XXXII

That Heavenly Beast

Remus stood from the couch in the library, wincing at his sore joints. Slowly, he walked over to the bookshelf and returned the novel he'd been attempting to focus on. Next, he checked the time. Six o'clock. About an hour until moonrise and he could feel the impending full moon in every aching part of his body.

Best just to head up to the attic now, he decided, stepping out of the library and making his way through the house. As he walked past one of the windows facing the gardens, he caught a glimpse of the nearly setting sun behind the greenhouse. Just barely, he could make out Hermione's shadow through the panes of glass.

He still hadn't spoken to Hermione since yesterday evening. She'd holed herself up in the Greenhouse and he hadn't bothered to venture in there and talk to her. He felt awful about it, especially after his conversation with Harry that morning, but he just needed more time to get his thoughts in order before he could speak to her.

Tonight, however, he would have to face her. Once Sirius was gone, in the morning, perhaps, he would apologize.

Remus knew an apology would be best. Harry had proved to him that morning that he was being a coward by running from his problems like this. Of course he didn't want to end their relationship. He'd just been frightened by the reactions they'd received, and it made it quite hard to face Hermione. But now he realized his mistake. Hopefully Hermione would forgive him and together they could move past this.

The attic was empty when he arrived. It was only a matter of minutes before both Sirius and Hermione entered. Hermione looked pale and tired. She barely met his eyes, simply offering him a small, sympathetic smile and then turning to Sirius.

"Is this everything?" Sirius asked Hermione. It was now that Remus noticed the small bag Sirius was holding. He set it down on the dusty floor and opened it. Within were several strange contraptions.

"What is that?" Remus asked, stepping closer when he noticed something that looked suspiciously like a needle.

Hermione took a deep breath, as if anticipating that whatever she was about to say was going to upset the werewolf beside her. "Today I realized that one of the possible sources of error in the potion is that I've been considering the wrong type of blood when I test it. I've been using my blood, as a werewolf in human form, but perhaps I need to use the blood from a werewolf that's actually in a wolf's body."

Remus must have had a very grave look on his face. She began to elaborate; "Sirius is going to draw my blood once I transform. With the wolf's blood I'll be able to test it with the potion in addition to gaining a more clear understanding in the changes in the composition of our blood from human to wolf form."

Remus whipped his head around to look at Sirius. "You agreed to this?"

"All in the name of scientific curiosity," Sirius said laughingly, pulling out the needle and examining it.

He turned back to Hermione, who stood with her arms crossed and her head held high. "But he'll have to transform into a human to draw your blood. He won't be in dog form. That's completely unsafe!"

"Why?" she responded, "we both took our Wolfsbane. Sirius is going to transform into Padfoot at first, and then as long as he feels that we are in our right minds, he'll transform back and draw my blood."

"No," Remus shook his head, looking between the two of them in disbelief, "he's going to draw your blood. Wolfsbane or not, that's going to make the wolf angry. It's a horrible idea, Hermione!"

She frowned. "I'm not going to attack Sirius, and neither are you. Would you rather have him draw your blood?"

"No! He should remain as Padfoot the whole time!" Remus turned and paced across the room, back and forth. The jittering anxiety in his bones was making the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He turned back to look at the two of them, "I won' t be put in the same bloody position again!"

Hermione's anger turned quickly into solemn sadness. Beside her, Sirius was looking at the ground, his brows pulled together.

Hermione stepped closer, coming up so she was standing just in front of Remus. "Nothing's going to go wrong," she murmured, "Sirius can even put some protective spells up around himself. He'll be fine, but if he needs to, he can transform back to Padfoot in a second."

Remus watched as, slowly, Hermione lifted up a hand, pushing a bit of hair off of his forehead. Her hand came to rest on his cheek, but Remus stepped away, out of her grasp. Hermione looked stricken. Remus instantly regretted stepping away, but he also knew that he just couldn't be that close to her right now. He didn't want her to see all the thoughts that had been running through his mind over the past day, or the nearly suffocating fear he'd experienced when thinking about what could happen if this went wrong.

His eyes fell on Sirius. "Are you really okay with this?"

Sirius nodded, smiling. "I'll be fine. I've witnessed your transformations for years, even without the Wolfsbane. I know it's safe."

Remus picked up a hand and rubbed his face. The full moon was only minutes away; he could sense it. "If you're both certain… then fine. Do it."

Hermione still stood just a foot away, staring at him. He met her gaze with a resigned sadness, remembering the way Harry had yelled at him this morning.

"Hermione is too strong, too wonderful, kind, and resilient for you to act like this. If you want to be with her you have to learn to act more like the bloody Gryffindor you are, because right now you're acting like a coward. She doesn't deserve that."

Harry's anger resonated in his mind. He wanted so badly to apologize, to fall on his knees and beg her to forgive him for the horrible way he'd treated her over the last twenty-four hours. But the transformation was too close.

Hermione turned away from Remus and began to give Sirius some final instructions. At last, the transformation was upon them. Sirius shifted into Padfoot. Remus watched Hermione in those final seconds of conscious thought. His last memory before the pain overtook him was Hermione, eyes clenched shut, shoulders hunched over in pain.

The agony of bones breaking and skin ripping apart filled Remus' consciousness. It was worse than usual this month, but that could most likely be accounted to all the stress he'd been under. Still, Remus managed to hold in his screams. He only let a few grunts and whimpers of pain escape. Hermione, on the other hand, screamed and cried out in agony.

Finally, the transformation ended. Remus was left hunched over in wolf form, panting and slowly opening his eyes. Hermione's dark brown fur greeted him, along with a pair of deeper brown eyes, big and beautiful. He watched as Padfoot approached, sniffing Hermione and then Remus, gauging the situation. Remus looked in his friend's animal eyes, conveying that he hadn't lost his mind. The Wolfsbane had worked perfectly, just as Snape's potions always did.

Now it was time for Sirius to begin. Hermione lifted her snout up and down in a human-like nod. The giant black dog trotted over to the other side of the attic, tongue lolling out, and transformed back into a human.

Remus was still anxious, and he watched Hermione closely as Sirius began to gather the needle and syringe to draw her blood. Hermione turned in a circle a few times before dropping to the ground, stretching out on the dusty floorboards.

Sirius approached the wolf cautiously. Remus stood back; still close enough to stop Hermione if she tried to attack Sirius. Hopefully it didn't come to that. At her side, Sirius dropped to his knees, slowly reaching out and grasping one of her legs.

Remus honestly didn't know how difficult it was to draw blood from a wolf, but he suspected that it was fairly complicated. Sirius studied her leg closely, and Remus assumed that Hermione had instructed him exactly what to do here. He took out his wand and cast a quick hair removal spell on a small patch of her fur. Then, taking several seconds to find the vein, he hesitantly lined up the needle.

Remus turned to look at Hermione's face as Sirius did this. Her large brown eyes were focused straight ahead. She flinched, and Remus knew that Sirius had plunged the needle in.

Suddenly, for the strangest reason, Remus found himself fighting the urge to leap over Hermione's prone form and tackle Sirius to the ground. And why shouldn't he? This man, this human was hurting one of his pack. He shook the thought out of his head as quickly as it entered. Sirius was his pack too. There was no need to hurt him.

When Sirius finished drawing her blood, he stepped away, storing the blood in a vial and placing a few spells on it that Remus couldn't identify. At last, Sirius transformed back into the familiar black dog. Remus felt as if a weight had been lifted off his chest. Everything had gone well. Hermione was fine and Sirius successfully obtained her blood. He could rest at peace now.

The morning transformation subsided with throbbing pain and discomfort. Remus looked down through hazy vision at his human hands, comforted to not see his wolf body any longer. He was kneeling on the ground, having keeled over from the pain of transforming back to a human. He picked up his head and glanced around the room. Sirius was gone, as he always left just before the transformation began. It was just Remus and Hermione.

She sat silently, her back to him. Remus watched from his tired and fatigued position as Hermione stretched her arms above her head, letting out quiet moans of pain with each miniscule movement. After several seconds, she turned around to face him, a resigned frown on her face. In that moment, everything that had happened over the past couple of days faded from Remus' mind. He didn't care that nearly everyone knew about their relationship. He didn't care that Ronald Bloody Weasley had screamed about how disgusting this was. He didn't care about the war or the consequences or anything. He didn't care.

At last, Hermione began to shift towards Remus. She looked like she was close to crying, and he didn't know if it was from the pain of the transformation or the sadness of this moment. Slowly, she pushed herself into his arms. Remus willingly wrapped his arms around her.

The two of them somehow ended up lying on the ground, Hermione's head on Remus' chest, her hands clutching at his arms and shoulders tightly. Neither cared that they were nude and shivering.

"I'm sorry," Hermione whispered hoarsely, "I shouldn't have tried to snog you in that bloody library."

Remus shook his head, looking down at her. "You have nothing to apologize for. I'm sorry for walking away from you like that and being such a prat about it. It was… really stupid of me. The worst part of it is that I don't know how long I would have gone on like that if Harry hadn't spoken to me."

Hermione whipped her head up, pushing up against his chest to look at him. "Harry spoke to you? What did he say?"

Remus exhaled. "A lot of things. In short: I don't deserve you and I've been acting like an arse."

She rolled her eyes. "Of course Harry talked to you. Did- did he say that we should break up?"

He was surprised by her question. "No… he just said that I need to stop acting like a coward. I actually think Sirius convinced him that we should stay together."

She allowed a small smile to curl at the edges of her lips. Remus lifted a hand to run his fingers through the curly fringe of her hair. "I really am sorry," he murmured, "I should have talked to you about what was happening."

Hermione leant down, resting her forehead on his sternum with an air of exhaustion. "It's alright," she said after a moment. "It's okay to be upset, especially after some of the reactions we got. I just don't want this to pull us apart, Remus."

Slowly, Remus traced his fingertips up and down her bare skin. "It won't," he said, looking down at her and admiring her careless and easy beauty, especially after a full moon like the one they'd just had. "I won't let it pull us apart."

Hermione lifted her head to kiss him, softly and languidly. Finally, she pulled away. "Sirius will be back soon. We need to get our potions and I need a bath."

"Sounds good to me," Remus replied, smiling up at her.

Author's Note: Thanks so much to everyone for getting us to 500 reviews! It's so exciting to see this fic have such a following. I really can't believe it got this far!