotten to breathe, but she didn't want to pull away, just about ready to climb onto his lap and snog him for the rest of the day.

But finally, she had to pull away and breathe.

To her surprise and as if he'd read her mind, Remus pulled her onto his lap, resting his forehead against hers. Perhaps it was cliché and predictable, but there was none of the scripted feel she got with William.

"I've never been kissed like that before," she sighed, still running her fingers through his hair.

"Would you like me to do it again?" he asked breathlessly, his lips just barely turning up at the corners.

"Oh, Merlin, please do," she moaned, his lips crashing into hers hungrily.

Remus surprised her by running his hand up her side as their lips explored, squeezing her left breast with only a momentary hesitation in the action, and Helene was disappointed that she really didn't feel anything, contrary to what so many women claimed.

Perhaps if she took off her bra…

On the other hand, Remus shifted beneath her, the bulge in his pants hardening as his hand squeezed again.

Helene decided to try something new. She moved her lips from Remus's, in spite of his whimper of protest. The whimper was cut off when her lips touched a scar on his jaw, following it up to his ear, which her mouth began to play with.

Helene had always thought scars would be dashing and exciting, but she had to admit that Remus's scars were more off-putting than his age. For a brief moment she thought it was because they were physical representations of his lycanthrophy, but then Helene realized that it was because in spite of all the misconceptions, scars were gruesome and disgusting, but if she forced herself to think of how strong he'd become if each scar made him just a little bit stronger, as she was sure they had, they weren't so bad.

His fingers ran through her hair, but to her hair, but to her surprise he pulled her gently away from his ear.

"Wow," he sighed, gulping slightly.

"Did I do something wrong?" Helene asked nervously.

Remus kissed her nose gently.

"Of course not," he insisted. "Believe me, I'd beg you to do it again, but only, we should probably get to work if we're going to salvage anything productive today."

"I thought this was rather productive," she said with a half-smile she'd seen Phoenix use hundreds of times that just seemed to get men worked up every time she used it.

Sure enough, Remus's amber eyes flickered between her eyes and her lips, considering.

"Helene," he sighed, "as much as I just want to spend the day snogging you senseless, I do recognize that I need to be responsible and say we have to get to work."

Helene gave a pathetic sign and said, "I suppose this is why you were a prefect, Mister Self-Restraint."

"Don't test me," he teased.

As they both could have guessed, even with the halting of their fun they really didn't get very much work done that day. Helene didn't finish with three files, and Remus only sent off four letters of interest to potential employers.

When they had dinner that night Remus seemed especially on edge, drinking twice as much as usual. He also began running his foot along her thigh, which she would never have expected. She could feel her pulse race and her breath squeeze out of her.

For a split second she thought that it might be better for her to forgo the nightly after-dinner ritual of company, letting some of the thickness of the air between them dissipate. But she was far too caught up in it all, too dizzied by that thickness, too desperate to taste his lips again, to feel his eager body tensing and melting at her touch.

She blushed when he handed her a glass of wine with an emblazoned flash in his amber eyes.

The wine was an especially bad idea, and she knew it, but Helene took the wine and they settled together in the study. He took out the chess set, started a fire in spite of how hot the room already was, and he and Helene set up the board.

She could tell her hands were shaking by the subtle sloshing of the wine as she drank, watching him contemplate his response to her first move, the same move she always made.

It didn't take too long before they struggled to keep the game going. When Helene had finished her wine she reached out and held Remus's hand boldly, absently caressing his palm with her thumb as she thought of what to do with his bishop. Once she blocked it with her own fortified bishop, he shifted their hands so that his fingers laced with hers, prohibiting her from continuing the motion while he took his turn.

Turns grew longer as they found concentrating impossible. His sock-covered foot traced up her calf, then she rested her foot on his foot. It felt incredibly good, and seemed remarkably intimate for something so seemingly innocent.

"Your turn," she breathed.

But instead of moving his eyes from her face to the board, Remus's glowing amber eyes continued to watch her intently. She saw the skin around his Adam's apple shift as he swallowed and then he leaned across the board, not even glancing down at the game, and pressed his lips hungrily to hers, with none of the sweetness of the kiss from the previous night but all of the desire of the one that morning.

Helene was scarcely aware of how they got there, but somehow they ended up on the floor, on a rug in front of the fireplace. She was on his lap, arms around his neck as their tongues danced with all of the passion and heat of the dancing flames in the grate beside them.

Remus's hand grazed her breast gently through the barrier of her clothing, then cupped it more firmly when she didn't object.

As if she could.

Her hands skimmed down his neck, down his torso, feeling his muscles through the fabric and wanting to feel more. Her fingers adroitly undid his buttons, pushing the shirt off his shoulders and feeling the skin she had exposed.

The skin and the muscles she could feel, yes, but the scars were now fully discernible as well, thick and ropey in some spots and thin and silky in others. Helene pulled away from the kiss to look at the scars better, running her fingers along one of the thickest. She felt him stiffen and swallow and she realized he expected her to want to end their intimacy at the sight of these marks that were constant manifestations of his monthly nightmare.

No, they weren't attractive. There was nothing attractive about puckered and damaged skin. But the muscles underneath them were certainly attractive. Her fingers danced across the still-healthy skin and she explored the ripples and bulges of those muscles.

He attempted and failed to stifle a moan when her finger brushed his nipple and she looked up to see his eyes were once again alight with hunger.

"Kiss me," she whispered, and his face contorted for a moment in the firelight before his lips came crashing onto hers once more, for a moment only before he pulled her dress over her head. She saw him swallow again as they stared at each other, either breathing. His shaking hands explored her skin reverently.

"You're so beautiful," he said softly, shifting them so that she was underneath him. He kissed her skin. She felt her fingers lace in his hair, gripping as he kissed her navel. He smiled against her skin, licking around her navel and drawing a sigh out of her.

Was it supposed to feel so good?

There was a blur as they continued, clothing shed, skin explored, sweat mingling, pulses racing and breath short.

Helene leaned up and kissed him again as his fingers hooked the sides of her panties, pulling them down to her ankles and taking off his own boxers as she kicked the panties instinctively away, vaguely hoping they didn't land in the still-burning grate. Those thoughts were quickly chased away as his fingers began to explore newly uncovered territory, places only she had touched. Helene could barely believe how much better it felt when Remus's shaky hands touched her. She moaned into his mouth after a moment and he seemed to lose all control.

She wished she had a more solid memory of her first time, but everything had been a bit of a blur. The act itself hadn't been earthshattering, but his fingers and tongue had driven her over the edge regardless.

Both exhausted, they curled up there on that rug in front of the grate, covered in each other's sweat. Remus fell asleep quickly with his head on her breast, snoring ever-so-softly. Helene, though, tired as she was, couldn't seem to fall asleep, so she lay down on the rug, playing with Remus's hair gently, and watching the embers glow in the grate.

They'd certainly crossed a line this time, and there would be no tiny hope of forgetting in the morning. Helene wasn't sure she wanted such a hope. She liked the smell in the air, the feel of Remus lying on top of her, the feel of Remus inside of her. She wasn't sure exactly how it all matched up to the expectations she had in her mind, but she enjoyed it.

Helene remembered her realizations about William that morning and decided firmly that they didn't matter. William was half a world away, and she was never going back to Australia. How could she, knowing how much happier, how much more satisfied she was in England?

Remus stirred slightly, nuzzling his face a bit deeper into her breast and smiling slightly. Helene also smiled, closing her eyes and thinking vaguely that her hair was probably an absolute disaster and would take a miracle to right come morning.

But it was worth it, she thought before finally drifting off to sleep.