XXXIII
Fruition
As the days after the full moon passed, the house calmed down and tension dissipated. Hermione was thankful that the others were forgetting about her and Remus' awkward display, but there were still some issues that she needed to resolve. She decided the evening after the full moon that it was time to speak with Harry.
She'd been reading in the library with Remus, stretched out along the couch. Remus sat in the armchair, an appropriate distance away from her. They knew better than to get unnecessarily close in the library anymore.
The couple's comfortable silence was broken as the door to the library creaked open. Harry's head peeked in, but he immediately retreated. "Oh," he murmured, "sorry, I didn't know you guys were in here."
Hermione met Remus' eyes for a split second, trying to convey to him that she needed to talk to Harry. He gave a miniscule nod to her. "Harry, wait," she called out, sitting up and placing her book aside.
"Uh," Harry stepped back in the doorway, looking between Hermione and Remus, "yeah?"
"Come in," Hermione said, "I want to talk." With these words she sent another look at Remus. The werewolf stood slowly from the couch.
Harry stepped into the room, moving toward the couch. Remus smiled genially at Harry, as if trying to ignore the obvious awkwardness in the room. "I need to speak with Sirius about our plan for dueling tomorrow," he said, walking towards the doorway and placing an affectionate hand on Hermione's shoulder as he left.
When the door closed behind Remus, Hermione sat up and patted the end of the couch where her feet had previously been up. Harry sat down. "How are you?" he asked, obviously referring to the full moon.
"I'm okay," she replied, "a little tired, but much better than I was before the full moon."
He nodded. "Look, Hermione," he turned on the couch so that he was half-facing her, "I'm sorry for getting so angry the other day. I know it was a difficult moment for you. After Ron's outburst I probably only made it worse when I should have tried to act rationally."
Hermione smiled, leaning her head against his shoulder. "Thank you for coming around, and you're forgiven. I don't blame you for reacting like that, especially with the position you caught us in."
Harry scoffed. "Yeah. That was a bit of a compromising position."
Hermione groaned. "Don't remind me. I don't think I've ever been so humiliated in my life."
Harry clicked his tongue. "I don't know, I think the fact that you used Polyjuice potion to transform into a cat in second year was slightly more humiliating than that."
"Hey!" She sat up and hit him lightly on the shoulder, "I thought we agreed to never bring that up again!" Before she could protest any further, they were both dissolving into a fit of laughter, falling back against the couch and looking up at the ceiling.
"Remember all the hairballs?" Harry said between breaths.
"Ugh," Hermione covered her face with her hands, "like I could ever forget."
He turned to give her a sidelong glance, still laughing. "You can rest assured that what happened in here the other day was nowhere near as bad as that."
Hermione gave the bespectacled wizard beside her a small smile, covering his hand with her own. "Thank you, Harry. I was so worried about what you thought. It's good to have you back on my side."
He rolled his eyes dramatically. "I'm always on your side, Hermione."
She felt a swell of emotion, and leaned in closer to him, once again resting her head on his shoulder.
"Do you love him?" Harry asked after a moment.
Hermione took a deep breath. This was a question she'd been internally struggling with for a while now. She stared down at her hand on top of Harry's. "I think… I think I might."
Harry nodded silently.
"Do you think he loves me?" she asked hesitantly.
"Absolutely," Harry said without missing a beat, "from the way he looks at you alone I can tell that. But the question isn't whether he loves you or not; it's whether he's going to be brave enough to continue this relationship through whatever happens."
When had Harry grown so insightful? Hermione nodded sullenly. "I've been losing sleep over that exact question. He's so wonderful – so caring and kind – but at the same time he's so frightened of what people might think of his relationship with me. He doesn't think he deserves this, no matter how much I tell him that he does."
Harry sighed. "I may not know Remus as well as you do, but I can tell that he's spent a lot of his life hating himself just because he's a werewolf. But you know… the other day when Sirius came to talk to me, I started to realize that Remus is a lot better with you around. I think you just need to keep trying, keep giving him time. One day maybe all his self-hatred and fear could disappear completely."
"That's the hope," Hermione exhaled, thinking of the potion and all the work they'd done together to try to improve the Wolfsbane. She'd always been so certain that she just needed to find success with the potion and get the transformations to stop, and then he'd stop thinking of himself as such a monster. Perhaps it wasn't so much the work of a potion as the work of caring, reassuring friends that he needed.
"I believe in him," Harry murmured, "and I have faith that he's a good match for you."
Hermione sighed, squeezing his hand. "Thank you so much, Harry. You have no idea how relieved I feel after talking to you."
He smiled, "You're welcome. Now let's go get ready for dueling practice."
Hermione nodded, and together they exited the library.
As time wore on, everyone in the house who knew about Hermione and Remus began to grow used to their relationship. Neville stopped gaping at Remus over the dinner table. Fred and George got back to their usual selves by making constant jokes and innuendos (even around their parents, who still had no idea about the secret relationship). Even Ron stopped glaring at Remus and Hermione whenever they stood near each other. Granted, he was still a bit cold and didn't talk to Hermione much, but at least he wasn't fuming at them.
Days and weeks passed, blending together. Hermione's days were split between spending time with her friends, working in the potions lab, and participating in dueling practice. Her nights were, of course, spent with Remus. They would read late into the night in the library, and she would still sneak in and out of his bedroom most nights.
Eventually, after another Order meeting and some irritating statements from Dumbledore about how unsure he was of when this war would end or when they could all leave the Prince Estate, Hermione grew frustrated and restless. She threw herself into her work more than ever. The experiments on the Wolfsbane Potion advanced at a tremendous rate until finally, one day, everything came to fruition.
Hermione had been working in the Potions Lab since seven in the morning. It was five in the afternoon now. She'd only taken a short, thirty-minute break when Remus had brought her a sandwich for lunch. Today was simply too productive a day for her to rest or do anything else. That morning Neville had approached Hermione with a new theory on how to use the lovage root – first putting it in the Strengthening Solution like they'd done before, but also dissolving peppermint leaves into the strengthening solution.
Neville had claimed that peppermint could help focus the effects they wanted to utilize from the lovage – reversing its mind-altering qualities and allowing the potion to remain in the bloodstream longer, perhaps even permanently if they used it correctly. Hermione found all of Neville's claims logically sound, and she had thrown herself into using peppermint in the new Strengthening Solution all day.
Now here she was, pulling the lovage root out of the Strengthening Solution, preparing to drop it into the Altered Wolfsbane Potion. Snape stood across the lab, and she could feel his eyes on her. Was he nervous? It certainly seemed like it, judging from the fact that he had completely abandoned tending to the bruise salve he was brewing.
With extreme care, Hermione deposited the soaked lovage root into the cauldron containing the Wolfsbane. Next, she stirred the cauldron three times clockwise. It slowly turned to a dulled orange color. She could hear Snape stepping away from his cauldron and toward her. Once he was at her side, he reached under the table to fetch the blood samples. The final test was adding the potion to each blood sample and seeing how it reacted. That meant three different samples this time: the human blood, from Snape; the werewolf blood in human form, from Hermione; and the werewolf blood in wolf form, also from Hermione.
She readied the potion as Snape opened the first vial, labeled 'Human Sample' and Hermione poured a few drops of the potion into it. It darkened for a second before reverting to the normal deep red color. That was exactly the reaction they wanted from human blood.
Next came the vial labeled 'Lycan Sample – human form.' Severus opened the vial and Hermione held her breath as she poured a few drops of the potion in.
They were looking for Hermione's blood to have no visible reaction to the potion. Last time this was the exact part when everything failed. Hermione remembered her breakdown right here in the lab. A part of her was glad that Remus wasn't here to see it if it all fell apart right now.
The orange potion dripped into the vial of blood. Hermione was still holding her breath, trying to keep her hand from shaking. She counted ten seconds passing, not seeing any visible change in the color of the blood. Last time it had changed instantly, the exact same change as in the reaction with Snape's blood. This was good.
"So far so good," Hermione murmured, looking up at Snape as she withdrew her wand to cast the potency spell. Snape wore an unreadable expression, studying the potion intently. She uttered the incantation and flicked her wand. The vial glowed a bight yellow color. Yellow indicated that it was extremely potent. A grin broke across Hermione's face, "I think… it worked."
Snape took a deep breath, and it almost seemed like a breath of relief. "For now," he said, "let's test it on the wolf blood before we jump to conclusions."
She nodded, watching as the Potions Master retrieved the other vial, labeled 'Lycan Sample – wolf form.' If the potion worked as Hermione predicted, the reaction should yield the same potency as before. Sure enough, when she performed the potency spell a moment later, the vial glowed bright yellow.
Hermione was speechless. That was perfect. It had worked- she was sure of it now. A glance up at Snape told her that he was just as shocked as her. His usual tight-lipped expression was replaced by one of mild surprise, which was extreme even for Snape.
A wide smile stretched across Hermione's face. "It worked," she finally murmured. Before she could think much more on her next action, she launched forward and wrapped her arms around Snape. In retrospect, it was probably a bit forward to try to hug Professor Snape, but he didn't lash out in response. He didn't hex her like she half-expected him to, but instead returned an awkward pat on the back.
Hermione was beaming when she pulled away. "I have to find Remus and Neville," she said, quickly corking the vial and barreling out of the lab.
Just as the door shut behind her, she heard Snape say a quiet, but sincere "well done." These words made her heart lift even more.
She found Neville first, descending the main staircase. "Neville!" She nearly shouted, charging towards him and grabbing his hand, "Come with me, we have to find Remus."
Neville sputtered out a few confused words before he surrendered and allowed Hermione to drag him down the remaining steps and towards the drawing room.
Remus was in the drawing room with Sirius, Tonks, and Mr. Weasley. They were discussing something that probably had to do with Order business or the war, judging by Remus' grim expression. Hermione didn't want to interrupt, but she was far too impatient to see the look on Remus' face when she told him that the potion had worked.
She and Neville entered the room and Hermione made a beeline for Remus. "Remus," she said, butting into a lapse in the conversation, "I need you to come with me."
His eyes shot up at her and Neville, brows pulled together in confusion. "Why?" he asked warily.
"It's important," she said, pacing over to him and pulling him up from his seated position. She proceeded to attempt to drag him from the drawing room, though he was much stronger than her and resisted well.
"Excuse me," Remus said at last, looking at the other occupants of the room, especially Mr. Weasley, who watched Hermione suspiciously. She would have time to deal with the rest of them soon. They could come clean about the potion now that it was a success.
Hermione ignored the questions of Neville and Remus the whole way up to the lab. Finally, they arrived. She shut the door behind them and pulled them over to her workstation, where Snape stood inspecting her potion.
"It worked," she announced, looking at Remus and Neville with a broad grin.
Their jaws dropped. "What?" Neville sputtered, "The potion?"
Remus stepped closer, looking at the potion, and then at Snape. "Is this true?"
Snape nodded. "It appears to have been a success," he murmured stonily, looking at Remus and Hermione, ignoring Neville.
Remus broke out into a beaming smile, grabbing Hermione and pulling her towards him. She returned the embrace, laughing happily and not caring about Neville and Snape witnessing this.
"You did it," Remus whispered.
Hermione's smile broadened. She pulled away from Remus after a moment and stepped towards Neville. He was grinning at the cauldron in disbelief. "It was really Neville's idea to use Peppermint. That was the final step. We owe everything to Neville."
Neville's eyes brightened and his smile widened as he looked at Hermione, then at Remus. "Thank you, Neville," Remus said sincerely from behind Hermione. She reached behind her to grasp his hand, still smiling at Neville.
"But," Snape continued, interrupting the tender moment with a scowl, "we have yet to test the potion during the full moon. That alone will be the final proof of its success."
"The next full moon is in a week," Hermione responded without missing a beat. "We'll test it then."
Remus furrowed his brow and freed his hand from Hermione's so he could face Snape. "Are we sure this is safe?"
"No," Snape answered before Hermione could. "There are many possible results, ranging from general failure to death. We won't know until the potion is tested."
"I take it before the full moon," Hermione said, "we can test it on me."
"No," Remus interjected sternly, shaking his head, "we should test it on me. Then you can observe, Hermione."
Hermione narrowed her eyes, turning to face Remus. Snape looked irritated and Neville uncomfortable. "Why can't I take it? I am the one who made the potion."
"That doesn't mean you should put yourself in danger like this," Remus looked pained. "Hermione, I got you into this mess. I don't want to see you getting hurt any further. Let me test it, please."
She crossed her arms, still standing tall. "We'll both test it. Together."
Remus exhaled, as if trying to find an argument. Before he could say anything more, Snape interrupted, "We should contact Albus." His gaze focused on Hermione, "you can announce this at the Order meeting tonight. Everyone should have a chance to weigh in on how this potion should be tested."
"Excellent idea, Severus," Remus said.
Hermione frowned at him. Remus was only saying that because he knew that most of the Order, especially Mrs. Weasley, would agree that Remus alone should test it. Hermione would have to figure out a way to convince them. She could start with talking to Dumbledore. "Fine," she said, looking from Snape to Remus to Neville, "I'll talk to Professor Dumbledore before the meeting, and then we can tell the others."
This would be a challenge, and Hermione had no idea what reactions she would receive when they told everyone about the potion. Still, despite all of this, Hermione was filled with an overwhelming happiness that after so much difficulty, she had succeeded.
Author's Note: First off, sorry for the delay. I had a crazy busy week and a bit of writer's block to top it off. Chapter 34 should come out much faster, and will include some Remus/Hermione action, because we haven't had that in a while.
Lastly, I'm estimating about three or four chapters left in this story. That's insane, isn't it? I can't believe we're so close to the end! I'd like to finish the whole thing by July (so I can participate in Camp NaNoWriMo with a new project) but we'll see if I can actually do all that writing in four days. Wish me luck!